The New GTY Assault Bible, NA29 Due in 2021, Billy Graham, then Back to Ehrman/Licona

Alpha & Omega Ministries iconAlpha & Omega Ministries

14 views

Started off talking about the new “Preacher’s Bible” from Grace To You which I have now dubbed “The Assault Bible.” Light hearted discussion, I assure you. Then we talked about the announcement that the next editions of the NA and UBS Greek texts are due out in 2021/2022, and what that means. Then we discussed the move on the part of many to banish Billy Graham to hell (seriously). Finally, we got back to the Bart Ehrman/Mike Licona debate, focusing upon some of the key issues relating to Ehrman’s style of argumentation. Visit the store at https://doctrineandlife.co/

Comments are disabled.

00:38
And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Got a lot to get to today. It is It is yes, it is sometime in March Yeah, it looks like the 8th,
00:50
Thursday the 8th of March, there we go Can you believe how far through 2018 we already are?
00:58
No one's listening right now because you're either at the Ligonier conference or the Shepard's conference So this will all be listened to on archive out of imagine.
01:05
I'm not even sure why we're doing live feed But for all of you sad people that didn't get to go
01:13
And all of you sad people that are wishing you had the assault Bible See what happened this morning is someone tweeted from The Shepard's conference because everybody at the
01:26
Shepard's conference got this new preacher's Bible five pounds seven ounces Okay.
01:32
Now my I've got an m500 50 caliber magnum pistol. I mean that thing is a beast
01:38
What's fully loaded? It's five pounds. This thing weighs more than an m500 Okay, I mean that I've seen some little preachers that would not be able to wait
01:47
They go like this and fall straight back because it's way too heavy Just break their arm off right there in the pulpit it end up on Babylon B or something like that The Roger Rabbit Bible, yeah, that that that would be another comparison to it.
02:01
Yeah Anyway, they they tweeted I think Nick at the Shepard's conference
02:06
Tweeted a picture of a little teeny New American Standard and said this is my concealed carry
02:12
Because everyone else is lugging around this thing, which you know, hey, I think it's really cool that Someone just arrived by the way
02:21
That someone you know, you know Shepard's conference Wow give give those babies away.
02:27
Congratulations. That's great But so since they say referred to a
02:33
Concealed carry New American Standard then I referred to this new preachers Bible as as the assault
02:39
Bible, you know because we've got the assault weapons issue going on right now, and so I referred to it as the assault
02:46
Bible and Phil Johnson ended up Mentioning that From from the from the pulpit.
02:54
I hope no one took that wrong But it is it is interesting that this is happening in,
03:00
California I mean grace to you is distributing assault Bibles in, California and you cannot expect a certain level of Waving at the studio audience here.
03:13
You cannot expect a certain level of what we would call common sense in Sacramento so I'm a little concerned about what may happen to the folks grace to you once the folks in Sacramento find out that they're distributing assault
03:28
Bibles You know, I have a feeling there there could be you know Legal ramifications very very quickly for the folks.
03:37
Just better be careful. Just very careful over there. So Some folks have asked me
03:43
Well, you know, are you gonna get one, you know, and and I was offered one very kindly appreciate that and I declined only because I Haven't preached from a paper
03:54
Bible in a very long time. I have nothing against paper Bibles. I love paper I I have an
04:00
Allen New American Standard if you know the Allen brand Top top level top level.
04:08
Okay, and I love I love buying paper Bibles for other folks And there's some great makers out there ever been to evangelicalbible .com.
04:16
Oh goodness. You can go pour there so fast You could be out on the street, but have the best Bible around while you're out there
04:22
Hope it can keep you warm But so I already have really really really really really nice paper
04:29
Bibles. I mean look, you know, we've got you know, our Our friend get you know bound this one for me and it's got the
04:38
I love this I love the the you know, the the yap that sort of covers the whole thing, you know, and and you know
04:45
This is a beautiful American Standard here, you know, and and so I have
04:51
Really nice paper Bibles. I don't I don't preach from them And the reason is
04:57
I didn't bring it in here, but I have a twelve point nine inch iPad
05:02
Pro With fonts yay big I can put that thing on the pulpit at PR BC I could fall into the baptistry and still read my notes from the baptistery.
05:13
Okay, I mean it's That's how big it is and If you are a speaker, then you know that when you do and I I don't move around as much
05:26
At PR BC as I do it a lot of other places we don't have a whole lot of acreage to move around up there anyways, but You've got to be able to find your place pretty quickly when you're getting back and That iPad
05:40
Pro is perfect for that I mean, it's just I even posted a screenshot of what my iPad looks like when
05:48
I'm preaching from it. And so, you know, why why take one from somebody else, you know
05:54
But I I would imagine that at the end of this Shepherd's Conference an
06:02
Enterprising wise chiropractor should set up a booth right toward the end
06:09
Because there's gonna be a lot of crooked spines now We could have a charismatic come along and and heal crooked spines
06:14
But it actually it's just be a be a waste of time You should have a chiropractor go over there and for you know, all
06:21
I had to do is charge, you know small He could make a killing because everyone is gonna be so out of out of place after dragging around that beast
06:30
For for as long as they they're gonna be dragging that that beast around so I called it the assault Bible. That's what it's
06:37
Yeah, summer summer is less he says you could have given it to me sheesh
06:46
Well, I Thought dear that I I bought you a really nice Bible. I I guess it wasn't as nice as the assault
06:53
Bible. So Well, there goes my happiness anyway
07:00
The danger of Watching your Twitter feed while you're while you're doing the program.
07:06
Anyway, I'm gonna start stay on that theme for a second a A Announcement was made
07:15
Just recently and I mean just within like yesterday or the day before That people have been asking me
07:24
I have said when the when the na28 is this the na28 or is this a 27?
07:31
This is 27. No fives. That's right. So so when na28 came out I said, you know,
07:38
I wouldn't invest too much money Because something tells me na29 won't be too far down the road
07:45
Well, it's it's gonna be a little bit down the road, but there they just announced 2021 2022 somewhere around that time frame for the next edition of The Nessie Ollin tech.
07:57
So right now it's Nessie on 28th and UBS 5 so Na28 UBS 6 is due in 2021 2022 and It's fascinating it's fascinating and frustrating for me because the specific two books that they mentioned which will have the greatest number of changes acts and mark so what that tells me is they're working on mark and That's the information
08:27
I need For my p45 project and it's not going to be available before I need to be done and that's incredibly frustrating and it is gonna limit
08:37
What I what I can do What they mean by that is there is a you know, so here's here's an
08:45
SE on 27th 28th same size So this is a manual Critical edition
08:51
Greek New Testament a lot of people look at this and they look at all the footnotes Wow, that's a lot of information, but you gotta understand this is a super super super brief summary
09:02
Right now they're working on what's called the ECM Editio Critica Mayor and That is acts
09:16
Okay came out a few months ago. That's acts and that's why they say acts because when na28 came out all the changes were in the general pistols and revelation and I revelation just general pistols, so small relatively small amount of text
09:35
Then they came out with acts so it's there. So this is telling us that the next
09:42
Element that's going to come out will be mark. And so the nest the island and the United Bible Society's texts will reflect
09:52
The changes that are made here and I remember if you're not familiar with a lot of stuff when we say changes
10:01
You know, I've given the example how here in the nestle island 27th edition in Jude 5
10:07
If I showed you Jude 5 and that's Ellen If I showed you Jude 5 and that's 27th edition
10:16
This would say the Lord delivered a people from Egypt in Jude 5 the nestle island 28 says
10:24
Jesus But what you'd see in here is while it would say courios in the main text in the footnote.
