LGBTQ Tweets, Ehrman Dividing Mark and John, Open Phones

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. We have a cold front coming through Phoenix right now, and it's probably the last time that I can wear... You know, I was sitting here saying it's the last time I'm gonna be able to wear a kuji, and I looked to my right, and what do I see but Rich, the window, clapping wildly.

Yeehaw! I mean, you know, people know that this makes me happy, but does he care? You all don't see what we endure here. The persecution, you know. Instead, I just get told that I'm the mean one. I tell you, I tell you.

But yeah, it's not even gonna make 70 today, so you know, here in Phoenix, anything in the 60s, you can actually justify wearing a sweater for us. Probably be our last shot, and so we'll... Or as you all say in other places in the world, wearing a jumper today, or a woolly.

Make sure to put on your woolly. Strange. Anyways, yes, we will try to get to the phones eventually. We have a couple things to get to. I found it interesting this morning. I received an email, not an email, a tweet from Cheryl Lyle, and it says nine hours ago, and what's interesting is she specifically followed me to tweet this message.

So you see, I see on my screen the follow notification, immediately followed by the tweet addressed to me. It says, for the sake of multi-millions worldwide, would you kindly read Kathy Baldock's book, Walking the Bridgeless Canyon?

Thanks. And then there is a tagging, evidently, of Kathy Baldock, because she's gonna get involved in this conversation. And so I looked it up, because I found that an unusual request, and I asked, asked, I asked, should I expect something other than the regular diet of ahistorical emotion-based revisionism that I have read in the dozens of other such, in the dozens of other such books?

Maybe serious Bible-based coherent reasoning and argumentation? I think that's a fair question to ask. I mean, if you're asking somebody to read an entire book, I looked it up. It's on the LGBTQI, R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z stuff, and I've read a lot of books on that subject.

I don't, maybe Michael Brown's read as many as I have. Interestingly enough, I'm not sure that Bob Gagnon reads as many of those books as I do, because he started talking about, he was examining Brownson's book and Matthew Vine's book, and he says, I'm just getting around to reading them.

I read them years ago. So, you know, Bob Gagnon focuses upon, you know, the super high-end scholarly stuff, but I've read Jewish books on the subject, and allegedly Christian books on the subject. And I haven't found a Muslim book yet, though, you know, Bassam Zawadi might be able to point me to somebody that's, because he monitors a lot of that stuff.

And that's still another fascinating area to me, that particular intersection of things. But anyway, I've read a lot of these books. And so I'm like, well, am I going to be just reading the same thing I've read before?

Or is there going to be something new here? And what's interesting is that there was then a response from the author that said, to my question, my book has never been described by a series of descriptors that you've used.

Perhaps you should read it and see for yourself. Well, what was the series of descriptors that I used? Ahistorical, emotion-based revisionism, that was one series. And then the other was serious, Bible-based coherent reasoning and argumentation was the other one.

Well, so none of those have been used? I don't know. So I responded to that by saying, okay, I've read at least two dozen pro-LGBTQ books from Vines to Lee to Brownson to Michelson to Octomire, and there was lots of others.

Found them all presuppositionally and foundationally flawed. How is yours different? And the response I got was perhaps do as I do when I want to know if a book has integrity and research and content.

I read the reviews on Amazon. Oh, I'm sorry. My response was, well, that is the last place I look for meaningful information, I assure you. Marketing is not my interest. Just asking what makes it any different than all the other revisionist material I have already examined.

I'm sorry, but I see the didn't even read the book. You just know these certain people. I mean, sometimes in the review, they'll say, I won't read the book. So Amazon reviews, last thing I would ever look at along those lines.

And so I found that strange. So Cheryl Lyle, who started all of this and clearly wanted to get this conversation going, popped in and said, Kathy speaks truth. Thank you so much for your research and passion for truth for the multi-millions worldwide who were born as LGBT.

Only the fundamentalists choose literal translations instead of contextual truth. The Bible is copies, times copies, times copies. Now, what does that mean? I mean, there's really no rational meaning to that.

What do you mean the fundamentals choose literal translations? Are you talking about the new American standard versus the NIV? What do you mean literal translations? I don't think Cheryl has any clue what she's talking about.

And then she said, the Bible is copies, times copies. It's actually copies of copies. That's the Bart Ehrman thing, to which I responded briefly. Whenever I see someone parroting the copies, times copies, times copies line, I know they have yet to even begin to hunger for truth.

