The Dividing Line July 29, 2008

As our metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll-free across the United States.

It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Apologetics Methodology and the Authority of Theology

Good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line. We will have the phones open today at 877 -753 -3341. If you would like to join us looking at the rest of the debate material, we don't have all that much left to cover.

There is one issue. Oh, I didn't bring the book in with me. Well, there was one issue that I wanted to touch on briefly in that area, but then we can take your phone calls, and often those phone calls get us off into all sorts of interesting areas.

So just don't wait until the last five minutes of the program to do it, because then it's significantly less interesting than it would be otherwise. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We have been listening to a debate on the resurrection.

Is the resurrection historically provable? And we have been using this not so much as a source of criticism, but as a mechanism of comparison and contrast between various apologetic methodologies and an illustration of the fact that theology matters.

Theology determines the kind of apologetics you use. And obviously, if you hold to a viewpoint that exalts the autonomy of man, you are hardly going to be in a position consistently to challenge a worldview based upon the autonomy of man.

And a humanistic worldview, a worldview that is focused upon the creature and in essence demands that we have the right and ability to put God on trial and the existence of God on trial rather than seeing ourselves as His creations and seeing ourselves in light of His sovereign purposes, that really is the issue.

And even in defining what history is. What is history? How do you define history? And can you come to history with atheistic presuppositions and thereby just simply dismiss all evidence of God's activity in history?

Or do you demand that mankind see himself as the creature he is, that he is in moral rebellion against God, and that his view of history must take that into consideration? These are some of the things we have been listening to as we have been listening to Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona debate this issue.

We were listening to Bart Ehrman in part of the give and take rebuttal periods, and you will hear exactly what I am talking about. Bart Ehrman's insistence that history is atheistic, that history exists separately from the realm of Christian claims.

And remember, Christianity makes specific historical claims. Jesus Christ came at a particular time, in a particular place, did particular things. This took place in history. It wasn't just some myth.

This is one of the major differences between the mythologies that are so popular that people refer to today. The Gnostic religions, the mystery religions, did not have a concern for history. They did not have a concern for saying, God has acted in truth, therefore here is his truth.

The idea of a body of dogma, of truth, for these religions, no. It is much more subjective. It is disconnected from history. It doesn't have the same view of history that comes out of the Christian worldview, etc.

So let's go back to listening to what Bart Ehrman was saying, because it is going to come out, once again, being illustrated very clearly right here in the next comments.

I once believed that. And I approached my study of the New Testament with the same belief. The result of my scholarship led me to renounce my former beliefs. And I have to say, I left the evangelical fold kicking and screaming.

I did not go easily. I wanted to hold on to my faith. I tried to hold on to my faith. I did everything I could to hold on to my faith. But I got to a point where I realized that the historical evidence did not support my faith.

I did not go with my personal bias. Quite the contrary, I ended up changing my mind despite my bias. So it won't do to say that I'm biased against the Resurrection, because for the majority of my adult life I believed in the Resurrection and wanted to believe in the Resurrection and tried to believe in the Resurrection.

Let me just, and I know I played this last time, we're getting to the important part here, but let me just comment briefly at that point. Yes, he is biased against the Resurrection. And even during his evangelical days, if he did not have a serious Christian worldview that was thought through as a worldview, then his experience as a Christian is not evidence against his bias.

There are many Christians who are inconsistent. They think like the world while trying to hold on to Christian beliefs. And it doesn't work. And when they end up going to places like Princeton, they end up becoming non-Christians, because they've already been non-Christians in their worldview.

They have not seen that the Lordship of Christ extends to the entirety of one's life. And so, just that statement, well, you know, I once believed these things, but did you actually have, and I don't see any evidence of this, did you actually have a Christian worldview where you even recognize, for example, that history itself, that the sciences themselves, that all of these are under the Lordship of Christ?

That to adopt an atheistic perspective in these areas is to be an inconsistent Christian? That really is the question that I would have to ask.

Mike, on the other hand, has wanted to believe in the Resurrection, and he does believe in the Resurrection. Which of us is taking a historical approach? I'm not disputing Mike's beliefs.

Now, which of us is taking a historical approach? Notice, for Ehrman, history is atheistic. History is outside of the realms of the claims of God. This is his presupposition. This is going to come up in January.

