March 1, 2012

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

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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

James White. Things are just getting stranger and stranger and curiouser and curiouser out there, that's all

I can say. What we're going to do today, I can barely hear myself for some reason, what we're going to do today is if callers call in after we get at least,

I don't know, half an hour's worth in at looking at the Wallace -Urman debate, then we'll cut that off and go to callers.

If not, we'll just fill our time with that, but before we do that, there is a lot going on out there.

Of course, the death of Mr. Breitbart was the big story as soon as I woke up this morning.

I will confess, I only was marginally aware of the man.

I do not spend time reading a lot of that kind of stuff. I knew who he was,

I knew he was involved with Drudge and stuff like that. But that was the big story today, and I don't see a whole lot theological there.

I might suggest some basic health issues that might be worth discussing at that point, but not going there.

Instead, other than that, the big issue that a number of people have mentioned to me via Twitter and other means is, well, from headlinenewstv .com,

one of many, many, many, many, many sources. We read, The internet is filled with righteous indignation after reports that a

Maryland woman was denied communion at her mother's funeral because she is a lesbian. Former Catholic schoolteacher

Barbara Johnson says she wants the Reverend Marcel Guarnizo, who is presiding over the service, out of pastoral work after he publicly humiliated her in citing her homosexuality as a reason for denying her the sacrament, according to HLN affiliate

WUSA. He put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, I can't give you communion because you live with a woman and the eyes of the church.

That is a sin, she told the Washington Post. An online petition seeks a personal apology to Johnson from Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the

Archbishop of Washington, D .C., and demands that he oust Guarnizo. In a statement obtained by HLN, the

Archdiocese said its policy in determining communion qualifications is not to publicly reprimand anyone, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And there is a picture associated with this particular article.

Couple things. First, I do not believe that Marcel Guarnizo is a

Christian priest, okay? I do not believe there is such thing as a priest in the

New Testament outside of Jesus Christ. While every believer is a part of a kingdom of priests, the idea of the

Roman priesthood, hey, I'm consistent here, I've debated this subject before, would debate it again in the future.

There is no such thing as a priest, according to the establishment of Jesus Christ and the order of his church found in the sacred scriptures themselves.

And I think that the debate that we did with Mitchell Pacwa, I think, made that rather clear, to be perfectly honest with you.

And so I do not believe that there is any man who has been ordained by the

Roman church, who is an alter Christus, another Christ. I don't believe any man has the ability to call

Christ out of heaven and render him present upon the altar. And I believe that the mass is something that, while I have attended one to observe it and learn,

I don't think anyone should ever attend in any other context, because it is a blasphemy against the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Are we clear on that? I actually am a Protestant. Yes, that's what

Protestants have believed in the past. Many are now very embarrassed by that, but I am not.

I am significantly more concerned about what God thinks about the subject and the honor of the sacrifice of Christ than I am modern

PC sensibilities. With that said, okay?

With that said, I cannot believe for a second that any even semi -Orthodox or believing

Roman Catholic could possibly support the punishing of this man for refusing to give to an open practicing homosexual the

Eucharist for crying out loud. I mean, who do these people think they are?

I mean, really? If you don't believe what the Roman church teaches, then don't go to the

Roman church. Who do you think you? I mean, these people really believe they have uber rights.

They have more rights than anybody else. They are better than we are.

They can demand what no one else could possibly demand. It's a part of,

I think, the warping that takes place in the mind of the homosexual. It's a part of the twistedness. You know what

Rome teaches on the subject. Yes, Rome may be inconsistent. I mean, there's lots of homosexuals running around in priest habits.

Okay, that's a problem. But you know what Rome teaches. And according to other reports

I read, she showed up with her homosexual lover. I mean, it wasn't like this was a rumor for crying out loud.

She showed up with her significant other, quote unquote, whatever that supposed to mean.

So what do you expect this guy to do? And as strongly as I oppose

Roman Catholicism, and no one can question my credentials as an opponent of Roman Catholicism, and it's false gospel, and all the rest of that stuff.

The only thing that could make me, could lower it in my perspective was if they gave in on something like this and said, oh, we're sorry.

I mean, is there anybody in the world left with a backbone? You've got people running around.

You've got Muslims running around murdering other Muslims because of the burning of corrupted

Korans in Afghanistan. So they run around and murder fellow Muslims.

And you have politicians in the United States stumbling over themselves to go, we're sorry, so sorry.

I just want to go, would somebody grow a backbone somewhere?

It's just amazing to me. I read stuff like this and go, has the world gone completely insane?

It's just absolutely amazing to me. I just, sorry, deep breath, deep breath, calm, relax, drink some

Propel fitness water, do something. I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, you know, I don't know how much more clearly I could have expressed myself.

I fully disagree with the Roman priesthood. I have written on the subject,

I've debated on the subject. But man, if you're going to claim to be that, and if Rome's going to claim we are the infallible church, well, then don't grovel to these people for crying out loud.

That's the only thing that could put you even lower in my eyes, is to teach falsehood and then don't even have the guts to stand up for it.

I mean, I can respect a believing Roman Catholic. I don't get these liberal

Roman Catholics. What's that all about? You know, Nancy Pelosi running around, you know,

I'm a Catholic. I stand for everything the church doesn't, but I'm a Catholic. What is this? And I just like to say to every

Roman Catholic listening, excuse me, you want to be taken seriously. You want Rome to be taken seriously. When they start kicking these people out, then you will at least be able to say that Rome takes her teachings seriously.