10:33
You're gonna see Jesus and the manuscripts that it's in so on so forth All that's happened in the 28th edition is the
10:40
Jesus that was in the footnote is now in the main text The Lord that was in the main text is now in the footnote It's not like they just came up with something no one ever seen before I could have dragged in here my father's nestle island text from when he took
10:53
Greek from Kenneth Wiest at Moody Bible Institute back in the 1950s and I've got his nestle island
11:00
I think it's 23rd if I recall correctly 23rd 25th, I think it's 23rd Look down at the bottom of the page there in the notes
11:07
Jesus It's not like you can't make this stuff up. The the text is gotta be the text
11:14
So when they talk about changes That's what they're talking about. So Acts introduced, you know again acts is a fairly decent sized book
11:25
There weren't all that many quote -unquote changes and what the changes are are Readings that used to be in footnotes are now in the main text and tech readings that were in the main text are now in the footnotes, it's not like They've just decided to come up with new stuff
11:41
So If it's going to be acts and mark, that means the next big set
11:46
That's gonna come out in the in the ECM, which you can't you can't carry this around Very easily, you know that type of thing
11:55
Eventually, it will all be available electronically Eventually by probably honestly toward the end of my life or it's it's at least another 20 years
12:06
I would say Before that will be fully available And even then and I'm not gonna get into this right now
12:15
The temptation is great because it's what I'm working on But even then because most of these changes are based upon utilization of what's called
12:26
CBGM coherence -based genealogical method as the databases being utilized by CBGM grow
12:35
They will immediately have to start a a revision process
12:42
And that's it and I'm just I can just hear because I was looking at something in in channel and a
12:53
Traditional text Ecclesiastical text advocate was being quoted in channel and I can just hear those types of folks going
13:02
Oh Such a naturalist so on and so can't you just ever get the text in a final form and You know, that's tradition speaking.
13:13
What we're talking about here is the wonderful I mean folks if One radical
13:22
Muslim group Buys a bomb from North Korea, and if you don't think the
13:27
North Koreans wouldn't sell it you you're nuts That's that's the real danger with this whole mess You could you could see so much of this progress not only in examination of the text of the
13:39
New Testament and and collation of manuscripts like that but medical advancements everything else man the surface level of Societal stability is very very very shallow and all that could come to a screeching halt
13:54
I mean war and famine and stuff like that Right now we have the blessing of God in Relative peace that allows this type of stuff to be pushing forward, but that could end tomorrow
14:08
So when I say 20 years from now, that's assuming That the Lord grants peace and the continuing ability to do these types of things
14:18
So but it is a blessing to have this kind of information It is not as some people say well, you can just never come to a final conclusion blah blah blah we are shedding more and more and more light and I'm sorry this traditionalism that you all want to want to want to promote cannot drag itself out of the
14:41
Very conservative Facebook forums that it thrives in and engage
14:47
Meaningfully in the marketplace of ideas really can't and that's one of my major objections to it.
14:52
So anyway One of the things real quick That is really interesting is they also mentioned
15:02
Remember I showed you the Tyndall House Creek New Testament That crossway who else crossway put out and I mentioned to you it's a little bit different because They will use
15:17
Variant spellings that were used in the ancient Manuscripts rather than the way we've standardized things today and then the order of the epistles
15:30
So there's the end of Acts and the next book is hmm
15:36
James Yeah, it's a it's a completely different order and then and so the the general epistles come before the
15:48
Pauline epistles So you go all the way through 3rd John and Then there's
15:55
Jude and what comes after Jude? Romans and so there the
16:02
Canonical order it's not that it's not that there is they've put in new books or taking books out or anything like that but the order is different and What's interesting is?
16:14
NA29 might do the same thing Which will leave you thumbing through for a while going.
16:21
Where did Romans go? That type of thing but they may do the same thing and it
16:29
Makes me wonder why you know which came first chicken or the egg here. I mean was there were there discussions that Prompted both these to do that or is it because Tyndale house did that that the guys in Munster go?
16:40
That's not a bad idea. I don't know but That's what they're talking about doing so I don't
16:49
I do not believe there's anything Inspired about the canonical order of books.
16:55
That's why I've always repudiated the misapprehension of the words from the book of Revelation Taking out the book of this prophecy.
17:04
What's the whole new testament because this is the last book in the New Testament So it's a whole thing. No, it's talking about Revelation And to try to stretch it out beyond that Is highly problematic and the order of the books we don't know the order they were written in there is there is
17:19
Absolutely, no foundation for trying to say. Well, you've got to have it in this order Even the
17:25
Jewish people did not have the order that we have the last canonical book of the
17:31
Hebrew Old Testament is second Chronicles which is why Jesus's statement that from the blood of Abel to Jeremiah who is
17:42
Zechariah son of Barakaya That's from Genesis to second Chronicles. In other words the whole
17:48
Old Testament canon He was anybody would have you know, if I said from Genesis to Revelation same thing
17:56
Jesus was saying as far as the Old Testament canon was concerned, but The order in which we have placed these books is
18:06
Primarily functional and somewhat arbitrary So if they they change that as long as they do it for two or three editions or oh after that No one's gonna care.
18:16
The question is What English translation is going to follow that It would take
18:24
It would take a English translation with some bravery
18:32
Because there would be it's one thing if it's your Greek New Testament, you know only geeks are worried too much about that anyways, but you change your
18:40
ESV and All of a sudden James is no longer where James is supposed to be and there's just gonna be a lot of folks that are gonna be jumping up and down and having tried to try doing that try doing that with the with King James You have to hire extra security at your publishing house because that's what's gonna happen anyway
19:06
Real quickly I guess I'm gonna do this just so that Rich doesn't have to waste much more of his time on this particular subject, but Evidently, we've had folks who during the program in our
19:24
YouTube channel when when we have comments open which
19:29
You know talk about Inviting, you know, I've always said the internet the you know
19:35
Comm boxes are internet ignorance aggregators and I've watched some of the comment channels
19:44
On YouTube videos I was watching and it was just astounding
19:51
Sad sadly astounding. I mean absolutely destructive of post -millennial thinking
19:57
No, things ain't getting better. No, look at this mess so Evidently bad people they're calling the office.
20:07
I had somebody in Twitter, you know doing the same thing and I'm just demanding that I go on the air and Send Billy Graham to hell
20:23
That's what I've got to do. I've got to go on the air and Send Billy Graham to hell
20:30
A Couple things most important thing is
20:36
I Don't have that power right ability or position and I am not stupid enough to Pretend that I do
20:47
That is not my role that is not my place and The older I get and the more
20:56
I see of The behavior of people Especially people who call themselves
21:03
Christians on the internet Who absolutely think that? Your faithfulness is determined not by your identification of true teaching versus false teaching
21:18
But somehow by your ability to read the hearts and minds of men and determine who's going to heaven and who's going to hell
21:26
So in other words somehow the internet has given us the ability to read minds from afar to read hearts from afar to see
21:32
People's spiritual state from afar now personally, I think
21:38
That the best indicator we have in this life of a person's spiritual state You know can be sort of brought out by what
21:45
Jesus said he who endures to the end shall be saved so in other words, there's this observation of a person's life over time and sometimes even then
21:57
What we see publicly is not what the reality is in private We only see certain things and today.
