Synoptics Section 306 and 307

The Problem of Shallow Atheist Criticism and Internet Pseudosholarship

Holds his position. But he and Richard Carrier, another radical atheist, are the primary sources this guy quotes. And lo and behold, he's the president of the San Francisco Atheists and all sorts of other stuff.

It was just horrible. And I kept asking myself as I'm riding along, why is this getting prominence? Why is this getting any kind of notice at all? And then I go, well, that's not a difficult thing to answer.

We live in a society desperate for reasons to disbelieve. And aha! Found the right button, huh? Off, on. Yeah, that's how it works. There you go. All right. Well, I did the same thing with the unit. So maybe the two of them just got together at that point.

I don't know. But anyway, it was the only way I could describe it was sophomoric. It was horrific. It was horrible. Double standards, errors on a basic level that just, at times, was laughable. And I got back and mentioned on Twitter that I was going to be on the Mefford Show.

And somebody pointed me to an atheist review of this book. And the atheist said pretty much everything I had said, including calling it sophomoric, ridiculous, waste of paper. And this is an atheist reviewing it.

I mean, when the atheists review your atheist book and say, man, this stinks, that's not a good thing at all. But what I do notice is that the more of these books are written, this guy quotes this guy who quotes this guy.

And then this guy quotes him and him. And this guy writes another book and quotes this guy. And it's not that there's actually any meaningful research in any of this. It's just that now you can start quoting so many sources, it looks like you've got some basis to what you're saying, when it's all just a big old circle.

You're quoting him and he quotes you and you're quoting him. Now you quote this guy and he quotes back over here. And it looks good to some people. But to anyone who's seriously examining it, it's a house of cards.

But man, when it comes to what's floating around out there, even the atheist reviewer was complaining that and it is a self-published book, interestingly enough, that with the advent of the Internet, anybody can print anything and become an instant expert in everything.

And the result is a plethora of garbage, especially when it comes to anything historical. And one of the things that he was focused upon in the book was, well, you know, there's all sorts of these contradictions and all the rest of this stuff.

He even demanded that we need to, if Jesus was what the Bible study was, then we should have physical evidence of his existence, like his driver's license or something like that. He didn't say that, but that's the idea.

And, you know, find a saw somewhere in an excavation that says this was Jesus's saw or, you know, something like that when he worked in a carpenter shop or something. And if you actually hold those standards as far as proving the existence of someone, 99 .9999997 of all human beings who've ever lived in this planet up to the last hundred years never lived because we can't prove their existence because we don't have any specific physical evidence of their existence anywhere in the world.

But obviously, somebody built Rome. We may not have their social security numbers and their addresses, but somebody built Rome. So it's just that the double standards were absolutely amazing. And so one of the things that he really focused upon was, well, you know, the Jewish trial was not appropriate and that's not what would have happened and Pilate wasn't like this.

Well, that's what triggered my thinking on this was that in verse 5 of Matthew 26, but they said, not during the feast lest there be a tumult among the people. The author simply would not allow the text speak for itself and would not allow for the fact that at this time in Jerusalem, the number of people in Jerusalem during the feast would be the largest of any time during the year.

And it was swelled by many, many, many, many numbers, many, many times its normal number of people. And so a tumult, a riot in Jerusalem at this time would be the exact opposite thing of what Pilate would want.

And the Jewish leaders used that to manipulate him. Now at other times, he was a mean, nasty dude and he would just wipe people out. But when you've got the situation he was in politically, and now as many as a million people crammed into a place that would normally only have about 20 ,000, it makes perfect sense.

But he would never allow that. He would never, ever, ever look at the text in that context. Yeah, I didn't look it up, but the low end as far as during the bad part of the year, whenever everybody's vacationing, so for Phoenix, August, the August numbers was like 30 ,000 and then a million during the Passover.

So just huge, huge increase. Huge increase. People, you know, popping up tents all over the place and just could hardly walk the streets. But I'd have to, that's just one of the numbers I've heard. I didn't look it up.