But as long as these politicians are allowed to promote abortion and homosexuality, and then go and be a good

Catholic and get their sacraments, stuff like that, folks, how can we take you seriously? I mean, really, honestly, it's just,

I know what would happen to those folks if they were a member of my church, because we actually do believe what we say that we believe.

So anyway, I feel much better now. We just lost all of the listeners, but I feel much better now.

So actually, the graph probably doesn't show any problems there at all, but yeah, anyways. All right.

And LaShawn just came in channel two, so she'll be tweeting about this. And see, I get to say the things the way that LaShawn doesn't get to say it, because, you know, anyway.

All right. Let's get let's get to the Wallace -Ehrman debate. By the way, I just finished recording parts four and five of my response to Sam Gipp.

So that's it for this this one. I mean, this video is only eight minutes long. I did five five responses that were about, what,

I don't know, an hour and 15 minutes or something like that. So at least maybe more than that, I don't know.

But I just finished the last part of my response to that first video, because you can tell there's going to be more.

And hey, I said from the start, good quality audio, not so much video, very good quality, shot well, give them props, did a good job, did a good job, no two ways about it.

The problem is it's full of abject falsehoods. That's just all there is to it.

So we've got five of them, the first three have been posted, I will post the next two on Twitter tonight and then

I will post them over the next couple of days on the blog, especially since I will be headed to Hawaii, Hilo, Hawaii, starting on Sunday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'll be speaking in Hilo, Hawaii, and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Honolulu. And so I'll be over there.

And that means I don't know what we're going to do about the dividing line. We might be able to work something out during the days.

It's possible. I think they're one or two hours behind California, two hours behind California, should be three behind us.

So we'll see. We'll see what works out. We'll just try to we'll try to we'll try to figure that out and see if we can't work something in, especially if, you know, some major thing happens.

You know, Sam Gipp post some video because I couldn't. Does anyone remember me playing or did

I just mention on the air? Because I can't find the sound file. And maybe if someone can find it, someone had tweeted it to me.

And maybe if someone in the Twitter audience, but someone I believe tweeted to me and I downloaded and listened to.

But now I can't find the file. A recent sermon by Sam Gipp, where he mentioned me.

And do you remember me playing where? OK, so I must have just mentioned it. Toward the end of the sermon, he mentions my name and he says,

James White's so stupid, he shouldn't be allowed to use sharp implements while eating. You remember that one?

Yeah, I guess I thought I'd played that. I guess I didn't. I remember listening to it in my kitchen.

So I downloaded it from some source, but maybe somebody on Twitter will remember and they'll retweet me that particular

URL because I never heard that before. Really? No. OK, then I didn't do it on the dividing line. And it's ironic that you were listening to that particular kind of comment in your kitchen.

That's true, because there were numerous sharp implements nearby, which you probably feel I should not be allowed to have access to.

But yeah, he mentioned me twice right toward the end of a sermon. And one of the lines was,

James White is so stupid that he should not be allowed to use sharp implements while eating. And so I just.

Given how the Ankerberg exchange turned out and. Which is on YouTube by now.

Yeah. Having watched that a few times myself, I don't think he should be making statements like that because that's pretty reflective.

Well, I obviously. Look, Sam is a caricature of Sam.

I mean, Sam does not realize just. How useful he is in in illustrating the mindset of King James only, he really doesn't.

So he just, you know, we played some of his comments recently in regards to Calvinism, and you can imagine what is.

Yeehaw. Anyways, let's get back to the Wallace -Ehrman debate. And like I said, up to you how long we go here.

I've already gone 14 minutes. But if I see the phone lines filling up and you've got some comments you want to make, then we'll try to sort of back time, leave enough room toward the end of the program to get you in.

And if if not, then we can. Believe me, we're only. But why does that say one on that?

Well. We're only about 20 some odd minutes into the Wallace -Ehrman debate, so we've got plenty, plenty to do there.

So 877 -753 -3341 if you want to get in. Just a reminder, this is the

October 1st debate. This is not the most recent one.

I understand it is. You know, I have that one. I've listened to that one, too. We'll get to it when we can. But I've played you the portion where Dan made the announcement about the manuscript fines and the

Brill book. Brill is a high end academic publisher. Anything that comes from Brill is incredibly expensive.

And the fact that he's one of the editors of the book that's coming out that announces these manuscript fines.

So this is very important. But we already played those. But going back to the opening statement by Bart Ehrman is where we are.

It's been a while. So here we go. Several examples of ones that strike me as rather significant.

Changes where a scribe, it looks like he's intentionally changing something.

Now, we don't have the scribes around to interview, so we don't know that they intentionally changed. I mean, we can't ask them, did you do this on purpose or not?

But you're going to see from these examples, it looks like somebody's doing this on purpose. Now, of course, hopefully you're aware of the fact that Bart Ehrman's really his primary claim to fame in the scholarly realm,

I'll be perfectly honest with you, is his 1994, as I recall,

I didn't bring it in with me, work where he specifically focuses upon what he concludes are the theologically motivated textual variants of the

New Testament. And it's a scholarly tome. There are reasons to question some of its conclusions and things like that.

But that's really one of his major strong areas is he has certainly written in that particular area.

But I appreciate the fact that he admits that, well, we can theorize about this, but we can't really know.

Keep that in mind, because a lot of people quote his stuff as if you can make that conclusion.

If not, it's just a massive accident, but they still are important changes. And so we'll look at those.