22:04
Oh my goodness with the fake news and everything else. I mean, I See stuff these days.
22:12
I see I just saw Was it was it molar that mentioned it?
22:19
Or somebody did A new editing capacity that that can't even really be detected in You know, we all joke at the we all laugh at the photoshopped pictures where you put your face on something and and People have done that to me over and over again making memes
22:42
Of me and stuff like that, but you can always sort of tell evidently they're coming up with ways of doing that where you can't
22:50
And It used to be and I think it was molar now that I think about it it used to be that visual evidence
22:59
Was considered to be that, you know, the you know, here's a here's a digital video of This guy, you know trying to break into this place.
23:07
That's X Y & Z With this new technology, it doesn't even require, you know, the the wizards in Hollywood To put you in places you've never been doing things you've never done and I've mentioned briefly in the past That I Really I think from a a
23:31
God's law perspective you're supposed to be able to face your accusers and They are supposed to swear before God and they're supposed to face you and so on so forth
23:43
I'm just simply I I I will not believe evidence brought against anyone
23:49
That is electronic in nature anymore. I just won't and I'll tell you why we already know
23:55
That there are people hacking into other people's systems There are people who've already brought up in charges where the government itself had gone into their computer systems
24:03
Hey, once you've got hold of my computer anything on that you could change anything and I'd have no way on The earth of being able to refute it and none of the rest of us almost none of the rest of us would either and so in this modern age of You know accusation and stuff like that.
24:23
I think It's wisdom to be incredibly skeptical in light of Fake news and everything that's going on the ability to create
24:38
Falsehoods Be skeptical and the nicest thing as a Christian is it's not my job
24:44
Anyways, we are never the only context the only context in Which we are called to make any type of judgment close to that is when the local church engages in discipline and Of course local church is not going to engage in discipline over the internet.
25:06
I The only people that you can discipline are the people who are members of your church
25:13
They are individuals That you know and that you live with and you can examine and you can you can all that kind of stuff.
25:21
So Anyway, that was a bit of a distraction from this issue of people absolutely demanding that I Make a public statement
25:37
Condemning Billy Graham to hell Don't have the power don't have the ability what
25:44
I can say is When you live 99 years in the public eye
25:53
That's a lot of talking and activity For people to be able to go through and to find things that they disagree with Did I disagree
26:07
With Billy Graham's eventual not original but eventual Cooperation with Roman Catholicism and What seems like a fairly fully documented
26:25
Not a humanism in the sense of embracing Roman Authority claims or Sacramentalism or anything like that, but but basically over simplifying the demands of Justifications so as to work together with Roman Catholicism, of course
26:50
Very troubling. There is the clip from his conversation with Schuller that sounds like a
27:00
Rather blatant form of inclusivism that would not be consistent with earlier statements
27:08
Is that problematic? Certainly is. once again
27:15
My position is you focus upon the teaching You refute the teaching
27:23
Primarily Positively first and foremost in other words The best way to refute a false teaching is not simply to say it's wrong here here and here and here what you first have to do is present what is true here here here and here and Then compare that with that teaching that is edifying to others that that builds people up rather than just simply tearing down There are a lot of people that think that polemics
27:49
Apologetics you tear down you tear down you tear down and just assume that people know what the truth is
27:55
Rather than taking those as opportunities to speak the truth about these things attract
28:00
God's people To that truth so they can then see why they don't want to believe these things and why they shouldn't believe these things
28:08
But to do so with the focus upon the positive presentation rather than a negative presentation
28:14
That's our suggested way of approaching things So The whole concept
28:23
I mean, you know, it does remind me a little bit of Something that someone said recently you know all the criticism about You know how you go about evangelizing
28:37
Muslims and so on so forth and Someone put up a meme at one point. It's been quoted a lot
28:43
I prefer James White's way of evangelizing Muslims to your way of not evangelizing
28:51
Muslims and In the same way we can and must examine
29:01
Public invitation systems utilization of emotional Mechanisms to cause people to make a decision for Christ Anyone like myself who's been in mega churches knows
29:17
The results of all that you have gone out on outreach visits and you've talked to people who walked the aisle shook the hand signed the card and they now live a life of Religious hypocrisy
29:32
They've been told that they have eternal security They've been told that they're right with God because of what they did that one day and they don't care about Christ They don't care about his way.
29:44
They do not they haven't carried their cross across the room. They've never picked it up and so You try
29:55
To bring the Word of God to bear to them and they just don't care they're religiously calloused.
30:02
Is that a problem? with the invitation system the utilization of emotion the the minimalization of the gospel the the removal of the call to repentance and and the full range of discipleship and of course the embracing of the entire anti -lordship system of Salvation which is so so deeply detrimental to a biblical understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ all of that Completely true definitely
30:37
This is what troubles me is that then people will go. Aha So that must mean
30:43
Billy Graham is in hell. No, it doesn't No, it doesn't. This isn't a biblical phrase, but I think it's a biblical truth and It was first said to me by now my fellow elder at that time just simply the pastor of the church
31:01
I was looking at at becoming a member of in 1989 I think My fellow elder
31:10
Don Frye is the and I'm sure he didn't come up with it himself In fact,
31:15
I think he said as someone has said But I'll never forget when he said to me God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick
31:28
God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick and The reason
31:34
I said it's a biblical truth is That every single preacher
31:40
I know of in some way shape or form is a crooked stick None of us have got it all figured out.
31:47
None of us have a perfect balance. We've all got blind spots and So if God couldn't draw a straight line with a crooked stick he'd not be drawing any straight lines at all and So once again this
32:05
And it's let's be honest, it's primarily amongst Calvinists this desire to somehow
32:14
Utilize the death of Billy Graham to I don't know what just shock people
32:20
You know just get people all you you you what what did you say? Shock people by saying well
32:30
He's in hell Because he preached a false gospel well,
32:37
I remember back in the 70s listening to Billy Graham crusades and I Heard a lot about repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ.
32:50
I heard a lot about the About the doctrine of sin. I heard
32:55
I heard a lot of gospel and Today would
33:02
I do things the way that Billy Graham did them? Probably not But once again you just have to you know,
33:09
I I sometimes worry about people that are Sitting around on their computers
33:15
Who probably haven't done probably think that posting memes on Facebook is the same thing as evangelism
33:25
Who have some type of a personal vested interest in condemning
33:31
Billy Graham to hell Rather than going, you know I'm thankful because I know people that will say
33:41
I was saved at a Billy Graham Because I know Calvinists who will say God used
33:46
Billy Graham to expose me to the gospel. I've learned More about the gospel and a proper balance to the gospel since then but that's what
33:56
God used he used a crooked stick to draw a straight line of What it meant to believe in Jesus and if we believe the
34:03
Holy Spirit's the one that applies Specifically the truth of God to our hearts to bring about regeneration Are you gonna say that it requires an absolutely perfect presentation of that?
