The 33,000 Protestant Denominations Lie Again

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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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

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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.

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If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the

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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.

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Here is James white Thank you, Mary. Welcome to the dividing line on a

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Tuesday morning lots to cover today. I Want to start off by noting

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I sent an email Through the website at Catholic answers last evening to let

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Tim Staples know that I was going to be talking about this At the beginning of the program today, so I don't want to Put anything else in the way.

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I Would like to address the fact that back in 2007 August of 2007 fact

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I posted a fairly lengthy discussion of the constant falsehood that Roman Catholic apologists in particular are fond of repeating and that is the 33 ,000

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Denominations remark you may recall my comments were primarily focused on Steve Ray who uses this all the time.

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His response was infantile and childish and beneath most of adult conversation but I Sort of wondered if maybe just maybe finally

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Catholic apologists would break out of this shell they live in Where they don't listen to what anybody says in response to them, they just keep repeating the same things over and over again and recognize

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That it might be a good idea to stop repeating that particular falsehood that particular error and Yet just a few days ago right the last program of 2008

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There was a phone call to a Catholic answers live and Tim Staples was on. Let's let's take a listen

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Oh You're not to be able to hear that very well, huh Thank you for putting that down so everybody's ears are not bleeding.

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Let's make it so people can hear it. Well this time Well, thank you very much. I was talking to one of my ex -catholic anti -catholic

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Protestant friends about the falsehood of Sola scriptura, yes, and I brought up the fact that relativism is so insidious in our society now that That there's over 35 or 40 ,000

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Protestant denominations, and he laughed and said gee there's only about 500 I said that well, that's bad enough right but Now I need a reference

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Okay, gotcha. Well a good place to go now now here would be Tim's opportunity to say well, you know

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We've we've always made reference to this one source, but actually when you look at it

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It it doesn't say that there are 33 ,000 Protestants dominations due to Sola scriptura or anything else at all and We we have to you know treat this information fairly we have to be careful and are used to some of this would be the time to say it, but Is that what

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Catholic apologists do to go is the Oxford World? Christian encyclopedia, it's actually called the

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Oxford No, it's not that either not the Oxford. It's called the World Christian encyclopedia, but it's published by Oxford so you often hear it referred to as the

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Oxford World Christian encyclopedia and It there was a an edition that came out in 1983 and then there's an updated edition that came out in 2001 that that Chronicles and and lists a number of them, but thirty three thousand eight hundred and Twenty I believe

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Denomination there. Yeah, give or take Another day comes along another few churches, right?

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That's right. And it also, you know, it identifies about ten thousand distinct religions so it's more than just Talking about Christianity, but it kind of gives you an overview of the world's religions and such and then of course

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Christianity it breaks down into the various denominations. All right Now, you know you you would think that he might provide some information

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To his caller, but that's not really what Catholic apologists have been into I'm gonna go back over what

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I wrote in August of 2007 there are people who are new to the program. Maybe they don't read the archives of the blog who has time for that anyways, they're not algo and So they they don't remember when

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I wrote this what I was wearing when I wrote this Etc, etc. And I went back

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I took time to grab hold of a number of citations to demonstrate that wasn't just making this up This is something the

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Catholic apologists claim all the time for example Alcresta in surprised by truth page 266 this would have been the first volume

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I Wondered how Protestantism which has splintered into over 20 ,000 denominations worldwide could be what

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Jesus had in mind in John 1721 when he said that the world will know that the father sent The Son by the unity of his disciples.

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So there you have 20 ,000. This is back in the 90s Then 1998

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Catholic answers And by the way, if you want to go to the August 22nd 2007 blog entry

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There are links here to go to each of these references. If you want to check them out unlike our opponents

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We do check these things out ourselves the one thing they reject though is any binding authority outside the Bible as a result each time a new survey of Christian denominations comes

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Out there is more division not less today There are more than 26 ,000 different denominations sects and independent churches throughout the world

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They have split over issues as central as the Lord's Supper and as trivial as what musical instruments may be used at church

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Each Christian Bible in hand must find his own Christian truths He may choose to rely on the teachings of local pastor a television evangelist or the formal teachings of denomination

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But he is not bound by any of these teachings There's ultimately no binding doctrinal authority in his life outside of his personal interpretations of Scripture.

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That is solo scriptura Notice how the number is increasing 22 ,000 20 ,000 now 26 ,000 of course

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Tim Staples has been really big in this particular statistical argument for example quote but it but isn't it also telling that since the

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Reformation just 480 years ago a Reformation claiming solo scriptura as its formal principle

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There are now over 26 ,000 dominations that have derived from that principle the 1982

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World Christian Encyclopedia Projected in that in that year that there would be twenty two thousand one hundred nine denominations by 1985

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The present net increase it noted is 270 denominations each year five new ones a week if we extend that projection to our time

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We'll have well over 26 ,000 denominations by now

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Then we have envoy magazine and again the source that they are quoting World Christian Encyclopedia the current edition of which is from 2001 here

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Staples directly cited the source in writing. He just we just listened to him cite it of What a week ago on Catholic answers live here from?