Before I just want to make one final point that the earliest scribes were much worse than the later scribes.

They certainly made a lot more accidental changes. They may have made a lot more intentional changes.

And there's no way for us to know. I thoroughly disagree.

Once again, to say there's no way for us to know is to conclude that having multiple lines of transmission coming out of the primitive period that are clearly not genetically directly related and yet communicate the same text utterly undermines

Bart Ehrman's primary theory that there has been this massive kind of uncontrolled change to the text in the primitive period.

In other words, given how what we have in those earliest manuscripts coming from different sources, different places, different lines of transmission, when it comes into history, we see the

New Testament, well, as we have it today. If to fulfill the kind of conspiracy theory that Bart Ehrman is making money off of, and there were

New Testaments that read very differently than what we have today, where's the evidence of their existence?

Where's the evidence of their existence? See, most of the time in these debates, he gets away with demanding that we provide the positive evidence.

We provide the photocopies of the originals. He has to explain why our manuscript tradition is as united as it is.

I mean, what we've discovered is that when he talks about the earliest obtainable text, that he figures we pretty much determined that.

We are just playing games. We are just, you know, arguing about a jot or a tittle.

But it's before that time period that he's positing this period of just massive alteration.

Where is the evidence of these other readings, these massively altered

New Testaments? There isn't any. There isn't any. And he needs to be challenged on that.

Let me tell you about some of the intentional changes. I'll just give you a list of ones that these will be passages that if you know your

Bibles well, which I have a strange feeling you do, unlike my students at Chapel Hill, these will be passages that you probably know about.

Now, it's interesting, I will. You got to remember this most recent debate, not this one, the one that took place just a few weeks ago, took place at Chapel Hill.

And in all of his other debates, he constantly rips on his students, but he had to just slightly alter his favorite jokes so as to not be lynched or pied on his own campus.

That was that was funny. In the

King James Bible, 1st John, chapter 5, verses 7 and 8. I am absolutely amazed.

I will just be honest with you, every single time Bart Ehrman talks about the

Kamiohanium, I just shake my head. I bet, I could be wrong, but I bet if we go to his scholarly writings, we go to his published articles.

I have the Brill compilation of most of his, all of his early published article stuff.

You know, another one of those $169 books. I imagine there's no discussion whatsoever of the

Kamiohanium. Because amongst textually knowledgeable individuals, it's not an issue.

It's not an issue. He knows that a Greek reading that has nothing earlier than the 14th century to commend it to us textually was not a part of the original text of the

New Testament. He knows that. So bringing it up in this context, to me, just always leaves me shaking my head.

Why is there such a, it just, I'm sorry, anyway. Provides us with the only place in the entire

New Testament where the doctrine of the Trinity is explicitly taught. The doctrine of the

Trinity is that there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And those are not three gods.

The three are one. First John chapter five, verses seven and eight in the

King James Bible refers to, there are three in heaven, the Father, the

Word, and the Spirit. And these three are one. That's in the

King James Bible, but it's not in the Greek manuscript. You get it. It's actually in a few Greek manuscripts and it's in Latin manuscripts, which was at the heart of the

Latin Vulgate. It's an important verse because, as I said, you can intuit or you can reason towards the

Trinity from other passages in the New Testament. This is the only passage that explicitly teaches it and it wasn't originally in the

New Testament. Again, information utterly so basic and so far removed from any serious

Trinitarian discussions, church history discussions, textual critical discussions, that I can only conclude that Bart Ehrman includes it in there for shock value for the ignorant in the audience.

I guess just like King James only us, for the opposite reason, and of course our

Muslim friends who constantly bang away on this despite its utter irrelevance to their case.

Dan and I do not disagree on this point. Nope. This verse was not originally in the

New Testament. Is it an important verse? Well, it was for my grandfather when the Revised Standard Version came out in 1952.

He went through the roof because it didn't have the teaching of the Trinity. They took out the Trinity. Well, that demonstrates that Bart's grandfather is just as ignorant as a lot of the

Muslims who criticize the Bible on that level. And there's a lot of Christians. I understand there's ignorance, but I thought this was,

I'm confused, I thought this was a scholarly context and a scholarly discussion.

This was a huge offense, not nearly as offensive as I would be to him, but it was a...

Yeah, he certainly recognizes that where he's ended up would make his grandfather spin in his grave.

Definitely, he doth speak the truth at this point. It was a huge offense. Well, it's a rather important matter whether this verse is in there or not.

But it's not a disputed issue. So I just don't know why it shows up here.

Has Jesus ever called the unique God in the New Testament?

It depends which manuscript you trust for John 1, verse 18.

Now, this is... Now, you know, we're getting into the normal Bart Ehrman presentation.

And what he wants to do is he wants to raise, sometimes, as in this case, serious, textual, critical experience, primarily, and do so in the context of making it sound like, well, it's all up to you.

It's all, you know, you sort of have to make up your own mind.

And no one really knows. And who really knows?

That's what he wants to try to communicate. And the reality is, there is a textual variant here.

There's no question. It's a very, very important textual variant. It's one that we have discussed many, many times before.

And yet, instead of saying, you know, here's an important textual variant, here's the information, here's why modern translations have gone the direction they've gone, etc.,

etc., it's, well, it all depends on which manuscripts you trust. That's...

He doesn't believe that. He doesn't believe that... He doesn't think that it's just a personal matter or just a matter of choosing which manuscripts you trust.

He doesn't go there. That's not how he does textual criticism. So why present it in this way?

