Apologetics Session 7 - The Bible - Part 3

All right, I'll open us in prayer We're God thank you for this day, thank you for these men who've come out to hear more about the

Bible God, I just ask that you would bless this time. I hope us all to learn more and have a good discussion

Thank you for this church and for the excitement that we have for apologetics

God I pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen Amen All right.

So this is the hopefully last session for this particular topic

I think Drew's gonna follow on after this with some archaeological stuff, but We've thus far gotten through manuscript evidence for the

Old Testament And just the the sheer volume of that we've gone through manuscript evidence for the

New Testament and the volume of that and And also some of the circumstances by which those manuscripts were found

Which I think are pretty pretty interesting you know when people are you know at a

Monastery and see a bunch of papers in the trash and they end up rescuing ancient biblical manuscripts.

I think that's pretty interesting So we went through the formation of the canon and the timeline

I know we rushed kind of through that towards the end of the last Session, but we see that the 27 books that we have for the

New Testament Essentially were settled You know around the late 300s early 400s a .d

And so that brings us to one topic that we weren't able to get to last week, which is the questions of other books accepted by other traditions

I can't go through all of them. It would take far too much time for us to go through like literally every book

That that is that is thought to be That wasn't included in the canon, but people have thought should be included in the canon

So I wanted to kind of pick one that that we could talk about that's probably

Relevant for the area of the country we live in which is the Apocrypha. The reason I chose the

Apocrypha is because the Catholic Church Acknowledges or brings into canon certain books of the

Apocrypha and Since we live in a fairly heavily Catholic area up here in New Jersey I figured it would probably be one that would be interesting to all of you

But obviously there's a lot of other books that aren't considered inspired or Weren't included in the canon of Scripture That you know we could dive forever into into the rabbit hole of that so For those of you who don't know what the

Apocrypha is It is extra books of the Old Testament It was written.

It was supposedly written in the silent 400 years between Malachi and Jesus So this would have been after the

Old Testament our Old Testament was completed And the Roman Catholics have accepted seven

Apocryphal books And it was decided to include those in the canon at the

Council of Trent in between 1545 and 1563 so it's relatively late obviously right the

Old Testament was completed a long time ago and You know 15 you know so what?

15 So like 1 ,900 years almost 2 ,000 years right they they decided to include some of these books

So the books in the Apocrypha are things like first and second Esdras I think

I'm pronouncing that correctly Tobit Judith another book called the rest of Esther a book called the wisdom of Solomon a book called

Ecclesi Ecclesiasticus a book called Baruch with the epistle of Jeremiah a

Book called the song of the three children a book called the history of Susanna, which was added to Daniel another book

Bell in the dragon, which was also added to Daniel a book called the prayer of Manassas and first and second

Maccabees So the question is why did the Roman Catholic Church decide to include certain books

Into their canon. I think you know if they're if they're in 15 in the late 1500s mid -1500s deciding to include these it's probably important to know why right after for all that time

Does anyone know off the top of your head except for rich venture? You're not allowed to answer You know too many things

Take a guess To try and back up their wrong theology

The Catholics did include some of these books as canon one of the reasons why

Is because it justifies some of their doctrines the Roman Catholics believe in praying for the dead

And so they have in second Maccabees 1245 is is a passage that bolsters prayer for the dead

This by the way is refuted by Luke 16 25 through 26 Again, this documents going out to everybody so you guys want to dig deeper into into this stuff

You'll certainly have an opportunity to do that the second is giving alms for the forgiveness of sin the

Roman Catholic Church had a You know you can essentially pay the church Pay the church off for your sins

And that was bolstered in Tobit 12 9 is is where That was

That was sort of underscored for for the Catholic Church So why did the early church fathers and why should we now not include these books

I Mean how do we know they're not inspired or scriptural

If nothing Jews were the keepers of the Old Testament scriptures, and they never considered these books

Inspired that is that is the that is actually the first reason I have in here It said the Jews never recognized it as scriptures including when

Jesus was alive Jesus and the Apostles never quoted from them Right so Josephus said we have not therefore a multitude of books disagreeing and conflicting with one another which the

Greeks Did but we have only 22 which contain Contain the record of all time and are justly held to be divine so Josephus who is a

Jewish historian Basically said that you know we don't have All these books that are disagreeing and conflicting with one another so in this quote

He was talking about the Jews only having 22 books again remember the Old Testament was broken down differently for The Jews than our than our

Christian Old Testament is based on the way that they combined certain books so our 39 books are

Are actually included in all of this and so he Josephus then also broke down The sections so he said you know we don't have all these books disagreeing with each other

We have only 22, and then he said he said He broke it down in a later statement saying five books of law written by Moses 13 books covering the time from Moses to King Artaxerxes and four books containing hymns and precepts for the conduct of a human life

So again remember that that they broke down The Old Testament differently, but even

Josephus Doesn't reference the 24 books that we talked about in the very very beginning of this session

He left two of them out, and there's some speculation as to why he did that Some say he may be excluding Esther's or Ecclesiastes That may not have been considered canon at the time of Josephus Some speculate that Josephus combined more books together than other

Jewish Historians or rabbis did but in either case it doesn't include any of the books of the

Apocrypha The second reason that we shouldn't consider the

Apocrypha scripture is Because Jesus didn't consider the

Apocrypha scripture so since the Apocrypha would have been written in the 400 years between you know

Malachi the silent 400 years between Malachi and the New Testament Jesus would have surely known about the

Apocrypha but in Luke 24 44 Jesus said then he said to them

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you That everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

Psalms must be fulfilled So Jesus here actually made a point to actually call out the sections of the

Old Testament, right? He called out the if you remember all the way back to the two weeks ago

I guess we talked about the Tanakh we talked about the Torah which is the first five books the

Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim which were the the writings and the The prophets, right so we had

We had those those three sections called out here by Jesus as well and also in Matthew 23 35

Jesus said so that you may come all The righteous so that you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth

From the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barakaya Who be murdered between the sanctuary and the altar again?