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envoy magazine also from Tim Staples according to scripture the church is the final court of appeal for the people of God and matters of faith morals and Discipline it is telling the sense of Reformation of almost 500 years ago a

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Reformation claiming the soul scripture is its formal principle There are now over 33 ,000 Protestant dominations and John 1016

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Jesus prophesied there would be one flock one shepherd reliance and soul scriptura has not been effective in establishing doctrine or authority

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So note the argument and the use of this source is consistently Related to solo scriptura solo scriptura is responsible for all these denominations

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Now before I read some more what then logically fairly for people who have any concern about truth at all

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What would be necessary for us to find in this source? Well be necessary to find that these are

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Protestant dominations They are traceable to the Protestant Reformation and that these groups all practice solo scriptura and that this is why they've divided this way, that's what we should find we go there and That's you know

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That's the question. Is that what we will find? now Steve Ray as I mentioned, it's more and more difficult for me to include

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Steve Ray in the list of Catholic apologists because he's it's just very difficult to take him Seriously enough to even call him an apologist but In his response on the assumption back in 2007

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He wrote our source of authority is not the Bible alone. We can thank God and the Catholic Church for that Just look at the mass confusion

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This invented doctrine of solo scriptura has inflicted upon Protestants as they've split and scattered into over 33 ,000 different competing groups with biblical interpretations that go all over the map and then he gives as reference world

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Christian encyclopedia Oxford University Press 2001 page 10 By the way,

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I was looking for a copy of that. The only one in used format was $750

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So that's why it's not in my library Yeah, everybody can grab hold that one.

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Sure. Yeah, 750 bucks. We've all got that laying around, right? so Please note

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Ray gives the direct reference even the page number to which he refers now once you start giving page numbers I say you're accountable for what's on that page

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Okay, you need you need to know that you know He is directly asserting the 33 ,000 number is about Protestants only

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If that number was about non Protestants, then these arguments would sort of lose their weight wouldn't they?

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He blames solo scriptura for that number notes some more words from Steve Ray now what who knows tomorrow they may split again and make the first new progressive missionary

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Baptist Church in The second and then it will probably split again in the newest first new progressive missionary

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Baptist Church or the holy first new progressive Missionary Baptist Church, and then we will add multiple sex to that already 33 ,000

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Protestant Denominations, so what does he say that this source if you go to this particular source you go the world

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Christian encyclopedia go to page 10 they will list 33 ,000 Protestant Denominations, that's what we are told

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Steve Ray then said to Kevin Johnson around the same period of time. Thanks for sharing your name. It was not on the post

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I wish I had time to dialogue, but unfortunately I'm swamped and not able to take on detailed debates back in the old days

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I had plenty of time, but such is not the case now well Yeah, when you are dragging old people around Israel all the time you're quite busy

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I hope others jump into dialogue with you one of the problems I face Kevin is that you are one of 33 ,000 denominations that have sprouted out of the

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Reformation and to take the time to understand the various details of each of you Hold with a multitude of beliefs and traditions would be impossible so Ray keep saying it's 33 ,000

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Protestant denominations due to sola scriptura all from the world Christian encyclopedia and Etc etc so The first thing to point out obviously the first error that these men are making is an error of simple logic

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How does the Roman Catholic apologists go about demonstrating that sola scriptura is the source of these divisions specifically

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I Mean do they really document this When we see division the ranks of Rome We see strong to disagreement and key issues may

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I remind all you American Catholics 54 % of your people in the

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United States voted for the most pro abortion pro Homosexuality presidential candidate ever put forward to the people of the

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United States of America Don't talk to me about your unity You've got people running around promoting

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Everything under the name of Rome is until you clean up your own backyard.

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Don't talk to us about unity It's a lie and everybody knows it Get real.

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I mean, I think the only reason you keep repeating is so you're trying to convince yourself Because you know, it's not true so There's all sorts of these strong disagreements

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Does it follow that the Roman Magisterium is insufficient? Well, they don't go there

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But logically if they're going to make the argument that differences amongst Protestants are due to sola scriptura

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They would logically have to go there they would logically have to be able to demonstrate that it's not due to well the acceptance of maybe new scriptures or traditions of men or All sorts of things like that that have resulted in divisions

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Which of course is the vast majority of the reason why there are divisions

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Amongst Protestants, it's not because they hold the scripture, but because they depart from scripture It's not because they practice sola scriptura.

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It's because they ignore sola scriptura and So it is a simple error in logic that we need to be able to explain to our

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Roman Catholic friends That this attack No matter how popular it is with Tim Staples or Patrick Madrid or anybody else

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You know blueprint for anarchy and so on and so forth that that is simply not a logical direction

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But to get to the main issue because I do want to go on to other things today The fact of matter is to claim that this source teaches what they say is a lie.