Because, and then her response is, see James, you just can't accept truth. I feel terrible for you and anyone who listens to you. Bye. She started this and I'm just responding back going, do you have anything meaningful to argue here?

Elsewhere, she included a, yeah, okay. She quoted me. I'm looking at her tweets now. I also mentioned in response to her, a Bible scholar who, because she mentioned something about, yeah, here we go. And by the way, I'm desperately hungering for truth and that's why I even began this thread, but I know I will never find it with you.

I have high reputable Bible scholars I'm in dialogue with who don't think they have the truth like you do. Just think about that one for just a second. Okay. To which I responded, a Bible scholar who doesn't believe the Bible is what Jesus taught it was can only bring you confusion and disappointment.

Your statement about copies is of course false and verifiably so doesn't that concern you? And her response to that was fundamentalism and literalist. I am out of this conversation. Well, yes. Goodbye.

You are the weakest link. So I just found that whole thing rather interesting. If it was a marketing ploy, it did work as far as I did pick the book up on Audible and I got through the first three chapters on my ride today.

I get the feeling that anything related to the Christian faith is just going to be tacked on at the end because so far there's been nothing about Christian worldview or anything. The introduction sort of gave an idea of what's going on here and what's happened in this person's life.

But so far it's just been a very, very one-sided history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis and stuff like that. Something tells me it's going to be just a recooked version of Vines or Lee or whoever once we finally get to a few Bible sections a little bit later on.

So we'll see. Anyway, let's get back to part of our work here and then we'll open the phones a little bit later on and get to that. We're trying something new today. Yes, indeed. I was actually, the whole reason I've stumbled into these, he says as he drops it on the floor, it's so small.

The only reason, and you know what? This has larger thingamabobbies in the package, doesn't it? They're not in here. They must be someplace else. Oh, up there. Definitely going to need the larger ones.

This is for little teeny, teeny, tiny little ones. These are bobbles around. Anyway, I was looking for a Bluetooth range extender. For some reason, even my MacBook, even though it's less than 10 feet away, there's something about my window, the sliding glass door and the outside wall there.

I can't Bluetooth anything out there in the gym when I'm working out. It just won't get through it. So I was looking for a range extender and stumbled onto this. I started reading about latency stuff because look, folks, we've been using a 1980s vintage earbud, hardwired in for me to be able to hear what's being played and talk to people on the phone and stuff like that.

So I don't remember how long ago it was, a year and a half or so ago. I said, let's say, hey, let's use Bluetooth, man. I'm tired of this. This wire gets in the way. It looks dumb. Well, there's this thing called latency.

How long it takes for the thing to process and get it into your ear. And so I'd say something and over a second, second and a half, sometimes two seconds later, I'm hearing it. That doesn't work. So I said, forget that.

Well, I ran across this thing called, I forget what it was, but low latency stuff. So you can watch TV and listen on Bluetooth. And so we just got it today. And yeah, I can hear myself. And it's very low latency.

I can detect just a little delay, but certainly not enough to cause any problems. So we're going to try. And this is how I'll hear the callers too. So we don't know how long the batteries last. And we didn't really have a chance to, you know, charge them up all the way.

So if they die, I left the 1980s technology over there just in case we need it. So, but we're going high tech. We've got a Bluetooth thingamabobber here that we'll use. Okay. Now let's talk a little bit about, I'm going to deal with one particular assertion and really go into depth on this, but I think this is important.

This is one of Bart Ehrman's normal arguments. It's found in the debate. Let's just go ahead and listen to it and hear what he presents. And I'll pick up the speed just a little bit. Here we go. Let me move to the end of Jesus' life, his death and resurrection.

It is interesting that both the gospel of Mark and the gospel of John tell you exactly the day on which Jesus died. It was sometime around the Passover feast when Jews would celebrate the Passover, the Exodus from Egypt, by having a lamb slaughtered in the temple on the day of preparation for the Passover.

You prepare the Passover meal, which involves eating lamb that night. The lambs get slaughtered on the day of preparation, and that night is when the next day begins in Jewish reckoning. The next night is the next day.

When it gets dark, that's when the day begins in Jewish reckoning. So in all the gospels, Jesus dies sometime around there somewhere. In John's gospel, John is clear. Jesus dies on the day that they are preparing to eat the Passover, the day before the Passover meal is eaten.

