Demythologizing Scholarship and Calls on Today's Dividing Line

Tuesday here in Phoenix, Arizona beautiful beautiful day out today and Welcome to those of you on the East Coast. Back to the normal actual time after your seven and a half month. Experience of fantasy and delusion and.

So we're glad that for the next four and a half months. You will be where you should be and All the world will be right and then come the spring you all will leap off into your your fantasy once again.

So it's a good to have you with us on the program today today. I'm gonna be talking about Demythologizing scholarship, I'm not sure if we're gonna get the calls later in the program or not. We'll see we might this might take 10 minutes.

I don't know. We will we will see. I have a feeling it might take a little bit longer than that, but knowing the ways things go. Let me read to you some words I heard yesterday. I Went out yesterday, and I had a goal and the goal was not so much in miles as books.

I wanted to get through two books two particular books. I wanted to get them read from beginning to end and so I just wrote until I got that done basically and I hear some of the words that I I listened in that.

Listened to on that that ride the New Testament writers. I don't mean let me yeah, I guess that's where I started. But I want to check previous page here real quick. Okay, all right the New Testament writers are really quite careful at this point.

Jesus is not the God of Israel. He is not the father. He is not Yahweh. An identification of Jesus with and as Yahweh was an early attempt to resolve the tensions indicated above it was labeled as modalism a Form of monarchism the one God operating first as father and then as son and then counted a heresy now.

Just listen to that. And ask yourself who's saying these words? Because there's clearly confusion here. There is a presupposition of Unitarianism. There is a church historical confusion with the identification of Jesus as Yahweh with modalism.

Which would not be the case? Because for example as early as Justin you have that and Justin certainly wasn't a modalist in that sense. But just just keep that in mind. Let me read you some more from this particular author.

My second reservation follows from the first for classic Christology has always seen the need to affirm a paradoxical both and Summed up in the traditional confession of G is having both a divine and a human nature.

The distinction between functional and ontic is a more modern attempt to hold together however, unsatisfactorily the same two divergent or apparently contradictory sets of data as summarized above. Okay so there the author seems to have a little bit of a problem with the idea of confessing that Jesus has two natures and this is viewed as a Later development not something that is actually relevant to the biblical text.

Little bit later on we have equation seems to be a better way of saying that if Jesus is God He is not Yahweh. He is not the father. He is not the source of creation. He will finally be subject to God.

So the God alone will be all in all. Equation allows a fuller recognition of the other emphases in the New Testament writings such as Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth praying to God Jesus last Adam and eldest brother in God's new creation family Jesus as heavenly intercessor God as God of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, I Continue on let me read you some more just to give you a good sense. So when we transpose our findings into an answer to our central question the dominant answer for Christian worship seems to be the first Christians did not think of did not did not think of Jesus as To be worshipped in and for himself.

He was not to be worshipped as Holy God or fully identified with God far less as a God. If he was worshipped it was worshipped offered to God in and through him worship of Jesus in God and God in Jesus.

And the corollary is that in an important sense Christian monotheism if it is to be truly monotheism has still to assert that Only God only the one God is to be worshipped. The Christian distinctive within the monotheistic face is its affirmation that God is most effectively Catch that word effectively Worshipped in and through and in some real but finally unquantifiable sense as revealed in Jesus.

Okay I find that very very interesting. There is a there is a note In this book connected to that that Yes, I actually believe or not listen to the footnotes to which can sometimes be really exciting.

Here's one of the one of the notes Balcom gives it due attention and notes its novel exegesis a novel claim though He regards at the right hand of God's throne is sharing God's throne Jesus the God of Israel.

Pages given oddly enough. However on Balcom's argument earliest Christian use of Psalm 110 1 very important passage. Psalm 110 1 does not constitute a Christology of divine entity since it assumes some distinction between Yahweh Ha Kodios and the Lord Christ.

I just mentioned that footnote. Because clearly this author functions upon a Unitarian presupposition in regards to nature of Yahweh. Yahweh cannot be anything other than Unitarian and likewise in another note.

Hence, presumably John had no qualms in depicting Jesus as defending himself against the charge He was making himself God by citing the fact that Psalm 82 6 called other human beings God John 10 33 through 35 and so you have the utilization of one of the standard Jehovah's Witness arguments at this point, which completely misses the background of Psalm 82 in this particular individuals thinking and presentation a Little bit later on we'll be well we're getting toward the end here what I had marked off.