34:14
Or can the Holy Spirit use whatever whatever he chooses to use to bring about a person's regeneration
34:22
There's this vested interest this need To Instead of be focused upon, you know, we have a better way.
34:32
We have a way that's more glorifying to God We have we have a way that that puts fewer impediments in the way of the
34:37
Holy Spirit We shouldn't want we shouldn't want to force the Holy Spirit to use a crooked stick but there's a vast difference between wanting to make sure that our that our message is straight and is in perfect accordance with the
34:54
Bible and then never never actually announcing it and never actually proclaiming it and When someone else is proclaiming the gospel
35:03
All we can do is stand back and condemn them and criticize them rather than coming alongside
35:09
Maybe even being encouraged by their zeal But then in grace showing them a better way.
35:16
Oh, you can't do that. Oh Can't no, that's mm -hmm. Can't do that. So for all of you that want me to take the role
35:27
According to John chapter 5, which I was just preaching recently. All judgment has been given to the Son. I ain't taking his place
35:35
And if you think you can shame on you I don't want to stand before the judgment as you
35:42
I say this to my fellow Calvinists Recognize where there were problems deal with those problems positively but stop being the
35:57
Holy Spirit stop being the Son of God you are not equipped free the one and you don't want to ever have to be accountable that next real quick I Mentioned last week that we were gonna start looking at some teachings from the
36:13
Christ in me group but I Only have what the one audio file and I have not been able to edit it yet to be able to start getting into it
36:22
And start looking at Well, I only have the second part of an audio file for summary,
36:27
I don't know how I got it this is so weird I've got so much stuff going on that. I don't even remember how
36:32
I got this and it's the second half of A video that I've seen and I want to actually deal with the audio part
36:42
That came just before in the video with the audio that I have
36:47
Because it was a very interesting. I think it's important to understand attempt to distinguish between Jesus and the
36:55
Christ This is what this group is doing for those of you don't remember or weren't here when I mentioned this there's a new cult group developing in South Africa and it is fascinating to be able to watch the
37:07
Genesis of a cult group in the modern era and They've only been around for four and a half years and Their theology is still evolving and changing
37:18
I sat down a year ago at Northwest with a fellow PhD student in the school of theology there and He was that's the group he's working on and I said dude, this is gonna be a little tough because You put down what they are teaching now and a year from now it's gonna be different and I was right it is and So that makes it real challenging still well worth pursuing just to document the evolution.
37:48
Well, one of their teachings is That there is a difference between Jesus and the
37:54
Christ the Christ Spirit can dwell in all of us. We have this Logos this message that we are to bring to the world.
38:01
So on so forth and Jesus just happened to be one of those
38:06
Who bore this word and so they go to Isaiah 9 6 this was their Christmas Presentation they go to Isaiah 9 6 and they try to make that distinction by saying unto us a child is born.
38:19
That's Jesus Unto us a son is giving given. That's the Christ And so I want to be able to play that and then go into the
38:26
Hebrew and demonstrate that's absurd Because it is but I don't have it yet. So I'm not putting it off Like I say,
38:36
I'm not gonna do it or something like that I just need to have all the materials that I need to be able to Put that together and it takes a long time that I haven't been able to get to it so we will we will get to that as as time allows so Wow, there's a lot of stuff already that we've we've covered the only way we could make it even wider is if we open the phones and we're not gonna do that because I need to get back to the
39:01
Bart Ehrman Michael like Kona debate So Stop looking at Twitter You're never gonna get you never gonna get to this.
39:13
That's thankfully it's at least when I'm on this camera It's it's over there when I'm at this camera it's
39:19
I can sort of glance down at it and see it a whole lot easier and So it's probably probably best if you for concentration to stay over here
39:30
For those who weren't with us on the last program a debate took place a couple weeks ago another debate
39:36
There have been a number of them between Bart Ehrman and Mike like Kona even
39:42
Bart mentioned in this debate his favorite debate with Mike like Kona was the debate where Mike like Kona had laryngitis and Could hardly say a word and therefore as Bart Ehrman said
39:51
I'd I beat him speechless Well, that's true. It was it was rough to try to listen
39:56
Listen to Mike like Kona talk like this. It was very very difficult. I felt very bad for him I forgot how many years ago it was but that was a very very very tough situation but anyways, there have been a number of debates they've done and We have as carefully and accurately as we have been able to do so more than once Attempted to delineate and to explain
40:22
The differences and apologetic methodology between how Mike like Kona will debate
40:29
Bart Ehrman or William Lane Craig debate our Bart Ehrman or anyone in this that Evidentialist camp and how someone such as myself would debate
40:37
Bart Ehrman depending on the topic and what the issues are and I started introduction last time because this this is a huge huge area and I think it's vitally important and I'm sorry
40:52
I know there are some people who feel like you know, we we just need to leave that stuff to you professionals but the problem is
41:01
That's the attitude that has resulted in the massively high rate of Deconversion of our young people when they go to university
41:13
You can't leave it to the professionals this stuff is
41:18
Going into the brains of our young people straight through this and you you can't you can't hide this
41:26
You can't hide from this. You can't live in a cave anymore if you're going to be engaged in Proclaiming the gospel in our society, you know, if you want to start a convent or something a monastery out in the mountains
41:39
And put up cell dampening towers, you know, I suppose you could do that, but we've all seen how that works historically and so we have to Be dealing with these issues and it needs to be the whole body of Christ not just the specialists
42:02
There as I've said my grandparents generation Didn't have to deal with alleged
42:11
Contradictions in the synoptic Gospels on the level that we have to today
42:17
But it's not just the Bart Ehrman's the Bart Ehrman's, you know, the Muslims borrow bar all of Bart Ehrman stuff
42:23
I've mentioned when I I debated one Muslim at Duke University years ago three of the four books he had on his desk were by Bart Ehrman and So It's not only religious people that will utilize this information
42:41
But the agnostic the atheist so and so forth and it raises I think vitally important subjects that should be a
42:49
Normal part of our conversation. I I would I'm a little concerned to be honest with you that most
42:56
Christians Can carry a Bible around even really big
43:02
Bibles heavy Bibles and never think
43:10
About asking the question Why are there differences between the Gospels now?
43:18
I realize the reason for most is that you read the Gospels concurrently.
43:23
They sort of sounded alike. You really Didn't think much about it, but we you can't duck those issues anymore
43:32
You know Bart Ehrman pretends that he's introducing us to something we've never thought about doing before and he says well the way you need to study
43:39
The Gospels you need to study them in Parallel columns. Well who invented that the
43:45
Christians did I? Mean go back to origins Hexopla and stuff like we've been doing that stuff forever in a day
43:53
Down there. Don't worry about it's down. There is my now. I don't won't worry about is my synopsis of the
43:58
Gospels Published by Christians I've mentioned a billion times before I'll stop that you can't see it.
44:05
Anyways, I'm hiding it Nine years Teaching through the synoptic
44:13
Gospels Using a parallel where you can't you can't dodge the
44:19
Differences that exist between them We've we've been doing this for a long time
44:25
And yeah, it can be uncomfortable to people. I mean there are Erman brings up the standard list and There are tough things to deal with Very tough things to deal with Trying to harmonize in a fair Historical textual consistent fashion the birth narratives the resurrection narratives it's not easy to do and There are people in the church that will just honestly tell you
44:59
I don't I don't want to think about that stuff I just want to come to church and Read my Bible and I just don't want to think about any of that kind of stuff.