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LIE. It is dishonest It is it would be like me

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Citing the Catholic Catechism and saying the Catholic Catechism says that you should all bow down and worship the

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Pope as God page 472 Then you go to page 472. It says nothing of the kind that means it's a lie

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And that's exactly what Tim Staples and Patrick Madrid and Steve Ray all these people who keep repeating this number are

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Lying to you. It's not that I mean Eric Svensson pointed this out a long time ago and on this slippery rock

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I've put on my blog the information's out there. You can look at the very scans of the pages yourself and see

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For if you go to page 10 the very source cited by Steve Ray and the others

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You'll read global Christianity Had and then there's two numbers given the first number is from 1970 the second from the year 2000

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I'll just give you the two thousand numbers thirty three thousand eight hundred twenty denominations slash para denominations with three million four hundred forty five thousand congregations slash churches composed of 1 ,000 888 million affiliated

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Christians dichotomized into the two global categories below and Those two global categorizations are denominational ism and post denominational ism

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So what you need to recognize if you'll read the source is That the thirty three thousand eight hundred twenty number used by Ray Staples other

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Roman Catholic apologists combines all denominations included in both lists

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But if they would just do a little more reading They would have discovered that this is not a listing of denominations arising from the

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Protestant Reformation Though again for clarity, I know that is exactly the claim of Steve Ray 21 ,990 of these denominations are in the post denominational ism category eleven thousand eight hundred thirty in the denominational and Please realize the denominational number includes

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Roman Catholics Orthodox and Protestants in fact amazingly this source lists two hundred and forty -two

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Roman Catholic Denominations So the next time one of these guys decides they're gonna throw this out and misrepresent it say

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Oh, so you accept that there are two hundred and forty two Roman Catholic denominations, right? What do you mean the same source lists two hundred and forty two

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Roman Catholic denominations If you are going to use this source, then you must admit there are two hundred and forty two

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Roman Catholic denominations. Oh But we're all one Well, then you better stop using this source, what do you think hmm, okay

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Now if if these ever so careful researchers Had bothered to read on to page 16.

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They would have discovered that this source lists 781 Orthodox denominations that is

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Eastern Orthodoxy predicting 887 for 2025 and the 242

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Roman Catholic denominations predicting 245 for 2025 Did either these groups arise at the nominate out of the

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Reformation as Steve Ray claims? Well, of course not Instead continuing on page 16.

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The overarching group Protestant is listed as having 8 ,973 denominations in 2000 predicting 9 ,490 by 2025 if we stop right there

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That means that Steve Ray and Tim staples are off by 24 ,000 denominations in their off repeated claims

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That is the actual number in the source is only 27 % of the number they give and you know how they respond to that Well, that's still too much.

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I Mean talk about politicians Okay, you caught me lying, but but that number is still too big

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That's what these guys do it's absolutely incredible incredible they are inflating the number by more than 300 %

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Why Are they going on secondhand references if they just not looked it up themselves? Are they being dishonest?

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They just don't care About the factuality of their statements. We don't know because they won't answer these questions

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But that's not even the entire picture folks As you begin to look through what this source lists as Protestant denominations you discover that they include

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Non -trinitarian groups such as the oneness denominations as well as other groups like the

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Seventh -day Adventists Some of the other denominations listed openly embrace revelation in the modern period hence meaning that they would hardly hold any meaningful doctrine or Scriptura to begin with After the

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Protestant groups you have independent groups followed by marginal Christian groups But all of these are added in the thirty three thousand eight hundred and twenty number, please realize this includes

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Gnostics Mormons 122 denominations worth and Jehovah's Witnesses 228 denominations worth.

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Oh, yeah, the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are due to sola scriptura right

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So you really have to ask the question Have these guys ever even look this stuff up or did one person look it up grabbed a few numbers out ignored everything else?

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And now they're just repeating it over and over and over again and They know that their audience

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Isn't gonna know they're not gonna check them out They're not gonna look and so I can get away with this dishonesty and not even

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Not even worry about it, that's the question and I really have to wonder

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I've you know, like I said, I wrote to Tim Staples and he may not be in the office today.

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I Would be happy I'm saying right now Mr. Staples if you want to come on the dividing line and defend the thirty three thousand

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Denominations number against the actual facts that you present in Catholic answers life. We will be glad to have you as our guest

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We will open it up to you Let us know what you want to be on or you can come on to say, you know, what

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I was wrong. I Am in error. I will never use the 33 ,000 denominations number again, and I will let people know on Catholic answers live that I've been wrong about that all along.

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That would be an even better thing That would be wonderful up to mr.

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Mr. Staples lines are open eight seven seven seven five three three three four one So if mr.

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Staples would like to call Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one be happy to I would like to hear a defense of How many times

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Tim Staples has gone into print in multiple sources and on the Catholic answers? live radio program and in in seminars all across the world and Has misled every single person you ever said it to I'd like to know how you defend that so I really wonder also if Assigned the fact that very clearly the divisions noted in the source are not due to solo scriptura

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Unless you're gonna argue. Yeah. Well if y 'all just follow the Pope there'd only be one church see

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There are people that actually think that that's how it should work, yeah, okay, but do they do they also

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Note the next page in the source that they are so dependent upon page 11

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There's a chart there Relating in fact I provided the chart in one of the other blog entries.