It remains a question whether divine agency is adequate or sufficient to express the full weight of this emphasis. Just as the question remains whether divine identity is Adequate or sufficient to sum up the full range of imagery and language used for Jesus in a New Testament.

Now I'll probably try to come back to this one. I hope that let me see if I can bookmark it as well so that I can I can come back to it. Because what you have here is one of the standard just an excellent example of the kind of scholarship that is lauded in our day, which leads you to No conclusion at all other than Orthodoxy isn't the answer.

But what should be the answer? Nobody knows. Nobody knows really don't have any idea. It's important. Some of you already know who I'm talking about. Because you've googled some of the phrases I Was actually gonna say call in and let's guess about you can't do that anymore.

That's that's not even fun anymore. Oh, that's bleep bleep bleep bleep. Because you went to Google and you you filled it out and it was easy to find. But I continue with a few more citations for if what has emerged in this inquiry is taken seriously It soon becomes evident that Christian worship can deteriorate into what may be called Jesus olitary.

That is not simply into worship of Jesus. But into a worship that falls short of the worship due to the one God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I use the term Jesus olitary as in an important sense parallel or even close to idolatry.

Okay a Second point to be noted takes up the complementary issue of whether worship of Jesus constitutes a denial of Christianity's claim to be a monotheistic religion. As noted the beginning of the introduction such a critique of Christian worship is made by the other great monotheistic faith Judaism and Islam.

But it has become increasingly clear from the inquiry that the understanding of God is one of the unity of God is not so readily Defined as such critiques generally assume. It then goes on to present what I can only call is a rather squishy view of monotheism.

Which is not uncommon in a lot of modern scholarship. Goes on to say the one God made himself known in or through angelic form as spirit as wisdom as word. Without detracting from his otherness his transcendence his being as the one and only God.

So definitions of monotheism of God's oneness Should not be so tightly drawn as to exclude the Hebrew Bible slash Old Testament and early Jewish reflection on the subject. Christianity can make the case that its evaluation of Jesus begins with that reflection develops from it.

But does so without calling in in question that monotheism whose complex reality such reflection was attempting to articulate However, inadequately and however open to misinterpretation of the monotheism espoused.

Yeah, it's kind of stuff. I was thinking about in fact, I I was gonna do this In my in my in my in my backpack. In the same outer Pocket where there's a hand sanitizer thing. There is a little iPod. I need it.

See if you can grab that for me. I forgot to bring in here. I apologize I was gonna play you something that would illustrate a point here, but I just wanted you to catch up. We Continue on in the light of such reflection and conclusion.

The particular question did the first Christians worship Jesus can be seen to be much less relevant less important and potentially misleading. It can be answered simply or simplistically even dismissively with a mainly negative answer.

No, by and large the first Christians did not worship. I can't see that. Thank you. No, by and large the first Christians did not worship Jesus as such. Worship language and practice at times do appear in the New Testament reference to Christ, but on the whole there is more reserve on the subject so our central question can indeed be answered negatively and perhaps it should be is The final conclusion that this author comes to now why in the world would I start off the program with such exciting stuff some of you have already fallen asleep and Have no idea why in the world I am babbling about the things that I'm babbling about well the whole reason I Went out yesterday and wrote as far as I did as I wanted to listen to two books.

The second book that I finished right toward the end of the ride that I've been quoting from is by James DG Dunn. Now if you've not heard the name, then you're not a person who spends a whole lot of time Keeping up with the big names in New Testament scholarship today because Jimmy Dunn is one of the big names along with NT Wright and Larry Hurtado and Richard Balcombe and and the big names got it.

I know the big guys. Those are the big names now of course every generation before us has had the big names and it's only rarely that one actually transcends their own generation as far as Their their long-term impact goes but this is all these were quotes from James DG Dunn's book did the first Christians worship Jesus and What I wanted to do is I wanted to listen to that right after I listened to a book called the only true God early Christian monotheism in its Jewish context by James F McGrath and McGrath utilizes I'm sorry done utilizes some of McGrath grass materials in his in his work the reason being that These are individuals that are being utilized not only by Muslims, but by Unitarians.

There's a small but vocal Unitarian movement you can see it You can see it in Anthony buzzard and his followers around the world again a small movement. Unitarianism in of itself never creates a Vital Christian, it just doesn't history shows that to be the case and I don't think it ever can it's far too rationalistic and Really present has to present to you a Jesus that is Well just simply does not excite the the heart and mind of Believers so anyway these folks love to quote from Jimmy Dunn.