I think, very clearly, it is, again, a matter of creating in the minds of his hearers a particular kind of understanding that may or may not have any connection to the truth.

And, of course, we're talking about John 1 .18, in case you're wondering. And when you look at John 1 .18,

you know that Monogenes Theos, unique god, he's written extensively on this.

I don't know, I just don't know why he would do this.

Other than what I've just mentioned. But he knows what the textual evidence is.

And he knows that he's written entire articles on this subject. And so it almost seems like someone playing coy, and I don't like coy.

You know, we had someone recently come into... No, it was somebody in Twitter. A couple nights ago, some of you may have seen me having a conversation with somebody on Twitter.

And let me just tell everybody, because sometimes people come in. In fact, we had a guy come into the chat channel this morning.

And I felt so bad. It used the nick B -O -E -T. I think it was

B -O -E -T. And I looked down, I've got a PM indicator. So I've been sent a private message.

I opened it up. This guy sent me a book. I mean, pages and pages of stuff.

I was sort of surprised our system even allowed that to happen. To be very honest with you. And so I just sort of said in channel,

I don't accept PMs from people I don't know, because I don't. We can chat in channel, because a lot of people want to come into the chat channel and go,

I'd like to ask Dr. White some questions. And all of a sudden, they feel like I'm a terrible person if I don't stop everything

I'm doing and just chat with them about whatever they want to chat about. That's not why I'm there. I'm not the online

Bible Answer Man. We have at least two hours a week normally, sometimes more, where I'm here.

Phone lines are open right now. And there's plenty of ways to contact me. That's not the way to do it.

Anyways, I felt badly because I just sort of had to explain to the guy, that's not how you do it. And I was already aware of that.

And he went left thinking that I was mad at him and I wasn't. And I sort of felt badly about that. But back to the point, if you come into our chat channel and you want to argue, we have a simple rule.

You tell us where you're coming from. You tell us what church you're a part of. Tell us what your spiritual background is.

Because it is worthless to have a conversation with somebody when they won't tell you where they're coming from.

It's a waste of time. If at least I know where you're coming from, then

I can put a context to your words, and we might be able to communicate. Well, there's this guy on Twitter a couple nights ago.

And he just couldn't get the message. He was angry with me because I had made some comments about the pastor in Iran, and I had made some comments about oneness teaching and stuff like that.

And he's telling me, well, what church do you go to? I'm a radical apostolic

Christian monotheist. And on the one hand, he says

Jesus is the I am. On the other hand, he doesn't believe he preexisted. And I'm like, what?

I mean, you could not even make heads or tails out of what this guy was saying. It was just, it was complete gobbledygook.

And every time I kept saying, would you at least tell me what church you go to? I can go look at the statement of faith. I can have some con...

Hey, if you're defending your faith, you don't need to know anything about mine. No, that's not true. Because your questions assume certain backgrounds that I may not know.

So you have to be upfront and honest and answer that question.

Imagine the criticism you would get if you hid from the public what church you went to.

You're just out there throwing it out. And this is Bible doctrine. So take it because I said it.

I can't expect it of others. And I'm certainly not going to expect it in that context.

And especially in a written context, in Twitter, in the chat channel, by email. The only way to make heads or tails is to be open about where you're coming from.

It's just absolutely necessary. I'm not sure how I got there, but just something I wanted to mention.

Some of our manuscripts, the manuscripts that some textual scholars prefer, and others don't prefer.

Some, in this verse, talk about Jesus as the unique God. Some textual scholars prefer.

In other words, the vast majority, and in fact, interestingly enough, Bart Ehrman will at one point say, well, critical scholars, which means all scholars who agree with him.

Well, when it comes to this issue, the vast majority of the people that he himself insists we need to listen to would agree that P66 and P75 and Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are really, really important.

And there are some, you know, Byzantine priority folks, but they represent a very small minority.

So it just seems like, you know, Bart changes his tune, depending on who he's talking to, what he's trying to accomplish.

No one has seen the Father at any time. The unique Son or the unique God who is in the bosom of the

Father, that one has made him known. Is Jesus actually the unique God himself?

Or is he the Son of God? Both are important, but I mean, it does matter whether Jesus is the called

God, the God in the New Testament. Depends what you do with John 1, verse 18.

You know, I was looking, the newer editions of Accordance have this thing called

New Testament Textual Interlinear. And I've set it up on my computer here in the

Dividing Line Studios. And I've got Tischendorf, the TR, Westcott -Hort, Byzantine, and Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

And they're supposed to give me the readings of each one of these. And I just realized there's clearly a problem with these.

Because it lists for both the TR and the

Byzantine, the reading of Theon, monogamous

Theon. And that is not the reading of the TR, nor of the Byzantine manuscript tradition.

I think I need to let the folks at Accordance know that. I'm glad I didn't,

I'm glad I looked at that. That's very, very, very interesting. I will go to a different tab that I have that has the more accurate information.

See, it's good to be able to check things out. Does the

Gospel of Luke teach a doctrine of atonement? Now, this one's interesting, especially given the fact that where Ehrman's coming from, asking the question seems a little unfair to me.

Because I don't think he thinks that Luke or Paul or John or anybody else is consistent enough within even their own books, their own writings, to determine what their quote -unquote theology is in the first place.

So I think it's a little unfair, because his system really wouldn't allow him to answer that in a meaningful fashion, even if there wasn't a textual variant there.

