Ehrman/Evans Debate

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 9 7 3 4 6 0 2 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James White.

Opening Banter, Technical Setup, and Today’s Debate Preparation

And greetings along the dividing line. I have absolutely nothing in my headset. So that's okay. I Don't know what you all are doing in there, but you know, there's too many switches and lights and stuff like that.

In there, I guess. Yes, it did because it was so loud it was like rattling the the books in my.

Never supposed to change that. Not ever ever ever. You change the other knob, but never that one. Okay, so.

Anyway, I Will I will adjust whatever I need to adjust be able to work in my office there, sir. That's just all there is to it. Don't have it blasting. So the windows bouncing around, you know. Like like like one of those lowriders is driving by outside going Anyway 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 we actually have a phone call or online.

But we have no idea who it is because certain people I'm gotten around to it. But anyways, I Want to start with something a little lighter today. I have been preparing for the debate with Robert Price and one of the things I want to do is Read a lot of background material because Robert Price is the Bible geek and He has sort of an encyclopedic memory of all sorts of information about the backgrounds the Bible and things like that.

So one of the I mentioned this last time on to play this for you. One of the one of the books I've been listening to is on the Gnostic Gospels listening to it as I've mentioned If I have it really even even if I only have it in my libra nix library I can now put that on my my pod as well.

It's not as fast as if it's in Kindle, but anyway, I can listen to books while writing and so I was listening to the Gnostic Gospels and I thought you all would like to hear what it sounds like when a an Amazon Kindle attempts to speak in tongues I just just give you an idea.

This will give you about 30 seconds worth of the book itself and It's the I think it's a secret gospel of the Egyptians as I recall or the seer gospel the Great Spirit Seth something like that anyway.

You'll get an idea of the character of the book and then there is ecstatic utterances involved in the In the text and I wasn't expecting this, okay. So this just sort of caught me off guard. But here's here's one of the things I'm listening to as I'm riding along.

This is from the Gnostic Gospels As read by an Amazon Kindle. Oh, it would help. There we go, all right, here we go, are we have we got me potted up in here Got me potted up. Okay. Thank you.

Corruptions. So from the great invisible spirit came three powers 42 three realms of eight that the father conceives from within none in silence with four thought the father the mother and the child. The father.

The first realm of eight ten for whose sake the child that is three times male came forth upward. Incorruptibility life. Eternal will mind for knowledge. The androgynous father the mother. The second power or realm of eight the mother the virgin Barbello 11 epitoshia chameleon even who is over heaven carved 12 adonai 13 the inexplicable power the ineffable mother 14.

She shone and appeared and she took pleasure in the father of the silent silence the child. The third power or realm of eight the child of the silent silence the crown of the silent silence the glory of The father.

The virtue of the 43 mother from within the child produces seven powers of great light. Which are the seven vowels. 15. And the word completes them. These are the three powers or three realms of eight that the father conceived from within through four thought.

The father conceived them there the realm of doxamodon dumb it in doxamodon appeared. The eternal realm of eternal realms with thrones in it powers around it and glories and incorruptions. The father of the great light who came forth in silence as the great realm of doxamodon in which the triple male 16 child rests.

The throne of its glory was established in it and the Undisclosed name is inscribed on it on the tablet. The word the father of the light of all who came from silence and rests in Silence whose 44 name is in an invisible symbol a hidden invisible mystery came forth.

I Am a and so. The three powers offer praise to the great invisible unnameable ineffable virgin spirit. You know I put one of our collars on hold right after you started that. And this poor fellow probably really wonders.

What the world he's called in the middle.

Yeah. Mm-hmm well you know I'm not sure that the folks at Amazon had ever really considered How the Kindle would handle speaking in tongues because no no interpretation was provided, so it's not. There you go that's I'm not sure which is weirder the tongue-speaking or the stuff that came before and after it those are pretty much equally equally odd but yes believe it or not there was three hours of not of the tongue-speaking that bothered with that, but three hours to listen to the just that one book on the Gnostic Gospels and As I've been telling a lot of my friends.