Mark's gospel is also explicit. Jesus dies the day after the Passover meal is eaten. You don't need to take my word for it. Look it up. Mark chapter 14, verse 12, and then Mark chapter 15, verse 25. It's the day after the meal was eaten.

John chapter 19, verse 14. It was the day before the meal was eaten. They're explicit, both of them. But how can it be both? Now you might say, look, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I mean, you know, he died sometime around.

They're fine. Okay. But it actually matters to John and it matters to Mark. It matters to John because John is our only gospel that says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

John is the only gospel that says that. And he has Jesus killed exactly when the lambs are being killed to show that he's the Lamb of God. It matters to him when Jesus died. And it matters for Mark that Jesus died the next day.

Because for Mark, when Jesus gives his last supper, it's a Passover meal. So that the Christian, the Lord's supper is a replacement of the Passover meal. It's important to both of them when Jesus died, but he dies on different days.

They can't both be right. If you're asking, are the gospels accurate? Well, one or both of them had to get it wrong because Jesus didn't get crucified two different times. He got crucified once. There are a number of implausible things that you find in the gospel accounts of Jesus' death.

The most famous one... Okay, there's the presentation, okay? And Laicona is going to roll over on that one and go, yeah, but it's not a big deal. But yeah, John definitely has Jesus crucified on a different day.

And I'm with Ehrman. If John is doing that, that's a serious problem. There's no question about that. And there are lots of theologians who like the idea. I think that, yeah, that's what John's doing.

John's emphasizing that Jesus is the Lamb of God. There's only one problem with that. John never says that. Where in the crucifixion accounts do you have anything about, and by the way, this is when the lambs were being slaughtered and Jesus is slaughtered the same time.

That's just theologians going, oh, that would mean that, and therefore it must be what he's thinking. Well, I mentioned before that what I'm going to present to you is not anything new. And this answer to this allegation has been around for a long, long time.

Again, I forgot to grab it, but one of my textbooks in college had in the back an appendix by A .T. Robertson that went all through this and does a fine job. Just remember that when it comes to this kind of thing, in most schools today, you're simply not allowed to give the benefit of the doubt to any type of orthodoxy.

If it's been what Christians have believed in the past, you can't go there. You're not allowed to do that. You are not allowed allowed to go with anything that would allow the text of Scripture to remain consistent with itself.

It doesn't work. You're not allowed to do it. Now, what I'm going to present to you is a meaningful, consistent, I've never heard Ehrman even mention it, even try to interact with it. And to be honest with you, I don't think he ever would because to interact with it is to give it more credence or respect than I think he thinks any type of harmonization deserves.

And like I said, I think I first presented this particular thing, this particular keynote section at the Jeremiah Cry Convention in New York a number of years ago. I don't remember how many years ago now, but somebody could look it up and tell me, but it was a while back.

So Bart Ehrman makes the assertion, there is a fundamental, clear contradiction. It'll come up eventually. Hey, there is a fundamental, clear contradiction without possible explanation between the synoptics and John as to whether Jesus ate the Passover and hence upon which day he was crucified.

That is, was he crucified on 14 or 15 Nisan? Nisan being the Jewish reckoning of the month. And you just heard that presentation. He chose only a few weeks ago to make this one of his primary arguments against the accuracy.

He's saying this is an inaccuracy that cannot be explained merely on the basis of Lycona's arguments about narrative and Plutarch or anything else. This is a theologically motivated inaccuracy in history.

And from his perspective, that means that's it. He wins the debate. Okay. So let's look at the facts. The Passover lamb was slain on the afternoon of Nisan 14. And those of you who studied Jehovah's Witnesses should know that because that's when they have the memorial supper is on Nisan 14.

The Passover feast, this is important, the Passover feast unleavened bread began that day with the Passover meal that evening, the beginning of Nisan 15. Now, as Dr. Ehrman mentioned, I think one of the reasons he gets away with this is that most of us think so much in modern Western ways of thought that a day begins at midnight, not recognizing that not only do you have a difference there between the Romans and the Jews, but for the Jewish person, the day begins at sunset.

And this throws, it makes it confusing enough that you can make all sorts of accusations against the narratives. So the Passover lamb slain on the afternoon of Nisan 14. The Passover feast began that day with the Passover meal that evening, the beginning of Nisan 15.