The doctrine of atonement is that Christ's death for sins. Luke, interestingly, changes a number of verses that he found in his predecessor, the

Gospel of Mark, which talked about Jesus as an atonement for sins. Okay, so this is a little bit complicated.

But everybody, most Bible scholars, I think most Bible scholars agree that Mark was the first Gospel written in the

Luke copied Mark for some of his stories. And he got stories from other sources. Which is one of the main reasons

I don't just simply bow down to current consensus and Markian priority theories and stuff like that.

And it's difficult, I realize, for theological students to see the reasons why right now.

But just remember that if you were in the cutting edge of theological education 140 years ago, you would have thought that John was written 170

AD. There's a lot of things that you would have accepted, just because that's what everybody accepted, and that nobody accepts it today.

And so just keep that in mind. I realize that there's this pressure to fit in and to all the rest of that stuff.

Again, I think it's far more important to take the bigger view than the short -range view, which, unfortunately,

Christian scholarship frequently takes the short -range view. One of the verses in Mark is a very famous verse from Mark chapter 10.

This is a verse that Luke excluded when he gave his account of Jesus' life.

He doesn't include that verse for whatever reason. It is striking that the only place where Luke's ideas about Jesus' death indicate that his death was an atonement for sins is in the passage

Luke 22, verses 19 and 20, where Jesus is at the Last Supper. In Luke's gospel,

Jesus first gives the cup before he gives the bread. This is the cup of the new covenant, etc. Then he gives the bread.

This is my body broken. And then in some manuscripts, it doesn't just say, this is my body that's been broken.

It says, this is my body that has been broken for you. And then it goes on to say, this cup is the covenant of my blood, which is shed for you, the death of Jesus for the sake of others, which is otherwise missing in Luke.

And you say, well, so what if it's missing in Luke? It's in Matthew. Okay, but does it matter what Luke says or not?

Say, no, it doesn't matter. It just matters what Matthew says. Really? Luke doesn't have a doctrine of atonement, depending on which manuscript you trust for chapter 22.

Now, here's one of the problems I have with this. Ehrman seems to think that the

Gospels existed in a vacuum. Well, okay, not so much vacuum, given that he says that Luke was using

Mark and just sort of editing him for the fun of it. But he doesn't seem to recognize that the

Gospels, as they were written, were intended for use in the church and that part and parcel of the worship of the church was the recitation, the retelling of the stories of the ministry of Jesus himself.

And so the Gospel writers would not think, well, this is all someone's going to have, because if you are part of the

Christian community, that's not the case. So it wasn't that Luke is sitting there going, well, if I don't include this, and someone may never know about it, then someone may never know.

No, that's not a part of the context at all. It's similar to the objections that I hear from my

Muslim friends against Paul. Well, Paul never talks about the historical Jesus, and Paul really didn't believe that Jesus existed historically, because he doesn't talk about the virgin birth and he doesn't talk about the stories of Jesus.

You really think that every epistle he wrote, he had to repeat the entire Gospel story over and over and over and over and over again, when he already knew that the whole reason that church existed was because the stories of Jesus were already part and parcel of what they possessed?

It was a part of their regular, every Lord's day recitations? And especially when we talk about this,

I mean, there's a very interesting and important set of variants in Luke chapter 22, verses 17 through 20.

And they need to be examined on the basis of the manuscripts in which they're found.

And the problem I have with Ehrman and with many of the modern textual critics is that because they have abandoned a belief that we can obtain the original text, and because they have decided that they somehow have the ability to read minds, they are starting to do their textual criticism based upon these external theories that assume certain things about the text of Scripture, rather than just simply trying to identify the earliest text of Scripture that we have in the manuscripts.

And the result is, I think, a bit of a mess. Would Luke have for a second thought, given that he's in the

Christian community, given that he's the compatriot of Paul, and that Paul's letters have this clear testimony?

Oh, I forgot. He doesn't believe he was a compatriot of Paul. So see, you can't really do this. You see, that's why these questions don't come up to believing

Christians. That's why they're so befuddled by Ehrman's approach, because you're going, well, Luke was with Paul, and Paul had a very advanced doctrine of Atonement in 1

Corinthians 11. You've got the whole Lord's Supper thing. That's even before the Gospels. And so I don't understand.

But then you've got to remember, yeah, but you see, Ehrman doesn't think that Luke wrote Luke, and that Luke was ever with Paul, and there, because he thinks

Acts is just made up. And oh, oh, I see. So you start with the assumption that all this stuff is a mess, and it's untrue, and it's inconsistent.

And then once you've deconstructed it and pulled it apart and said it's contradictory, there, oh, then you can use that to make this type of an argument.

Ah, see, that's how it works. That's where it goes. And that's what's going on here.

Now, I want you to think about this. I want you to think about this. Now, we'll close this one and then start taking our phone calls.

We have one right now. We can take some more. But this is really interesting.

This is very, very good. This is not the best example for Bart Ehrman to use.

Because other textual critical scholars, some of whom he evidently somewhat, I think, arrogantly dismisses, people like Kurt Auland.

Kurt Auland. Kurt, yeah. I've pointed out that when you have a disruption in the transmission of the text, it leaves evidence.

He has to reject that. He has to ignore that. That's Ehrman, has to ignore that.

Because you see, John 7, 53 through 811 is, appears for the first time, 500 years after the birth of Christ.

And it appears in Codex Bezaicantabrigensis. And Codex Bezaicantabrigensis is the least reliable New Testament manuscript that we have from that time period.

And so he keeps talking about these early, this is half a century, I'm sorry, this is half a millennium in.