Unfortunately in the vast majority of our Seminaries these are also the type of works are gonna be studied now in conservative seminaries. Dunn's gonna be cited Alongside conservative works the conservatives want to know what the liberals are saying and how to respond to it but in liberal seminaries all you'll have is done ermine that kind of stuff and You'll still get debates.

I mean done and right will disagree over certain things. Right is to the right of done. If that makes any sense. On a lot of things is more conservative than done on a number of issues. So you'll still get some debates, but especially when it comes to the the central aspects of the faith.

The starting point is is what is missing now you need to understand. From the world's perspective and from the Academy's perspective these are the greatest scholars alive today and. So I guess we just have to ask ourself a question.

How do you determine what Real scholarship is. What's the definition of scholarship? I've said many many times. We need to demythologize Scholarship because I have heard it the the phraseology can be so.

Horribly abused absolutely horribly abused. You know I think Shabir Ali abuses the term scholars. Scholars have shown you can say that about anything. For example this would be a good good time to mention this then we'll come back to.

Okay, thanks a lot somebody in channel has just completely and totally thrown me off my game here. Have you seen the new book by Andrew Lincoln on denying the virgin birth. Andrew Lincoln a New Testament scholar recently published born of a virgin.

Lincoln is a supernaturalist who accepts traditional Christian concepts like the deity of Jesus resurrection. But rejects other traditional positions such as biblical inerrancy and his historicity of the virgin birth.

He thinks Joseph's was Jesus natural father on the back cover. James McGrath of Butler University calls Ling his book groundbreaking excellent sure to be considered the volume to turn to on this topic for many years to come.

Yeah, St. McGrath and I think Dunn would probably agree. I think Dunn questions the historical validity of the virgin birth stuff too. Which is one of the reasons why my Muslim friends should sort of be really careful.

But they don't seem to want to be really careful in who they quote. But no I haven't seen that one. I will have to put that on the on the to be listened to list. Not because I want to folks. I don't I don't enjoy reading these things.

It's not enjoyable. It's really not. Part of the reason that I do it is because I figure. Someday in a debate well for example, and I haven't even mentioned this but in the debate with Shabir at University of Pretoria he raised a question he raised The name of a scholar in regards to the son of man material, and I should have put this I was gonna put this in my written response.

I still didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll add it a little bit later, but in my notes You'll see I scribbled I just finished Going through one of a Hurtado edited book Responding to that guy, and it was it was a number of articles put together from various people Responding to that particular take on the son of man stuff, and I just I don't know had gotten that That book about I don't know two three weeks before I went for went to South Africa, so maybe one of the reasons I do it is Is just you know to be prepared I never know.

Given the context of places I go and you know taking questions, and I like that you just you just never know but primarily the reason I do it is So as to have a wealth of examples of how you as an individual believer.

While we you know I'm doing this now while we still have we can still do these programs. We can still reach out to the entire world. We've got our our Guys over in Ukraine are listening in it right now.

We're we're you know reaching out across the across the world. We can still do this for now. We're not going to be able to do it forever. We just you can just see it coming. You can see the Western cultures Falling so in love with death.

That they will they will silence any any of the voices for life and that includes obviously the only way of truly experiencing life, which is through the gospel and You can see the totalitarianism in the eyes of the people on the left who are just they just want to shut down any kind of Ministry like this and a kind of voice like this so while we can what I want to do is try to Instruct try to warn try to give you as much many examples as possible so that when my voice isn't there to say it anymore.

You will already be prepared to be teaching others and so on and so forth as we Seek to deal with the new situation we'll be facing and that you will be able to demythologize scholarship that you will be able to listen to someone who has studied an area much more deeply than you have and Still be able to recognize where they themselves Have started at the wrong point.

They've started with the wrong assumptions. You need to learn to think presupposition ly and if you think presupposition ly and you listen carefully To both of these books you will see that they start at the exact wrong place.

They do not start Where Christian theology starts, which is why they come to conclusions that are at odds with Christian theology. Now that's not to say well as long as you start start there you just it's a nice tight circle you've got going there the reality is That I've said many many times and and these books just illustrate to the nth degree.

I've said many many times if You do not have the highest view of scripture you will not believe in The highest expressions of Christian theology, I mean these folks don't believe that the highest expressions of Christian theology have any validity or meaning.

That they are just later developments, and they don't want it. They don't want to say they're wrong. They just want to say they're a historical or that's not really what the they don't really have a foundation.

