Ehrman/Licona Resurrection Discussion on Unbelievable

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

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

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

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

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

James White. Welcome to the Dividing Line.

I had a really cool sound effect there, but it didn't work. Let's try it again. You've got mail. Yes, we've got mail.

Mail, and I got mail. I want to start off, I normally don't see this stuff, but this fellow sent this certified, let me check this.

Yes, certified mail. He sent one copy. I think you misread that, it's certifiable.

The person who sent this is certifiable. Certified mail to both the

Post Office Box for the ministry, as well as to the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. And it says, the

Commonwealth of Global Israel, with a trademark next to it. It's a post office box in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I've just always figured Green Bay is the center of all biblical prophecy. It's made out to me, and to my fellow elder, via imageofthebeast at http://666 .aomin

.org. I actually tried to bring that up, and guess what? Even Google can't find it. Which obviously is part of the great cosmic conspiracy anyways.

Regarding the days of vengeance and the time of Jacob's trouble, nature's

God, a more perfect union versus Israel's God, the Abrahamic covenant, the whore of great

Babylon, wicked Israel and her sister, treacherous Judah, the mount of the congregation, James White, and the cost of true discipleship.

There's a picture of me on here and stuff. Even Pastor Fry got on this, this is good. Mr. White, as well as staff, all associates, elders, directors, trustees, entire congregation, and membership.

Well, you're staff here, and you're a member at PRBC, so you get this twice.

Reprove me should I be in error, but the blasphemous names associated with the end -time false church that is described in scripture include

Campus Crusade for Christ, Grace to You, the

Master's Seminary, Alpha and Omega Ministries, etc. This repugnant merchandising of Jesus is judged profane.

These are of those who would dismiss, if not murder, the prophets and saints of Christ, the

Most High God of Israel. To those who claim falsely a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, they may fool the congregation, but Mr.

White, who died, rose, and put you in charge? This office in Christian ministry requires compliance, sincerely, and here is the part.

Here is the signature, folks. I'm going to read it all for you. Michael Tatosky, J.

Michael Tatosky, descendant of Joseph, son of Israel, Prime Minister under Egypt. The Increaser who stands against the

Antichrist Empire, whose mark is in the sky. Holder of the birthright to the whole house of Israel, 1

Chronicles 5, 1 -2. Chief Prince, Defender of God's remnant, the Survivors of Jacob, Daniel 12, 1 -13.

Chosen by God Himself, the uncompromising, unchanging, angry deity of the Holy Bible, Servant of the

King, Christ Himself, the Lord God of Salvation, and Faithful God of my fathers. That is the signature of J.

Michael Tatosky of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now evidently, 16 years ago, 16 years ago,

Mr. Tatosky accosted

John MacArthur in the parking lot at Grace Church. Because part of what he sends out in this thing, and what did this cost,

I wonder? I mean, there's a number of things, it doesn't show, but I just hope it's not public money he's going to fund this kind of stuff.

He sends out in this thing, which has all sorts of other weirdness in it, a photocopy of a letter dated

March 24, 1995, John MacArthur Jr. It's on his letterhead. This is a trophy for this man.

You need to understand. And if he ever finds out about this program, as I said, he will be burning CDs of this and sending it out in the future, which will make the packages even heavier and more expensive.

Dear Sir, this is John MacArthur to J. Michael Tatosky. Dear Sir, we met the other day in the parking lot at the

Master's College, and I expressed to you that I would respond to your material. I read through it and found it difficult to react, since I don't have any idea what you're saying.

Obviously, you're concerned about the state of America and the Church, but it's quite impossible to figure out specifically what your issues are.

Maybe that's why people aren't responding to your zeal. Throwing everybody in the same bag further complicates any clarity. Apparently, you're just mad at everybody, with the lack of discrimination, which leads you to conclude that the only person who's left is you.

That kind of attitude always comes from someone who's not only deep into the sin of pride, but probably deep into a lot of other sins.

You have obviously exalted yourself, and I wonder if your private life is not filled with iniquity. I'm going to pray that the

Lord will press you to conviction and clarity in his truth. I don't intend to respond to your material any further, although I certainly would welcome your repentance, should the

Lord produce that in your heart. Yours to the Master, John MacArthur. I couldn't have said any better myself, but did you wish to comment?

You weren't going to show that to me, were you? Oh, I never do. You get that? So you're telling me that...

You've got mail. We do that all the time. We do, all the time. But some,

I've got to admit, is mildly entertaining. A number of years ago. You've got mail. I'm thinking around 2001, 2002.

This might be the same fellow as it's now occurred to me. I don't know, I've forgotten his name.

This person at the time did not know what the internet was and he just kept sending me these about half inch thick folders and certified mail.

So I had to stand in line at the post office and sign for these things. Isn't that fun?

Yes, that was fun. Especially back then when Christmas time you have to stand for an hour.

Oh sure, yeah. So what they were were letters to you, R .C.

Sproul, John MacArthur, a number of other, I think D. James Kennedy, a number of different names. And all charging you with all kinds of sins and da da da da.

This individual was convening a trial. Really? I missed it.

I missed it. Were these like subpoenas or something? Spiritual subpoenas? Like I said, it was clearly his copier was getting a workout.