It has to come up in January, because this is fundamental to the entire presentation he's making. So he says, I'm not challenging your beliefs. What he's saying is, your beliefs are ahistorical, and as long as you keep them in an ahistorical area, as long as you don't dare say, this stuff really happened, as long as you don't dare make your faith relevant to your worldview, and to, therefore, my existence, then you're fine.

If you want to just be one of the pagans who says you've got mythology, if you want to say Dionysus was sewn into Zeus's thigh, and then was born out of Zeus's thigh, that's cool too. No worries. Leave it mythology.

Just don't you dare say it actually happened. Now, he must know that what he's really saying is, you must abandon your Christianity. Because that's what he did. The results of his scholarship, and if he thinks his scholarship is true, then isn't the result of that inevitably?

That if he abandoned Christianity, because he didn't find it to be true, then isn't that what anyone who actually loves the truth should do? Well, you would think so. But for him to say, I'm not challenging your beliefs this evening.

Well, no, I'm sorry. In reality, you are.

Or your beliefs.

The vast majority of you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. What I'm arguing is that that belief of yours is not founded on historical evidence. The resurrection of Jesus, if it happened, goes beyond anything like historical evidence.

Historical evidence cannot establish the resurrection. It is a faith claim. It is a claim that there is a God who is in control of this world, who created this world, who sent his son into the world, and raised his son from the dead.

Those are theological statements. I'm not saying they're true or false. I'm saying they're not historical.

Hopefully now we're all starting to hear this. Because if you're hearing this and you're understanding this, and you're seeing, oh, wait a minute. He's trying to be politically correct here and say, well, I'm not saying what you believe is false.

But to make that statement, what he's having to do is to say, everything you believe is outside the realm of the verifiable anyway. Everything you believe is outside the realm of truth claims anyhow. Theological truth claims are irrelevant to historical truth claims.

But he knows the very nature of the Christian faith as such that he's denying those truth claims. And so, sadly, most people hear that and go, wow, that's really neat that he's letting them live and let live.

Isn't that wonderful?

And la, la, la, la.

In reality, he is, in fact, doing exactly what he's saying he's not doing.

Historical statements have to do with what historians can establish as probably having happened in the past. Historians can be believing Christians. They can be Jews. They can be Muslims. They can be Buddhists.

They can be heathens. They can be apostates. They can be atheists. They can be agnostics. They can be all of the above. But the evidence they deduce has to be available to everybody that I've named.

It is available to everyone that you've named, but evidence is examined and weighed within a world view. And when you are an apostate agnostic, use both terms there, when you insist upon an atheistic view of history, then you are going to dismiss as evidence that which goes against your world view.

And therefore you're going to dismiss as evidence that material that would indicate to you that Jesus rose from the dead.

It's not historical evidence. If it's historical evidence, it's based on presuppositions that everybody I've just named can agree on, not people with only one particular theological point of view. If the historical conclusion requires a theological point of view, then it's not a historical conclusion, it's a theological conclusion.

Thank you.

So again, we see the contrast between the two. Just, you know, if you want to have your theology, fine, you go have your theology, as long as you don't make your theology wander into my history. There is a big wall between the two, and the two shall not meet, they cannot meet, etc., etc.

So that is his presentation. Then there were audience questions. Some of the audience questions were interesting, some of the audience questions, quite honestly, were not interesting at all. Let me see if I can find, let's see which question this one here is.

One right here, and let's try that again.

Dr. Ehrman, one of the criteria given for evaluating evidence were independent accounts. Doesn't the fact that some of the accounts are difficult to reconcile, and I assume the Gospels are meant here, indicate that they were independent?

Aren't these discrepancies similar to what one would find between witnesses and a court?

Yeah, excellent question. Did everybody hear the question?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, so, okay. So I pointed out you need independent witnesses for historical evidence, and the question is, since you have discrepancies between the accounts, doesn't that show that they're independent witnesses, and so doesn't that.

In fact, doesn't that increase the probability that you've got independent attestation of the resurrection?

Let me just stop right there, just so you, you know, that is a good question, and it will be interesting to hear Ehrman's response to this, because there's so much of an assumption on the part of much of modern scholarship of an overarching process of editing or something like that, that it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

And it's an excellent point, but the way you have to establish whether the Gospels are independent of one another is by a detailed analysis of their similarities and their differences. Scholars have been doing this for hundreds of years, and what scholars have pretty much shown, I mean, it's pretty standard, I assume Mike's going to agree with this, Mark.