I read and listen to all this bad stuff, so you don't have to that's. That's our job here. Ah yes. The Apollonius of Tyana, I'm looking at my Apollonius stuff here. Let's see an hour and a half three hours 41 sets four hours five five ten plus for another 420 so that was seven half at least.

No nine nine and a half hours. Yeah, that's that's that's a lot of time to be listening to Apollonius of Tyana, but I did. All in preparation for the debate coming up in barely over a month now in Tampa, Florida.

Very much looking forward to that now. I have some other material to get to but we have a number of phone callers already, so let's go ahead and and Go with with those and let's start with Roland hi Roland.

Providence, Divine Decree, and How God Makes People Differ

Hey, how you doing good? I've got a question a follow-up question from your debate with Dr.. Brown. I got Interacted with him on his blog and I asked him a question regarding 1st Corinthians 4 7 who make a theater different from another.

And I know you kind of touched on it when you were talking about the 7 ,000, and why were they reserved right and Basically he told me that I don't even speak of salvation. Which I question to you is did you agree that is a valid question.

Had any experience with any Armenian answering this question again? I got kind of frustrated because I couldn't get a straight answer. I didn't feel and I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, but I really didn't tell I can't what um.

I don't recall if I have ever mentioned it in passing it is a text. I know that we use a lot of our church. And so it might have been just in in passing that I made some reference to who makes us to differ but if we don't have a view of of God's decree as being behind why I have the gifts that I have or Live where I live when I lived in the situation. I live and an overarching purpose in God's mind for all of these things then.

You know you're just not going to see significance in in many of these things. And and I I don't I don't I don't want to answer for somebody else. I don't know how an Armenian would answer the question.

I would assume an Armenian would say something along the lines of well God gives us general Gifts and abilities, and then we you know use them from there, but even From the perspective that it sounded for a moment like dr. Brown was going with a Molinus perspective.

That even causes more problems because from the Molinus perspective middle knowledge is based upon. What knowing these what these free creatures would do in any given situation and yet? That's not determined by God's decree so.

The answer for them would be well. No one made them to differ. I Guess but I don't know how they would answer that question. I can't I can't Answer that question. I can't answer the question how they'd answer the questions with that way.

I was just wondering if you've ever had anyone actually answer the question because like I said well.

And and I I think that this again goes back to what lies behind the entirety of The the narrative of what God is doing in Scripture. Is that it's not that God is looking around and goes ah here's here's Pharaoh.

Here's this guy. I can he's dishonorable. I know he's gonna be dishonorable, so I'll make him Pharaoh So that I can fulfill my purposes in him, but I wouldn't make an honorable guy that way. See so so it's it.

The idea that God's looking around and he's trying to make things work out. But he only has limited resources to work with he has to find dishonorable people to put in the position of Pharaoh or something like that which in Which in essence is what I heard Michael saying when we talked about that particular text.

It's just a completely different way of looking at things then to see God's sovereign decree as that which forms a very fabric of time and It really does I think end up impacting how we answer all sorts of questions and.

So yeah, I I would agree with you I I don't know how they would they would answer that and it's a good question to ask. Okay, thank you Roland. All right. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Salvation in the Old Testament by Faith in the Covenant of Grace

Dabney. Hello Dabney. Oh, yes, sir I Sound like the phone you're on is is is really muffled. So you have to enunciate rather clearly because it sounds Sounds that's all right. I just just letting you know so that I don't misunderstand you're saying.

Uh-huh, but I did have one quick question for you. Me and my teachers have been talking about this because the more I've Exposed my view on ask you. Exactly how people to believe in or what exactly did they have to do?

In order to be.

Saved in the Old Testament. Well, actually as we had discussed at that time I think the discussion in In Romans explains this fairly straight in a fairly straightforward fashion specifically. The the assertion that God had looked over.