Oh, I bet. Or somebody's copier was. You know how sometimes the copier, the image shifts a little bit.

You get a lot of that. You fill in the blank with your name, stuff like that. And after a few months of going through this,

I started going to the counter and writing refused and handing it back to the guy and it was going back. This still continued.

Really? And so one day I decided, I got one of these things and I decided to sign for it.

I took it home and I got on the internet and did some research and I found the guy's phone number.

Oh. Made a phone call and I was none too happy. And a fellow by this individual's name answered the phone.

Sounded rather elderly. And I basically read him the riot act.

I remember this now. I'm sick and tired of this. You're going to stop sending me this stuff. If you don't,

I'm going to start filing charges against you through the mail system. Okay, I've refused your stuff.

I don't know why you don't get the message. The elderly gentleman said, I believe you're actually looking for in his name,

Junior. Ah. And I said, is the individual at home?

And he said, yes. Could you explain to me what's going on? So, okay, this is dad, elderly dad and he's still living at home.

Oh, of course. Okay. Oh, yeah. Put two and two together there. Oh, we get that all the time.

So I explained to dad, this is what's going on with your son and what he's been doing.

And it's my understanding. With your photocopier probably. Joan McArthur, you know,

R .C. Sproul and a number of other individuals are getting these things of this supposed.

And their representatives are standing in line in post office boxes as well. Yes. And the gentleman, very nice man, said,

I'm sorry. I will take care of it. I'll take care of this. Never heard from the individual again.

So this is what that kind of reminds me of. You actually had told me that story once. And so, you know what?

You've got mail. We do get mail and we get it often. I just couldn't believe it.

Fry almost didn't give it to me. And then I wasn't overly surprised that a second copy came to the post office box.

But we get mail. And you know what? We also get mentioned on the internet.

I mentioned this in a blog post on Sunday. And we're going to get to some very, very important stuff later today.

I'm not giving out the phone number right now because, honestly, it's going to take all this program and probably all the next just to review this.

I want to listen to and review the Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona encounter on Unbelievable this past weekend.

And I think, again, it's extremely important to examine apologetic methodology. And very few things illustrate the differences in apologetic methodology like these encounters.

And so that's what we're going to be doing the rest of the program. And I'm also going to be someone, again, someone who helps with the administrative resource list.

Just gave me Paul Copan's new book, Is God a Moral Monster? on Kindle. And I'll be recording that and listening to that over the next week or so as I ride because I found the

Unbelievable program where he was on to be very interesting as well. And the whole issue of theodicy and the issue of God's justice, again, extremely important.

I learned a lot from listening to that Unbelievable program. There were a couple of interesting items

I had not thought of that I did learn from, but I was also troubled by a number of the other statements that were made.

So we'll be listening to those things. I have a queue of books a mile long.

My Kindle is working overtime right now. I finally learned, by the way, TechnoGeekNote here real quick before I read this

George Bryson thing, TechnoGeekNote. I don't know why I didn't think of this, but if you recall the

TechnoGeek blog article I put up about a month ago or so, one of the things I should have mentioned in that, and I just started doing it myself,

Kindle has the ability to read at different rates. Obviously, if you want to record as quickly as possible, you put it on fast.

Now, that won't work on an iPod if you've got it on faster. That's too fast. That gets into the chipmunk stage.

But I noticed that the fast on the iPod and the fast on the Kindle are about the same.

So you might have to stop once in a while, like I did this morning, and switch from faster to normal to listen to a

Kindle recording that you did it faster. But you can get it to record faster.

I just recorded an entire Larry Hurtado book in five hours, basically, by having the

Kindle read it at a faster rate of speed. And that will actually give me a good idea of exactly how long it's going to take to listen to the whole thing while writing.

So keep that in mind. And yesterday something really exciting happened.

My life has been fulfilled. The new version 1 .2

of the iOS for Accordance. In other words, Accordance's iPhone app.

iPhone and iPod apps. iPad as well.

Version 1 .2 came out, and it will now sync with your Accordance on your Mac. Which means everything

I have in Accordance, including for the first time, all the

Nestle All and BiblioHebraicus Duicartensia textual critical data. In other words, all the textual variant information I now have on my little iPod

Touch and on my iPad. So when I'm out in London or wherever I am, as long as I've got my little iPod

Touch, I now have all the textual critical data from the NA27, the BiblioHebraicus Duicartensia, the

Gottingen Septogen, and the CNTTS. I've got it all available to me electronically to carry with me all the time now.

And just imagine how many volumes of print books you would have to carry to have that kind of information available to you.

And I can have that on an iPod Touch, 64GB iPod Touch. Amazing that that is actually available.

So that's really exciting. Okay. I was directed Saturday night,

Sunday morning, I forget which one it was, to an article, I don't see a date on it, as to when this was posted, but it's on the

Calvary Chapel Theology website, which is run by good old George Bryson.

Now we have, you know, I've debated George, and that debate is available for anybody to watch.

In fact, one of my most watched YouTube videos is my closing statement from that debate.

I don't know how many thousands of views of that. Well, you can't forget the Read My Book debate either. Well, of course, that's right.

