Eric Svendsen and Gerry Matatics On The Dividing Line

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:00

That answer with gentleness and reverence.

00:27

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

00:34

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

00:43

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. Here is

00:50

James White. My name is

00:56

James White and we have a program for you this evening. We've been working on it for over a month to arrange it.

01:02

It began with an email that I received on the 13th of October after I informed

01:09

Jerry Matitix and Jason Wallace. Oh, that's real good. The person who played that will now be in great trouble.

01:18

I talked to Jason Wallace and Jerry Matitix in an email and in one of the responses,

01:24

I received the following paragraph, which said, after I'd announced

01:31

I was going to be reviewing the debate that Jerry and I just had on the perpetual virginity of Mary, Jerry wrote, sounds like a rather one -sided radio program to me.

01:39

Why not do the manly thing rather than the craven one and invite me on the program instead of Eric Svensson or at least invite me in addition to Eric Svensson.

01:47

I don't mind two against one rather than beat up on me in absentia. So that's what began the program that you're listening to now.

01:57

I am joined by both Eric Svensson and Jerry Matitix. They're on the line obviously trying to get phone calls to work exactly right and making sure that both

02:09

Jerry and Eric, A, can hear each other and B, can hear the clips that I have to play from the debates that we have done is very, very important.

02:19

So we're going to make sure. Let's start with Eric. Eric, are you able to hear me just fine?

02:25

Hello, Eric. I cannot hear Eric. How about Jerry? Jerry, are you there? You, James, and I can hear

02:32

Eric because I heard him as well. I heard you saying that you couldn't hear him. Well, isn't that interesting? So I'm not sure.

02:38

Eric, are you there? I am here. Okay, there we go. That was interesting. I'm here in the middle and I didn't hear it, so that's great.

02:44

Well, anyways, what I'd like to do is the next thing to test is to make sure that everyone can hear what is played.

02:54

Now let me give some background before I play this and then we'll dive into things here. We're going to go to about 80 minutes today and we'll try to cram it all in as best we can.

03:04

Just so the listeners, if you've not listened before, tonight may confuse you just a little bit, and let me explain why.

03:11

In February of 1999, correct me if I'm wrong about that, Eric and Jerry.

03:16

In February of 1999, Eric Svendsen and Jerry Matasichs debated the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

03:24

Was that in California? Yes, northern California. San Jose, okay. And then in October of this year,

03:33

I believe it was October 4th, if I'm recalling correctly, maybe the 3rd, Jerry and I basically reprised the same debate.

03:39

The thesis was slightly different. Did Mary have other children after the birth of Christ? But it ended up being pretty much the same areas of discussion.

03:48

That took place at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Now I have clips from both of those debates that we're going to play this evening, and obviously if the listeners have not listened to those debates and maybe have not read some of the articles that are out there, for example, on our website we linked to Eric's response to Ron Tichelli's article on the subject of hellos who.

04:14

There's going to be a lot of stuff flying around. But one of the reasons we're going to try to keep this in 80 minutes is 80 minutes is as much as you can put on a

04:20

CD. And so once we're done with this, you can listen to the archive, and with an archive you can back it up and listen again.

04:27

You can slow things down because all three of us tend to speak rather quickly at times when we want to attempt to get as much information as we can.

04:37

And so that's what we're going to be doing this evening. We're going to be discussing various and sundry things. And obviously to make sure that Jerry can hear and Eric can hear and to get things started,

04:46

I'd like to begin with a clip. Now the clips from the debate between Jerry and Eric are probably of the ones we have the most, shall we say, muffled.

04:58

You have to listen a little bit more carefully just simply because of the recording that I have of it.

05:05

But toward the, it was during I believe the question and answer period, a discussion came up in regards to ancient sources.

05:15

And what this clip that I'm going to play, and I want to make sure both of you can hear it, what

05:20

I'm going to play is two things put together. It's one clip from the original debate with Jerry and Eric, and then at the end is a question and answer from the debate that took place just a few weeks ago in Salt Lake City.

05:34

So let's play this and make sure that everyone is able to hear this and that it is able to be heard by the folks who are listening in the channel as well.

05:44

So here we go with the clip. We know from Josephus' book The Jewish War that when James the brother of the

05:50

Lord was put to death by a mob of the Jews who threw him off a parapet of a temple in the 60s during the revolt against Rome from 66 to 70

05:58

A .D., we know that he was an Asian man in his 80s. Now you can stop and do the math for yourself.

06:04

I haven't slept for two days because I've been traveling here, but even I can figure out that if James is the brother of the

06:10

Lord and he was in his 80s when he was put to death in the 60s A .D., then he had to be a child, but at least he had...

06:22

And therefore Jesus would not be... And he's in his 80s when he's put to death.

06:31

And brother of the Lord means son of Mary. Then Mary was having children long before she had Jesus, and so in what sense is he the firstborn at all?

06:38

And even Mr. Benson doesn't believe that he wasn't the firstborn in the sense that Mary had children before him, because he believes, as I asked him, that Mary was a virgin until she gave birth, until after she gave birth to Jesus.

06:49

So I think the evidence of history is against us interpreting these brothers of the Lord in that way. Jerry, can you produce that quote from Josephus?

06:56

What is the citation there? I don't have my copy of Josephus. Because you quoted that in your debate with James White, too, and you didn't quote the citation there.