45:07
Well I'm afraid the day when you could have that kind of easy
45:14
Relaxing Christianity is has passed us, you know, maybe back in the 30s or 40s or something.
45:20
You could have gotten away with that not Not so much anymore And so we started looking at an example and I didn't get it done.
45:33
I Need to do that And so I'm actually gonna back up here and I am gonna pick up the speed of Erman's comments so I'll play them at 1 .2
45:45
so we can get a little bit done a little bit faster, but Here is what we looked at last time on the program the gospel writers want to emphasize different things and The problem with thinking that they're all
45:59
Accurate is that it means that you read one of the Gospels as if it's saying the same thing as another one of the
46:05
Gospels When in fact they might be emphasizing different things based on the different stories that they've heard Okay, so, you know,
46:11
I'm almost that's almost he talked so fast. I'm gonna go back to just normal speed We talked about this last time we saw the presuppositional nature of Bart's argument specifically that They can't be accurate if they have different emphases and We point out examples of why this is just simply an incoherent position to take
46:38
I mean, it's it's a it's a presuppositional assumption of the error of the text that you're examining. It's it's unfair but there it is in his own words, and now he's going to give the example and He has used this example many times before and One of the reasons
46:58
I wanted to focus on this first rather than just starting at the beginning of his presentation We're actually spending some time looking a couple of points in Mike Licona's presentation because there's good things that he has to say
47:08
He says good things. We have Fundamental disagreements on certain things which means we're gonna end up emphasizing things differently, but he says good things
47:18
And then going through Bart's presentation. I I'm trying to sort of give you an example ahead of time an
47:25
Overarching theme in essence of what you're gonna see if you take the time to listen carefully to what
47:31
Bart Ehrman is saying here, and I sort of feel if if you if you can come to the point where you are
47:40
Comfortable hearing his objections and knowing what the answers are You're gonna be pretty comfortable with what anybody's throwing out at you as long as you can recognize the different emphases and and identify the presuppositional differences as to where they're coming from stuff like that and So here's the example he gives and I Realize there a very small number of people in the audience may remember that two or three years ago
48:08
I think coming up three years ago this summer I did a series of sermons at PRBC on the goss on the deity of Christ in the gospel of Mark and The whole reason
48:21
I did it Was so that We could address this very kind of issue because it's so common and those of you who go all the way back to what was it 2008
48:34
Was a 2008 we had the debate with John Dominic Crossan in in Seattle.
48:40
I think it was I think it was 2008 was the time frame for that Michael Fallon we remember exactly but No, it wasn't no for it's too early 2000 2008
48:54
I think anyway, we had to debate with John Dominic Crossan this came up in The cross and debate as well.
49:00
So it's not the first time we've been addressing it. But once again listen to the skill that Bart Ehrman has developed in presenting this kind of argument and Put yourself in the position of having to answer this argument before I answer the argument
49:20
What? 2005 Wow, okay 2005 so That was long time ago with John Dominic Crossan.
49:29
All right, here's his example. Let's listen in. Here's the example It has to do with Jesus demeanor going to his death
49:38
What was Jesus demeanor going to his death? What how was he approaching his own death in Mark's gospel?
49:45
Jesus is Is on trial before Pontius Pilate and he's silent
49:50
Pilate can't understand why he's silent Pilate asked him are the king of the Jews and Jesus has only two words soulegas
49:58
You say so It's all he says He's taken off to be crucified and doesn't say anything on the road to crucifixion.
50:05
He's silent the entire way He's nailed to the cross and he's silent the entire time
50:13
Both of the people being crucified with him both of the robbers being crucified with him both of them mock him in Mark's gospel and Jesus is silent doesn't say anything
50:23
You wonder what is going on here? Why is Jesus so silent? It's as if he's in shock and at the end in Mark's gospel
50:33
Jesus says the only time in the entire proceeding at the end. He finally cries out
50:39
Eloy Eloy, let my suboxonee My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?
50:46
And he dies That's it It is the most amazing account
50:56
Gripping in its pathos of a man who at the end feels forsaken by God himself and Dies on the cross as Mike has pointed out
51:09
Mark was one of the sources for Luke Luke also tells an account of Jesus going to his death basing his account on Mark But changing it in places and the changes he makes are significant, okay, so There's there's presentation
51:28
What's he's gonna go on from that say, okay Luke Jesus says all these things at the trial.
51:36
He has conversations with people as he's going to the cross He says stuff from the cross
51:42
Matthew same thing different things John totally in control and the point is
51:50
Mark has Jesus as the abandoned out of control You've left me everyone's left me that's
51:59
Mark's point Matthew says something that's contradictory Luke says some it's contradictory
52:04
John even more contradictory than the other three They're all in Contradiction with each other that's the argumentation
52:15
And he says that there's there's the example the example. So How would you respond to that?
52:24
How would you answer? that assertion Well a lot of Christians struggle
52:35
Because they haven't thought through the things we talked about last time The fact that each of the gospel authors has to be allowed to the freedom to choose what they do and do not include in their narratives based on how long they want their gospel to be
52:52
How much room they think they're going to be able to to have the context in which they think that gospel is going to be presented if you write a book and Your assumption is that You have to put everything you need to communicate to someone in the book there's not going to be an external context
53:17
That's going to be able to add to what's in the book. That's going to be a different book than a book that you write to be used in the context of the
53:27
Proclamation and teaching of a group that's going to provide the rest of the message. So if Mark assumes
53:36
That his gospel is going to be read within the context of the oral proclamation of the gospel, he doesn't have to be as Exhaustive as someone who makes the choice to try to get it all into one package
53:53
And so if Mark for example that might that might Theoretically be relevant to the longer ending of Mark and whether there is a longer ending of Mark so on and so forth
54:04
Why could Mark have ended his gospel at Mark 16 8 with the women who were afraid?
54:11
Well, if he expected it to be read within the context of the eyewitnesses That would be a perfect time for the eyewitnesses to give their own testimony of the risen
54:19
Christ And so there could have been a context that makes sense in the early church that would explain these things so a
54:29
Lot of people have not thought through Why there would be length differences why there would be focus differences
54:35
Why do why does Mark focus upon these things and Matthew's obviously focusing upon primarily
54:41
Jewish things and Luke seems to have a real interest in including women and their intersection with Jesus and their issues and and Seemingly he had interviewed a number of them and that's how they have that that position and John's coming seemingly after all the others and Possibly after almost all the original
55:03
Witnesses are gone. And so he can have the freedom to address things that they wouldn't have had the freedom to address all these things
55:12
Should be taken into consideration and it's interesting Ehrman won't allow it
55:18
Because he has a particular theory of the early church and he really doesn't allow
55:25
For any other perspective than that than his own Fundamentalists do the same thing
55:32
The fundamentalist Struggles with these things and that's where you know Bart Ehrman loves to say Well, you know
55:37
There are some Christians that say that you know The reason for this is that well Peter and how many times you know
55:44
Peter's denials and the cock crows and stuff like that. I've I've met people that actually said that Peter denied
55:51
Christ six times And because they're trying to harmonize Matthew and Luke says put them all together and I just believe whatever
55:57
Matthew says I believe it or Luke says there were 60 Niles and blah blah blah blah blah It's real easy to to mock that kind of an attitude
56:04
The irony is I'm not sure that Bart really recognizes that he still has a fundamentalist attitude himself
56:11
Because that's what he was raised in. He went to Moody Bible Institute. So he he still thinks along those lines he's dismissed it and hence won't listen to anybody even smacks in his thinking and being quote -unquote a fundamentalist, but What it to hear?