In priority, no, yes, yes, okay.

Now, I realize that there are many in the audience know exactly what he's referring to, but there may be others, and so let's all get up to speed. Mark in priority is the current popular viewpoint in New Testament scholarship.

It has not always been. In fact, down through church history, it was not. But Mark in priority is the idea that Mark is the first of the Gospels written. And then, and here's the key point, because it's one thing to say it's the first of the Gospels written, it is the next step to say it is the first of the Gospels written, and Mark is used directly.

He exists as a literary body, that Gospel exists as a literary body, and is possessed, in at least copy form, by both Matthew and Luke, so that Matthew and Luke are copying from Mark, then they have access to some other source, normally called the Q Source, which has nothing to do with Star Trek, which is a collection of Jesus' sayings, basically, and the two of them make purposeful changes to Mark, sometimes contradicting Mark, and that becomes the foundation upon which both Matthew and Luke are written.

Now, the order of the Gospels, we don't know what order they were written in. It's a theory. We don't have any manuscript evidence. There's actually pretty decent internal evidence that at least the synoptics were written prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Obviously, a naturalistic worldview would cause you to force it to be after the destruction of the Temple because of the prophecies of the destruction in Matthew 24, etc., and so if you don't believe there's such a thing as prophecy, then obviously that makes it post -70, but there's good reason, lots of good reason, for putting them pre -70, and very, very early on, there are some who believe everything in the New Testament was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70.

There are others who have put John at a much later date, all within the first century, but later on after that destruction, etc., etc., but the real key issue is this idea of literary dependence on the part of Matthew and Luke using Mark and editing Mark as they go along, in essence.

This is the majority viewpoint. If you go to New Testament classes, even in conservative seminaries, the majority viewpoint is going to be Mark in priority. Now, I do not hold to that form of Mark in priority.

I don't know what order the Gospels were written in. I don't have any particular problem with theorizing that Mark is the earliest. It certainly seems to be written in that way, but the idea that both Matthew and Luke are just sitting there with Mark going, oh, well, let me see here.

I don't like this. I'm going to take that out, blah, blah, blah, knowing that the very same community that already possesses Mark is going to be reading them. I mean, that's one thing. I know it's so common that people don't even challenge majority viewpoints.

Well, I'm a Calvinist, so I'm used to it, but I sort of sat back, even when I was at Fuller, going, so does anyone ever think about exactly what this would mean? And consider the fact that if you're changing Mark and the people you're going to be giving yours to already have Mark, they're going to go, excuse me, hey, dummy, what are you doing here?

I don't know.

Those types of things cross my mind, but I personally believe that it makes much more sense in light, and I'm reading, do I still have it in here?

Yeah.

We're videotaping. Why do we say videotape anymore? I haven't used videotape in I don't know how long. It's an SD card. We're digitizing, yes, we're digitizing. So I will show this to the DigiCam.

You're vegetizing.

We're vegetizing, something. Jesus and the eyewitnesses, the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Balcombe. See, there it is. I wrote the book review of this one for the CRA Journal. All that did was confirm many conclusions I had come to in my own thinking, and that is that what you have access to, what Matthew and Luke would have access to, would be the same tradition, and I'm not using that term in the Roman Catholic sense, but the same oral preaching of the church.

This is preaching, yet you still have eyewitnesses in the church. And so that preaching is what is prevalent throughout the churches. They would travel from church to church. We know that this happened historically.

And so changes from that would sort of stand out, especially amongst those people who had been believers for a long period of time. And it would seem to me that there would be an entire body of tradition that would be available to Matthew and Luke, and that this is what they're referring to, not to some slavish dependence upon Mark himself.

The similarities are due to the fact that all three of them are deriving their material from that same single body of Christian proclamation that had been going on with eyewitnesses for however long it had been between the time of the crucifixion and the writing of the first Gospels.

Obviously, there are many who wish to push that date as far back as possible to minimize its connection to the actual disciples and apostles themselves, and that, again, is one of the divides that you have between conservatives and liberals at that point.

So that's what he's talking about when he's talking about Mark in priority.