But yeah, it was a huge increase in population in that time, but primarily pilgrims, obviously. And that's obviously when the economy would get, you know, that would be a Black Friday for the economy of Jerusalem was when all the pilgrims were coming in for the feast.

So yeah, it would be a huge, and obviously the Romans were rather nervous at that point, because it's one thing to control 20 ,000, 25 ,000 people with maybe a cohort, but it's a little bit different with a million.

So that makes a big difference. But anyways, it just triggered my thinking on that, and so if any of you catch the Mefford Show at any time, it's on KPXU at some time. I don't know if this could be the live slot on Monday.

Probably will be. I don't know. Sometimes they record it. Sometimes it plays at different times. Don't know. But we'll be talking about some of that at that time. Section 306, the anointing in Bethany, should be familiar to some of you.

I do not see the official keeper of notes here this morning, so he would be able to tell you exactly when we covered this. But you'll notice it says, compare numbers 114 and 267, which means that this material has appeared twice before in the synopsis, because we're uncertain exactly where to place it.

And I know that we actually did a fair amount of study on this, because I found in my synopsis something I handed out, looks like a long, long time ago, comparing what we have on page 277 and asking the question, is this the same event all the way across, in regards to a sinful woman anointing Jesus' feet and using her hair to wipe his feet, so on and so forth, over against the rest of these.

And I recall, we came to the conclusion that Luke is telling a different story than Matthew. Matthew and Mark are obviously telling the exact same story, and that John is probably telling the same incident as Matthew and Mark.

But, since we have looked at this in the past, it's just interesting to note, just in the parallel, if you compare Matthew, Mark, and John, Matthew 26 .8, when the disciples sought, they were indignant, saying, why this waste, this ointment might have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.

And then in Mark 14, but there were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was the ointment thus wasted, for this ointment might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they reproached her.

And then John has, but Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was betraying, said, why was the ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and he had the money box, he used to take what was put into it.

Now, what's interesting to me is, again, just using this book as an example, since it's fresh on my mind, but it's very, very common. The author took the very simplistic view that Matthew and Luke have Mark, and they're just simply editing him and changing him, and it's just this really simplistic literary dependence thing, and that Matthew's always trying to fix things that Mark messed up.

But did you notice what the difference between Matthew and Mark is in regards to who made this statement? And again, those of you who haven't been here in the past, the theory that is very, very common is that Mark is the first.

Matthew and Luke then use Mark and produce their own Gospels, also relying upon something that's called the Quella, the cue source, an unwritten source that we have never found, which, I guess, if it's unwritten, we probably never would, but of sayings, and then John's just off doing his own thing at a later point.

But the idea being that if you have Mark and then you change things, you're trying to make things smoother, Matthew's trying to edit things, but isn't it odd that in Mark, you simply have, but there were some who said to themselves indignantly, but then Matthew creates, because he's more specific, and he specifically says, the disciples.

Now, it may be that it wasn't just the disciples, but Matthew being one of them remembers, well, that was us, and then John's very specific that, yeah, there was more than one disciple, but the ring leader was the guy carrying the box, because he looks at that and goes, wow, that's worth a lot, and none of them, the whole point amongst all of them is that none of them care less about why this has taken place.

And it's interesting to note what the reaction is in Matthew 26 and Mark 14, but Jesus said, let her alone, why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them.

But you will not always have me, she has done what she could. She has anointed my body beforehand for what? For burying, for burial. Now, why is that important? Well, once again, it just happened to be on my mind as I was listening to this, what you will hear so commonly presented as a given is that you have a completely different Jesus in each one of the Gospels, and that they're completely contradictory, you can't ever put them together, there's no harmonious way to do so, etc., etc.

And there's everything right in noting what Mark emphasizes, what Matthew emphasizes, what Luke emphasizes, what John emphasizes. Allowing for their different audiences, different time periods, etc., etc.