They're saying they're wrong but they don't want to they don't want to say anything's really right or wrong in the field of religion because it's all just a matter of You know predilection and what you like over in somebody else anyways, and so they start at the wrong place.

They start with the assumption that whatever the truth is it can't be what the Christian Church has come that. That that position it can't be that it can't be orthodoxy and If you do not have the highest view of the Bible.

You will not believe in the Trinity you will not believe in the deity of Christ. You will not believe in the hypostatic Union. You will not believe in the atonement and you will not believe in the gospel of grace.

You will not believe in God's sovereignty. You will not believe in election. Why. Because these all all of these beliefs come from the same wellspring they come from believing God has spoken With sufficient clarity and purpose that his people can know what his truth is and none of these people believe that.

They don't believe that Presupposition Lee they have rejected the only firm foundation upon which any kind of meaningful Systematic theology any type of meaningful Christian theology can be built. They don't believe there can be any such any Christian theology is just your opinion.

Don't you see how many different views there have been out there over the centuries and and who are you to think you've got it? Right it it is a fundamentally hyper skeptical perspective. That is based upon the idea that there is no revelation from God that is consistent with itself any one of these books.

If you dig in what they're saying is well You know I emphasize this part and I emphasize that part and I emphasize this part over there. But I de-emphasize that part over there because they're an under no obligation To believe what Jesus taught or what Paul taught that all scriptures they honest us.

They can't hold anybody accountable like Jesus did. Have you not read? Because fundamentally while they they may attribute some kind of religious significance to a particular set of ancient documents that That significance comes from them.

It is not intrinsic to the documents themselves. There was no historic act of revelation That makes these works special that Gives them a transcendent meaning. It's just not there. It's just it's just not there and so These guys Write huge books.

I mean I I've put on the the ministry resource list has some things on it right now and One of them is that Lagos is doing a prepub on The new NT Wright work on Paul his magnum opus on Paul 1 ,700 pages long.

That's why I'm getting the e-version just the shipping on a 1 ,700 page long book would be absurd and I don't there's probably 3 ,000 footnotes in 1 ,700 pages maybe more. I don't know if you look at NT Wright stuff.

It's Massive it's huge the guy is brilliant, and we sit back and go. He must be right. No no. John Dominic Crossan has produced huge books, too. But he thinks Jesus was crucified taken down burying a shallow grave dug up and eat my dogs.

Doesn't make him right, I mean there are brilliant people, but because they start at the wrong place They all their brilliance is absolutely wasted. Absolutely abjectly wasted. Now I'm not saying that everything NT Wright has said is wasted by any stretch the imagination he has some great insights.

But he also seems to think that. Well he's figured out when nobody else has. And that's one of the things that really bugs me about both done and right is they both have that same. I don't know is there something in the water at.

You know they're in England they've both served in the same spot. They've both served as Bishop of Durham and so there must be something in the water Durham that makes you think that I Have insights that no one else has ever had and I can prove it by writing 1700 long 1700 page books or One of Dunn's books G is remembered 990 pages long.

They're massive. They're huge. These guys do a lot of reading. Yep, they do that doesn't change the fact that they seem to be absolutely presupposition Lee challenged and so often miss the very presuppositional nature of their argumentation and you as a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

Living in a day where the term scholarship is used to beat you over the head. Must demythologize scholarship may I suggest to you the only scholarship scholarship is a wonderful thing. I Speak as a person who engages in scholarship all the time, and I seek to do so to the glory of God.

But the only meaningful scholarship for a Christian is scholarship. That is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ any other scholarship Can be seen as nothing more than there's no diff if you're a scholar in some Other field that not every Christian must recognize.

I don't care if you're a scholar in physics you still do your scholarship under the Lordship of Jesus Christ because it's Jesus Christ who created that realm and So you do your your scholarship under that but the point is everybody who does anything if you work at Walmart if you work at a Starbucks or McDonald's or You work paving roads, or you work in a bank, or you work in a school or whatever.

Your calling might be in that sense your your secular employment as is often called. You do that under the Lordship of Christ you do that as a servant of Jesus Christ. That's the command of Scripture.

But nowhere is that more important than when you call yourself a Christian scholar because your only reason for existence is to edify the body of Christ that's your only reason for existence and Whenever Christian scholarship loses that perspective it becomes a poison in the bloodstream of the church always has always has always will and so.

How do you determine Christian scholarship is it by the size the book? No, because I mean there have been great Christian scholars who've written huge books. That's not the issue. That's not the issue in fact to be perfectly honest with you 1 ,700 pages seems a little excessive to me.