I mean, what most scholars think is that Mark was the first Gospel written and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. So whenever they change Mark, whenever they're different from Mark, it's because one of them has changed it for some reason of their own.

And this is significant because it can show you that if Matthew is different from Mark in any particular, it means Matthew has intentionally changed something in Mark. And that can show you Matthew's overarching intentions, or Luke, and so forth.

Now, you see what that perspective does is that, in essence, since most of them reject John as having any meaningful historical information at all contained within it, then what you have is only one witness.

You only have one literary witness. Mark is being used by Matthew and Luke, so Matthew and Luke are not independent witnesses in and of themselves. So you have one redacted witness. That's all you've got left.

See, that's one of the apologetic issues that comes up when you utilize that theory.

And so it's interesting that, for example, in some of the later Gospels, it's not the women who discover the tomb. The women go off and the men discover the tomb. And the men then serve as the witnesses.

Why is that? Because, to the point Mike was pointing out, that, in fact, people were loathe to attribute testimony value to what women had to say. So I don't think the mere fact that they're different shows they're independent accounts, but it shows that some accounts are being changed in the process of the transmission.

Mike, do you have any response?

Because I'm having trouble with my voice, I think I'll save it for something in which we're going to have greater disagreement on.

And for Mike Oikona, there are continuing claims of misogyny.

See, just at that point, that's where I would, you know, again, I feel very sorry for Mike and his voice that day. It was pretty rough. But, you see, that's what's got to be challenged right there. And that's, again, this particular spectrum of apologetics is so closely wedded to that kind of viewpoint in regards to, oh, yeah, sure, you know, Mark was just being slavishly copied and changed by Matthew and Luke and stuff like that, that they really don't, they have to go, yeah, okay, and that's not only a relevant deal with Ahriman, it's relevant dealing with Islamic apologetics and its claims concerning, you know, Pauline corruption and all the rest of that stuff.

Again, you know, what can we say? Theology matters. Let me go a little bit down here because we've got a phone call to get to, and let me try to get to that last question.

Never mind.

Question for Mike and then we'll throw one out for both participants to respond to. Mike, is there any historical evidence independent of the Bible for the Resurrection?

Well, it depends.

You know, at this point, my first response is, may I please point out to you that the New Testament records are historical evidence. That their testimony as historical witnesses cannot simply be dismissed.

But, of course, if you haven't defended that up to this point, it's a little bit late when you're, this is 1 .56 out of two minutes and, two hours and two minutes, so you're down the last six, seven minutes of the debate.

So it's a little late to be getting to that, but.

I think we could look at something like Tacitus, who in his annals, book 15, section 44, talks about how after Pilate had crucified Jesus, that Christianity was checked for the moment, and then it broke out again in Judea, where the evil mischievous superstition started.

I think this just shows a consistency with what we find in the Gospels and Acts. Same thing with Josephus in a disputed passage. But most Josephus scholars agree that Josephus mentions Jesus in that passage, that he was crucified by Pilate, and that his disciples continued to follow him.

So in a strict sense, I'd say, no, we have to look at the New Testament as ancient documents here, and that we can, I could look at the Koran, and I don't believe it's divinely inspired, but I still can, as a historian, look at different things and conclude different things, such as there's one surah that has Jesus and God talking, and God says, did you tell them you're my son, or did you tell them that you, Mary, and me are gods?

And Jesus says, no, far be it from me, you know I never said that. I've only said I'm your servant. I don't believe that that conversation happened, but it tells me that Muslims and Christians were having this debate on who was Jesus.

Is he divine, or just a man? And the same thing with the New Testament, the case I've given this evening.

By the way, that's surah 5, 116 through 117, if you're looking for it.

Wouldn't assume at all divine inspiration. We could look at it simply as an ancient doc, a compilation of 27 different sources, ancient sources, and make our conclusions based on that.

And again, that's where we just have to differ, is this idea that we can divorce the New Testament documents from what they say about themselves, and simply we're going to step onto this neutral ground with you, this atheistic history theory of yours, and we'll do battle with you on that ground.

And I say to you, it doesn't work. You can't get to the Christian God from that perspective. Again, it goes back to the beginning presuppositions that you have to be consistent at that point.

Dr. Ehrman?