We have the Read My Book debate from the Bible Answer Man broadcast as well. So we have debated

George, and we've done it in writing, we've done it on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, we've done it in live at the

Anaheim Vineyard, is where that took place. And we also reviewed a talk that George gave about,

I don't know, two and a half, three years ago now, somewhere around there, to Calvary Chapel pastors.

Because, you see, George Bryson is the Calvary Chapel expert on Calvinism. He is the go -to man.

Now, the very fact that they need a go -to man illustrates the truthfulness of what I've been saying for a long time now. I have said over and over and over again that as long as Calvary Chapel keeps,

Calvary Chapel leadership, keeps telling people, read and study the Bible, and then at the same time ignores what the

Bible says about the doctrines of grace, they will continue to create Calvinists. And as soon as I said that, and I said that,

I started saying that quite some time ago, but especially over the past couple of years, as I have been traveling, and I do a lot of traveling, and talking to people after, you know, during breaks and conferences and things like that,

I have a large number of people come up to me. And here's, three times in Minneapolis, three times in Minneapolis, this happened at the

Psalm 119 conference. Some will come up to me, here's the standard conversation, you know, I've heard you say a number of times in the dividing line that Calvary Chapel produces a lot of Calvinists.

Because they tell people to read their Bibles, believe all the Bible has to say, but they don't deal with what the

Bible says about the doctrines of grace. Well, that's me. Now, their individual stories will vary.

Some are still at Calvary Chapel, most are not. But, I cannot tell you how many times,

I mean, this is becoming a regular event as I go out and speak. And I've had people write to me, we've had people call this program and talk about this.

It just, it happens a lot. And, you know, it seems to me that you wouldn't have to have a go -to guy like George Bryson to talk about Calvinism if this wasn't happening in other

Calvary Chapels too. We know the Calvary Chapel leadership has taken a purposeful, open, public, anti -Calvinistic stance.

That does not mean that everybody in Calvary Chapels is anti -Calvinistic. But the leadership has certainly taken that position.

We've seen that in the, I remember in, a little over two years ago now, we had the little back and forth with Brian Broderson and people like that.

Their utter inability to respond to 1 John 5 .1. They even brought in the head of Veritas Theological Seminary, which is sort of now the

Calvary Chapel Seminary, which, by the way, like Southern Evangelical Seminary, neither one is

ATS -accredited. Just I'd mentioned that in passing. Even though I am a little bit disturbed.

If you go on Southern Evangelicals' website, they say that they are fully accredited.

But they're actually associate members of ATS. Let me read you from the ATS website.

ats .edu .about .pages .memberschools .aspx Associate members are not accredited, but have met the requirements for associate membership as set forth in the

ATS bylaws and procedures. They're not accredited. I went through the accreditation process with Golden Gate here in Phoenix.

I know what it takes and the amount of money that invests and how many books you have to have and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

I've lived in both sides of that world and it bothered me a little bit. They're fully accredited since 2006.

But according to this, I looked up the list and they are on the, there's about, I don't know, a dozen schools, including the

Irshon Graduate School, which is the one that's Pentecostal school in St. Louis that are quote, associate members.

But according to this, not accredited. That bothers me. If your school is not accredited,

Columbia Evangelical Seminary does not claim to be accredited, never has, has always been upfront about that. Says, this is how we do education.

This is our philosophy. If you're not accredited, don't claim you are. That's all there is to it.

I don't think accreditation makes for scholarship. In fact, these days, it normally is something you have to overcome.

But the point is, don't claim that you are if you're not. And that sort of bothers me.

But anyhow, going back to Calvary Chapel, remember they brought in the head of Veritas and tried to respond to 1

John 5, 1. And we pointed out they didn't really respond to 1 John 5, 1. And we had that going back and forth for a little while.

And so they're well aware of what we're, well, anyways, I need to get to this article or we'll never get to the rest of this stuff.

I was pointed to, here's what the article says. Why Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel produced so many Calvinists, parentheses,

James White, parentheses, or why James White and his Calvinist friends did not win many, if any, non -Christians to Christ, George Bryson.

Oh, well, nothing like, as if George has any knowledge of these things, but gives you an idea of where George is coming from.

James White produced a radio program in which he suggested that Calvary Chapel produces a lot of Calvinists. Actually, I've produced numerous webcasts where I have not only said that, but we've had people have called in who were former

Calvary Chapel folks who have said that. I seriously doubt the Calvary Chapel is much of a stepping stone to Calvinism.

Certainly not to the degree that James White wishes it were. A more important question is, why James White and the

Calvinism that he claims is, quote, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, end quote, win so few, if any, non -Christians to Christ through a proclamation of the

Calvinist gospel, question mark. Now, of course, I have said that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, and I believe that the gospel is thoroughly reformed.

But George has never been big on accuracy. When we went through his presentation, we just kept documenting error after error.

He's just not a good thinker. He's very easily distracted, and remember, he didn't really even understood what monergism and synergism meant when we had our debate in 2001 and he came up with a new meaning for that.

And that's because he comes out of this anti -scholarship, you know, you don't have to really worry about, you know, crossing the

Ts and dotting the Is and learning biblical languages stuff, you know, sort of the Dave Hunt, you know, you

Greek elitist type mindset. And so, you know, it's just sort of natural that he misses things.