56:29
that kind of an argument is going to require you to have some knowledge of the
56:36
Gospel of Mark yourself and When we go to the
56:44
Gospel of Mark There are numerous indications numerous
56:52
Indications of The fact that this is not what Mark is intending to communicate at all.
57:02
For example Shortly before his betrayal you have the anointing that takes place and you remember
57:13
The disciples are scandalized it's such an expensive Alabaster box is broken and so on and so forth and this anointing takes place
57:21
What does Jesus say in the Gospel of Mark? He says she has anointed this for what for my burial
57:31
For my burial Jesus knows what's coming He says it's necessary for the
57:38
Son of Man to go This isn't some person that just gets caught up in the whirlwind of politics at Passover under the
57:47
Roman rule and Just finds himself Amazingly abandoned and alone on the cross
57:56
He goes there for a purpose He says that he is going to suffer these things.
58:03
He makes the prophecy he talks about the anointing as being for his burial and Isn't it fascinating?
58:12
That while he says well, you know before Pilate he's silent, but Jesus wasn't
58:19
Silent in Mark Remember he
58:25
Okay, he is in the one context that he tells us about But why wouldn't you tell us the whole story?
58:36
That is found in these words beginning at Well Verse 55 of chapter 14
58:48
Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death But they found none for many bore false witness against him
58:55
But their testimony did not agree and some stood up and bore false witness against him saying we heard him say I will destroy this
59:01
Temple that is made with hands and three days. I will build another not made with hands yet Even about this their testimony did not agree
59:09
Now it is fascinating to me by the way, just in passing to recognize that the clearest Explication of those words has found the gospel of John Not Matthew Mark and Luke so you have even here a testimony to The fact that the gospel writers are not giving you everything and then
59:27
John fills things in at a later point in time Which is exactly what you would expect and the high priest stood up in the midst and asked
59:33
Jesus Have you no answer to make what is it that these men testify against you, but he remains silent and made no answer
59:40
Again the high priest asked him. Are you the Christ the son of the
59:45
Blessed One and Jesus said not just you say and Jesus said
59:53
I am and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven and The high priest tore his garments and said what further witnesses do we need you have heard his blasphemy.
01:00:08
What is your decision? They all condemned him as deserving death and some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him saying to him prophesy and the guards received him with blows and so Here in Mark in the primitive gospel
01:00:28
Which we'll see later on Erwin's gonna argue Only in John Do you have
01:00:36
Jesus making explicit statements? Deity. Yeah, except for here in Mark 14
01:00:48
Where he conflates Psalm 110 with Daniel 7
01:00:56
Both of which were texts that the Jews of that day fully understood had to do with Divine beings at the very least.
01:01:08
I mean obviously Intertestamental Judaism has a wide variety of interpretive methodologies and mythologies and everything else going on, but both of those texts well -known psalm 110 the most cited text from the
01:01:22
Old Testament in the New Testament and One of the reasons maybe
01:01:29
Erwin has this really weird off -the -wall theory that Jesus isn't the
01:01:34
Son of Man That Jesus is talking about somebody else some eschatological figure, but it's not him
01:01:41
Which is really weird but Jesus said I am and You will see the
01:01:50
Son of Man see at the right hand of power and come with clouds of heaven and his Interpreters have no problem with what he's saying.
01:01:56
They understand it is blasphemy. They tear their clothes We don't need any more testimony.
01:02:01
You've heard the blasphemy is deserving of death How can you pretend?
01:02:07
That you are in any way shape or form Accurately representing
01:02:15
Mark's intention in presenting the attitude of Jesus at the crucifixion and skip that How do you do that, how does that work that Makes no sense to me.
01:02:29
It is Misrepresentational and so you have in Mark the prophecies
01:02:39
Determination of the Son of Man to go to the cross. You have Jesus's citation of Old Testament passages indicating his own
01:02:50
Recognition of who he is Right in the text and you can go earlier in Mark like I said did a whole series on the on the deity of Christ in the gospel of Mark and All of that skipped so that you can create a
01:03:07
Narrative filled with pathos a narrative fit and the only thing
01:03:14
He says that Jesus says
01:03:20
From the cross Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani My God my
01:03:27
God, why have you forsaken me? which of course is chapter 15 verse 34 of the gospel of Mark and We are told well here
01:03:40
Jesus right is his death. He feels abandoned and he's you know, he's he doesn't know what's going on and so he's gonna make this a contrast to then
01:03:52
Luke Matthew John the whole idea read these things and You heard him say right there at the end now
01:04:01
Luke uses Mark Well if Luke uses Mark then and then presents a completely different view of Jesus at the end
01:04:09
Then what you have to conclude? That there is no way to harmonize these things that these men were deceptively willing to fundamentally change the message of The text that they were dealing with that's what he wants to communicate to you.
01:04:29
That is the issue and so even though Luke has in front of him in Mark according to this theory
01:04:40
All of these Indications Luke's gonna come up with something else. He's going to contradict the story. That's what he wants you to hear
01:04:46
That's what he want everyone to walk out of that that hall that evening believing.
01:04:52
I can't trust What these men said? They're not eyewitnesses
01:04:59
They weren't there and they've changed the stories and once you get to that point There's no reason for you to believe in Orthodox Christian faith
01:05:08
You might as well abandon it, which is what he wants. He says I'm not interested in anyone's deconversion. I'm sorry.
01:05:14
I don't believe it I just don't believe it Now how many times have we heard our
01:05:23
Muslim friends Make the same argument now for a different reason they're not trying to create a pathos filled narrative of Jesus being out of control the
01:05:36
Muslim idea is that the citation of Psalm 22 in Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani is a statement of unbelief on Jesus's part and that therefore
01:05:51
Jesus could never have said that or if you believe he said that then you are
01:05:58
Denigrating a prophet of God or the Christian Jesus is a coward. I've heard that one said to a
01:06:04
Number of times So it's different motivation, but it's the same thing Jesus feels abandoned, but God doesn't abandon faithful people and so on and so forth
01:06:16
So when I first heard Ehrman say this, I'm just like Because any of you who watched
01:06:23
The program only a matter of weeks ago with Michael Brown where we walked through Psalm 22
01:06:31
Know what Psalm 22 is about, you know, it's deeply Messianic character its prophetic character and you know that it was one of the songs of the people of God therefore to To quote the first few words was to bring the entire
01:06:48
Psalm to mind amongst the people. I Mean I can say to anyone today
01:06:54
The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want I don't have to quote the rest of it You know what
01:07:00
I'm referring to if you don't have memorized it You can certainly go find it easily enough and much more so was that the case amongst the
01:07:07
Jews? So to quote the first line of Psalm 22 and then ignore what the rest of Psalm 22 is about is absurd
01:07:15
It's not contextual reading. It's not scholarly reading by any stretch the imagination and So as soon as I heard this while I was listening to this initially
01:07:27
I'm like That is just so easy to to refute when you allow when you quote from the trial of Jesus where he identifies himself as a son of man and and being presented before the ancient of days and he has people that worship him and stuff like that and when you contextualize
01:07:46
Psalm 22 properly and the vindication of the servant and oh Man that starts sounding too much like Matthew and Luke so we can't have that Because we already have our minds made up as Bart Ehrman does
01:08:02
He has he has invested his entire scholarly career and his spiritual life into this narrative and Then turns around says we're the biased ones
01:08:14
And the world accepts that Because as long as you're an unbeliever you you can't be biased only the believers can be biased not recognizing
01:08:22
He's a believer in a different worldview that he has a lot of investment in and so So I'm sitting here going, you know, well boy we're gonna
01:08:35
I'm gonna use this as an example, you know I'm gonna mark this and and And Someone in someone in challenges said
01:08:43
I wonder if dr. Erman is listening. I can guarantee you he is not He has no interest that much interest in What anyone says in response to him?