He's talking about events that happened right, so in this statement Jesus is

Talking to the Pharisees and it covers the time from Abel Genesis right through the time of Zechariah and Chronicles who lived in the time of Malachi So so Jesus in those two statements seems to be very clearly talking about the sections of the

Old Testament Which did not include any of the apocryphal books And also the time period right from from all the way in the beginning, right?

The the son of Adam and Eve all the way to the time of Malachi And then the third reason is because The New Testament nowhere validates

Anything from the Apocrypha. So never is it quoted in the New Testament, right?

And the Old Testament actually is Quoted from the New Testament No books from the

Apocrypha were ever quoted The New Testament contains 263 quotations and 370 allusions being a reference to but no mention of the

Apocrypha And then finally the final reason why we shouldn't consider the Apocrypha Inspired scripture is because the

Apocrypha itself shows itself to be uninspired in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus Ecclesiasticus It's a hard time a hard time pronouncing that It actually says

In the prologue it says pardon any errors within this book so The prologue to the book itself says that it is not inerrant, right?

It says please pardon any errors So right there, it's it's showing itself not to be if you remember we talked about the way

R .C. Sproul Talked about inspiration You know, he said that that is inspired.

Therefore it is infallible. Therefore it is inerrant. It's inspired It's breathed out by God It is therefore it has no fault.

Therefore it can have no error And so if you have a book that says please pardon any errors by definition, it can't be inspired

The Apocrypha is actually filled with historical geographical and chronological mistakes It's filled with a number of moral errors

So it just doesn't have the same quality as the rest of the Old Testament Jewish canon one such example is in Tobit 1 .4

and 1 .10 where Tobit claimed to live in the time of David and Claimed to be carried away in captivity to Assyria These two events are separated by more than 200 years

And that is about 40 years longer than he said he supposedly lived So he supposedly lived to be about 162 or something, but these two events that he said he lived during Were separated by 200 years.

So that's that is a chronological error as well Yeah, go for it

Question about the other multiple copies of that that were found or I didn't dig into the manuscript evidence for the

Apocrypha you know, you could go down a rabbit hole on any of this on any of this stuff, but You know,

I didn't really go into like the textual evidence for the Apocrypha. I think that that both the the chronological errors the

You know claim of having errors in it are enough to disqualify it regardless of how many copies

I mean we have You know, what is it 643 copies of Homer? That doesn't mean it's inspired or scriptural

There could there could very well be a lot of copies a lot of manuscript copies. I just don't know Go for it.

Yeah So since the Apocrypha was used to back up doctrine one of the reasons I guess probably the main reason why they use it to Doctrine is there a part of the

Apocrypha that backs up Purgatory and Elevation of Mary there is I I took again.

I'm Earlier, this is like a frosting We could we could probably spend an entire week or multiple weeks just digging into the

Apocrypha. I think Purgatory's of Maccabees Yeah, I think Purgatory's of Maccabees as well. But but yeah, there's there there is

Mary would've been after that Yeah, but they elevate they certainly So by no means were the examples that I gave

Comprehensive, right? There's certainly additional examples that you can probably pull out for why these books because again

The Roman Catholic Church pulls in seven books. I only referenced two I referenced two of it and I referenced

I think it's second Maccabees so, you know out of there's a reason why they brought all seven of those in and it was primarily to To under underpin some of their their other doctrines

And there's certainly more doctrines that that are supported by the Apocrypha for the Roman Catholic Church But what

I was really going after was well, okay great. We know why they did it, but why shouldn't we right, right?

you look at And and these are some of the reasons why right the fact that they actually

Contradict one another they have errors in them. They have chronological and and moral failings

Say that again good about the writers of those books Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean the the you know, there's like Tobit wrote

Tobit supposedly But like I like that don't have this was in the 400 silent years So we don't have anything in the

Bible that would reference it because it was theoretically after the Bible if we were to have anything In the

Bible to reference back to the writers of the Apocrypha. It would have been the New Testament But like I said, there's no references to it in the

New Testament So Yes, the book of Enoch is that considered part of the

Apocrypha as well or is that kind of outside I don't think that's but that is another extra biblical book that has a little is it

Peter first or second Peter that makes some sort of reference to There is

Jude and there is a reference to it and the book of Enoch is a really interesting book because it adds a lot of sort of Supernatural context to like the

Tower of Babel and Like I watched a whole video on on the book of Enoch Maybe a couple of videos on the book of Enoch.

It's it's pretty interesting But yeah, it's it's not considered You know canonical for for our

Bible the Jews didn't consider it canonical Don't mean the Jews considered valid history. Is that don't some of the

Jews consider it to be some valid history potentially Yeah, the thing is is there's also questions about whether Enoch wrote it or how long after Enoch was taken up There's three books of you.

Yeah, there's actually three. That's the other thing That's the yeah, there's the original and then there's two others that came in there the span of time between them

He was like, yeah, usually people say the movie not they mean the first one But yeah,

Ivan's right. There's actually multiple All right, so that kind of sums up The canon that sums up the manuscript evidence so now that we we've seen that we have just an overwhelming amount of evidence for the

The accuracy of the Bible we need to talk a bit about textual criticism

Before I get off is anyone Looked at what textual criticism is and have a definition.

I have one if you don't so it's fine Anybody know so textual criticism is actually a branch of textual scholarship has nothing to do with the

Bible, right? It's basically how historians Will evaluate any historical text the

Bible just happens to be one of the historical texts that they're going to to do this with So it's a textual.

It's a it's a branch of textual scholarship Philology, it's a big word And literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants

Different or different versions of either manuscripts or printed books

Philology for those of you who don't know because I didn't when I first saw that Is a branch of knowledge that deals with the structure historical development relationship of language or languages

So basically is looking at translations it's looking at ancient texts and it is

You know trying to determine What is the what is closest to the original source?