And what he didn't mention is in certain manuscripts, family 1 and family 13, it's found in Luke.

Yeah, Luke. After Luke 21, 25, in certain manuscripts.

And after Luke 21, 38, in certain manuscripts. And in manuscript 13, 33, it is found after Luke 24, 53.

So if you have a story that doesn't appear for the first 500 years, the textual history of the

New Testament, and when it does appear, it appears in different books, John or Luke, then that's really strong evidence that it's not original.

What evidence does Dr. Ehrman have about that time period?

And as we find earlier and earlier manuscripts, this time period is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. But let's say the first 100 years of the transmission of the

New Testament text. He wants us to think, hey, if it happened 500 years afterwards, it might've happened a lot during that first 100 years, right?

Where is the evidence? In other words, if that happened, think about it, since you have multiple lines of transmission, then you're going to find, let's say, let's come up with a story.

Um, Cursing the Fig Tree. Just came up with a story off the top of my head.

Cursing the Fig Tree. The Fig Tree, yeah, the Fig Tree. Um, let's say that that is one of these stories that just pops in, that it's, it wasn't original, it's added in later.

Since we have multiple lines of transmission, what that would mean is that we would find copies of the

Gospels that have it and that don't have it. And we'd find them concurrently.

In other words, we'd find from around the year 200, let's say we'd find P66 has it and P75 doesn't.

Is that what we find? No. No, that's not what we find. So you see, he has to dismiss the reality of the multiple lines of transmission.

He's got to dismiss it for it to, for his theory to work.

And John 7, 3, 8, 11 is an excellent example of that because we can recognize it's a variant. We have entire complete copies of the

Gospel of John that long predate Codex Vesey Canterburgiensis.

And it's not there. And so that's a very, very important point to keep in mind.

All right, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number that you can call to be getting involved with stuff.

Here on the program, we've got about 11 minutes left. Let's talk with Mike.

Hi, Mike. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. I'm kind of somewhat new to the whole

Calvinism debate, so I downloaded some of yours and I've been listening to them. And I had a question that really kind of threw me.

I mean, I've been following it pretty well up until I heard this question. In the Bible Answer Man debate, the read -my -book debate, you asked your opponent, you said, how does

God know what a libertarian free creature is going to do in time? And then based on the conversation that followed, it seems like your position is that not only is that an unbiblical view, but it's also somehow a logically impossible view?

I'm not sure what you're saying. I didn't understand what you're saying. God does know.

I clearly defended that for a couple hours there, so I'm not sure what you're asking. Well, you were trying to save your opponent by asking the question that it doesn't make sense that, you know, your question, how does

God know what a libertarian free creature is going to do in time? Right, because he doesn't believe that there is a divine decree that determines the events in time, and so while he was affirming, he denied he was an open theist, so he was affirming that God does know future events.

I was asking him, how does God know future events? I wanted him to take a stand. Does he hold to simple foreknowledge?

How does God have knowledge of what a free creature is going to do? Is he a Molinist? Does he believe in middle knowledge?

Where does he stand? And George isn't really theologically trained and really astute in those areas, and so during the breaks, it was interesting, there was one person on staff there that was throwing out

Molinism and middle knowledge and all the rest of that stuff, but I don't think that's where George wants to go, or just doesn't understand what

Molinism is, or how it works, or something along those lines. But I was saying, how does God know?

I say God knows because God decreed the events in time, and we discussed that a good bit.

We went through Genesis 50 -20, and we went through Isaiah chapter 10 and Acts chapter 4, each instances where the sinful actions of man are said to have been a part of the predestined purpose of God, their intentions in those actions evil,

God's intentions good, pure, and holy. So does that...

Yeah, well, I mean, I think I tried to really separate the issue between... Well, let me just say this.

I mean, his response to your question was that God knows everything because by nature,

He is all -knowing. He responded, but how? Right. And so, I mean, it seems to me like you feel, you know, not only that the

Bible doesn't support his view, but that it's somehow, you know, logically impossible, that you can't have...

It's not an answer to the question. He just says, well, He just knows by nature. And I go, how does

He know by nature? Can you answer the question? What comes first in God's knowledge? When God chose to create the universe, did

He know what was going to happen as a result of His creation? Well, I think George would say, yes.

Okay, there's two ways that He could know that. Either He knows that because what takes place is the result of His sovereign decree being worked out in time, or God passively takes in knowledge.

He says, okay, I'm going to create. And so there's this point in time where He goes,

I'm going to make these decisions. Well, there's the results. And so I take in knowledge of what's going to happen as a result.

And so God tosses the cosmic dice and He wins and goes, yay, worship me. Does God take in knowledge in that way?

Was there a time He didn't know? And if it's not the result of His sovereign decree, then what's it the result of?

Is it the result of free creatures, cosmic forces, a combination of all of the above?

And how can He guarantee what the future is going to be? And how could He know that He was going to be glorified in all that He took place when

He created if the end result actually is just the combination of all these sub -forces coming together to create the fabric of time?

Yeah, and again, I'm new on this debate, but what you just said there just jumps out at me as a false dichotomy, that those are the only two options.

What's the other option? Well, wouldn't the other option be that He would know that He created?

So it's not, like you said in the debate, you said, you know, God just simply creates and goes, oh look,

I won at the end. Like, there would be a creation, and then after that, He would say, oh, you know,

I just happened to win. Right. But how come He couldn't create everything in a way to where everybody's free will would have played out in a way that He would have won?