So the Passover meal is at the very beginning of the first day because that day changes at sunset. So Nisan 14 ends at sunset, Nisan 15 begins after sunset. The synoptics all agree that on the first day of unleavened bread, Jesus sent Peter and John from Bethany to make preparation for eating the Passover meal.

So Matthew 26, 17, Mark 14, 12, Luke 22, 7, that's the same Markan passage that Ehrman made reference to just a few moments ago. And we heard that. Now, of course, if you actually believe that John wrote John, this is even more significant because you'd have to actually posit the idea that John the apostle knows writing later in history, what's in Matthew, Mark, and Luke knows they've already recorded these things.

And he's still willing to change the story that he was involved with. Now, of course, Ehrman doesn't believe John the apostle probably ever existed, or if he did, had nothing to do with the writing of the gospel that is named after him.

But you would have that issue. Clearly, in the synoptics, Jesus ate the normal Passover meal and hence was crucified on Nisan 15. So when you think about it, so you've got the Passover meal and you have the establishment of the Lord's Supper, and then you have the garden.

This is all in the nighttime. You have the betrayal. You have the overnight, but this is still all one day, remember, because the day started at sunset. You have the overnight trial. Next morning, you have the crucifixion.

In the afternoon, you have the death and the burial as the sun's going down. This is all on Nisan 15. All on Nisan 15. So they're all united with that. Many scholars, including modern and mainly conservative scholars, have concluded that John has Jesus eat the Passover on Nisan 13.

So he is crucified at the same time as the Passover lamb on Nisan 14. And that's what Ehrman is referring to. There are five relevant passages in the gospel of John to examine. Ehrman says that clearly John contradicts the synoptics.

Unfortunately, this debate, Michael Icona collapses on that, says, yep, but is this so? Let's look at some of the passages. John 13, verses 1 -3. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world of the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God.

I guess I cut it off at that point. Okay, there's verses 1 -3. It is assumed on the basis of this being before the feast of the Passover that this means it was 24 hours before, that is 13 Nisan. But this requires us to read feast of the Passover.

This is the key. This requires us to read feast of the Passover as referring only to the initial meal, not to the entire celebration, which lasted an entire week. That's what people miss. I think part of the problem here is that we, especially Western Americans, don't have multi-day holidays.

We may talk about the 12 days of Christmas, but who seriously celebrates 12 days of Christmas? When we think of the feast of the Passover, we think of a singular event, that one meal, which is just the inauguration and opening of the feast of Passover, which lasts for a week.

Instead, the text speaks of Jesus doing things during the supper, which is clearly the normal Passover meal. John would have to expect his audience to be utterly ignorant of a bunch of stuff that he assumes they're not ignorant of anywhere else in the gospel.

For people not to recognize that what's going on with the cup and the disciples reclining and what's... This is the Passover meal, but it's the Passover meal that starts the Passover feast. But John's not trying to say that.

If he's trying to differentiate, if he's trying to make this point, he would have had to have said something to differentiate this supper from the supper that everyone would have been assuming they're talking about, and that is the Passover meal that initiates the celebration.

Let's look at John 13, 27. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that because Judas had the money bag, Jesus was telling him, buy what we need or that he should give something to the poor.

So now it is assumed that the disciples would not have thought Judas was going to make preparations for the feast if the Passover meal itself was already over. Hence, this must be 13, Nisan, not 14. But there is no reason to limit the the feast to the Passover meal only, but to the entire feast of unleavened bread, which makes the statement consistent with the synoptics.

And if there is anything that we can say about modern schooling and modern way of thought, you don't want the statement, you don't want to take the position that makes the Bible consistent. You're not going to get published that way.

You want to take the position that makes the statement as inconsistent as possible. Then John 18, 28, then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning.

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. Now, does eat the Passover means simply the Paschal Supper? No. The term Passover is used eight times in John besides this instance, and each refers to the Passover festival, not simply the supper.

So each time it refers to the week-long festival, not just to one portion of that, which is the inauguration of the longer festival itself. So even when you go back in the Old Testament, you see in 2 Chronicles 30, 22, so they ate the food of the festival for how long?

Seven days. Seven days. So here you have biblical illustration and example of referring to eating the Passover for seven days. So if at any point during that time, the Jewish leaders had engaged in activity that would defile them, then they would have been concerned about this during the whole week, not just on Nisan 13, which is what people want to assume because again, they forget that Passover is a week long.