So we talked earlier about manuscripts being copies of Autographs which are the original documents or copies of other manuscripts

Well, obviously you can end up with variants or where a particular text may have been copied incorrectly

Or some changes were made to it And textual criticism is a is a branch of scholarship that tries to get back to the original and they use a series of tests for that So it's used by biblical scholars to determine the best reading of the

Old Testament and New Testament to show the accuracy to the original documents And they're also concerned with whether or not

So textual criticism gets us back to the original text and then what scholars will do is they'll apply other tests to determine

Whether the authors were being truthful in what they wrote. So they they apply a series of tests to To determine whether or not the authors of the text were concerned with truth

So what they'll what they'll do is they'll look for You know for ways in which

Contents that people are putting in the document and ways in which they're writing things that that would lead them to believe in the cultural

Context of the day that it was written whether or not they believe that thing to be true So when I ask somebody to look up Luke 1 1 through 4

And read it for me Just As those who

From the beginning where I wouldn't Eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us.

It seemed good to me Also having followed all things closely for some time past To write an orderly account for you most excellent theophilus that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught

So in here Luke is saying outright Right that he is concerned with making sure that He is writing an orderly account that he has taken

You know his expended effort to ensure that he has

You know got all the information right right he closely followed for some time past right to to go and And determine what actually happened right because Luke is sort of I guess some think of him as like the first You know historian right church historian going back in like Interviewing and finding out what actually happened

Somebody read 2nd Peter 1 16 for me For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we were made known to you the power and the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty right so here

Peter is Making a point right he's saying we actually saw right we were eyewitnesses to this power.

We're not Making this stuff up right the cleverly devised myths. We're not making this stuff up We actually saw the power and majesty of Jesus Christ Somebody read

John 1 1 first John 1 1 rather Which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes

Which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life

How many senses are referenced here? Right so they're going out of their way to say

This really happened we saw it we heard it we touched with our hands right

Concerning the word of life right so these in these passages the biblical writers are saying we're not making this stuff up This is not a fictional account right.

This is really what happened We were eyewitnesses. We saw it. We made sure we made sure that we recorded it and created an orderly account right

This is real. This is real And so they go out of their way also to provide details that can be verified somebody read

Luke 3 1 So what is

Luke doing in this passage Marking time Marking time right he's telling you the exact point you think

I like Google Maps you type in an address that puts a little pin Right where where your destination is he's putting a pin in where you know the account that's to follow

Is right in time he goes through telling you who was ruling the

Empire who was the governor of Judea? Who is the Tetrarch of Galilee right? What was his brother doing right?

There was a lot of specificity there that is that is to make sure that you know

This is when that happened and these things can be validated People who are reading this could go back and say well

What year was that right so it was it was a way to essentially mark the the the you know temporal?

locale of where they were in in time for this so Another way that you can

Also determine whether or not somebody's telling the truth, so we've talked about people talking about this is really what happened

This is not fictional. They're going out of their way to make sure that they're saying that this is real But another way that you can infer that this is real is if they included things like embarrassing material right?

In the documents because when people make things up they generally make things up to make themselves look better.

They don't make things up To essentially make themselves look bad, so can somebody read mark 14 69 through 72

Anyone Mark 14 69 through 72 And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders this man is one of them

But again he denied it and after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter Certainly you were one of them for you are

Galilean But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear I do not know this man of whom you speak and Immediately the rooster crowed a second time and Peter remembered how

Jesus had said to him before the rooster crows twice You will deny me three times, and he broke down and wept

This is Peter This is you know the rock on which

Christ will build his church, right? This is this doesn't make him look very good, right?

You know he obviously he was scared right and you can get but like he could have just you know

We could have just excluded this part, right? Like just leave that part out right? but know that you know the one of the the marks that That they care about truth is that they record it regardless of how it makes them look right and in this case it makes

Peter Look very bad right another example is when Jesus rebuked Peter and called him

Satan in Matthew 1623 which says, but he turned and said to Peter get behind me

Satan your hindrance to me So you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man

And this was not a joke right this Jesus calling Peter Satan was not you know him messing around This was a rebuke.

This was a harsh rebuke right from from Jesus Christ And others in Matthew 26 36 through 46 when the disciples fell asleep in Gethsemane Or when they didn't understand the parable of the sower and mark 4 1 through 12

One final examples in John 20 when the tomb was discovered by women Right why wouldn't why wouldn't they write it the disciples discovered the tomb?

So these are all examples They don't prove necessarily anything But they do infer that the writers actually cared about the truth because they were willing to not only write good things about themselves

But also write things as they happened even if it made them look bad So these examples make it clear that they cared more about truth than they cared about how they looked

And another reason to believe that the disciples Actually believed that Christ was the

Son of God and that this was not You know a made -up story was

What it cost them to believe that so I was actually think

I kind of knew some of these things but To see them in a list actually shocked me because almost all of them were killed in horrible ways

And and when you think about it, you're like yeah almost all of them were killed in horrible ways But listen to this list Peter was crucified

Andrew was crucified Philip was crucified Bartholomew was flayed to death

James the greater was beheaded Matthew was killed by the sword Matthias was stoned to death

Thomas was stabbed with spears John died after exile Luke was hanged

James was thrown and beaten Mark was dragged to death by a horse Paul was beheaded and Paul was beheaded

I Mean these they went they went to their deaths refusing to recant

Refusing to stop preaching they were thrown in prison many times Some of Paul's best writings were in prison

They were willing to actually put their lives on the line for what they believe they believe that Jesus rose from the dead

They believed it so much that they were willing to die in these horrible ways to be tortured to death in these horrible ways to You know to stay stand on their beliefs, so that's another

Again doesn't prove anything But it but it does infer that people that they really believe this it pretty much proves though that they weren't lying

It proves that they believed it. Yes. Yes they it doesn't mean that they couldn't have had a delusion or whatever, but it it does prove that they weren't lying because you know when in Situations where there's multiple

Culprits to a crime and there's a lie and they try to cover a weak link some there's always a weak link