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I scanned it PDF we find a chart relating to martyrs during the history of Christendom and In that in this in the second section of the chart it lists who was

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Responsible for killing the martyrs down through the history of the world secular governments and atheists score real big thanks to The Soviet Union obviously with fifty five million five hundred ninety seven thousand and thirty one million five hundred nineteen thousand respectively

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The Muslims are high performers on the martyr production scale as well with nine million one hundred and one thousand to their credit

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Animus come in fourth with seven million four hundred and sixty nine thousand and guess who is number five on the martyr producing hit parade

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Yep, the Roman Catholic Church With four million nine hundred and fifty one thousand martyrs to her credit

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I Wonder if Tim Staples and Steve Ray Quote that statistic which is on the very next page of the source that they use as a bat to beat

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Protestants over the head with quite regularly hmm Probably not

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Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is a toll -free number and right now.

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It's the only word I see on my screen is Idle which means there's nobody there the phones the phone's working

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Once the phones are working Yeah, you're sure about that. Let's let's let's find out you want it want Bring that one up.

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We got make sure you get dial tone there Yep, it's working. That's that's the dial tone.

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Yep. Nobody call him Well there you go I once again call on Roman Catholics I Call on the honest

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Roman Catholics. You know sometimes we have honest Roman Catholics come into our chat channel and We chat with him about things.

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I call upon you to contact these men and to beg them Stop giving us a black eye

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Stop demonstrating that you don't do your homework. You don't listen to what anybody else says

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That as long as it can be used in defense of Mama Rome You will use anything no matter how badly out of context you're taking it

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Stop doing it. Please you're embarrassing us I'd like to ask you to contact them and see what they say

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See if they respond like Steve Ray Because Steve Ray's response this reputation was infantile

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Infantile Joey to describe it How will Tim Staples respond? I don't know. It's been you know, it was

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August of 2007. It's been a year and a half Does he even know about it?

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Probably not. I doubt I doubt again. My experience has been These folks don't care about what other people are saying

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They're doing their thing. They're doing their their, you know, they're they're taking their doing their conferences and Who cares, you know as long as my audience is happy and given that's that's life so We'll get the phone lines open but you know, who knows whether we'll hear from anybody a

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Gentleman sent in a collector's edition shifting gears now, by the way of the

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US News and World Report secrets of the Bible and This is nothing but anti -christian rhetoric

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Recovering Christianity's pagan past pure unadulterated stupidity about comparative religion stuff same type of stuff you get on YouTube and the guy

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Zeitgeist movie and all this kind of silliness Obviously no attempt for balancer.

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This is anti -christian publication. This is what the media is all about and I don't know about you, but I've certainly noticed an acceleration in The movement of popular culture toward a hatred of Christianity and a willingness to lie about it misrepresent it attack it

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Make it So that we are reversing we are turning upside down The morals of Western society so that one what was once good

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Heterosexual marriage having children Having a family with a father and a mother and children and a stable family all that stuff is now the bad thing now the good thing is free sex and homosexual marriage and only worry about yourself and Your 401k and don't worry about family.

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And you know, that's that's where our culture seems to be seems to be headed and as a result because of The existence of the

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Internet which we are using to speak the truth Others can use it to speak lies and they do so with regularity and it's because of this that bad bad argumentation is being repeated with such

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Regularity this this drumbeat of repetition is so strong That you need to realize that one of the greatest difficulties we are facing today in dealing with proclaiming the gospel is to deal with These individuals in our society who have had this stuff pounded into their heads

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They graduate from our colleges. They graduate from our high schools. They graduate from our junior high schools

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Believing that the Bible is a compilation of pagan mythology and so as a result

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We have to know more than ever why these arguments are a lie why they are

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Wrong, and that's why we engage People we engage

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John Dominic Crossan and his perspectives. We've engaged John Shelby Spong in Barely two weeks from now.

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I'll be debating. Dr. Bart Ehrman in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on this particular subject

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And I believe it is very important people who think that apologetics in our day can be separated from Evangelism just don't understand the context in which the church ministers today

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When you live in an anti -christian society Then we need to be able to present the evangel in such a fashion as to make it understandable so with That having been said

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What I wish to do in the rest of the program today after we take our break here is I'm going to talk a little bit about the use of Bart Ehrman's material

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And then I'm going to start playing a program. I listened to a couple days ago where the infidel guy interviewed

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Bart Ehrman back in 2007 October of 2007

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I Found it fascinating for many many reasons as when I break in I will explain But I think it'll be very very helpful to you

30:32

We're not going to continue the King James program because there just isn't anything more to be said about it All they did was spin in circles from that point and say it's all of faith.

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It's all of faith. It's all of faith They don't want to dialogue. They don't want to respond to the questions, so we're gonna move on Their position has been refuted it stands refuted if they ever want to get around to trying to rehabilitate themselves fine great and wonderful, but There are things to be discussing so we're gonna take our break be right back right after this

31:16

The history of the Christian Church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith

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Once the core of the Reformation the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine in his book the

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Hello everyone, this is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program

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The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every

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Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha to Omega ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses

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Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?