And what he misses here is this idea that evidently, here's how he puts it.

Let me see the hands of all of those of you who came to Christ after and as a result of hearing the five points of Calvinism.

According to James, that is the true gospel, that is the true gospel is Calvinism, explained in the five points of Calvinism.

Is it not so? I am sorry, but I cannot see those hands. Was it the third point that says that Christ may not have died for you or your mother that moved you not to respond to faith in Christ?

So what you have here is, it's almost like he's going backwards. He's not even nearly as close to providing a meaningful response as he at least once tried to be.

This sounds like desperation to me. It sounds very defensive. Oh no, we're not losing anybody to Calvinism.

No, and so let me straw man Calvinism a lot for you. This is a clear demonstration that they are losing folks and they know it.

And this is a further attempt to try to scare people away from even listening to what

Reformed folks are saying. No one has said that the proclamation of the gospel is repeating the five points of Calvinism, nobody.

And every Calvinist knows that. So when you get to the point where you are so far away from the truth that you're not even trying to reach the people you're talking about, you're so into a straw man caricature, that doesn't say much for your truthfulness.

It doesn't say much for your honesty. It certainly says that your arguments have pretty much failed and you're now running on something else.

And again, despite how many times he's been corrected, I don't think he listens to the corrections.

So I guess we can't really count all of them, but was it the third point that says that Christ may not have died for you or your mother that moved you not to respond to in faith to Christ?

It's this horribly written by the way, fill the typos, George, you know, I make typos too, but it's because I'm typing too fast.

You might want to go back and look at this, fix it up a little bit. But so in other words, unless you believe in universal atonement, unless you believe a sacrifice of Christ that actually does not save anybody, but only makes men all men savable, then you're putting up a barrier to someone coming to faith in Christ, which of course, if you understood the preceding points in man's total depravity, you wouldn't actually go there anyways.

And of course, if you understood the system that this man thinks he's an expert on, then you would understand that your actual objection is to unconditional election, not to particular redemption at that point.

But again, it's this kind of, you know, this should strike us as odd since the

Calvinist gospel claims to be the only true gospel. It should also strike us as a bit strange that the only gospel that is winning the lost of faith in Christ is what

James White and many of his Calvinist friends call a false gospel. Let us make sure we under this.

I think it's supposed to be understand this, but Stan got lost. The only true gospel, i .e.

the five points of Calvinism seems wholly ineffective or useless for winning the lost of the true savior while the false gospel preached in Calvary chapel type churches are winning the lost to the true

Christ in rather large numbers. As if the inconsistent message that is being preached there is allegedly a false gospel.

I think we know why James White and other Calvinists are always trying to get a foot in the door of a Calvary chapel. Yeah, I'm always.

That was the funny part of all this is he's trying to make it look like I'm trying to, I'm seeking out

Calvary chapel folks. George, it's your folks that are seeking me out. It's your folks who read the

Bible and they realize your answers are childish. They don't make sense.

You are skipping so much of the testimony of the word of God, George, they see that. And all your bluster cannot stop them.

It must be frustrating to be in that position. I understand it's gotta be rough, but man, to put something like this out on the web, it's embarrassing.

It makes sense to me, James White is much more committed to proselytizing the saved, i .e. saved non -Calvinists that he finds in large numbers in churches like the

Calvary chapel churches, than wasting his valuable time trying to win the lost with what seems to be an impotent

Calvinist gospel. James does not appear to be very effective, if at all, at winning the lost to Christ because Calvinism does not provide him with what he needs to win them with, namely a gospel the lost can actually respond to while they are still lost.

I know that all the truly great evangelists are Calvinists, just no one, K -N -O -W, it should be

N -O, George, no one, it's N -O, no one seems to have met any of them for the last few hundred years, something must be in the water that Calvinists are drinking today.

Now that is just so inane, that it makes you wonder why is he responding like this?

I mean, I don't think I had mentioned him in quite some time. Again, I'm not sure exactly when this was posted, maybe it's new,

I don't know. And so he goes on to there, but just to let you know, we linked to that, you can read it for yourself.

And if you understand what the issues are, you're left going, why on earth is a man in the leadership of Calvary Chapel writing with such dishonesty, such shallow argumentation?

You really do wonder. You've got mail. Yeah, we get a lot of mail, and including stuff mentioned on the web like that.

Interesting stuff indeed. All right, there's that stuff, we need to get that out of the way.

Now we need to get to the important stuff, and that is there was a fascinating conversation that took place, and I get to use my new sound program.

I bought this really nice sound program about a year and a half ago. Just could never, you've all heard me struggling with it, just a little bit.

I found one for a third, a fourth of the cost, and it is so much easier to use.

I'm so happy with it. It's so much easier to find stuff in it, and it's great. Anyway, I'm going to use that today on the unbelievable radio broadcast of 16

April, 2011. Mike Licona, who is the Apologetics Coordinator at the

North American Mission Board, and Research Professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary, author of the new book in regards to the resurrection of Jesus.

The Resurrection of Jesus, a New Historiographical Approach, IVP Academic 2010, big book.

Mike Licona has engaged Bart Ehrman a number of times. You may recall,

I don't remember how long ago it was now, we played portions of the debate between Shabir Ali and Mike Licona.