Yes, and with that many links in the chain there would have been one that it failed Yeah, and Jesus appeared to 500 after after he rose right and some people say well must have been a mass delusion right but like The thing is is this they really believe this

Right The other thing to to also juice point all the apostles that were martyred were not in the same place

Yeah, they were as far as India upper Asia Yes, I mean all over and as you look back in history you see where the gospel had reached those areas

You know and from actually in some of the manuscript evidence we talked about Egypt a lot of manuscripts are found in Egypt some were found

You know in Near the Dead Sea right there. They're found in different places and when

I talked about I forget which reference I did, but there was one Where they were looking in the ancient version of a landfill right that was the reason they were digging there was because Christianity had spread to that area and it had a lot of early churches

And so there was a reasonable belief that there would be early manuscripts because of that so yeah

They were going out Evangelizing right remember earlier on I said that you know the the

Masorette's they were very meticulous Scott you know scribes to that they were trying to preserve this text for generations whereas the

The New Testament writers the New Testament scribes were really concerned with evangelism

They wanted to spread they made lots of copies not just to preserve it But also to spread it around the world and so that was another reason why

You know why you would find these these all over the place, and yeah, they were all killed in horrible ways in different places so that was that was what we call the

We call that the Composition test right was this composed with truth in mind

Next we get into something called the companion test So this test is concerned with whether the documents reached us accurately

This is a part of textual criticism where you'll ask You know some people say well, how can a book written 2 ,000 years ago?

You know be accurate they use the whisper down the lane analogies all the time about how you know if you're in a room

And you whisper down 12 people and you'll get a different answer But what what textual critics do is they ignore the passage of time between when the book was written and Today because that is actually an irrelevant a matter of time the the real concern is

The time from when the document was thought to be originally written and the earliest copy that we have right the how early that copy is dated and I think early on we have a

Text fragment of John that's within less than a generation within like 40 years of the autograph so The fact that it's 2 ,000 years ago

From when that's from from when that book was written is irrelevant if it's 40 years between our earliest copy

So textual critics will ignore that And only be concerned with the gap gap between the manuscript copy we have

That still means that there could be errors that are injected in fact there are errors that are injected we'll talk about some in a bit

And they could be intentional errors that could be unintentional errors, but we'll talk about that in a minute

So what they'll do is they'll actually take And when you have the number of copies

This is a lot easier to do if you have a lot of copies a lot of ancient manuscripts To actually compare against right so you have

Because what they'll do with the companion test is they take companion copies And they'll actually compare them against one another to determine

Are they the same are they different if so how many you know how many of the older ones have this?

Reading versus that reading and so forth and so on You Use the term fragment is there any gauge as to how large how much?

Text are you talking about in a fragment could it be as little as like a teeny tiny piece or it can be as little As a few verses we also have some like full scrolls like in the

Dead Sea Scrolls. We have like the entire book of Isaiah In in one scroll right so we'll have different fragments

But if you actually look at like even if we got rid of all the fragments We have I said this earlier if you look at like the early church writers the early church fathers

You could reconstruct the entire New Testament just from their quotations of it, but yeah, we have a lot of them

But yeah, I mean it could be I think one of the scraps that I showed Here this one this one front and back it's got

John 18 31 through 33 and John 18 37 through 38 So it's just a few verses not a lot of text and this one is is the one that's really really close to the to the to the

Original yeah So yeah, so yeah, but then you've got things like the

Sinaiticus where it's it's an entire New Testament right so you've got lots of Ancient documents that are complete, and you've got even older ancient documents that are incomplete

So Then we get into something called the corroboration test And this test is concerned with the question of whether other historical books or materials confirm or deny the testimony provided by the document

Excel itself for example the Book of Mormon has No corroborating evidence to support it zero

But There's three examples from archaeology that supports the Bible's narrative. I hope I'm not believing too much into your stuff, but there's the

Caesarea Married Tama, which is a tablet containing the pilot inscription

Which proves the Pontius Pilate existed during the reign of Tiberius Caesar? And that he was governor I skipped over that you skipped over that one perfect But I was gonna talk about the

Book of Mormon a little bit. Oh perfect I don't talk anymore about the Book of Mormon John 5 to the account of the city of Beth Beth Seda Bethesda sorry the city of Bethesda the pool of Siloam Where the angel was said to come down?

This is where the paralytic was angel said to come down To heal people people would rush into the pool to try and you know be touched by the angel and healed

This is where Jesus healed the paralytic it was said to have five porticos But scholars

Concluded that was inaccurate because And John must have written that later because they didn't build those with five porticos

But then they discovered the pool of Siloam and sure enough had five porticos So that's another corroboration of the

Bible and then the last one I have here is Historians disputed Jesus having his feet pierced with nails saying there's little evidence that crucifixion was done that way

They would have used rope to tie his his feet But this was until they found

Yehohanan in 1967 with a 7 -inch nail through his hands and feet so they found evidence of another

Human being crucified in the same way that it was described that Jesus was crucified

So those are just three examples where you have extra biblical things that aren't in the

Bible Or that are in the Bible, but but things you know the actual archaeological evidence is obviously outside the

Bible of that actually corroborate accounts within the Bible and there are and I'm sure

Drew's gonna go through a bunch of them, but there are just a huge number of you didn't even hit Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing there's so many of them that like I could probably rattle off a few more and still not hit the ones that that Drew is gonna gonna go over so I think

I've said this Last time, but I actually have it written down here One other consideration is the volume of manuscript evidence that we have and the average classical writer had around 20 copies of Ancient manuscripts right this is this is

Ancient documents obviously we have stuff from much sooner But if you stacked all of their copies on top of one another would stand about four feet tall from the ground

But if you the Iliad is the closest to the New Testament 1 ,900 copies So that's considerably more, but all in all for the

New Testament This is not just manuscripts, but all the extra biblical writings all of the early Church Fathers writings

We have over 24 ,000 copies of parts of the New Testament Which if we stack from the floor would stand over a mile high so we have just a ton of evidence

So I'm gonna talk and actually show you guys a video here in a second Remember I talked last week about dr.