This is in verse versus 25 26 of Romans chapter 3. Whom God put for his propitiation by his blood received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present times that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus and then it goes on to discuss Abraham as the the very paradigm of this faith in Romans chapter 4 and how is Abraham justified before God.

Well, he is justified before God. By his faith not by his works for if Abraham was justified by works He has something to boast about but not before God Romans 4 2 for what does the scripture say Abram believed God?

And it was kind to him as righteousness. So if Abram becomes the the paradigm That explains how it is that we are saved then that remains the case to this day now. What was the object of his faith? Well, it was not as as full an object as we have in the sense of the amount of revelation but acceptance of the promises of Yahweh.

Is true what required the work of the Holy Spirit to create that true and living faith just as acceptances of the promise of Yahweh that we accept in his Incarnation the second person the Trinity becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ outpouring the Holy Spirit.

We are still believing the promises of Yahweh. Except they're just much more explicit and much fuller in there in our understanding of what they are. But the promises have have remained the same and the God that is That is being believed in by faith has remained the same as well and so there is this this covenant of grace that extends from from beginning through to the end and while there are different ways in which God deals with his people during that period of time and I Avoid the use of the term dispensation at that point.

But while there are different ways in which God deals as people The means by which people are saved is the same all the way through and that is by faith. In the one covenant God who has revealed himself now then in the intertestamental period in the incarnation of Christ is death by resurrection the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so If if Abraham can be the paradigm then there has to be saving faith there.

And then that becomes the the foundation of saying well This is always how God's people have been the true Israelites have always been those who've had that circumcised heart Etc. Etc. It wasn't just the the Genetic relationship to Abraham that that never saved anyone.

It was that faith relationship has always been central. Well Jesus said that Abraham rejoiced to see his day saw it and was glad I don't know that I think that that has to do with the encounter of Abraham with with Jehovah by the Oaks of Mamre, but There are some who have felt that there have been very explicit Promises of the coming of the Messiah.

I'm a little bit uncomfortable because I can't prove that I have to go with with what the text provides to me and and the Promises that are provided in Genesis 12 and 15. There is a promise that all the nations would be blessed through his seed but whether that is as explicit as what we would have in a Micah or a Psalm 2 or Psalm 22 or Isaiah and things like that.

I think there is a growing Clarity to the revelation of the coming of the Messiah just as there is anything else and so I I mean you can go all the way back to the prote evangelium in Genesis 3 and there is the sea the woman but You know, if you if that was all you had and you didn't have the rest that revelation how explicit would that would that you know promise be I'd be very difficult to put a whole lot of Detail into that just based upon what you have in those particular early early texts.

Following up the last thing wrongly dividing the word of truth by John H. Gerstner. Would you recommend that as a read for me or no? Well Yes, but.

Just realize that if I have if I have the reputation as a Directly speaking individual shall we say John Gerstner has a much greater reputation as. What? Cuts it straight shall we say. So be prepared for straightforward language.

Not not in a Sense bad, but just very straightforward. As long as you're as long as you're ready for that then. The information would be fine. Yeah, I think it will be you know.

I'm really have been jumping off ship of the dispensational boat Over the course of the last few months and I'll be going to Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Milwaukee with my wife This Sunday night.

Well, that's great.

Dr. Gerstner will pick you up off the boat and throw you headlong into the water. Alright, thanks, Dabney. And he will. No, no two ways about it. Well some of you saw the Article that I posted last evening Where I responded to a blog post that was tweeted to me.

I had not Actually seen This particular. By the way, I wanted to make sure you could get hold of me by by Twitter as well. I forgot to mention that we taking Skype calls today. You're working on it. We are now, okay, it's a 1118 and we're ready for the Skype calls.

That's good so.

Doctor and the address would be dividing dot line dividing that line for Skype calls and.

Twitter at the doctor was 16 and I'm some of you saw the post last evening with Jim Ellis comments on it was interesting and again a Little bit later I might actually Get into a discussion of last week's big thing.