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We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well

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Support Alpha and Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

33:10

Thank you Welcome back to the dividing line about a year or so ago when

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I and we've got some phone calls But I have no clue what the question of either one is. So once we get some clarification, we'll see if it sort of fits in but we're gonna be talking about Airman and Atheism and if it's not on that subject and you're not name isn't

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Tim Staples then don't worry about I really like to try to stay consistent with the topic a little bit today

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Back when we first announced the subject of the debate coming up in January with Bart Airman, I Played a clip and I tracked it down because I felt it was relevant

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This is from a online debate that took place on with Christopher Hitchens and Oh, what's the guy's name?

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He's a conservative talk show host PCA elder attorney

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Hugh Hugh Hugh it that's right. It was on a huge show and I remember listening to the discussion when

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Hitchens brought up airmen to listen listen to how airmen's materials are understood by this inveterate detester of the

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Christian faith But there isn't a trustworthy word I'm probably I'm not trespassing on the territory of my partner here

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There isn't a trustworthy word as you know from reading about Norman and others In in any of the gospels that you could remotely say was historical evidence now.

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He keeps calling him Burton Barton or something Burton. I think actually it sounded like Burton there and it's

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Barton in his book too. That's not his name actually It's Bart Airman, but anyway

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But notice what he says there's there's not a single Historical word in all the Gospels if you just read

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Bart Airman, I've read Bart Airman. I'm so sick reading Bart Airman I don't know which ends up. I've listened almost everything

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Bart Airman's ever recorded as of now. I could give you Bart Airman's opening statements right now very very easily and That's not what he's saying in fact,

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I'm Thankful that the paperback edition of misquoting Jesus came out because in the paperback edition there is a

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Discussion of You know questions that have come up because the book basically so it's an expansion and There's a question about Bruce Metzger because obviously

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Airman studied under Metzger at Princeton and it was fascinating to read Airman saying that He and Metzger would probably not disagree over more than maybe a dozen readings in the entirety of the

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New Testament an Entirety of the New Testament, so you've got the one side and yet when people want to disbelieve

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They will hear what they want to hear even if that's not what Airman himself is actually saying

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Now I fault Airman for this he purposefully wants to inculcate that idea, but he's very careful about how he does it

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When he tells the students I tell my students all the time there are more textual variants in our words in the New Testament Well, what does that mean

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I know what it means But a person without a background in textual critical studies

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Thinks of what that means is when you find out this 400 ,000 variants 130 ,000 106 two words in the

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New Testament you go that means there's three different ways of reading every word in the New Testament that that's Not what

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Airman means, but he should know and I believe he does know that that is what people hear him saying

37:19

But he knows that's not what he is saying He knows there are entire swaths of the

37:25

New Testament without a single variant to be found in them he knows that and Many of the variants that he likes to point out only have one or two manuscripts that support them if it wasn't for Codex Beze Codex D and Miniscule 1739 a lot of his examples will simply disappear

37:47

But I know that and you as this listening audience probably know that but the vast majority of his students who read his works don't know that and They end up sounding like Christopher Hitchens Hitchens is wrong the

38:00

Hitchens doesn't know anything about all this stuff It came back up later in the debate

38:05

I turned to Bart Ehrman he figures prominently in Christopher Hitchens book He figures prominently in Mark Roberts book

38:11

Christopher Hitchens, what do you find so appealing about Bart Ehrman well? I find it's what Bertrand Russell used to call

38:17

The argument of evidence against interest or as my friend you probably know him John O'Sullivan Yes, so if the

38:23

Pope says he believes in God. He's only doing his job if he says he doesn't believe in God He may be on to something But I haven't did the best of the man could do to keep up his belief, and he appears to have been

38:35

I hope I Gave their trespass in to my partners field of expertise, but to be quite a renowned

38:44

Scholar of the Gospels in several languages in the in the believing Christian community

38:49

I'm right am I not in saying this Mark Roberts Hey, he is a is a well -regarded scholar, and he came to the conclusion that it was mythical now

38:58

That was a very very frustrating debate listen to Mark Roberts. Just is far too nice to even be doing debates

39:05

What he should have said is well actually dr. Herman is not in the Christian community. He is not a believer

39:10

He is a happy agnostic, and he is very opposed to the claims of Christianity and and is

39:18

You know certainly considered to be a well -known scholar But he's not the only one out there and in fact the vast majority of Christian scholars who study textual critical issues do not come to his conclusions in losing faith in the text of the

39:32

Bible and so But you can hear how how he is used by Christopher Hitchens So what

39:41

I was listening to what I wanted to get to really get it get a start here in the program Is I was listening to it's an hour.

39:49

It's it's over an hour long An hour and five minutes long. I cut off a little bit of the beginning, but this is a webcast with the infidel guy and I'll be perfectly honest with you

39:59

I have I had no idea who the infidel guy was I had heard of him. I knew that Gene Scott or Gene Cook That was purposely that time

40:10

I can't do it nearly as well as when I really do mess up But I knew the Gene Cook has had him on and they've gone back and forth and stuff like that but I've never heard the infidel guy before and Someone said hey, did you know someone came in the channel?