01:08:57
None, he could care less what I have to say Remember when we debated when
01:09:02
I when I debated Bart Ehrman in 2009 He used the same PowerPoint presentation
01:09:07
He had used the year before with Dan Wallace that still had the same misspelled words and problems in the
01:09:14
PowerPoint presentation He hadn't even edited it He hadn't googled a thing
01:09:19
I had ever written He didn't care. He simply did not care
01:09:27
So no, he's not listening He doesn't he does not have any vested interest in what the other side has to say
01:09:35
So I was sitting there going I'm gonna I'm gonna use as an example you as an example and You get into the
01:09:44
Q &A you get into the Q &A and I'm again.
01:09:50
I'm sitting here remembering where I was in the in my ride at this point and I was
01:10:02
I Had to actually go back and my iPod, you know The iPod thing has the go back 30 seconds go back 30 seconds because I was going downhill when this question started at about 32 miles per hour.
01:10:16
The wind is quite loud and I I'm sitting here going I'm trying to watch traffic and stuff like that.
01:10:23
And so I had to go back later on and to catch it and lo and behold during the
01:10:28
Q &A an audience member caught him on this and It turns out, you know
01:10:37
Bart Ehrman's a bright guy He's well read He well knew about the
01:10:44
Psalm 22 issue Listen to the level of this Response that Bart Ehrman gives on this subject um
01:10:54
In your comparison between the two accounts of Jesus's crucifixion
01:11:00
You said in one of them he felt forsaken by the father, um By crying out my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?
01:11:09
But did you consider that Psalms 22 starts out with that and given that he was a rabbi?
01:11:17
and or considered a rabbi by Most people he
01:11:23
By the end of Psalms 22 is saying how it would be People would be praising
01:11:29
God rather than feeling forsaken Why would you come to the conclusion for yeah, great question.
01:11:38
So the The the cry of dereliction as it's called is often interpreted that way that That he's quoting the first part of the psalm
01:11:48
But he wants you to think about the end of the psalm And so at the end of the psalm God intervenes and God's on his side
01:11:54
And so he feels confident in God and he expresses that confidence at the end of the and I I don't agree with that reading
01:12:01
Of it. I I of course, I mean, you know that that's a common reading of it I know about the reading but I think that it misunderstands what
01:12:08
Mark is trying to say Because I think if Mark wanted to say that Jesus was feeling confident in God He would have quoted a different part of the psalm
01:12:19
We're talking the leading English -speaking critic of New Testament Christianity and his argument is
01:12:28
I think that Mark was trying to communicate that Jesus had been
01:12:34
Abandoned by God. So in light of that, I that's that's I just can't believe that's why he's caught now
01:12:40
He would have quoted different part of the psalm Have you read Psalm 22 recently?
01:12:45
Dr. Ehrman? I'm sure you have The you know of they parted my garments cast lots pierced my hands through They wag at me they wag their head at me
01:12:58
I mean, it's like the psalmist is standing there watching a crucifixion which hadn't been invented yet Now I'm sure that bothers you because as a naturalist you can't believe in prophetic stuff it's a supernatural text
01:13:14
But this is without question one of the most
01:13:21
Messianic prophetic Texts that's describing exactly what
01:13:26
Jesus is going through right now and Mark would have quoted something else How do you start off directing someone to a psalm?
01:13:35
How would the Jews have identified a particular psalm by its beginning just as we do today? That is one of the weakest
01:13:43
I mean, I'm used to you know I've done I've done more debates and Bart Ehrman has I'm used to listening to people's voices and What I'm hearing in that voice is
01:13:53
Yeah, I don't really have a good answer for that one Yeah, that's that's a pretty strong argument against my entire construction and this was the example he even emphasized the word the this was the example that he wanted to give and so When I heard this
01:14:13
I was just like I knew he knew what this was
01:14:19
He even says yeah, that is the majority reading sure is of anybody who's going to allow for the slim possibility
01:14:29
That Matthew Mark Luke and John Fully recognizing that we need to look at the different emphases that were there
01:14:37
Will not accept the idea that that means that they're lying That you can have people that can take one core of historical reality and narrate it in four different accurate fashions
01:14:56
That is the one thing that cannot be allowed on the scholarly table in today's analysis and I've said it before if you are going to be a bold and confident witness in this day of unbelief you must demythologize scholarship
01:15:18
You must get past this idea that just because somebody has a bunch of letters after their name that that means
01:15:27
That somehow you cannot challenge their presuppositional errors of thought
01:15:35
You've got to get past that They may know more facts than you do Bart Ehrman knows a lot of facts remember remember in our debate
01:15:44
I've used an example a billion times in our debate during the Q &A this well -meaning
01:15:50
Christian guy gets up older fella and he throws the
01:15:56
Isaiah scroll softball The Isaiah scroll softball
01:16:03
How can you say there's been all these changes when they find the Isaiah scroll from Qumran?
01:16:09
It's it's a thousand years earlier than what we had in the Masoretic text and yet It's the exact same thing and now we'd have the
01:16:18
Leviticus scroll softball You know just within the past what six months six eight months ago
01:16:24
Was when the story came out about the Leviticus scroll they found which they could not unroll because of its condition
01:16:30
But they used x -ray To be able to read the inside of scrolls fascinating great
01:16:35
Since then this is gonna help us and you know, it's great to live in a day like this
01:16:41
It's wonderful when this type of technology is available But they're softballs and I knew that Bart Ehrman was just bringing the bat back
01:16:50
Ready to knock it right out of the park and there's absolutely nothing I could do about it because it's audience Q &A Because if you're gonna make that argument
01:17:00
Then you need to have also thought through why is it? that the
01:17:07
Greek Septuagint version of Jeremiah is one -third shorter Than the
01:17:13
Masoretic version of Jeremiah now there is actually an answer to that within the text of the gospel the prophecy of Jeremiah because he mentions the fact that the initial copy of his book was
01:17:26
They took it from him and tore it up in front of him. What if there had already been copies of that? What if that started a line of transmission and then he redid it with the additional things later on and now there's two different lines
01:17:37
Of transmission of two it's even mentioned in the book, but you have to be aware of that He knows these things
01:17:45
He's well aware of them But I'm sorry. I just I just have to present that as an example of a abuse of the information
01:17:58
It is very evident to me that dr. Erman has very little respect For people have any type of conservative belief.