We don't want to do what some people in the early church did, and that is try to get rid of the particularities of each Gospel and just create one vanilla version. You don't want to do that. But the other extreme is to say, well, these are all just contradictory and they can't possibly all be describing the same person.

It is interesting then that what they say is, well, the Jesus of Mark, the earliest Jesus, he's just out of control. I mean, he sees this coming, but he doesn't want this, and he's doing everything he can to avoid it, and he's just being carried along by these events.

It's not like he's in charge or anything. It just happens to him, and it's a bad thing. And then Matthew is a little bit less, and Luke is even a little bit less. By the time you get to John, the Jesus of John is just in control of everything and is just walking through all this and moving people around like pieces on a chess board and la, la, la, and there's just this huge difference.

And because people with all sorts of degrees after their names say this, people are hesitant to challenge it. When I debated John Dominic Crossan, this came up. And in fact, I made as part of my presentation the fact that if you just read Mark for Mark, there's all sorts of direct statements that Jesus not only knows what's coming, but he knows it's absolutely necessary.

And here's just one of those places. He knows that she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And Matthew has the same words. She has done it to prepare me for burial. So it's not like, I don't know what's coming.

I'm going to do everything I can to avoid it or anything like that. None of the Gospels present a Jesus who is like, oh no, this is terrible. I've got to find some other way around. The prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, that sweating as it were drops of blood, isn't a fear of death.

It really gives us an indication of the depth of the substitutionary act in atonement that Jesus undergoes. There's no other way to explain it. But people don't want to allow any type of theological understanding, even if that's what the writers themselves intended.

They don't want to do that. And so I just note once again that all the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I'm sorry, Matthew and Mark, Luke's talking about a different story. But the Gospels and John all record for us that Jesus is fully intended upon going to the cross.

The Betrayal of Judas and the Question of His Character

But then that leads us once again, and we keep running into this, to section 307 and the question that comes up from that, and section 307 is the betrayal by Judas. And Judas is that uncomfortable, distressing, don't really want to think about him much element to the story.

But he's there. And he keeps popping up. And we don't do ourselves much good by ignoring him. Luke puts it rather bluntly in Luke 22, 3 -6, to betray him to them in the absence of the multitude. Try to do it quietly.

Because they did not want to cause a major scene. That's not going to be how it ends up, but that's what happens. Mark and Matthew have a more basic version. Mark does not quote anyone, but Matthew does.

Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, what will you give me if I deliver him to you? And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. Now, when we think about Judas, and we think about this situation, you'll notice that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that it is Judas who approaches the chief priest.

It's Judas that seeks out the opportunity. But it is interesting that Luke says, then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot. So, why does this happen now? Did Judas have a special debt he needed some extra money for?

I mean, when you think about it, if he was pilfering from the box, what he's doing is stupid, isn't it? Because you betray Jesus, there's going to be no more box. Was it, well, I could make more in this one shot than what I'm siphoning off, you know, keeping crooked books or whatever else?

I mean, we're simply not told. We can certainly tell, though, that the rest of the disciples up to this point did not suspect this man. Well, what does that tell us? That means he went out preaching. That means he, whatever he, however he was handling the pilfered money, it's not like they'd be walking along the road to Caesarea Philippi, and there's Jesus, and there's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then comes Thaddeus and a few of the others, and then bringing up the rear, being carried in a litter by his personal servants as Judas, you know, with a guy going along fanning him in the desert heat.

That would have been, you know, a little suspicious, possibly. That's not what's happened. So, however he's been siphoning stuff off, whatever he's been doing with it, the rest of the disciples don't notice that he has better clothes, better food, that he wanders off at night and stays in a nice inn while they're laying on the floor of the press in Gethsemane.

Or something like that, the olive press. None of that seems to have been the case. But there was a clear weakness of character in Judas. He wanted more things in the world. We have names of people who have been involved in Christian ministry.