Since this comment is made early in the morning, so when the Jewish leaders make that comment about not wanting to defile themselves, that's made early in the morning, this must mean the festival and not merely the supper, which has already passed, as any impurities would pass away at sundown.

So in other words, if the idea was this is Nisan 13, the impurities are done by sundown so they could eat that evening if they wanted to. So they're talking about the festival where there would have been activities during the day that day that they would not be able to participate in until that evening.

So it can't be the simply the supper and the whole idea falls apart as you examine it in this way. Let's look at John 19, 14. Now, it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, behold, your king. Now, here's again, this is we've talked about this in the past in regards to the three days, three nights issue a number of times, but we always have new listeners.

We always have new viewers. And so we've addressed many times the question, what day of the week was Jesus crucified on? Because if you've got the prophecy, three days, three nights, we hear that very literalistically and go, that means it needs to be 72 hours, not with a smidge of difference, which again is not what any of the original writers would have been intending in the first place.

And when we see preparation of the Passover, we see the word preparation and we go, oh, that's the day that you prepare all the stuff for the Passover. So it's the Passover's next day. So it's Nisan 13 again, but this is the problem.

The very word, there is no word Friday. I mean, obviously in English, Friday would not have existed at that time. And each culture had different names for their days. And especially under the Romans, this led to the necessity to adopt sort of a almost secular or at least, if you're a Jewish person and you're using your days of the week, you still have to be able to communicate with people around you.

If you're doing business with them, whatever else it might be, you have to be able to say, I need delivery of such and such on such and such day. And you have to use terminology they're going to understand.

But the term for Friday in Greek to this day, Paraskewe, to this day is preparation. That's the name for the day. To this day, even in modern Greek, it's preparation day. And so that throws us all over the place.

It's actually a nice, accurate thing, but we read into it what they would never have read into it. And that is we hear preparation of the Passover. That means the day before the Passover where you prepare things to the Passover whenever that might fall.

No, that's not how they would have understood it. It's the Friday of Passover week. It's Friday. And all the gospels are accurately united in saying Jesus died on preparation day, Friday. I mean, it's just that's the day for Friday.

I mean, if we wanted to avoid the confusion at this point, instead of using the term preparation, we'd go ahead and render it in modern language, the Friday of the Passover week, because that's how clear it is in Greek and how clear that would have been to the original audiences.

And this is really just a place where cultural usage, language, translation throws us a curve and we get all confused and go, what day was it? What? Hey, you know, that type of thing. So this says it was about the sixth hour.

And he said to the Jews, behold, your king, preparation goes Friday. That is Friday, the Passover week. And the other thing is here, a sixth hour in whose reckoning? It does seem that the synoptic gospels use Jewish reckoning and John writing in a much later period uses Roman reckoning.

Because then there's the allegation that they have him, Jesus dying at different times. I didn't check into this. I'm not sure. So, so Ermin raising the issue of the time of Jesus's crucifixion, maybe he recognizes that that's not actually a valid argument in light of Jewish and Roman means of telling time that they actually do say the same thing.

As long as you just recognize who's using what, I'm not sure. So John 1931, since it was the day of preparation, and by the way, we'll go ahead and open the phones. Cause that'd be the next thing on the list would be your phone calls since it was, I'm sorry.

Oh, you're already answering one. Oh, but people just don't have it memorized. 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341. That is toll free. I believe. Is it not? Yes, it is. 877 -753 -3341. Since it was the day of preparation.

So in other words, since it was Friday and so the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, that Sabbath was a high day because it was the Sabbath of the Passover festival. The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and they might be taken away.

So every day of the festival was a high day, including the Sabbath of the festival. Cause it's going to be a week long. There's got to be a Sabbath in there. So it's going to be a high, a high Sabbath.

This does not mean the first day of the festival coincide with the Sabbath, which would be altering the timeline. So when you look at John, when you listen to what John says, when you allow for the feast of the Passover to be a week long and not merely the supper that inaugurates it, we see that John is in harmony with the synoptics on this matter.

We see no evidence whatsoever that John is attempting to change things to make some type of theological point. And it really makes me wonder, to be perfectly honest with you, at the people who go, yeah, yeah, sounds like, that sounds about right.

Yeah, John must just make a theological point. We can let him have a theological point, no problem. It really makes me wonder, have they ever listened to this? Have they ever noted this stuff? I can't assume it given the focus of theological education in seminaries today.