That took place shortly after the Passion of the Christ movie came out, if that helps you to remember some of the content of that particular discussion.

And they were on Unbelievable this past Saturday. Bart was in studio,

Mike was on an ISDN line out of a radio station in Atlanta. Sounded really good, real strong connection there.

Sounded like he was in studio, so that made it a whole lot better than if he had been on the phone and stuff like that. So that was good.

But once again, we have a situation where I, on the resurrection of Christ, historical information on the resurrection of Christ, things like that, you know,

Mike has really made his mark. And I think he makes a number of good points in this conversation.

But we once again have the apologetic methodology issue right in the front of us as we listen to this debate.

What we will hear over and over again is the limitation that is enforced upon us when we have a methodology that basically says to us that history is sufficient to establish the existence of the miraculous.

And I don't agree with a lot of things that Bart Ehrman said, but the fact of the matter is, he really sees through this methodology, really does.

And so I think we really need to listen to this. We need to understand what the issues are, because as I said, many of the things that Mike Licona says, very true, very important, but, but, but when they are joined with an apologetic methodology that in essence seeks to, well, it seems to be embarrassed by 1

Corinthians chapter one. It seeks to, it's embarrassed. At the end of this debate,

Mike Licona is sitting there saying, look, the history says that the best answer for the historical information around the resurrection of Christ is that he was raised from the dead.

As to who raised him, I'm willing to allow the question mark to stand.

And I just sit back and go, what? Even Bart Ehrman sits back and go, what?

When someone can put me and Bart Ehrman on the same side of an argument, that tells us something.

That tells, once again, I was, I was climbing out from underneath one of the underpasses on the canal when

I hear Bart Ehrman saying, you do not, and I'm yelling, you do not at the exact same time.

I'm just, it must be a funny thing. Some of the, some of the joggers and stuff, they all have stuff in their ears.

They don't hear me coming anyways, but if there were one that was running that wasn't listening to an iPod, they would probably go, what is that guy talking about?

He's weird. But it's an interesting thing. So we're going to listen to this and we're not going to get it done today, but we're going to get started on it because, again, this is why we do this program.

You know, everybody, you know, Justin on the Unbelievable, the program that gets you thinking. Yeah, we do the same thing, but we do it a little bit differently.

We can't bring all the people in and many of the people wouldn't come in here because I'm in here anyways. And Justin brought that up the last time.

Why do people respond to you? Well, it's because I talk about these things and I'm willing to say, you know,

Mike, love ya. Lord bless ya. You're a brother in the Lord, but do you hear what you're saying, brother?

You do not leave that as a question mark. I'm sorry. It's just, you just, oh, come on.

Really? No, you don't. Come on. And we'll explain why as we listen to this.

Let's start listening. I cut out the introduction stuff where, you know, Bart's talking about being raised as an evangelical and Mike's talking about being raised as an evangelical.

We cut all that stuff out. Let's get to the real issues here. And remember, the primary presentation that Mike makes here is very much the same presentation that's been made famous by William Lane Craig.

And so that's why this is really, really important stuff. Premier Christian Radio.

Get into today's topic then. Mike, perhaps we'll turn first of all to the book you've written,

The Resurrection of Jesus, A New Historiographical Approach. Does this kind of bring into what

I've heard you talk about before, as it were, the minimal facts approach to proving, if you like, that the resurrection is a reasonable way of sort of, if you like, making the case for the various elements that we find in history about the resurrection?

Well, anyone who studies the past, we begin to realize that there are certain events that are better attested than others.

That's just the way the game works. And so what we call minimal facts or historical bedrock are those facts that are so strongly evidenced that they are virtually beyond dispute and that indeed, virtually, a virtual universal consensus of scholars who specialize in this subject regard them as historical facts.

Now, catch that. If you've not heard the William Lane Craig genre of defense of the resurrection, this is what you need to hear.

And it is interesting. There are these allegedly indisputable facts that there is a consensus of scholars that agree to.

Now, I get really, really nervous when I hear the Christian faith being grounded upon the consensus of scholarship, because not only do we hear that used against us all the time in other areas, but guess what, folks?

The consensus of scholarship changes very quickly. Now, notice he said, of those who specialize in the study of this area.

There's going to be a fascinating exchange later on between Ehrman and him about how you determine who these people are.

But one thing I have noticed is the actual number of facts has decreased only over the past decade or so.

And what Ehrman's going to do right here is Mike's going to make his point and then

Ehrman's going to say, well, you sound like you're presenting three facts there. It used to be four. I think I've heard presentations with five.

Now it's down to three. Ehrman's going to say, all you've got is one. And he's right. He's exactly right.

And he's going to minimize that down and then say, and by the way, the vast majority of the people you're talking about are Christians. And so this quote unquote scholarly consensus, remember, what makes this useful in debating

Bart Ehrman is Bart Ehrman uses the authoritative consensus argument all the time. And he is the consensus.

He gets to define consensus in his own mind, which is even worse. But is this where we have to ground our arguments?

Or is there something far better is the question. So whether one's an agnostic like Bart or an atheist or a

Jew or a liberal conservative Christian, they would all be persuaded that these things are facts.