You can't make your point a little bit more more succinctly than that I mean. Look Jesus didn't seem to have a whole lot of respect for the kind of scholarship in his day. Where well rabbi so-and-so said that rabbi so-and-so said that rabbi so-and-so said something.

Well anymore to be considered a scholar in the Academy you have to have two-thirds of your page of footnotes discussing what unbelievers Have said about this text. That's what's considered scholarship.

I mean You just anything in the Jesus field if you just go back and read The quest for the historical Jesus and all the rest this kind of stuff you've got to spend half your time just going back over What the big names have said and the vast majority were not Christians.

They were not believers. By any stretch of the definition they may may have gone to some state church or something. But there was no evidence of faith or repentance on their part they didn't believe in the deity of Christ the resurrection or whatever else it might be and.

Yet you've got to spend your time just you know, well Schleiermacher said this and Bultmann said that and and You know, you've just you and if you don't then you're not a true scholar because you're not taking into consideration all these things and.

So the books get longer and longer and longer and less accessible to the people that they should be accessible to. Another one of my pet peeves along those lines. I Think if you're a Christian scholar if you can't take your field and explain it to people in the church to edify them then.

You know, maybe you ought to think about that just a little bit just a little bit anyway. What I was getting to. When you Examine these works presuppositionally you fairly quickly discern where they went wrong at the start and how that then determines their handling of the data and you may not even know where some of the data is coming from but again a Man with common sense a man who thinks with clarity.

Presuppositionally from a proper Christian worldview. It's amazing how quickly they can cut through the fog of all the multitude of facts in the mind of a person who doesn't think clearly and Unfortunately, the Academy does not necessarily honor those who think clearly over against those who do not so what I was going to mention was just to give you an Really interesting example, I got up this morning and.

And Chris from pirate Christian radio are had sent me Links to he just did a debate and. And when he first mentioned this this guy to me at will I'm sitting going. Who is that? Had to look it up had to look it up and then then I was reminded who it was.

Remember just a few weeks ago. It's just a few weeks ago. I Mentioned the big announcement that was made that that in England. They were going to be revealing a new discovery a new discovery. That the Romans Had made up Christianity that there, you know.

And the way it was it was presented was, you know, there is a there is a papyri someplace. There was something and That the Romans had made up Christianity. And I told you at the time this just stinks of somebody some looney tune trying to make some money well Remember back when the the Jesus tomb story hit I jumped on it in 17 days had a book out.

Absolutely debunking the absurdity of the Jesus family tomb story. Because it was on ABC News and it was on a good morning America. And I mean it really over here got the big press. This hasn't gotten almost any press over here at all.

Maybe it's bigger in England. I don't know because it took place over there. I don't know but I started listening to Chris's mini-debate with at will and It was it was hilarious. I only got through the first hour, but it was hilarious.

I mean, I mean this guy the thing that the thing to me that was just like really was Chris goes so. Well, what do you what do you do with what Richard Balcombe said about Jesus and the eyewitnesses? I who's who's Richard Balcombe?

He didn't know Richard Balcombe was. Now I can especially laugh about that because I wrote the review of Balcombe's book back in what? 07 or something like that of the CRI Journal or something like that and I mean if you're gonna publish in this field and come up with an allegedly huge revelation that what he all it is folks is he says that there are amazing similarities between Josephus and And Jesus life and therefore Jesus was made up and that the evidence is found in this code found in Josephus and And It's absolutely nothing more than I forgot the guy's name was I've got the book out on my shelf.

But there are these books that this one guy's put out. Saying that Mark for example is borrowing from who was it? Some Greek poet somewhere. It is so easy to create parallels. In fact, have you all seen I wanted to have this queued up and I forgot I'm sorry I was gonna queue this up.

Look look this up on YouTube. If you want to see how easy this is what this at will did with Jesus. So coming up with the idea that Jesus is is is a fake go on YouTube and search for the video that parallels toy story with the walking dead.

According this video I watched this video I think yesterday day for yesterday. It is this really well done video on YouTube that says. Actually, they're the same story. They're the same story and. If you if you and if you just watch that you'd be forced to go.

Yeah, I mean you know like like in one of the toy stories, there's this this bearded guy with a cane and. And you've you've got the veterinarian the veterinarian, you know, they cut off his leg. He's got a cane type thing and you got a sheriff, you know, Rick is the sheriff and you've got you know what he's the sheriff and Shane was Buzz Lightyear and the sheriff got tried to get rid of Shane actually accomplished that but.