40:23

It was sort of like yesterday I was deluged with people saying hey Did you know that Bart Ehrman was on Justin Brierley's program premiere radio in London, you know same one you were on and yes

40:33

Yes after about six or seven one. Yes. I've got it downloaded. I'm gonna be listening to it on my ride today All will be well.

40:38

I appreciate everybody doing that. Somebody came in the channels. Hey, did you see this and It was a program that took place in 2007

40:47

Where the infidel guy, I think it's Reggie Finley is his name or something like that is interviewing

40:53

Bart Ehrman, so I listened to this and I'll be perfect honest I'm not trying to be disrespectful but but just listening to the program having never having no knowledge of what the guy's name was or anything about him as I listened to the program.

41:08

I assumed that the infidel guy was about 17 or 18 years of age Yesterday when

41:16

I went on the website, I started looking around and saw that he was somehow serving with the UN in Like Kosovo in 1994 in the military that sort of tells me he's not 17 or 18 years of age

41:29

But as I listened there's there's a couple things First of all was fascinating to me was to listen to Bart Ehrman talking to someone who's more liberal than he is more anti -theistic than he is

41:39

Because it's sort of like, you know, sometimes when you're looking at something from only one direction light coming from only one way

41:48

There are certain aspects of it you just can't get to know until the light switches and now it's coming from the other direction and Here we have

41:55

Ehrman at one point. They start debating because the infidel guy doesn't even believe Jesus ever existed and Ehrman rightly says

42:03

I don't know any serious scholars and as soon as he says that Then the infidel guy gets upset because he's had all sorts of people.

42:10

He thinks are serious scholars like Robert Price on his program Questioning the very existence of Jesus and so it's fascinating to hear

42:17

Ehrman dealing with someone to his left It's like turning the light around the other side

42:24

It gives you a completely different perspective and it also helped me to see what are Ehrman's real arguments

42:30

Because it's one thing to see them always going against one direction, but then when they have to go the other direction How consistent are they?

42:38

So I think that's very valuable to listen to this It's also valuable to listen to how many times the infidel guy you can just hear him he just wants

42:47

Ehrman to throw out as much red atheist meat as he can. Oh Wow, really?

42:54

Well that would mean this really Oh, and sometimes Ehrman is just saying you can tell this guy does not have a clue what

43:01

Ehrman is saying. He does not Understand anything he's saying he does not understand textual chrism

43:08

He has no historical foundation upon which to be even interpreting anything to Ehrman saying

43:15

But the glee in his voice is just giddy It's like oh

43:22

It's a little bit like Hitchens there was this Check this out.

43:29

This is page 142 of God is not great But Christopher Hitchens the New Testament is itself a highly dubious source

43:36

Parentheses one of professor Barton Ehrman's more Astonishing findings is that the account of Jesus' resurrection in the gospel of Mark was only added many years later parentheses close

43:52

Oh We didn't know about the longer ending of Mark in Mark 16 9 through 20 until Bart Ehrman came along and told us

44:02

These people who set themselves up as experts. They are so Amazingly ignorant of what they're talking about, but they're proud of it

44:12

They're proud of it. Nope Christians never known anything about that. They're longer ending in Mark 16

44:19

It's Shocking it really is It just it's just like wow. Okay, you really think that I can tell you've really done some in -depth study here.

44:27

So It's just amazing how many times the infidel guy Misunderstands what

44:33

Ehrman has said does Ehrman correct him? No Not until he starts arguing with him But he'll let him run off at the mouth with the silliest stuff and then just go on from there

44:42

He makes no effort to go. Well, you know, that's not really the case. I'm not saying That you know, we have no idea what the

44:49

New Testament actually said No, no, no, he's he'll just let him run on and on until the infidel guy

44:57

Challenges him then things change a little bit But till then he can just he can just run on and on and on and on So it's interesting to see what

45:05

Ehrman will allow people to do with his words And so I was like, well, he's not responsible

45:12

What people do with his words? Well To a certain extent obviously not I mean I I sometimes

45:19

Listen to what people think I have said well, they've listened to a sermon or read something and I'm just like what

45:27

I Sometimes I have no earthly idea how in the world they came to the conclusions They came to and it really makes me wonder am

45:33

I that unclear and what I'm saying? But then when I when the majority of folks have no

45:40

I have no problem at all Understanding what I said, then I started going. Okay, it seems like there is a little bit of a problem there But Ehrman is a little different on those lines and I do fault him

45:51

I think he is purposely trying to inculcate that idea in many instances But he does so very carefully so he can back away from it when challenged by someone who actually knows something about the field

46:00

About which he is speaking. And so let's listen to this discussion and And we're obviously not get through it because we only have 14 minutes left in the program and it's an hour long, but let's at least get things start

46:15

Who changed the New Testament is the topic of our program this evening? And we have with us on the line.