Demas, having loved this present world. Whatever you do, don't name your kid Demas. That's bad. Named by name, you know, not a good thing. We can think of people like that in our own experience. We can think of people who used to be members of this church, that by their own profession, that's pretty much, you know, I just got tired of the religion game.

You know, the world has more to offer me, and they've gone off and done their thing. And I know people that I've been involved with over the years in ministry. I'm thinking about one person, you know, right now, that, you know, at one point in time, you look at them, you listen to them, there were no red flags or anything like that at all.

And yet, today, they've just gone back to the world, and they go, yeah, I know, I don't want to argue with you about it, it's just, you know, it's not what I want to do. It's not what I want anymore. And so, is Judas, I mean, obviously, Judas' role, as Jesus describes it, is a role determined by sovereignty.

I mean, he's called the son of perdition. There is a, there are some, I debated a guy a month or less, who says there are no prophecies about Judas in the Old Testament at all. That, in fact, that even Jesus' statement that someone is going to betray me, Judas would have been very happy if he had been wrong about that.

It would have been cool, that would have been alright. Because from their perspective, it's just you nasty Calvinists, you think God's will is more important than the souls of men. And so, you think it's just more important that Judas do what he's supposed to do than, you know, Judas would have rejoiced if Judas had said, nah, I'm not going to do that.

Of course, he was defending open theism, so God doesn't know what the future is anyways. So, there really isn't any prophecy to worry about. But, be that as it may, Judas does present to us all sorts of uncomfortable questions because even though Jesus knows his heart, and has said more than once, one of you is the devil, man, what do you think they did with that?

What do you think the apostles did with that? I mean, you know they sat around and talked. You can read through Mark in a very short period of time. So, we do not have extensive exhaustive recordings of the apostolic conversations, you know, especially when the master is not around.

And you couldn't have twelve people always just gathered right around Jesus as you're walking along. There's going to be times when, I bet there were certain people amongst the apostles that had closer relationships with other apostles.

You know, it's just natural. You know, the guys walked along the road that were for, you know, they were for the Jerusalem Hasidic soccer team. And then you had, you know, the other guys that were fans of the Galilean Bombers.

And, you know, and so they would, you know, especially during football season, they would, you know, divide up and toss pebbles at each other and stuff like that. So, there'd be this natural, you know, thing.

And so, not everyone's always up, you never thought about that before, had you? What, don't you, don't you, don't you think they had competitions back then? It may not have been what we call soccer, what the rest of the world calls football.

Because you actually use your foot with the ball, which is why it's called football. But they certainly had, you know, regional rivalries in various, who knows, if it was chariot racing or whatever else it might have been.

And so, there would have been times when you've got your little group, you're three or four, and you're toward the back of the group. And somebody, at some point, because walks were very long when it was many, many miles, you know, for us, it would be sitting at the airport gate or waiting for the train or the bus or whatever, finally goes, so, what do you make this one of you is a devil thing?

Any, any ideas? I mean, he chose all of us, so, what does he mean that one of you is a devil? Who do you think that might be? It had to have been a matter of discussion at some point. But we're not given any information as to what any of the conclusions were.

And it seems pretty straightforward. None of the disciples say, I had him pegged. In fact, you would think, for most of us anyways, that if you trusted the guy to carry the money box, it's because he had given some indication that he was actually trustworthy to do so.

You would think. Just all sorts of things that make us go, obviously, Judas wasn't just a hanger on. He wasn't just an observer. He preached. He may have healed. And that just reminds us of Jesus' statement, Lord, Lord, did we not fill in the blank?

And Jesus' response to them is, depart from me, I never knew you. I never knew you. So, Judas, appropriately, appropriately, makes us uncomfortable. Makes us uncomfortable. Because he really does remind us that there is truth in that statement, he who endures to the end shall be saved.

It is not our endurance that saves us, that saving faith does endure. And our perception of others is not infallible. It's not infallible. And that's why we should never get to the, we should never allow ourselves, doesn't matter who it is, we should never allow ourselves to build our faith upon a particular man or a particular group of men or anything like that.