Bart Ehrman who was a biblical scholar who was a Christian then became a liberal Christian and is now an atheist and he's

Known for pointing out that there are 300 ,000 to 400 ,000 textual differences in the

New Testament He claims these differences are contradictions and therefore the Bible can't be trusted

And Christianity is false. This is why he's an atheist What he fails to tell you is that 75 % of those differences are spelling differences spelling differences

And when you think about in the English language just think about British English versus American English You've got words like authorize.

We spell it with a Z. They spell it with an S We have words like honor. They add a U H -o -n -o -u -r.

We have h -o -n -o -r Think about color same thing they add a U, right? So these are these are spelling differences.

It doesn't change them change the meaning of the word. The word still means what it means It's just that that they happen to use a different dialect and a different spelling

This was also true in ancient languages as well So there are people in different regions of the world that would spell things differently

So 75 % of all of those textual differences are spelling differences that actually don't change the meaning of any of the words another example

Some some of the passages in Mark say he and other copiers replaced that word with Jesus That's another example of a difference.

It doesn't change the meaning One place they say he referring to Jesus and others they replaced he with Jesus Um, so it's technically a difference and so he's accurate in saying there are differences, but it's not it's a technicality

It's a difference, right? That doesn't make a difference And so in the end 99 % of all the differences have no impact on meaning

Have no impact on the the of any of the doctrines of Christianity There are some passages that are wholly absent from certain copies and included in others

But again, none of them change any of the doctrines that we believe So I'm gonna play for you an example

This is a short example So just to give credit where credit's due

I got this from a video that I watched with of Mike winger Mike winger is an apologist that I watch a lot of and he's he's really good

He runs Bible thinker .org And so he actually analyzed a debate

Between dr. Ehrman and do I have who he was? debating

But there's a debate between Bart Ehrman and and another

Christian apologist where and this is just a three -minute clip where Bart Ehrman You know actually tries to take apart the

Gospels and say that they Actually contradict one another and then I'm going to Start to dissect this three -minute clip

But if you take that three -minute clip Mike winger does like an hour and like an hour and a half dissecting it

So we obviously can't spend that much time dissecting it So I'm gonna play the three -minute clip and then just be take like the first couple of points that Mike wing that I learned from Mike winger on this and we will

We'll take it from there. This will show you how How Bart Ehrman really can lead a lot of?

uninformed Christians astray by If they're not really familiar with God's Word, and he's actually probably the leading

Atheist that causes Christians to doubt I think But Mike winger does a great job breaking it down and so we'll we'll go through that in a second here

Remember when to stop it though Sometimes the differences are not discrepancies in detail sometimes they're differences in emphases that really matter give you one example

Mark has a very powerful portrayal of Jesus going to his death

Jesus has been Betrayed by one of his followers He's turned over to Pontius Pilate and during his trial

Jesus doesn't say anything to Pontius Pilate except Pilate says are you the king of the Jews and Jesus as soon legates you say?

So that's all he says He's taken out to be crucified. He doesn't say anything.

He's gone. He goes to the place of crucifixion He's silent the entire way They nail him to the cross and he's silent you get the idea of Jesus being in shock at what's happening to him

While he's on the cross Everybody mocks him The Roman soldiers mock him the people passing by mock him both other people being crucified mock him in Mark's gospel at the end

Jesus who has been betrayed and Denied and deserted and handed over and condemned and mocked

Jesus on the cross finally cries out Eloi Eloi lama selachthony my god my god.

Why have you forsaken me and He dies Jesus goes to a

Painful humiliating death unsure of why it's happening to him in Mark's gospel

Contrast that with Luke's gospel In Luke you have some of the same elements

But a very very different emphasis in Luke's gospel when Jesus is going to be crucified

He's not silent He sees some women by the side of the road and he tell it hurts his head to them

And he's why he's carrying his cross and he says to them Daughters of Jerusalem don't weep for me weep for yourselves and for your children for the faith.

That's to befall you Here Jesus isn't in shock and not wondering what's what's why this is happening

He's concerned about these people more than himself while being nailed to the cross and Luke's gospel

Jesus prays Father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing That's not in Mark.

That's in Luke While Jesus is hanging on the cross It's not that both robbers mock him one of the crucified people mocks him and the other turns his head to the man and says to be quiet because Jesus hasn't done

Anything to deserve this he then looks to Jesus and he says Lord. Remember me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus replies to him in Luke Truly I tell you today you will be with me in paradise

This is not somebody who's wondering why this is happening to him. He knows what's happening to him

He knows why it's happening to him and he knows what's going to happen to him after it happens to him He's going to wake up in paradise and this guy's going to be with him

At the end most telling of all in Luke's gospel instead of crying out my

God my God Forsaken me Jesus says father into your hands. I commend my spirit and dies

Jesus does not feel forsaken in Luke's gospel This is a very different portrayal from the one you get in Mark and the mistake people make is

Pretending that what Mark has to say is the same thing that Luke has to say and that what

Luke has to say is the same Mark has to say These are two different Gospels with two different points of view and if you smash them together into one kind of mega gospel

You have ruined the emphasis of each one And then you throw in Matthew Stop it there.

He obviously goes on but So So I wanted to just call out the the

Dr. Ehrman's conclusions, right? He concluded one that the mother that in Mark Jesus was in shock about what's happening to him, right?

He was taken aback by it In the second emphasis is that in Mark Jesus was unsure about what was happening to him

He just didn't know why he was going to the cross In Mark Jesus feels forsaken and betrayed and abandoned in Luke Jesus isn't in shock about what was happening to him in Luke Jesus isn't unsure about what was happening to him, but is not only sure of what's happening and why but also

Where he'll be afterwards, right? Jesus knows he'll be in paradise and the thief will be with him, right?