This wouldn't be a part of that focus. And even back in the eighties at Fuller, this just simply wouldn't have even been presented as an option. Really wouldn't have. Now, I spent 20 minutes on that. Could we drop that screen out of there, Rich?

Appreciate that. So I can get my computer back. All right. Let me look here. I would say, Ermin, two minutes and 39 seconds. I love Audio Notetaker. Great program. The section we played, I'm pretty certain, I played around with it there, but about two minutes and 39 seconds in length.

I spent more than 20 minutes responding to it fairly, honestly, and in depth. You can't do that in a debate. You can't do that in a debate. I understand that. I understand that. That's why debates always have to be a starting place.

And that's why, from my perspective, one of the things I'm doing in a debate is I'm trying to make sure that if someone does sit down and do the work that's necessary to really get meaningful benefit out of a debate and check things out, they'll find out that what I said does check out.

I can't worry myself about people who aren't going to do that and have their minds made up or are primarily influenced by emotion and by the visual and stuff like that. If I was overly concerned about the visual, I wouldn't be wearing my coogee today.

And Rich is agreeing in the other room. Two lines open at 877 -753 -3341 is the number. And so with that, we're going to be testing out. There's just a little delay. I can get used to it, but it actually slows me down a bit.

So let's go to the phones, hope this works, and talk with Bryson. Hi, Bryson. How are you?

I just wanted to ask you for recommended books on the resurrection of Jesus, because I know that you're not as happy to recommend Mike Licona, and he has a big volume on it, and maybe guys like William Lane Craig.

So what would be some books that you'd recommend on the resurrection?

I'm not real good as a bibliographical resource. That's not my thing. I don't keep track of things like that. Most of the stuff that I've read have been articles and things like that. What you got to do, even if you disagree with someone like Mike Licona, that doesn't mean that the bibliography, footnotes, things like that are not useful.

A work of that extensiveness, that size, you're going to find in the bibliography and in the reference notes a goldmine of information. And unless he's extremely selective in the sources he uses, it's going to cover a pretty wide range.

So I, off the top of my head, don't know of just simply books just on that topic that would take any different perspectives. I mean, I'm sure there are some more conservative ones, especially when it comes to that issue of the zombies.

I just hate that. That's just a horrible way of describing it. But issues like that. But I'm not saying to people, don't read Licona's book on that subject. You have to read anything by anybody with discernment.

And I certainly learned in seminary, you can read stuff that you disagree with and learn a lot from it as long as you read it in a discerning fashion. That's what's gotten me into trouble with a lot of people, is that I'm willing to do that.

And it is interesting. I was already doing that. I was already looking at that camera. Sorry. I just automatically, when we're doing phones, I just look at that camera. And so it was just second nature to me to use resources I disagree with, get positive out of it, and throw the stuff out that's based upon bad theological presuppositions.

So sorry, off the top of my head, I just don't make lists of books in my head to just be able to whip out. So you'll notice on Twitter, people are constantly asking me, give me resources on this, resources on that.

I skip them because that's not what I do. Sorry. A quick second question. I just wanted to ask if you.

Were going to be interested in reviewing Bar-Aramatum today. And I saw Michael Kruger post.

An article reviewing it on the Gospel Coalition. Kruger said it wasn't anything groundbreaking. I got the audible of it. I haven't listened to it yet. Kruger said there really wasn't much to talk about because it was sort of a historical survey, but I may get around to it.

I don't know. I don't know. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk to Brandon. Hello, Brandon. Hey, Dr. Watt. How you doing? Good.

Hey, got a quick question. It may be a simple answer, maybe extended one. But in your discussion with Steven Anderson, when you all were talking in your Dividing Line program, Hebrews 8 -9 and the Jeremiah 31 -32, and you were talking about the difference in the Hebrew text between the gaal and the baal and how the Septuagint picks up on the variant reading there. I had a question on what should we look to as, I guess, the correct manuscript tradition?

Should we follow the Septuagint? The author of Hebrews kind of goes that way? Or just kind of a follow up on that end of that Dividing Line? I just had a question about that. It's obviously an.

Interesting question. The Reformation answer was the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. But the problem you face there is just that. You have, in the New Testament, a recognition of different lines of transmission over time.

And the Reformers themselves did not have the same information that we have today concerning the state of the text in that. I mean, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts we had were the Masoretic text from nine centuries after the time of Jesus.