They're called historical bedrock because any reconstruction of the past is going to have to be founded upon or built upon these virtually undisputable facts.

When we come to these then regarding the fate of Jesus, the relevant historical bedrock would be things such as Jesus' death by crucifixion.

The secondly, shortly after his death, a number of his followers had experiences that they were convinced were appearances of the risen

Jesus who appeared to them personally and that these experiences occurred in both individual and in group settings.

And number three, that there was an enemy of the church named Paul, who likewise had an experience that he was convinced was an appearance of the risen

Jesus to him. And this radically transformed his life from a persecutor of the church to one of its most able defenders.

Again, almost everyone who studies the subject agrees on these three facts. So that's what we would refer to as the historical bedrock.

The real question that remains then is what do you do with these facts? And that leads to method.

And as you say, as far as you're concerned, these three facts are uncontroversial in terms of the majority of scholars accept them.

And so in that sense, are they in some way free from bias or is the danger of bias when you come to how you interpret those facts,

I suppose? Well, there's always gonna be bias. I'm gonna be biased in them in so far as I want to use them to show that Jesus rose from the dead.

Others are gonna be biased and want to try to explain them in another way, such as the appearances as hallucinations, because they don't want the resurrection to happen.

So we're all kind of biased in different ways. It's just when you have a heterogeneous consensus of scholars, that is people of all different worldview backgrounds who agree on these facts, even though you have the biases, they're still arriving at these facts.

So it's like Bart said a moment ago. A heterogeneous consensus of scholars.

Write that down. The idea is all these different worldviews, so they've got different biases, but they all come to these same facts.

But of course, the question is how many facts are there and how do you interpret those facts? And he's an agnostic.

He had problem with the biblical narratives because of contradictions. He said that in the resurrection narratives, well, that becomes irrelevant when we're talking about these three facts because even he would acknowledge the three things that I mentioned.

Now, catch that, folks, because this is the method that William Lane Craig and Mike Lycon and others use to get around having to deal with the issues in the resurrection narratives.

This is the, let's keep the atheists from being able to attack the inerrancy of the resurrection narratives by saying, well, these are facts that people who don't believe in inerrancy all believe and they're undisputed.

And so we don't have to worry about the spiritual nature of the foundation of these facts. So my first problem right off the bat here, folks, is

I believe the resurrection took place in history. It took place in ancient history.

There's not going to be anything in ancient history that disproves the resurrection, but any application of naturalistic historiography is going to be limited in what it can say about miracles in history.

That's why you have to challenge the naturalistic practice of historical research.

And that's going to come up. It's going to clearly come up. And unfortunately, there is a hesitation on the part of Christians to go, hey, we don't do history the way you do history.

We believe that history is the unfolding of God's purposes. So we don't just simply kick him out of the realm.

You see, that doesn't allow you to, you know, do the cross -disciplinary, be respected by people who are rebelling against God thing.

And so there's an embarrassment about that. And that's a problem. As virtually 100 % of all scholars would acknowledge them.

Go ahead, Bob. Do you agree with those three facts? Well, yeah, it's very interesting. And, you know,

I think, by the way, I found out something about Bart Ehrman. He doesn't say, um, or uh, like I do.

His, give me a second to think through here line is it's very interesting. Did you catch that?

Listen throughout this, go back, listen to my debate with him. It's very interesting. Is a, just a phrase that he uses.

It doesn't actually mean that it's interesting. What he's doing is he's getting his thoughts in line by saying it's very interesting. Mike's onto something here.

There are these three things. I think on the whole, scholars would agree with them.

The one thing there might be disagreement on is his second category of visions that we have solid evidence for there being visions not only to individuals, but also to groups.

I'm not sure that every historian would agree with that. But the thing I want to say about these three things is that the, it sounds like he's,

Mike is building a case that he's got three indisputable facts that he's going to build on in order to lead to a view of the resurrection.

But in fact, these three facts aren't really three facts related to the resurrection. When you look at the list of three, there's only one thing that relates to the resurrection.

The fact that Jesus died is irrelevant to the question of the resurrection, only to the extent that, of course, to be raised, he would have had to die.

But everybody dies. And so it isn't really germane to the question of whether he was raised.

So there can't, there's no evidence, no evidentiary value to saying

Jesus died if what you want to know is whether he was raised. Now, even Justin's going to take that apart immediately.

He's going to point out that in his, with people like Shabir Ali, you have to demonstrate that Jesus died before you can get to the resurrection.

Because if he says Jesus didn't actually die, he's swooned. So it is relevant at that point.

But Ehrman's right in the sense that Jesus' death is not in and of itself evidentiary material regarding resurrection.

It's just a necessary precondition to a discussion, a meaningful discussion of a physical resurrection.

And the second and third points are not two separate points. They're the same point, which is that people after Jesus' death claimed that they saw him alive afterwards.

Paul was one of those people. So my point is that somebody shouldn't think, well, we have these three indisputable facts and therefore we're going to build a case that's based not just on one thing, but on three things.

Because in fact, we don't have three things, we have one thing. I mean, going to whether Jesus died is relevant to resurrection.