Your faith has to be grounded upon assurance of the truth of God, not the person that delivered it to you. Because the person that delivers it to you, your own theology tells you, is a sinner. And is imperfect.

And really isn't, none of us are worthy to even handle God's truth. And yet we're called to do so. And so often we lose sight of that. And there is a big scandal, you know, moral failure in the reformed sphere over the past two weeks.

Big name. And you know, there's always the hand wringing and the inevitable improper question that is asked, stated openly. Which I'm going to state here and make us all uncomfortable. You know, I heard a friend of mine being asked about this particular situation.

And he said, look, the guy was a great communicator, a great preacher. Benefited a lot from what he had to say. But I probably wouldn't listen to his sermon now. I couldn't because of what it would automatically bring to my mind.

But I don't doubt that when he spoke the truth, the truth is still the truth. And that really, this, it's interesting. How many of you, quiz time, see if you're awake? Ha ha ha. I'm not going to ask you because you're obviously tired.

But, um, and weren't here for the church history series. Anyways, it'd be very unfair. Um, but those of you who were, and I know who you are, and right now you're all starting to look down, all of a sudden you're very interested in what's on in your Bible here, you know, and looking very spiritual.

Um, I know how this works. Uh, professor, been there, done that, uh, seen this before. How many of you remember, uh, the two major disputes that Augustine was involved with in his, in his ministerial and writing life that defined his theology, and in fact, explain the contradictions, the primary contradictions of his theology?

The rest of you sitting there taking notes? Very good. Now, the question is, the Plagians, the Plagian controversy and the Donatist controversy. What was the Donatist controversy about? Does anyone remember?

Well, this is extra credit. Does anyone remember the two Latin phrases that I have taught many times in regards to the Donatist controversy and how it, uh, how it impacted things, especially during the medieval period?

This is a big extra credit question. Something y 'all are going to remember down the road. Anyone? No, it's not supra or infralapsarianism. Different one, yes. Ex opera operato and ex opera operanti. You say, you expect us to remember that?

Well, um, you know, uh, George would have been furiously ripping through old, uh, notebooks, uh, to come up with that. But, uh, ex opera operato, ex opera operanti. Now, what does this have to do with Judas?

Well, think about it. Uh, ex opera operanti means that a sacrament's efficaciousness, like baptism, is dependent upon the state of grace or the spiritual nature of the one performing the baptism. Operanti, the one performing.

Operate, work, Latin. Ex opera operato means that the efficacy of the baptism is in the act of baptism itself and not in the person performing it. The Donatist, remember, they split off from the others because during persecution, this one guy had given up some of the scriptures or some looked like the scriptures, but they considered him to be last.

And therefore, he no longer had, because he had lapsed, he could no longer ordain this other guy because the ordinance or the sacrament would be invalid because he was last. He was an apostate. And so they wouldn't follow the guy that he ordained.

And so the Donatist told ex opera operanti, the person's own spiritual nature is relevant to the efficacy of the sacrament. And then Augustine and the others developed ex opera operato. It's the sacrament itself.

That's why a Buddhist could baptize you validly in Roman Catholic theology as long as it's done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because it doesn't matter whether he's a Christian or not.

It is the form that is used, not the nature of the state of grace of the person who's doing it. Anyway, the point being that this sort of mirrors, in a sense, that argument that existed long, long ago.

When you think about someone's preaching or teaching, is it their spiritual nature that determines the validity of the truth being spoken or is it the truth itself? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not interested in going and listening to non-Christians preach.

But is it that person that makes the truth God's truth or is God's truth God's truth? I mean, ask Balaam's donkey. God's truth can be uttered by anybody. The point being that, and I think it is important to think about this, because sometimes, I've actually met some folks that will not read someone like a B .B. Warfield or Charles Hodge because he is a baby sprinkler.