In Luke Jesus doesn't feel forsaken and that the portrayal of Jesus death is different in Mark and Luke and that they're unreconcilably different These are the conclusions that Bart Ehrman and if you're a brand -new

Christian or somebody who doesn't know anything about the Bible You're really early on in your faith, or you're just uneducated in your faith.

Something like this can mess you up Right something like this can twist your head you start going

Wow And then he starts throwing out things like I said earlier about 300 to 400 thousand textual differences You know like wow, and it just messes you up, right?

but what what What I want to do is begin the dissection of these points and I think

I forget how many points I get through But it's not very many Because like I said Mark Weir really took this apart for like an hour and a half

But dr. Ehrman largely gets Luke's gospel, right? Right. He largely gets Luke's gospel, right?

But he's radically distorting Mark's gospel radically distorting it Just to make his point.

He ignores a whole bunch of other passages in Mark So let's actually go through some of these

So dr. Ehrman first says that in both Gospels Jesus is betrayed by Judas while dr.

Ehrman doesn't call out any specific differences between Mark and Luke on this point you could suppose that You know given what he said earlier that Jesus would have been in shock about the betrayal like you wouldn't have expected the betrayal

But this ignores Mark 14 18. Yeah, so Jesus actually predicted in Mark.

He predicted his betrayal later in that same passage in 20 1 Jesus confirms that he will be betrayed by one of the 12 and in verse 21 shows that he knows why so in in Mark 14 18.

Oh, I'll read it just because we're going short on time mark 14 18 It says and as they were reclining at the table and eating

Jesus said truly I say to you one of you will betray me the one who is eating with me Then they began to be sorrowful and said to him one after another is it

I He said to them it is one of the twelve one who is dipping their bread in the dish with me

For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him But woe to the man by whom the

Son of Man is betrayed. It will be better for that man if he had not been born So his betrayal was on purpose and took for the fulfillment of Scripture So he knows he's going to be betrayed and he knows why it is to fulfill

Scripture that he's being betrayed One counter -argument can be made that Jesus is expecting to be trained, but he's not expecting to actually die

Right. He's not expecting that. He's gonna be killed. Go ahead. You're gonna quote Mark 10. Oh, yeah Yes, that's next one down after this one, but but this is refuted by Mark 9 31 where Jesus clearly states that he's

Expects to be killed and will rise three days later So mark 9 31 for he was teaching his disciples and saying to them the

Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands Of men and they will kill him and when he is killed after three days, he will rise

So again, he expected to be betrayed. He knew who was gonna be gonna betray him

He knew that after he was betrayed he was gonna die and he knew he was gonna rise three days later in fulfillment of Scripture This confirms that he not only expected to be betrayed and killed but that he knew what would happen after It's also confirmed in Mark 10 45 which is an allusion to Isaiah 53 remember illusions are like it's like kind of references and 10 45 for even the

Son of Man For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many

So this shows that the emphasis of Mark is not that Jesus didn't know what was going to happen to him

But rather Jesus was the only one who knew what was going to happen to him He's the only one who knew what was going on He was the only one that knew that this was part of God's plan

Going back to Mark 14 where Jesus administers the Lord table in verse 24 When he talks about his blood being poured out

For many which is a reference to Isaiah 53 12 So mark 14 24 and 25 and he said to them.

This is my blood of The Covenant which is poured out for many truly I say to you

I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God and Isaiah 53 12 is therefore

I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with with the transgressors yet for the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors

So again bearing the sin of the many So you see here that Jesus clearly knows what's going on and why it's happening, right?

So Bart Ehrman's Argument on the first one that Jesus was shocked about what's happening.

I think we can pretty much throw that one away So dr. Ehrman second argument is that Mark's gospel was that in Mark's gospel he was silent except for two

Utterances one was in front of Pilate when he asked are you the king of the Jews? and And he he and the second one is when he called out from the cross my god my god

Why have you forsaken me? So dr. Ehrman claims the gospel say Jesus said the other things in front of Pilate or on the way to being crucified as a contradiction

So he's saying because Luke had him saying other things But Mark has him only saying those two things that these are irreconcilably contradictory

But Mark never claimed that that was all Jesus said Mark just referenced those things, right?

So saying that Jesus said these things doesn't mean he never said anything else, right? so mark 15 1 through 5 says as soon as it was morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and The whole council and they bound

Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate and Pilate asked him Are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him you have said so And the chief priests accused him of many things and Pilate at again asked him.

Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you but Jesus made no further answer that Pilate and so that Pilate was amazed

So never in Mark did it claim that Jesus said nothing but only that he offered no defense

Doesn't mean he was totally silent just means he didn't defend himself This is consistent with Luke 23 1 through 4

Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate and they began to accuse him saying we found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar and Saying that he himself is

Christ a king and Pilate asked him. Are you the king of the Jews? He answered him you have said so then

Pilate said to the chief priests in the crowd I find no guilt with this man. So that clearly reflects what's going on in Mark.

So dr Ehrman is completely distorting the story. In fact mark alludes to Isaiah 53 no less than 10 times

Right. I'm gonna read you the the I'm not gonna read you all 10 times because we'll be here all night

But in mark 9 31 mark 10 33 mark 14 10 through 11 mark 14 18 mark 14 21 mark 14 24

Mark 14 41 mark 14 42 mark 15 10 and mark 15 15 all our allusions to Isaiah 53 so clearly marks emphasis

Contrary to what dr. Herman would would lead you to believe is to see that that to see

Jesus in the context of his Isaiah 53 not as someone who's confused about what's happening to him

But someone who knows exactly what's happening to him and exactly why it's happening to him, right? So if you look at mark 14 48 through 49 and Jesus said to them

Have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me day after day?

I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me, but let the scriptures be fulfilled

Jesus clearly knows what's going on in mark 14 62 Jesus predicts that he will come in judgment over the priests causing them to tear their clothes and Because they considered his word blasphemy so in mark 14 62 and Jesus said

I Am and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven

He knew who he was. He knew why he was being crucified. He knew what the purpose was but I'm gonna stop here with this man on this argument because this was two points out of Out of seven points that we could sit here and dissect from dr.