I mean, if Mike was engaging with a Muslim apologist, it may be relevant because someone like Shabir Ali claims that Jesus didn't die on the cross, he merely swooned and therefore any account of him resurrecting is actually just him kind of being resuscitated in some way.

I mean, is it not important to establish that Jesus really did die? Because that then says whatever did happen, if there was a resurrection, it involved coming back to life, not coming out of it.

Yes, no, that's a good point. But Mike's point is not that he died on the cross, his point was that he died. And so everybody who,

I think every historian agrees that if Jesus lived, he also died. And so if that's the point, then there's no evidentiary value to it.

If the point is that he died on the cross, then that's not an indisputable fact because there are historians who have disputed it.

Mike. And there's a problem with grounding your presentation on consensus and all scholars and all the rest of that stuff because the fact of the matter is there is somebody who has taken the opposite position on anything.

That's what makes Robert Price so difficult to deal with is, I mean, he and Ehrman would be constantly arguing because Barth takes it as a given that Paul existed, that Jesus existed, et cetera, et cetera.

And remember, once he got challenged on that, on the, remember on the

Infidel Guy show? I didn't find his defense overly good. It was more, hey,

I've been doing this longer than you have, kid, quit arguing with me type thing. What do you make of Barth kind of whittling down your points here to say there's only really one pertinent point?

Well, first, I would agree with you, Justin, that the death is important because just as you said with Shabir Ali and Muslims who deny

Jesus' death because of what the Quran says, but it also answers others with the age -old apparent death theory, the swoon theory, some would call it, that Jesus survived his crucifixion.

So that's why I include it in there. You don't have a resurrection, of course, without death. But even more importantly, historians don't just take and isolate a single fact.

When we consider hypotheses and what occurred in the past, we gather as much data as possible.

And we look at the relevant historical bedrock, is what I would call it here. I mean, there's other historical bedrock in terms of what we know about Jesus, that he was a

Jewish itinerant preacher who mainly preached around in Judea.

And he performed what he and his followers thought were miracles and exorcisms.

And he claimed to be God's eschatological agent chosen to usher in his kingdom, that he has a special relationship with God.

Virtually all historical Jesus scholars acknowledge that minimal kind of stuff. But when I'm talking about the relevant historical bedrock, you can't just focus on a couple of those things.

We want to take everything. And a good hypothesis has to account for all of the facts, not just a couple of different things.

So that's all I'm saying here. These are just trying to have a springboard for the discussion and say,

OK, well, here are some things that virtually all scholars who study the subject, a heterogeneous universal consensus of scholarship, agree upon.

Now, let's try to find the best explanation for these things. And when we do this using the criteria typically employed by professional historians, the resurrection hypothesis wins.

And it wins big. Yeah, I don't think it wins big. But I want to insist that your first point is not that Jesus died.

Your point is that Jesus died on the cross. And that's an important distinction.

That itself is not a piece of evidence about resurrection. Your other two points are a piece of evidence about resurrection, namely that people saw him alive afterwards.

But you're making two points out of one point. Well, it's my case for the resurrection of Jesus.

But you're right, Bart. I agree with you. Technically speaking, Jesus' death is not evidence for his resurrection.

Right. And the other two points are one point. So really, you've got one piece of evidence that you're going to start with, which is that after Jesus died, people claimed to see him alive afterwards.

Now, that's important. Because why do you say there are three pieces? You say four pieces.

Three pieces of evidence. Because you're trying to convince people. And what

Ermin is pointing out is, well, his death isn't actually evidence. I think it's extremely important in the method and the context of the crucifixion.

But again, it's primarily in response to apparent death, swoon, stuff.

So with that aside, dividing the eyewitnesses of resurrection into parts, well,

I think you can make a case that the friends of Jesus, who were with him beforehand, their testimony to his resurrection has a different evidentiary value than the enemies of Jesus, like a

Paul, who is converted by his vision of Jesus. There's an appropriate differentiation of that evidence.

But what Ermin's saying is, yeah, but it's all in the same category. And that is, what you're saying is, people claimed to have seen him after he was dead.

And so I hear both sides of that point. And again, once you base all this on just what scholars are saying, scholars will always divide stuff up or simplify or whatever, depending on how they want to do things.

Well, I'd also say it did happen in individual and in group settings. I mean, you do have the earliest, the very earliest report we have in 1

Corinthians 15, gives us three post -resurrection appearances. I'm sure you'd agree that this is oral tradition that can be traced back to the earliest.

No, my point is simply that you're trying to list three things that all historians agree on. And once you start talking about group appearances, that's not something all historians agree on.

Well, I'd challenge you to give me a couple of scholars who have specialized in the subject who deny that these things occurred.

Now, notice, give me some scholars who have specialized in the subject.

Now, that's interesting. Yeah, because that's not all. Now, we're sort of abandoning the universal consensus by limiting our audience and things like that.

But there are so many, quote unquote, scholars that comment on things that are not experts on it at all. I mean, what's

Bart Ehrman's doctoral dissertation? How many people in my audience have read Bart Ehrman's doctoral dissertation?

How many did it while in Alaska? How many of you own it?

Well, I did all those things. And Bart Ehrman is an expert in the

Proto -Alexandrian text type, in particular, Egyptian writers, specifically.

That's what his dissertation was in. So would Mike say, well, you don't really count in this area?