And then I've met some people who follow Charles Hodge, B .B. Warfield, who won't read anything I've written because he's not a baby sprinkler. So you've got that and you've got this, well, unless you agree with me to break down this very, very narrow spectrum, then nothing you say could possibly be of any benefit.

So you've got that super narrow perspective. Obviously, on the other end, I'm never going to go listen to Richard Dawkins preach a sermon as if Richard Dawkins ever would. Well, he does, actually. He just preaches to the atheists and has a different source of authority.

But so somewhere in there is room for asking the question that Judas prompts to us. When he was used as a disciple to heal and to exercise, were those people any less healed or exercised because Judas was actually the son of perdition?

No. But at the same time, if there were a collection of Judas's sermons, I doubt they'd be overpopulated. So something to think about. Judas definitely gives us questions. All right. Yes, sir. Oh, sure.

Oh, well, this is the first place where I heard the statement from Pastor Fry. Because when I first showed up here, I was a seminary student just about to graduate from Fuller, and we spent quite an amount of time out on the front porch of the church chatting about this, that, and the other thing and theology and stuff like that.

Because I had never heard of Reformed Baptists before. When I first found the cassette tapes, yes, the cassette tapes, did you take those to Berean? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, well, it may have been Brother Brick there.

If you all are sick and tired of me hanging around, blame Brick. It's the easiest way to do it, because I was back at the back counter at Berean, and I see this plastic, I think it had yellow in it or something like that, a yellow piece of film.

I have done that. Anyway, there was these cassette tapes. Some of you are too young to know what those were, but look it up on Google. It'll be in Wikipedia under the Ancient History section, Ancient Forms of Technology.

I picked up one of these cassettes on election, and here's this guy. And I'm like, wow. Remember there used to be a Christian bookstore over here at 7th Avenue in Osborne? Remember that one? And I went back and used them as a library and got the book on denominations, because I didn't have it in my library yet, and looked up Reformed Baptist.

Never even heard of it before. So I had a lot of questions. And so I asked Pastor Fry, and he was one of the first ones to ever use this phrase, but he said, God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.

Have you ever heard him say that? God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. And he was talking about the fact that, yeah, I mean, the church in which he was saved would probably never have him preach there, and probably would have excommunicated him for heresy once he came to the conclusions he came to, but he is convinced that he was actually saved there, that the gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ was preached there.

I think he would say it was sub-biblical. It was inconsistent. You couldn't carry it very far, because it wasn't everything that needed to be said. The whole counsel of God wasn't being proclaimed there.

But still, sufficient truth was that allowed the Lord to work in his heart. And so, yeah, I think that does touch on that very issue. And it's a sensitive area for us. Real quick. Yes, we know. I have a series on Hebrews 8 you should listen to.

But anyways, it's really hard to do that in 30 seconds. I don't have enough time to. But we did do an entire series on church history many, many years ago. And some people would like to do it again. But at the speed I've been going, who knows?

I'll be a part of church history before I get around to doing church history. But yeah, we did a series. And it was fairly lengthy. It was a couple of years, maybe three years, I think, on church history.

And we talked about that and interpreting church writers in the context they were in with how much light they had and how much they did not and how much they were influenced by conflicts of their day, like Augustine with the Pelagian and Dionysus controversies and things like that.

And so, it's a necessary thing to think through. And I'll probably be commenting on it. And we will probably be posting next week. I'll be up in Boulder, Colorado. And Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, I'm doing a series called Doctrines, Dates, and Dead People.

So, it's a series on the early church. So, we'll probably address that. And we'll be posting it eventually as well. All right. We're well out of time. Let's close the work here. Father, we do thank you for this opportunity once again, the freedom that we have to gather, to possess your word, speak freely about your truth.

We ask that you would maintain us in this state. You would continue this blessing to us. And Lord, that you would also continue to give to us freedom to worship you as we are in this next hour. May your word go forth with power.

May you be honored and glorified. We pray in Christ's name.