46:21

Dr. Bart Ehrman Our 800 line is down tonight

46:26

Unfortunately some people who work at a particular phone company didn't get out and put in my second line in the new room today so but we will be

46:36

But we will still have some interaction, so don't worry I am in the stick cam video room and I'm also in the

46:41

IRC chat room if you have any questions, just simply type those questions in red and I will

46:48

Relay your questions to our guest this evening also

46:55

Yeah, and it's in both the chat rooms the IRC room and the stick cam video chat room Again, you can check out the

47:01

IRC chat room by going to infidel guy calm. That's port number six six six seven Yes, that was intentional

47:08

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and an expert of early Christianity some of course would disagree with this and we're going to find

47:15

Out why in a minute here? He is a former evangelical Christian fundamentalist who studied at Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute Before going on to receive a

47:25

PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under Bruce Metzger Not to be confused with the director of the marijuana project

47:33

He currently serves as the chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Dr.

47:41

Ehrman is the best -selling author of misquoting Jesus the story behind who changed the Bible and why he's on tonight to talk to us

47:48

About who changed the New Testament, but we can cover the whole Bible if he has time But I'm sure as as bars gonna tell us about you're talking maybe a 10 -hour lecture

47:55

If not more and he also read a few other books as well The or the orthodox corruption of Scripture Truth and fiction in the

48:03

Da Vinci Code as well as many many others his latest book by the way is the lost gospel of Judas Iscariot a new look at betrayal and the betrayed welcome to the program

48:14

Dr. Bart Herman I keep wanting to call you Bart. I mean Bert So wow

48:24

You have a video on YouTube. I don't know what did you put that there or does someone else put that on there? No, I just I think someone else did

48:30

I give a lecture at Stanford last year and I I Didn't even realize it at the time or it didn't register with me, but they taped it and somebody put it up on YouTube All right

48:42

Yeah That that by the way is the very same lecture that I played most of in San st.

48:49

Louis when I was responding to a lot of this stuff. Hey, let the man speak for himself I'd stop everyone's while explain things

48:57

You know We we are into allowing the other side to accurately and adequately express their own position

49:04

I don't have anything to hide was an amazing presentation, by the way And of course that presentation in your book, of course has a lot of people talking about How wrong you are?

49:17

that all of your criticisms in no way invalidate scripture, but I Guess we'll talk about your critics as well.

49:26

But let's talk about Your book. Well, I guess what topic tonight is who changed the New Testament and why and again if you want to go cover some

49:32

The Old Testament stuff that's good as well But the New Testament many of us when I was growing up you just didn't question it

49:39

You were told that this is the inspired Word of God. This is what God wants for us it is pretty much unchanged from its original and That's the story

49:49

I got and that we're supposed to believe or we're going to go to hell You started off believing this stuff too, right?

49:56

Well, I yeah, I mean when I was in high school, I had a born -again experience and I became an evangelical

50:03

Christian I went off to Moody Bible Institute Which is a fundamentalist Bible College and then the

50:08

Wheaton College, which is an evangelical liberal arts school and you know I believed that I believed at that time that God had inspired the the words of the

50:17

New Testament of the whole Bible and I Got interested in the fact that you know, we don't have the originals of any of these books

50:26

What we have our manuscripts or handwritten copies most of these handwritten copies are centuries later and These copies all have differences in them

50:34

And so I got interested in trying to figure out what the original words of the New Testament were because I thought they were inspired

50:41

Hmm. Yeah, that's one of the things that I first recognized when I decided to start looking more in -depth What happened was in college

50:48

I took a course called Old Testament wisdom and I'll right away I learned everything about I knew about the

50:53

Old Testament was just wrong That and that in of itself made me start looking a little deeper

50:58

Because I realized that you're pretty much what's in the Bible is way different than what the clergy tells you and in fact

51:04

They just skip over things. They don't tell you the whole story And so that was shocking to me and then we want to make sure to avoid hasty and wide generalizations.

51:13

Sure enough It's okay, can I call you Bart is okay? And I started doing my own reading and research and lo and behold

51:21

I started just page after page of whoa What does this mean? Why is that in here? Let me look up the Hebrew. Let me look at the concordances and sure enough

51:30

Everything that we do these translations is just wrong. I'm blatantly and now

51:35

I I Know I you know people who actually do spend time actually learning these languages

51:43

Chuckle just a little bit when someone who uses the name infidel guy Is is admitting he doesn't actually read these languages.

51:51

He was using concordances and all these translations. They're just all wrong There's all wrong nothing like understating your case just just a tad a little bit.

52:02

Yeah, it's uh, it does make you go. Hmm How come no one's talking about this well, you know pastors who go to to good seminary learn about the

52:12

Bible and they learn about the historical problems with the Bible and with and Problems with discrepancies in the

52:19

Bible and they learn about the the background of the Bible, but they often In in the vast majority of cases, you know bother to tell the people in their churches about these things

52:29

Right, right and you know often I think it's just because of job security They're afraid of losing their job if they make too many waves that that is true

52:37

I'm a few professors and now of course Professors who might come to the opposite conclusions at places like Princeton wouldn't be in any danger

52:45

So ever would they or at Chapel Hill known for its deep conservative roots?