01:18:05
And so I just don't think he thinks it's much of it He can go ahead and misrepresent us.
01:18:10
That's why when he when he talks about Harmonization of text he always presents the worst possible silly examples of it rather than sober and serious scholarly examples that he knows about He's are he's well aware of He just doesn't want to deal with them.
01:18:29
He'll give the worst examples rather than the best and That is highly problematic highly problematic
01:18:38
All right. I've got just enough time to Give you another example here real quick This is from Mike Lycona's presentation now,
01:18:51
I am going to pick this up to one point And you'll see why in just a second Here let's just listen listen to this from Mike Lycona's presentation
01:19:02
Now unlike modern pastors who have to prepare a new sermon every week Jesus was an itinerant preacher and so he was traveling and speaking to new audiences all the time
01:19:11
So perhaps he had a dozen or so sermons and he preached these same sermons over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and Then he told his disciples who had heard him preach this he said now
01:19:32
I want you guys to go out and preach the same things and I send you out by twos They could go out they could correct one another and so they went out and they taught the same things
01:19:39
They had heard countless times they taught it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and And then they returned and they
01:19:52
Jesus debriefed them and then he showed them how to adapt some of those teachings Hey when you're speaking to a Gentile audience
01:19:58
You can tweak this parable a little bit from what you do with the Jewish audience and so forth and so he illustrated this and he showed them again the same teachings over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over And then of course, he's crucified
01:20:13
Rises from the dead commissions his disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations and now for the next several decades
01:20:20
They preach the same things Over and over and you get the idea, right perhaps thousands of times
01:20:28
So Jesus's messages his teachings weren't something that he spoke of just once and then his disciples had to recall decades later now
01:20:38
Okay, I'm watching the channel The channels going crazy they're typing over and over and over YouTube doing the same thing.
01:20:50
I was watching our studio audience which By the way that our studio audience day is much prettier to look at than it normally is
01:20:58
Unfortunately, I have to look at you Somebody in YouTube wants to know who it goes both ways who
01:21:05
Rand over is Rand over and I Was just leaving
01:21:15
Bartlett Lake when he started that I was climbing as it's steep at that first part And I was I almost wanted to drive off into a cactus
01:21:24
But He was making a point and we'll never forget it. Will we I Had never heard anyone repeat the word that often in my life, but there was a reason for it
01:21:37
You'll never forget it, right? And it is something to think about there is an element of truth to be considered and that is we have a tiny little portion of The preaching of Jesus and when
01:22:00
Especially when you look at the grand themes of the kingdom when you compare parables
01:22:07
Between the synoptic Gospels mainly Matthew and Luke We do need to avoid the idea that Jesus told this story one time it is highly unlikely that that's the case
01:22:23
He probably told those stories Repeatedly and he wouldn't have told them the same way every single time and So when you go, well
01:22:32
Mark has this and Matthew has that Luke has that yeah, so I I Mean when you if Jesus ministry was three years long.
01:22:42
Do you have any idea how big? the transcript of his teaching would be I Mean think about John chapter 5.
01:22:50
He's teaching all day long. I Mean the whole day
01:22:57
Hours and hours on end if you transcribed all that it'd be huge We have this much of it and His point is
01:23:11
That what Ehrman does is Ehrman says hey, okay How many of you remember
01:23:21
What Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address in 2016 That was just a couple years ago and I don't remember what he said
01:23:32
You don't remember either and you're telling me people remembered 50 years later exactly what Jesus said So what is like Kona doing?
01:23:42
Well He is sort of presupposition ally Heading off a common objection
01:23:50
By saying well what they record was either personal conversations They themselves had which if you had a personal conversation with Barack Obama, you probably would remember what you said
01:24:02
Or The things that not only had they heard Jesus say over and over again
01:24:08
But then when they went out and preached they had repeated these things Over and over and over again in the presence of other people who had also heard these things
01:24:18
So if you start, you know innovating and going off the rails and somebody else to say wait a minute
01:24:24
We both heard that one lots of times and he didn't add that little embellishment, etc, etc, etc
01:24:29
So the point is that the oral Mechanism of this teaching provided some of its own self -correction and That the perspective that Ehrman gives that this was a story repeated repeated repeated
01:24:49
Like like the like telephone, you know the the old I guess outside the
01:24:55
United States called Chinese whispers That sounds extremely politically incorrect to me But anyways, it's called Chinese whispers where you you you whisper the thing around the circle when it comes out the other end it
01:25:06
Has nothing to do with what originally started Or is perverted in rather silly ways
01:25:13
That's Ehrman's presentation. And so what he's telling you is these gospel writers, they're not in they're not in Palestine They're not eyewitnesses
01:25:22
They're writing decades later and they're at the end of a long unreliable string of oral teaching and that's why there's all these differences and There's no way to get back to the original.
01:25:38
No one could ever know. There's no foundation for Christianity that's that's basically what his argument is and What's interesting is when
01:25:47
Ehrman responded this all he said was where is the Bible say he repeated these things In fact, that almost sounded like him didn't it?
01:25:54
I almost did a good that was fair That's a fairly decent part of it. I'm not I'm not much of an impersonator. My son's good at impersonations
01:26:01
I I don't know where he got that from because my wife's not doesn't do impersonations and I don't do impersonations Did you all did you did you hit your did you hit your you hit you so they heard that Okay.
01:26:16
All right. Do you see what I do you see what I put up with? You all I get all the time about how mean
01:26:23
I am To rich but you don't know what it's like around here. You just don't know
01:26:28
No, anyway, yeah, so anyway What was
01:26:33
I saying? Moses was in the bulrushes and what's that? Um, so His response is to go fundamentalist
01:26:45
Where is the Bible say that it's like, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He wasn't saying that there's a
01:26:51
Laicona wasn't saying there's a Bible verse that says that Jesus repeated so on and so forth what he's doing is he's
01:27:00
Observing the nature of the evidence itself, which are the four Gospels Well, and even in the early church the other
01:27:07
I mean, I think Paul's epistles give testimony to this as well and Drawing a very logical and rational and truthful conclusion that we do not have an exhaustive
01:27:19
List of sermons from Jesus and if the Apostles Felt that what they gave in the
01:27:28
Gospels was an accurate summary of Jesus's teaching Then that must mean that this was pretty much what
01:27:34
Jesus was teaching for the course of three years Which means he repeated it over and over and over again into different audiences
01:27:42
So I found his response really disingenuous and rather unscholarly
01:27:48
At that point Regarding that so there's I had a couple other things
01:27:54
Queued up here that I found rather interesting, but we'll we'll get to them as we go through the the the presentation, but can you see how a
01:28:06
Meaningful analysis of the arguments here has application way beyond just the formerly religious skeptical guy
01:28:18
This has application to a wide variety of apologetic arguments and I I wish we didn't have to deal with stuff like this, but this is the age to which we have been called to minister and That means we've got to do a lot more work
01:28:39
You know other generations had to do work in other areas You look at the early church dealing with their situation.
01:28:45
They had to focus upon things We don't have to focus upon. Well, this is where we are. It's what we got to deal with So we got to deal with so hopefully that is useful to you
01:28:53
We will continue with that and so much more on the next edition of the dividing line
01:28:58
Lord willing And I don't fall off a mountain this weekend. So because I am gonna be writing down one fairly quickly, so If the