Yeah, it is a really good question. People are surprised to know how little information we have about Jesus outside of Christian sources from antiquity. You would think you'd have birth records or accounts of the trial, or his enemies talking about him, or Romans.

Why would you think any of that? That amazes me. I mean, of all the people who've lived on earth, how many of them do we have that kind of serious information about the lives of that time? Almost none.

Almost zero. So why, especially in Palestine, at that time in history, would you expect that? I don't know. I haven't figured that part out.

Officials saying something. In fact, nobody says anything about him during the entire first century except for Josephus, the Jewish historian, has two references to him. Within 100 years of Jesus' death, he's only mentioned four times in any non-Christian source.

In Tacitus, the reference Michael's giving, in Pliny the Younger, three years earlier, and possibly in Suetonius, the Roman historian, and in Josephus. Josephus has two references, so there's five references to Jesus.

These references tell us almost nothing about who Jesus was or what he did or what he said, and strikingly, none of them says anything about Jesus being raised from the dead.

I had something there. I agree with him on that, but I don't think it's as bad as that might lead us to believe. The Roman emperor, at the time of Jesus' ministry, for him, we have just as many non-Christian sources, as many non-Christian sources, who mentioned him within 150 years of his death, as we have of Jesus' non-Christian sources, who mentions him within 150 years of his death.

And Caesar Augustus, the most prominent emperor of Rome, we only have four primary sources that mention him, and most of these are more than 100 years after his death.

One last question.

Okay, here's the last question. This is how the debate ends. I'll just let the whole thing play out.

A response from both sides. I'll read it to each of you. Your response, both John and Mark, are correct about the Passover meal, because the Messiah honored the Passover of Yahweh, as written in Leviticus 23, on the 14th of Abib, whereas the rabbinical Jews celebrate the Passover on the 15th of Abib.

Do you agree?

Yeah, Mike, do you agree? I feel like I'm on my PhD exam again. I don't know about you. Okay, so let me tell you what that meant. The problem is, Mark explicitly indicates that Jesus celebrated the Passover meal.

John explicitly indicates that he was crucified the day before the Passover meal. And so the question is saying that different groups of Jews celebrated the Passover meal on two different days, so both Mark and John could be right.

On the surface, that sounds plausible, but the reality is Jews in Jerusalem in the first century did not celebrate Passover on two different days. They celebrated it on one day, because there was only one day that the lambs were killed in the temple on the day of preparation for Passover.

John says that's the day that Jesus was killed, on the day of preparation. Mark says he was killed the next day, and so there's an inconsistency.

I do. I do. Oh, man. Maybe I should type it in, and you can see it on the screen. I do hold to biblical inerrancy. However, I have to admit, I don't know the answer to this one.

All right, let's give both of these gentlemen the...

Well, I would direct you to the rather full discussion of that very issue provided by Dr. A .T. Robertson and his Harmony of the Gospels. This was a textbook that I used in Bible college. And he points out, he goes through each one of the specific texts in John and demonstrates that the consistent usage of language in John is consistent with that of synoptics, that John is not, as was just claimed, specifically stating that Jesus is crucified before the Passover, but that if you recognize the Passover is not just one day, but is an entire celebration, that there is no inconsistency.

And again, John is writing, if their theory is correct, and John's the last one to write, wouldn't he know what Matthew, Mark, and Luke said? And why in the world would he specifically make his different?

Well, for literary purposes, come on! It's frustrating at that point. But anyway, again, only did this series for the intention of helping people to see that sometimes the apologetic realm can be somewhat confusing.

And one of the reasons is because we have different methodologies. We're starting from different starting places. And where you start is going to determine where you end. We're going to take a break. Take your phone calls, 877 -753 -3341.

Taking Calls on Gospel Dating and Markan Priority

We'll be right back. And welcome back to The Dividing Line. And again, on a Tuesday morning, the phone lines are open at 877 -753 -3341. There's been all sorts of stuff going on out there. And some of which I don't even want to begin talking about.

Yeah, there's definitely one topic in the blogosphere right now. We ain't touching with a ten-foot pole. I like having my website right where it is. Ain't going there. But there has been some wild stuff.

By the way, I am about a third of the way through The Shack, for those of you who have been wondering. And I'm only reading it when I have opportunity. I'm not putting anything else aside just to get to that.