Because that's not where your dissertation was in. That's not what your expertise is in. Since then, he's edited a lot of books where he recreates a lot of Gnostic writings.

Well, OK, but that's not necessarily directly relevant to being an expert in the

Proto -Alexandrian text type either. So you can shut off realms of data and input into a debate pretty easily by just saying, well, you have to be an expert in this area.

But who gets to determine that is part of the question. That Dom Crosson says that the groups did not experience them.

I don't think that's the case. I have half a dozen friends who will tell you this who are all New Testament scholars.

Now, that's not an answer to what Mike Licono is asking. I know a little something about John Dominick Crosson.

Spent a lot of hours listening to that man speaking. And he just dodged Mike's question.

I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question, because it almost sounded like what Ehrman was saying was that John Dominick Crosson denies that there were group experiences of visions of Christ.

And I don't recall that either. But it was interesting. Ehrman found a way around it without actually answering that question.

What he should have said is, I'll have to ask him, or I don't know, or something along those lines. But instead, he gives us nameless friends, because he is the very essence of the

Academy, who agree with his point rather than actually answering what

Mike Licono was asking. Have they written on the subject? Can we go to then the question of - Now, you probably didn't catch that.

But Mike's response to Ehrman's statement was, have they written on the subject?

That now becomes the authoritative - And who gets to determine, when someone has written on something, who gets to determine the value of what they've written?

I mean, I've read some stuff by scholars. They wrote on the subject. It was absolutely a waste of paper.

But they wrote on the subject. And if you write, write for whom?

You see, so many of these people say, well, but if it's not in a peer -reviewed journal. Well, there's all sorts of perspectives.

It would never appear in a peer -reviewed journal, because it depends on who's in charge of peer -reviewed journals, what they consider to be worthy of publishing, and all the rest.

I mean, we see this so much in the intelligent design stuff. And the same kind of prejudice exists elsewhere as well.

Just got to keep these things in mind. Okay, let's take some of these, you know, group experiences of Christ's resurrection that are described.

Mike, just pinpoint a few verses that you believe, you know, support the case for the fact that people experienced something that you believe, obviously, was the risen

Christ. Presumably, Barthes says if they experienced anything, it was some kind of a vision. What are these?

And why, for you, are they, you know, not controversial as far as there being reliable evidence that people experienced visitations of the risen

Christ? Well, the text that most scholars appeal to today, that is pretty much the crux of this, the whole thing, is 1

Corinthians 15, verses three through eight. And virtually all scholars who are commenting and writing on this, and they agree that this is pre -Pauline tradition that Paul received from, at a very early date, from sources he deemed reliable.

Now, I just have to ask the question, what if that consensus changes? Is the resurrection over with at that point?

What if the consensus, and this consensus, in what? In the West, United States, in Europe, in South Korea?

Where do you get to define this consensus? That's what

I've always wondered. What's the evidentiary evidence of a consensus in the long run?

Most probably the Jerusalem apostles. When did he receive it? We can only speculate. We really don't know when precisely he received this particular oral tradition, but we know that he knew

Jesus' disciples, the Jerusalem apostles. He met with them on several occasions. He was traveling with other

Jerusalem leadership. And so he probably received them from them. In here, this oral tradition talks not only about the death and burial of Jesus, but also his resurrection and a number of post -resurrection appearances.

To Peter, to James, to whom Paul had met with on at least two occasions that we know of.

To Paul himself, another post -resurrection appearance to an individual. There were three group appearances, such as to the 12, to the more than 500 at one time, and to all the apostles.

So this is very early tradition. It goes back to the eyewitnesses. In that sense, for those who say, well, these claims are just legendary, you know, built up over time.

You're saying, no, this stuff is too early. It could easily have been contradicted. This for you is good evidence because it's so close to the events that they're being claimed that these things really did happen.

I don't think that necessarily rules out legend. I mean, Lucian, in the passing of Peregrinus, talks about how legend developed just within a few moments after the guy's suicide.

So, and he started the legend himself, he said. That is, Lucian did. So it can start quickly, but I think you're right there,

Justin, in saying, you know, the eyewitnesses are alive. Now let me stop it right there because we're almost out of time, but that is an incredibly important point because there were so many

Christian apologists who only a matter of years ago were arguing on the basis of a single study that legend cannot arise that fast.

And because they repeated that, and I've heard within the past year, I've heard certain apologists use that argument.

Legend takes decades to arise. Now you just heard Mike Licona say, no, it can take minutes.

Okay, so if your faith was built up by an argument before that said, well, legend couldn't arise, but over decades, and now you hear

Mike Licona saying, actually, it can be minutes, what are you going to do?

See, my problem here, folks, is the strength of the arguments for Christianity are not based upon the consensus of scholars.

It's based upon the consistency of divine truth revealed in scripture, made alive in the hearts of men and women by the spirit of God.

Is it true historically? Yes, we will be able to defend that, but you do not place its lifeblood in that realm.

Once you do, it will now die the death of a thousand qualifications.

And you will always have to be rebuilding your apologetic to match the new consensus as it comes into play.

We only got 12 minutes and 29 seconds into the file. We've got 41 minutes left to go, but we will continue on the next

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