Herman's argument But as you can see just dissecting these first two points

Dr. Herman is distorting What is said in mark for his own purposes?

And if you actually read the text and you put it in the context of what Jesus was referring to When he was talking about himself and and you look back at Isaiah 53

You can see completely that Mark's reference Mark's perspective was less historical and more

You know prophetic in in what Jesus was And what

Jesus and who Jesus was? so I'm going to Really quickly because we are a little a little bit after I can't just make one before I'm coming there

So another the other critical piece to this is is that Luke's main audience were the

Jews? yes, Mark's main audience for the Gentiles and so when

Luke was being written he knew that it was going to be brought in and dissected and while the while the gospel while those books were being read by everybody and you're talking about Somebody's who's going back and because it mark was written somewhere in in the mid 50s

AD But he was he was basically a teenager or a young man when he was remembering back

Luke was much older too and he knew what what the Jews were going to do when he when they look at this at the text that they're going to Dissect it and and trying to find some proof that it was inerrant or not

There was errors in it comparatively to what what mark was going to be doing and so hey it's there

They're actually complimentary and actually get through the truth more so than not Because of the different perspectives.

Yeah, you know So I'm gonna really quickly go through Let's see here

There's several writings from outside of Bible I have a cool infographic rather than just listing them out, but there's several writings from outside of the

Bible some Christian some non -christian authors Some were even anti -christian authors

One example is Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish historian that lived approximately 37

AD to 100 AD He wrote a 20 volume set called the antiquity antiquities of the

Jews to explain Judaism to the to the Romans Jesus is mentioned both in volume 18 and volume 20

Josephus mentioned that Jesus had done miracles was crucified by the order of Pilate and was called

The Christ by his followers who remained faithful to him Jesus is also mentioned in the

Talmud by a Roman historian and senator Tacitus I have

I'm not gonna read you the quote, but I have a quote here Where it was referenced and again talks about Pilate But there's a cool little

Infographic here that talks about a bunch of the different extra -biblical

Writers, so you got Pliny the Younger Josephus Talmud Thalleous Tacitus Barthasapien and it has some references again.

This will be in the document that you guys get as well Did I But there's also there's also prophetic evidence

No, these are just extra -biblical writers that reference So again, this is corroboration

Right of the stories of the New Testament So there's also prophetic evidence right in the

Old Testament that points to Jesus if you don't mind I'm gonna go a little bit over just to get through this Some scholars had in in the past said that the

Old Testament was modified Remember we talked about that until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found that predated Christ's birth the theory was debunked there and There are some examples

Just if you listen to the text right and you think about this in the context of who

Jesus is I think it's pretty clear. So Isaiah 714 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign behold the

Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel Isaiah 9 6 run to us a child is born to us

The Son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty God Everlasting Father Prince of Peace Micah 5 2 but you

O Bethlehem Ephra Ephrathah Whatever Who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth?

For me one who is to be a ruler in Israel who whose coming is

Whose coming forth is from old from ancient days and then concerning Jesus's ministry and death

You've got Zechariah 9 9 rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion shout aloud O daughter of Jerusalem Behold your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation

Is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt the foal of a donkey? So again remembering?

his writing into You know was a poem. Yeah Palm Sunday Then you got

Psalm 22 16 through 18 for dogs encompass me a company of evildoers doers encircle me

They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They have they stare and gloat over me they divide my garments among them and For my clothing they cast lots

Remember that was the Roman soldiers were casting lots with his clothes The clearest pop prophecy of Jesus though is

Isaiah 53 and it's an unmistakable example in verses 3 through 7 He was despised and rejected by man a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised and we esteemed him not surely he is born our griefs and carried our sorrows

Yet we esteem him stricken smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions

He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds

We are healed all All we like sheep have gone astray We have turned everyone to his own way and the

Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and he was afflicted Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that was led to the slaughter and a sheep before its shearers is silent

So he opened not his mouth So that that is, you know prophetic evidence of Jesus Christ who he is what he did

And there are other prophecies one that I thought was really cool was prophecy in Daniel Daniel lived about the 500s

BC which is before Alexander the Great who lived in about the 300s

So it's about 250 years before Alexander began his world conquest But there God gave

Daniel a glimpse of the future and this was actually important So he basically predicted

Alexander the Great's Coming so it

Daniel's prophecy predicted exactly what would happen that an empire and power would rise under a strong leader who would be suddenly cut off and Alexander died at 32.

He died pretty young And it predicted that the kingdom would be divided into four which Alexander the

Great's kingdom was divided amongst his four generals After his death, this is in Daniel 8 and 11

There are other prophecies in Daniel that predict the rise of the Roman Empire There's a lot of prophetic evidence that the what's in the

Bible is actually true And we can we have the luxury of looking back in time to actually see these things

At the time obviously it was hundreds of years before those things happened There was no way to know but looking back in time you can actually see those

So I'm gonna play one last video for you guys, but in conclusion We'll conclude with this one last video, but I think it's safe to say that our faith is well founded based on the volume of evidence that we have based off of the historical accuracy of what we have

Based off the fact that we have so many books both in the Old and New Testament Written by so many different authors over an enormous amount of time

That all have a cohesive story that point directly at Jesus Christ Right.