So He would have known right from the get -go. How does that work? So in other words, He creates so that everyone— so you're a

Mullinist, you believe in middle knowledge? I think so, yeah. Well, the problem with that is, if you believe in— if you want to try to keep man as an autonomous creature who—there is no sovereign decree,

God is not working all things according to the purpose of His will, Ephesians 1 .11, God does not do what He wants in heaven and earth,

Psalm 135 .6. If you want to get rid of all those biblical passages where God specifically says, I'm doing all this, and I'm doing it to my own ends, and you want man to be the one that determines all these things, but you still want to have an end result where God sort of still accomplishes something, then you have to fall into this middle knowledge idea where God looks at all the possible ways, all the possible universes out there.

And He has this special knowledge— we don't know where it comes from— of knowing what every person would do given any situation that they're put in.

Now, how He could know what a person would do before He actually decrees to create that person and form them in a certain way,

I have no earthly idea, but the Molinists don't either, but that's another issue we can get into. I think it undercuts the entire system, but anyway.

I guess that is right from the get -go from my call. I guess that is what I'm getting at. So based on what you just said there, you're saying that, you know, not only is this unbiblical, but it's somehow impossible for an all -powerful, all -knowing

God to know what free -willed people are going to do before He created them. I don't see—that doesn't make any sense.

How could that be impossible? Well, I think it's pretty simple. Why do I do the things I do?

Because of the way I was made. And God made me the way that I am. So the only way you can know what

I'm going to do in the future is for me to exist. And Middle Knowledge says God knows that before He can create me in any particular way at all.

And so it makes someone other than God responsible for the form of creation.

And in fact, in Molinism, God could not, for example, create a world where He saves everybody. He ran all the possible worlds, and this is the best

He could do. That's what you're left with in Molinism. But if you want to know why it's impossible, it's because it assumes that God has a knowledge, but it does not give a grounding for how

God could have that knowledge. Because what I do as a creature flows from my created nature.

Well, who determined my created nature? God did. So how can you leave out

God's decree to create me in a certain way? You gotta leave the decree out, because that messes everything up.

Leave that out. So now, somehow, how can God have knowledge of what I will do when

God has not decreed who I will be? I mean,

I guess I don't see the problem there. I mean, I guess I feel— well, I don't know who exactly would have the burden of proof, but I mean, from where I'm standing, it just seems like if you're going to say that God can't do that, you need to somehow show how it's impossible for an all -powerful, all -knowing

God that it's impossible for Him to be able to create a free being and know what

He's going to do in the future. I mean, I guess as humans, it may be hard for us to— because I don't know what other people are going to do in the future.

But I just don't see how that somehow denies God the power to do that.

Well, Mike, the fact of the matter is, the Bible contradicts your position. The Bible specifically says

God has a divine decree, and it determines what men will do. So this is a philosophical discussion.

It's not a biblical one. The biblical position is, God created us, and God created the fabric of time, and men act according to the decree of God.

That's just— you can't read Proverbs and Psalms and Isaiah and Acts and Genesis and you can't read those without recognizing that's the case.

I mean, that's just the plain teaching of Scripture. And so I would start there, and I did on the program, but then

I'm demonstrating that when people say, well, those can be interpreted in other ways, and you still get this thing called free will, which of course is never ascribed to man in the

Scriptures anywhere. It's an unbiblical term. It's a philosophical term that's imported into Scripture.

And I'm simply saying that if you're going to say, that God creates a bunch of autonomous creatures, well, either we are autonomous, and therefore— well, let me ask you, does

God know what you're going to have for dinner tonight? Yes. Can you have anything else? Well, I think that's kind of a sneaky question.

I mean, I'd say no, I can't, but I did have the free will to make that. I mean, it's not that he forced my hand.

Okay, but is foreknowledge— can God's foreknowledge be invalidated, improved, false?

No. Okay, then God knows exactly what's going to happen in the future, and you cannot do other than that, can you?

Yes, but that still doesn't leave out the option that— I mean, I still have—I still can choose.

He just knew what I was going to choose. Can you—so he just knew it. So he looked down the— so did he know from eternity what you're going to eat for dinner?

Yes. So he knew all free will choices that led to your birth and led to where you live and all that.

He knows all of that, not because he decreed it, but because he just looked down the corridors of time, right?

Well, yeah, and the way you asked that question almost made it like you're— Yeah, so there was a time when

God learned what the result of his creation was, right? No, no, you just said through all time.

So there wasn't a time where he, like you say, kind of— Have you eaten dinner yet? No. Okay, so when he created, you hadn't eaten dinner yet.

It wasn't a reality. So there was a time—logically, did

God choose to create, or is creation eternal? He chose to create.

Okay, so there was a time before creation. So when he chose to create, if there wasn't a decree, and the end result is merely what free men do, then there was a time when he took in knowledge of what the result of his creation would be, yes?

Well, how come he couldn't have just always known that throughout time? Why is that not a possibility? Because that makes creation eternal, and it makes us and our actions eternal.

Well, why couldn't he have known before he created— Mike, Mike, Mike, the point is— —the universe that I was going to have for dinner.

Mike, the point is that that knowledge either comes from God or it comes from you. You are saying it comes from what you do rather than God's decree.

And I say that would make it absolutely impossible for God to be able to say, for example, that at such and such a time,

I am going to accomplish this if the ultimate authority is the autonomous will of man.