And that is the John Piper Warren situation and one of the things that I will mention is that I don't have much standing upon which to discuss it simply because. You've never heard me invited to any of those big Conferences and you probably never will.

You've never seen me at Desiring God. You've never seen me at Ligonier. You've never seen me at Shepard's conference. I think I scare people. I mean, I'm a you know, C-level speaker anyways. But Even when it's on subjects that are directly relevant to what I do and that I might have some fairly unique experience in.

You don't see the invitations come in my direction and I think there's some reasons for that. I speak fairly plainly. Not as plainly as a lot of people like to assert that I do but I speak fairly plainly and Interesting.

The Ehrman Debate, Historical Skepticism, and the Reliability of the Gospels

Well, interestingly the one of the issues that sort of relate the two together Was I. I saw Jim Ellis commentary on a a debate that had recently took place taking place at Midwestern and he made reference to a previous debate that Bart Ehrman had done it at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and his honest statement that Ehrman won both debates.

But he didn't want to name any names. Because he wanted the statement his his statements to be a little bit more shall we say Generic and usable in other situations. But what he was talking about and this is where we differ is this is where I come out and say well the debate Was this and it took place such as time.

Here's the here's the discussion of it. The debate was between Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman. It took place last Thursday at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and I managed to get hold of the sound file this morning.

I have not had a chance to listen to all of it. I was immediately taken aback when I saw the size of the file what I mean by that is the entire thing was only an hour and 26 minutes long and The first five minutes or more were all introductions and hi.

How are you doing? And da da da da da so we're taught this isn't I don't even know if you can describe this as a debate and Given that it's in regards to the reliability of the New Testament witness to Jesus.

90 minutes 80 minutes. You you can barely Provide any kind of foundational statement. This is what's making doing in-depth debates in our day a lot harder because In the past you could assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of the individuals.

It would be listening to the debate. You can't assume that anymore and So the shorter the debate gets and is this just because our society has a shorter and shorter and shorter attention span. I mean a lot of folks find attending a three three and a half hour debate just to be too exhausting.

It's just just too hard. I can't I can't listen that long. What have all of our gadgets and I love gadgets, but what have all of our gadgets done to us you know, I was sitting at a stoplight yesterday and I looked over and there's two guys in a truck and Neither one of them's looking up they're both sitting there with their BlackBerrys iPhones, whatever in their hands and they're texting folks and I know that as soon as this light changes I'm gonna take off and he's gonna be sitting there because he's not watching the light.

He's texting. He's just expecting that once he sees other vehicles moving then he can get moving. I think even our traffic moves slower. Thanks to stuff like that now but The the attention span that people have has just has just absolutely collapsed and So I did start listening to it just briefly just so I get a sense of I don't know that I've heard Craig Evans speak.

I think I did. I think he was on a program. I listened to back during the Talpiot tomb stuff. He he was interviewed at that particular point in time but I ran across a section of classic Ehrman and Since.

Well, I just wanted to play it and make some comments on it. That's what we do around here. So let's let's listen to. Just a little bit. This is only last Thursday. So this is about as fresh as you can get.

Here's some of Bart Ehrman's comments in the mail. Virgin, yeah, that's the wrong one there. Let's see and there we want to get proper introductions tonight. No, that's not we wanted to do either. It went back to where it was supposed.

It wasn't supposed to be. Let's just sort of guess here archaeologists dig to find material remains from antiquity and their digs are not based on the study of Literary texts such as the New Testament Gospels as any and as any bona fide archaeologist will tell you but historians Of course do use the Gospels as sources.

Principally as sources for knowing about the life of the historical Jesus. They have to because there are no other sources that are reliable that exist. Which leaves us with a problem since the only sources that do exist are the Gospels and they're not reliable either.

There's no doubt that the historical Jesus is the most important person in the history of Western civilization. There is no doubt of that at all in my opinion. But the unfortunate thing about Jesus is that we have such scanty documentation about his life.

Now now remember we have more documentation About what Jesus said and did than almost anyone else in antiquity at all. A political leaders world leaders anything like that. From much closer to the time period of his life than almost anyone else at all.