52:51

I'm sure you could teach inerrancy there and do real well in in Bart Ehrman's Departments who were also reverence on the side and sure enough they confided, you know in me and they told me that that was indeed

53:02

The case that at the same time they felt like they thought they had they owe their community that so many people believe in them

53:08

All these years they couldn't tell them. Look, I don't really believe this anymore In my studies,

53:13

I found out there's some things that are wrong, but they still just keep preaching What do you think they're supposed to traditionally teach?

53:20

Myself I mean, I think people have the right to know what the truth is, right? And I don't think the truth can hurt anybody

53:27

Indeed indeed. I think it's time to start changing the terminology I think we're so accustomed to hearing this to stone -cold truth or something like that.

53:33

We never hear warm loving truth, do we? I have no idea. Okay, so the New Testament many of us believe we know the story and I guess we don't we don't need to Really go too much into that but essentially this son of God came down which is still confusing to me anyway

53:47

And died on the cross for our sins that we all may be saved and go to blah blah. We all know the story here You have some issues

53:54

Let's back up before we get to that because I think once we once you tell us your story I think we'll start kind of filling in the details here.

54:01

Why did you change your mind about? Believing in the literal word of quote

54:07

God. Well, I You know, I I thought at one time that God had inspired the very words of the

54:13

Bible And so that's why I got interested in these Manuscripts and trying to find out what those words originally were and what

54:20

I came to realize is that we we actually have thousands of Manuscripts of the New Testament in the original

54:26

Greek language that they were written in But most of these these copies of these manuscripts that we have are hundreds of years

54:34

After the originals and they all there are differences in them These these thousands of manuscripts have hundreds of thousands of differences among them and after a while I started thinking

54:44

Now now let me stop right here again classic airmen standard stuff

54:50

What I have wanted And what we've said from the beginning the reason for our contacting.

54:57

Dr. Aaron is to debate what he's about to say Now this was 2007.

55:02

Nobody was forcing him to address this subject if You listen to his presentations if you listen to his classes.

55:09

He's they've recorded his introduction class on DVD I've listened to all of that if you listen to his debates if you listen to his debate with Dan Wallace For example at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary that took place just last year less than a year ago

55:23

Part of his opening statement will be the following material. He's the one who makes his presentation all the time

55:32

And yet dr. Herman says it's not really a debatable subject So listen to what he of his own free will

55:39

Had to say that it didn't make much sense to say that God had inspired the words of the text because it was pretty obvious to Me he hadn't preserved the words of the text because there are places where we don't know what the text originally said

55:55

It started making less sense to me to think that God had inspired the words because if he had Done the miracle of inspiring the words in the first place

56:02

Then it seemed like he would have performed the miracle of preserving the words after he'd inspired them Right obviously hadn't preserved them because we didn't have them and that made me then doubt the the doctrine of inspiration

56:14

So there you have it. That's on page 211 of misquoting Jesus. It's in the introduction of misquoting

56:20

Jesus he freely makes the assertion over and over and over and over and over again and People accept it based upon his quote -unquote scholarship and yet from his perspective.

56:31

That's not something you can debate Because that's just his theological conclusion and he's a historical scholar

56:38

Now does he make that differentiation here? Nope. Does he ever make that differentiation? I've never heard him do it not once and How many people have studied these very same manuscripts and they don't come to that conclusion

56:53

They don't see this as evidence that there had to be some Mechanism whereby as soon as they scribe was about to make an error.

57:00

They would Burst into green flame Or that's all scribes would experience automatic writing.

57:09

I mean You know Dan Wallace has referred that is as nonsense and he's right.

57:15

It's it's a nonsense idea But that's what is being presented you can hear the infidel go

57:23

When he's all he's talking about he talks about well when he says we don't know in some places

57:29

We don't know what it originally said. What does that mean? How does the infidel guy understand that how would most people understand that statement?

57:38

Well, that means we can't reconstruct the original text there. That's not what he's saying What he's saying is there a textual variance and since there are textual variants there are differences that we have to study

57:49

So why doesn't he just say that? I don't know That's good question. I can guarantee you right now.

57:55

I'm letting everybody know one of the first questions. I'm asking. Dr. Ehrman, dr. Ehrman how many places in the

58:00

New Testament do you believe that the original reading of a textual variant is completely lost?

58:06

I want to know how many can you give us some specific examples where we have no it that there is no Possibility that any of the readings in the manuscripts themselves are the original reading

58:15

That's the first question that needs to be asked and it's a shame that a lot of people who debate Bart Ehrman and engaged

58:21

Bart Ehrman don't know their textual criticism well enough to challenge those things. That's what's gonna be happening two weeks now

58:27

I hope a lot of you will be there. We'll be back on Thursday as we continue our examination of This particular program with the infidel guy and Bart Ehrman hoping to increase your understanding of where we got the

58:38

Bible why we can believe it Why we can proclaim it. We'll see you then. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

59:35

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59:47

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