But I have been working on it because I think there does need to be some commentary. I wouldn't be the first one, obviously. I'm a little slow getting to it. I think Tim Challies was on it in January.

But slow getting there. But I think maybe I will do something on that, have some commentary on that sometime in the future.

All right.

Let's go to our single phone caller at the moment, unfortunately. And like I said, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Let's talk with Arlen.

Hi, Arlen. Hello.

How are you, sir?

Single phone caller, eh?

I'm sorry? Yes.

So far, the only one.

I feel so honored.

Okay.

Well, just so that you know who I am, I'm Atlanteans from the blog. Apparently, I'm a Molinist. I'm not sure what that means exactly.

Okay.

If you don't remember me, then I'll try to forget this awkward moment.

Atlanteans from the blog?

From the chat room thing.

Oh, the chat channel. Okay.

All right. All right.

Yeah, you were last seen quitting the channel six weeks, three days, and 13 hours and 50 minutes ago, actually.

That's strangely creepy to know that.

Yeah.

Would you like to know what you were wearing when you left?

Yeah.

I've been on a mission trip, actually. That's basically what happened. Anyway, my question is this, and I'll phrase it in the sense of I would like a critique for it. I believe that the New Gospels were written before 70 AD, all four of them.

I think that's relatively—I don't see that there's a really strong argument otherwise. And my point would go, essentially, that Luke would have to have been written before Paul died, because Acts ends before Paul died and ends so abruptly there's no apparent reason why it would.

I'm sure there's a lot more to that. And I think that your idea about it being written for his trial makes a lot of sense.

Well, that's not my idea, but I think it makes sense, so yeah.

And from there I would go back to how the early fathers generally say that Matthew was written first, et cetera, et cetera. I just wanted to know what you think, especially in light of people who would read Bar Airmen, what some of the strongest points that I could point to would be that would reinforce the early dates.

Well, you know, that is a good question. For the vast majority of people, sadly, just taking the time that it took you to explain the relationship of Luke and Acts and the death of Paul, sadly, in my experience, extends beyond the attention span of most of the people we're talking to.

I mean, I think it's terrible, but that's just the way it is. And you'd almost have to make sure that you're in I think part of having success in this is phrasing your presentation in such a way as you can get past that,.

A, historical, I don't really want to think much more about this type of thing. And so if you can in some way, shape, or form communicate the fact that, you know, it's interesting you said that. This means a lot to me, and I've done some thinking on this.

And have you ever considered this? Sometimes just that little bit of introduction, the beginning, can sort of extend the attention span out a little bit. You can't assume that they would even know who Paul was.

I mean, you just mentioned Paul. You and I know Paul. But it's really tricky, to be honest with you, to try to make sure that when you are making even a fairly simple case, that you're giving enough background information that they have some idea why what you're saying is relevant.

For example, even mentioning that we can be pretty confident about the timing of Paul's death, and therefore have some sort of a benchmark there that we can utilize.

How do we know when Paul died?

Well, again, we don't know exactly when Paul died. However, the fact that Acts ends where it ends, and when we take into consideration the material found in the pastorals, which again, someone like Airman is going to dismiss anyway, is just on other grounds.

But when we take those things into consideration, and also understand when various emperors reigned, and when the Neronian persecution was, and things like that, we can have great confidence that we're talking about the early part of the 7th decade, or the early 60s, as the farthest end point.

Because if he was still around, there'd be some evidence that he was. I mean, the guy liked to write letters. And we can utilize his letters to establish certain things, or certain people are mentioned that we have been able to identify.

For example, in Corinth, Crispus, as I recall, is mentioned there. And we know about when that person was there, things like that. But you asked for the strongest arguments. I appreciate what Dan Wallace and his co-authors said in their work on Jesus.

One of the arguments that they presented was that the Olivet Discourse, in the various forms in which it is recorded, Matthew's being the fullest, especially because he's got a primarily Jewish audience, but Mark and Luke also have portions of that recorded for us as well.

In every one of them, there is material that would be, quote-unquote, embarrassing. In other words, because not everything is fulfilled as yet, if you were looking back, writing about the fall of Jerusalem, why would you put things into the narrative that have not yet happened, that would be potentially embarrassing for you, and have to make you answer the question, well, is this man a true prophet, because these things have not yet taken place.