I mean, the only logical conclusion to your situation is that God could have called the apostle

Paul, and Paul could have said, not interested, I'm free. I'm free. No, because he would have known that he would have said that, so he wouldn't have called on him.

Which means that— How is that an autonomous will, then? It's not an autonomous will. It's already known, and it means when

God created, there would be no way for him to determine the outcome of those things.

How does God's sovereign decree— well, do you even believe in a sovereign decree?

Do you believe when God says he works all things after the counsel of his will, Ephesians 1 .11?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can I—I know it seems like I'm calling just to, like, fight with you. I'm—honestly, you probably don't believe me, but, like,

I mean, honestly, I'm open -minded. I'm looking into this stuff. I mean, I'm kind of trying to— I'm just trying to— —your beliefs here.

But a question I asked, it kind of—I got caught up in the middle. I mean, to what you're saying about my dinner, do you think that it's impossible for God to know before he created the universe what

I was going to have for dinner today? No. I believe that the Biblical teaching is the reason

God knows what you're going to have for dinner today is that he has decreed the fabric of time, not that he created something that was outside of his creative control as far as its essence, and then as it spun into existence, at that point in time, he takes in knowledge of what's going to happen.

I see absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. Why does there have to be a point in time where he learned what

I was going to have for dinner? How come he couldn't have known that from the beginning all the time? Because you agreed that there is a time before God chose to create.

Yes. Okay. How could God know before he chose to create what was going to happen in his creation?

Before he chose to create? Excellent point. That question shows this is really an excellent point. I think I don't see any reason why

God can't know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight before he created the universe.

Why can't he have known that? He's all - So even before he chooses to create?

Well, no, no, no, no, not chooses to create. That's what I said. That's what I said. Okay. Before God chose to create.

Well, why did he have to choose all of a sudden? Like, he changed his mind. I mean, why couldn't he just, from eternity past, he always knew he was going to create, and then he just did it at one point.

I guess point in time probably wouldn't even be an accurate way to put it, before he created time when he created the universe.

That's probably not even accurate. But why would you - I mean, I don't see this impossibility that under my view,

God all of a sudden learned what I was going to have for dinner. He couldn't just always know that. Because, again, because that makes your actions not only eternal, but determinative to God's actions.

And until God chose to create you and formed you and gave you the desires that you have, there would be no way that a universal

Mike could be known as to what his actions were going to be, and as to what his desires would be, as to know what your dinner was going to be this evening in the first place.

There is no universal Mike. The reason you like what you like is because God made you that way. And so before there is a decree to make you, there would be no basis upon having this, what's called middle knowledge, of what

Mike would do in any given situation. There's no basis for that. And in fact, that's why if you'll take the time to study the

Molinas who promote this, what they say is, there's all these possible universes. And God examined all these possible universes, and he actualized the one that comes closest to what he'd like to accomplish.

Because of this idea of middle knowledge and this idea of what men are going to do. And the result of that,

I think, is an abject mess. It's very popular today, but it's an abject mess. You have a

God who is a big computer in the sky, who runs all these possible universes, and he just does the best he can.

In fact, to use the words of William Lane Craig, one of the leading Molinas today, just a couple months ago, in response to a question that was sent in to him, he says,

God has got to deal with the cards that have been dealt to him. So who dealt the cards?

You end up with something beyond God, determining the limits of what

God can do. And I don't believe in such a God. I believe that God does, according to his will in the heavens and the earth, that he is accomplishing his purposes, and that I am not autonomous.

The Bible does not say I have a free will. Nowhere. Never. It says I have an enslaved will.

And it says that I'm dead in sin, but it nowhere says that I have a free will.

And if you think it does, show me where it does. Because I've never found it anywhere in the Bible. Okay.

I mean, I definitely appreciate your response. I'm going to listen to this again, and I'm genuinely interested in reading more about this second half of our conversation here.

Is there kind of like a specific term for what we're talking about that I could look up, or what would you recommend?

Well, there's lots of books on the subject. I mean, my main book on the subject is called

The Potter's Freedom. There are— That kind of encompasses everything that I'm talking about, like specifically,

I guess, like monism, or what would you use as the topic of the debate? Well, what you're talking about is the field of either

God's sovereignty, God's knowledge of future events, theodicy, that is the vindication of God in regards to the existence of evil, why did

God create in such a way that there was going to be evil, and things like that. On my YouTube channel, if you'll look up molinism,

M -O -L -I -N -I -S -M, you will find the presentation I did over near Biola on the subject of William Lake Craig's perspective, and then provide a biblical response to it, which

I think would be relevant to what you're looking for as well. Are there any of your debates that really get deep into this?

Well, the debate with Dr. Sanders on open theism certainly got into that, even though you don't hold a hope and theistic perspective, but obviously,

I was defending the idea of a sovereign decree of God that determines events and time, so I think that would be relevant at that point.

That would be useful as well. Okay, well, I definitely appreciate you taking the time, and I'm going to listen to this again.

Okay, all right. Thanks for your call, Mike. All right, God bless. All right, we went a little bit long there, but that's okay.

Felt it was good, important subject to address, and like I said, I don't know what next week is going to look like.

We will try, I will make some attempt to at least do one program next week via Skype from Hawaii.

I'll make the attempt. Obviously, I don't know exactly what my internet connectivity is going to be like, scheduling and stuff like that.

We'll do our best, and we'll let you know from the blog. Thanks for listening. We'll see you, hopefully, next week, if not the week after that.

God bless. 602 -973 -4602, or write us at P .O.

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N -dot -O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.