But you see Bart Ehrman these others have adopted this historiography that destroys history this extreme skepticism not only about the the transmission of the text but given the allegedly Huge time period between the actual events and the recording the events.

This is what I'm encountering in an even more virulent form in Robert Price, I mean Robert Price and this is gonna come up in the debate. I assure you it's gonna be my opening statement. Robert Price, I'll play the quote for you.

Maybe over the next couple weeks has said that if the gospel writers had recorded the Gospels 10 minutes After the events happened, we still couldn't know What had actually taken place. So in other words you have and this and and what what's going on is the modern student Unaware of how history has been done and unaware of the limitations of history in the sense of what comes down to us over time adopts a post enlightenment Modernistic concept of What you would need to know.

To have any knowledge of the past and in essence, it's well Hopefully CNN was there if it wasn't we can't know if We don't have video or at absolute minimum audio recording. Then there's just no way of knowing and of course what this means is we can't know anything about history.

But here's the problem if you adopt that idea, we don't know we just don't know we don't know it's a you know. It's amazing how dogmatic People who say we don't know can be when it comes to well, we do know that didn't happen.

But just think with me for just one moment about something. Did the past? Happen, I mean we can tell that there were large cities like Rome and we can tell that there were political entities and Armies and wars and literature and art and all sorts of other things.

We know history happened. So if you adopt a historiography That forces you to say well, yeah something happened. But we just don't have any clue as to what? How helpful is that? I? Mean isn't that just simply capitulating to rank skepticism and ignorance.

Something happened there is a true narrative of history. Now of course if you're a philosophical naturalist You might say well there may be a true narrative of his of history. But Since there's no Supernatural realm and Since there's no God who would want us to have true knowledge of history, then there's no way we can know.

I think it happened in history at all. You know we can talk in very broad outlines. There was clearly a Roman Empire, but really what they did and when they did it. You know we you know we've got their version, but you know the victors always change history blah blah blah blah blah blah.

And what is what is the the overarching purpose in this modern attack upon all of history itself? But to exalt us to exalt modern man and His abilities and his theories and his philosophies. There's a huge amount of modern hubris Involved in in these debates, and I'm seeing that more and more as I listen to these things.

Most people don't realize this. But Jesus is never mentioned in any Greek or Roman Non-christian source until 80 years after his death and that would be true of 99 point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of all of humanity who lived.

Millions and millions and millions of people does that mean they didn't exist. Does it mean we can't know anything about them? That's like the there's four hundred thousand textual variants. It sounds real good when you announce it with all your scholarly vim and vigor.

But what does it mean in context? There is no record of Jesus having lived in these sources in the entire first Christian century. Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian religion scholar politician philosopher or poet and.

And What does that mean? Once again, what's the who does this appeal to it appeals to the CNN age? It appeals to the people who are thinking only in that context of well. You know if there's no evidence, I mean We can't Google him or anything.

We are living in an information age we are living in an age where there's Documentation and there's records and there's Google and there's ways of finding out what almost anybody's done. That is very much an extremely modern situation.

Anyone who has done genealogical research knows this the farther back you get the scantier and scantier the records become. So those words could be said again about just about every single human being who ever lived on the planet and What's the whole purpose of saying this well because if Jesus was who he claimed to be then there should have been records.

There should have been videotapes and no why? How those are some of the questions we're gonna take a break and be right back eight seven seven seven five three three three four one listen a little bit more Bart Ehrman and Your calls on Skype as well dividing dot line and via Twitter at dr. Oakley 1689.

We'll be right back.

Why Historical Skepticism Fails as a Method

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Listen to a few comments from Bart Ehrman. I'd actually queued something up, but I'm doing this. I'm doing this from my other computer at the moment actually. Remotely just opened my thing up and for some reason it lost the point that I queued up.

But this is good stuff. Anyways, we'll see if he gets the same comments at some point. His name never occurs in a single inscription. And it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence.