You know, you can't push it too far but. And you've got you've got these these creatures that destroy the little band. Of course, they're they're zombies in The Walking Dead, I'm sorry The Walkers but in Toy Story, they're little kids that tear stuff up and blow up toys and and do all that kind of stuff and and.

So there's this there's this this great video. Demonstrating that if you want to find parallels you can even find parallels between The Walking Dead and. And Toy Story all three Toy Stories, oh and then the governor the governor.

Yeah, the governor. I Didn't see I haven't seen Toy Story 3 so I was sort of a little out on that one. But there was some fluffy teddy bear type thing that ended up being this terrible horrible thing.

And that was the governor and my summer is saying I tweeted that link to you months ago well. Maybe you did. I just saw it yesterday. Oh, you know, we our kids grow up and we stop watching these things.

Well, I didn't I didn't see Toy Story 3. I'll have to get caught up on that. But anyhow. The point is you can make parallels out of anything if you want to and that's what this at will is done. Now the problem is when you start looking at the dissimilarities.

Well, that doesn't matter. Well, we'd have to worry about that and then you start running into the facts that demonstrate your theory doesn't make any sense. And this guy is just imploding all over the place.

I mean Chris just made him. He didn't have to even have to work very hard to make the guy just expose him for the money-grubbing Fraud that he is. It's just it is amazing. But there's always gonna be people out there.

They're gonna be doing this stuff they're gonna they're in it for a buck and The religion area is a great place to go and you know. The guy might just the sad thing is the guy might actually believe what he's saying.

He might actually believe that you know that he's saying what he's saying. It's it's sad, but if you get a chance Go Listen to a pirate Christian radio. I think it was yesterday's program and listen to Chris just.

It was enjoyable it really was enjoyable. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to put that on there. But it is it is it is really fun. I did want to do one other thing here. And did you want to try to test this today?

Yeah, let's go ahead and open the phones and stuff and We are going to invite you to Contact us via Skype today. Dividing dot line I think is the is the name dividing dot line if you'd like to call in via Skype.

We haven't done Skype in a long time. We're gonna need to do Skype on Thursday. Well and part of our test here is that we haven't actually done Skype since we started the YouTube right channel in September so yeah Skyping live YouTubing live so I may go let's talk to so-and-so in Skype and then everything.

We all bolt bolt of lightning and YouTube dies and the feed dies and we'll go okay. We'll see how this works. So dividing dot line is the is the address the Skype address if you would like to Call in today.

I wanted to do two other things before we take any calls. I Thought about doing this I almost killed myself Yesterday I was as I said, I did a I didn't mention it was it was an 88 mile ride and I was listening to these books and here is my iPod see there for the in the studio audience my little iPod that I use and I I Was I was stretching my right?

I had my arm behind me my back I was about 65 miles in the ride and I back in my big stupid lifting days. Tore up this right Right elbow. I've got soft tissue damage there that I've never had fixed and the right rotator cuff.

And so you're leaning on a bike for hours and hours and after about three hours or so The right arm starts bothering a little bit. So I I'm stretching it out. Well I started off in the cold and You might say Oh 43 is cold.

Yeah. Going 20 miles an hour into a 5 mile an hour headwind. I looked I looked up the windchill thing this morning. That's 29 degrees and when you're wearing riding shorts 29 degrees is cold. Okay, so I'd had a little I Had sat had some stuff on my legs and that was stuffed in my jersey now.

And so there's a lot of stuff in my jersey. So make a long story short this poor thing Fell out. While I was going north on Pima Road, so it falls out swings forward and goes right in my front tire. So it grabs it and very very quickly my my headset comes flying out of my ears that didn't feel really good those earbuds and Thankfully it didn't crash me.

And Believe it or not. It still works I had to clump about 20 yards back on Pima Road reach down pick it up. There's a nice big dig there and there and But other than that Screens not broken nothing. It's still it's still working which is which is an amazing thing.

It really really is an amazing thing. But what I wanted to do for you all today and that is if if rich can make this work on the other end is I wanted to play and it's a little bit harder now to get the thing in because it got a little bent.

But I wanted to play for you. What I listen to what I what I hear. Because you may be wondering how do you get through two books on one ride? Well, I want to I want to play for you and riches is taken up doing something else at the moment.

So he can't really help us do this right now. But if he were not busy right now then he would have the volume up so that you could hear what I'm trying to do, but Okay, I still can't hear that. Okay, let me find.