I mean that that alone looking at how this stuff is woven together God's you know man's rejection of God and God's plan to reconcile man back to himself

Right that that is incredible to see when you think about the scope of time and just the amount of evidence we have it's pretty

Incredible so there's this one sort of video that that I think sums it up, which is pretty cool

This is Doug Wilson. His eschatology is a little messed up He's a he's a preterist

But the rest of his stuff is pretty rock -solid and this talks about this is actually

Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan's channel talking about the

Bible so Doug Wilson played this on his he's got a podcast I thought it was it was fitting to end on Jumping Jehoshaphat The general experience if categories just just dissolve especially fundamental ones

The culture is dissolving because the culture is a structure of category, that's what it is so and in fact culture is a strap culture is a structure of category that we all share

So we see things the same way, that's why we can talk I mean not exactly the same way because then we'd have nothing to talk about but Roughly speaking we have a bedrock of agreement

That's the Bible by the way That's my first day man, by the way, that's the

Bible by the way But he's not just well, he's saying way more than then we might think he's saying So I just walked through the

Museum of the Bible in Washington. That was very cool. It's very cool museum So the structure guys with the yeah, that's what

I figured out. I mean, I just figured this out this week So it was a cool. It was cool thing to walk through because It's it's chronological.

They have one floor, which is the history of the Bible That's not exactly that it's really what it is is the history of the book

Now in many ways the first book was the Bible I mean literally because at one point there was only one book like as far as our

Western culture is concerned There's a one book and for a while Literally, there was only one book and that book was the

Bible and then before it was the Bible It was a quote, you know It was scrolls and it was writings on papyrus and but it was we were starting to aggregate written text together

And it went through all sorts of technological transformations And then it became books that everybody could buy the book everybody could buy the first one of those was the

Bible and just chime in here in the ancient world they committed their writing to scrolls and the invention of the codex our modern book where you flip pages the codex was the invention of the

Christians who Did it in order to? assemble Scripture so but he's talking about more than simply the technology of how you turn the pages and Then it became all sorts of books that everybody could buy

But all those books in some sense emerged out of that underlying book and that book itself the

Bible isn't a book It's a library. It's a collection of books and so What I figured out was partly because I was talking to my brother -in -law

Jim Keller. Who's The world's greatest chip designer and has now designed a chip

That's as powerful as the human brain, which is optimized for artificial intelligence learning, by the way

And so I talked to him about that. He said you heard of the Internet. I said, yeah, Jim I've heard he said this is way more revolutionary than that So in any case we were talking about Meaning in text because we're talking about translation and the problem of understanding text and Jim said the meaning of words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another and The postmodernists make that case that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words.

That's Wrong because well, what about rage? That's not words. And what about moving your hand?

That's not words so it's wrong, but part of its right because The meaning we derive from the verbal domain is encoded in the relationship between words in other words language as a web, you don't have a

Solitary word all by itself going back to what he said earlier in the I would want to say in the beginning was the word

The second person of the Trinity because we have the word the second person in the

Trinity We therefore have the word the library of books that we call the

Bible the 66 books That make up the Bible so we have the word then as a result of that we have the written word and then as a result of that because Christians are people of the word

They are therefore people of words. So this generates other other words.

So we are people of the book Therefore we are people of books Come visit can impress and find us publishing books for this reason for this very reason so So now then you think well, let's think about the relationship between words

Well, some words are dependent on other words. Some ideas are dependent on other ideas The more ideas are dependent on a given idea the more fundamental that idea is

By depth, that's a definition of fundamental. So now imagine you have an aggregation of texts in a civilization

You say which are the fundamental texts and the answer is the texts upon which most other texts depend

Which in other words which texts are upstream and which texts are?

Downstream which text would be at the headwaters of the Great River and which texts are

Just a mile or two down from the headwaters of the Great River and which texts are a little brook

Feeding into the Great River right before it goes into the sea. So what? we have different metaphors a

Fundament is a foundation. So fund a fundamental text would be a foundational text or the

Text that is the birth text the beginning text The aboriginal text is the one at the very beginning

And so you put Shakespeare way in there in English because so many texts are dependent on Shakespeare's Literary revelations and Milton would be in that category and Dante would be in that category at least in translation

Fundamental authors part of the Western Canon not because of the arbitrary dictates of power

But because those texts influenced more other texts and then you think about that as a hierarchy So the powers the authorities didn't crown

Milton and Shakespeare and Dante as the Pooh boss They did our authorities didn't make

Dante into something didn't make Shakespeare into something rather It was Shakespeare that made our authorities into something the the influence

The river flows downstream in other words, the river does not flow upstream

Okay with a Bible at its base, which is certainly the case Now imagine that's the entire corpus of link of linguistic production all things considered

Now, how do you understand that like literally? How do you understand that the answer is you?

Sample it by reading and listening to stories and listening to people talk you sample that whole domain

You build a low -resolution representation of that in your inside you and Then you listen and see through that So it's not possible for an unbeliever like Joe Rogan to deny the

Bible without Depending entirely on the Bible for his ability to formulate those words of denial.

And so it isn't that the Bible is true Stop right there. You think oh there he whiffed it.

No keep listening It's that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth

Which makes it way more true than just true That's a wonderful way of putting it way more true than just true

Which one So with that I just wanted to end the

Bible is way more true than true I thought that was a good that was a good way to end and this part of the series

So with that I just again I'll send you links to these videos I'll send you links to the videos where I got a lot of the information and I'll send you the actual raw text of the document

But I think that we have a firm foundation to stand on and I think that all of these three beginning

Sections of the apologetic series the faith the truth and the Bible are foundational to what we're going to launch into next

Although drew is going to give us some archaeological stuff, which is also foundational But then we're going to launch directly into the doctrines of Christianity and and so we wanted to start with a foundation to Underpin those doctrines and this was this was what we went with so with that I'll have

I've asked you before so I'm gonna ask drew to close this up in prayer Father what strikes me tonight father is that these men that are supposed experts in Debunking the

Bible know a lot more than Matt does and they know a lot more than we do in this room and They are deliberately distorting what they know to be true

Just to get across an agenda And father we're going to see more of that as the coming weeks progress

But Lord you are greater than those who would try to stand against you

Lord Father knowing that you are true knowing that the Bible is true knowing that father you have ordained

These things from the very beginning With no doubt and with clarity father

Pray father that the folks who watch these videos would be encouraged I pray that if anyone is doubting or skeptical that they would see the overwhelming amount of evidence and Turn their hearts to you father.