Zero zip. References. Except of course that New Testament stuff. Which which even though he dates much later? There's absolutely no reason to date as late as he does. There's no reason to not believe that the earliest Materials in New Testament.

Oh, wait a minute. Those were letters. It does at Pauline epistolary stuff. Wait, just put that stuff aside. Outside of this see but the problem is the New Testament is a bunch of documents written by multiple people from multiple places at multiple times and.

So it doesn't represent just one group. It represents a whole bunch of people spread out across the Roman Empire. Letters written from Rome. Letters written from Corinth Ephesus. Hmm that would seem to be about that would seem to indicate an exceptionally wide base of Information.

I wonder why it gets dismissed. Oh. Because it's Christian and in modern-day scholarship the one thing that we can't even suggest would possibly be the case is That what the Christians have always believed about it was actually true.

The first time Jesus is mentioned in a Roman source or a Greek source is by the Roman governor of a province of Asia Minor a governor named Pliny in the year 112 80 years after Jesus death and even then Pliny doesn't even name him Jesus.

He simply refers to his name Christ in passing. That is the only reference within 80 years of Jesus death. Which makes him referenced earlier than ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of the rest of all of humanity.

Which clearly lived at that time and that's even laying aside all of the New Testament documents themselves. Jesus is mentioned two times very very briefly by the Jewish historian Josephus in the year 93 over 60 years after his death, but he's mentioned in no other Jewish source of the first century at all.

What other Jewish sources are there? See, it's real easy to make these none whatsoever. Why don't you? Explain just how vast these sources are because a lot of people figure all there's just no boy. There's a whole whole shelf worth of books from the first century from Jewish sources.

There isn't these are extremely fragmentary materials and. And So it's so easy that Ermin has become the spin Meister. He makes money from doing this look at his last book his last book is nothing but a collection of anti-christian Argumentation that's as old as the hills.

But if you're an apostate you get Paid to be an apostate. I have a question.

It seems to me that there was a little something that happened around 7 8 70 AD. You know when the Roman soldiers come in and they burn your entire town to the ground might have something to do with your litter.

Roy all the records and the yeah, you know would have an impact. Yeah. Yeah, it sort of does. But remember. Those who were at the debate.

When I debated Ermin every time I mentioned persecution in the early church People reported to me immediately even at the break during the debate. He was rolling his eyes like oh persecution now I don't know if he thought that I was trying to connect myself to the persecuted people as if he was a persecutor or something.

Which would be silly? But the reality is that persecution not only against the Jews, but especially against the Christians was an extremely relevant issue at that point in time and Especially in regards to the transmission of the text in the New Testament as well.

So yeah that all That all plays in. If you want to know about Jesus, you have to turn to Christian sources. There is no choice. The earliest Christian source is the Apostle Paul. But to the surprise of many Bible readers Paul scarcely mentions anything About Jesus words and deeds while he's living now catch catch.

The Ermin isms here because once you start taking him apart you discover he doesn't really have much to say. I'm saying that very seriously, but there's nothing new here. I told a Muslim in channel recently.

He doesn't come up with anything new. He's just retreading old stuff that I've known about for years and years and years and years. Why did you hear that to to the surprise of many Bible readers? Why?

Why would that be to the surprise of many Bible readers? Understand that I am it doesn't surprise me whatsoever that the Apostle Paul is not writing a gospel. That he's not writing a life or narrative of Jesus.

Why would he do that the very living tradition of the Church the community to which he has been joined is soaked in the stories of Jesus. What is written in the Gospels was already the common knowledge and possession of Christians.

Why would he rewrite these things it is amazing to me? When I hear these scholars, what's amazing and sad when I hear Muslims buying into it. Repeating the same stuff. Well, it doesn't seem that Paul knew almost anything about the life of Jesus.

Why would you expect him to repeat what every person who'd been in the first service he walked into and nobody ran away from at Already knew why would you do that? I? Mean if you were to look at the the books I write do I repeat everything in the New Testament?