07:03

I looked that up, and the only citation that Josephus has for James, the brother of the

07:10

Lord, is not in Jewish Wars, as you alluded to in that debate. I'm not sure what you said this time. In Antiquities it is.

07:16

In Antiquities it does not mention any age. It does recount the death of James, but there is no age mentioned.

07:21

You keep mentioning it's 89 years old. That just doesn't exist. Well, I would like to see that.

07:28

I'll be willing to retract my statement if we find that it doesn't exist. It's in Chapter 20 of Antiquities.

07:35

But nobody has challenged the statement before when it's been made. So all

07:40

I'm saying, if I'm being honest with you, your point would be valid if you said, Hey, James White challenged you on that two years ago.

07:47

No, he didn't challenge you. You said it in your closing statement. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone challenge that there is no such statement.

07:54

I'd like you to produce it before you go on to your next debate. If I knew that if I had known you were going to challenge it,

07:59

I would have had the copy here. That's all I'm saying. This is a novelty. I've never heard anyone deny that there is such a statement. So I'm willing to do the work.

08:06

I'm personally inviting you to send me that reference. Very good. I'm personally responding. Thank you. In some other writer, perhaps, or another passage, perhaps, you see that it mentions that he's in his eighties.

08:16

But my point was that if we know that Jesus is the firstborn, as you yourself say, then

08:22

Mary could not have had children B .C. who are, in other words, brothers of Jesus, such as James could not be children of Mary, or it would have made

08:31

Christ no longer the firstborn. But though you promised to look it up, you did not do so? I don't recall promising to look it up, but I'm happy to do so now that you've reminded me.

08:38

In fact, I have the quotation on my phone. Well, you should have reminded me since then. Actually, I believe

08:46

Dr. Spenson has. Okay. First of all, is that hearable?

08:51

I was checking with folks listening to our chat channel. Everybody said that that was understandable to them. And so is that clear to both of our callers?

09:02

From my point of view, it's hearable, or as I prefer to say, audible. Okay. It's audible. That's the important part.

09:07

Okay. Now, obviously, Eric, you initially brought this issue up.

09:13

I will let you and Jerry discuss. Is this an issue?

09:19

What about Josephus? Well, Jerry, hello. I haven't talked to you in about five years. Hello. How are you?

09:25

I'm just fine. I guess my question to you, Jerry, is are you now willing, since you have not been able to produce that quote.

09:33

In fact, it's not in Jewish Wars and Antiquities, as I mentioned, but it's not even

09:39

James being thrown off the parapet of the temple. He was stoned in Chapter 20,

09:44

I'm sorry, Chapter 9 of Book 20 of Antiquities. There is no other reference to James, the brother of the

09:51

Lord, unless I missed something. Can you clarify that? Are you now ready to admit that there is no such reference in Josephus?

10:01

No, I'm not ready to admit that. In fact, I have the references. But at the same time, I want to be fair here.

10:07

As a Christian, I have an obligation to apologize if I'm ever confusing, and I certainly was on that occasion.

10:14

I need to apologize for two things. I have an apology to James White also, by the way, about another matter that I want to get to when we're done with this.

10:20

But I want to satisfy you on this point first. I owe you an apology, number one, because I was unclear in the way

10:26

I phrased my statement. As I said to you, I didn't have the statement in front of me. It was an off -the -cuff remark

10:32

I was making in the context of the debate. It was not in my prepared notes. And secondly, I do apologize. I owe you an apology, and I mean this sincerely and profoundly, and I want you to forgive me, as Christians are required by our

10:43

Lord to do, for forgetting that you challenged me to send you the reference. I certainly, listening to the clip now, am aware that I did tell you

10:54

I would do that, and I had until James reminded me about this in Utah. I had completely forgotten about this.

11:00

I have a very hectic schedule traveling all around the world, and I get about 1 ,000, and apparently you even sent me an email.

11:06

You say later on, although I've never seen it. But I get about 1 ,000 emails, phone calls, letters, faxes, you name it, a month, and a lot of them

11:13

I never actually see. They get automatically saved after a while to my hard drive, and I've never been able to catch up.

11:20

My life isn't too much fast forward. But actually, I'm happy to give you the evidence now. It's actually, listening to myself there in 99, it's actually much stronger.

11:29

I got it wrong there in terms of his age. The evidence is actually much stronger than I made it sound there.

11:38

And let me tell you what that is. You're completely correct that Josephus mentions

11:44

James being put to death in the Antiquities. That's in Book 20, Chapter 9,

11:50

Paragraph 1, or line or verse, with quotes around the word verse. Sometimes they're a little longer than one sentence.

11:56

It mentions his being put to death by the Jewish Sanhedrin between the governorship of Thestis and that of Albinus.

12:02

Albinus is on his way, he says. And he fixes that at the date, A .D. 62.

12:08

By the way, for the sake of our listeners, they certainly can find Josephus fairly easily. There are complete works of Josephus available in a single volume that they can get from a variety of outlets,

12:21

Protestant outlets like CBD, Christian Book Distributors, and Peabody Mass. They can get it at a local library.

12:27

It's online as well. It's online, everywhere. And what I did not make clear, although I did allude to it,

12:33

I did allude to it, I believe, in 99, and I heard myself clearly saying it again in the clip that James just played from our debate in Utah, that this is a combination of Josephus' own words being read, being mediated through other writers,

12:53

I said, church fathers. And what I actually had read, and I did not make this clear, and I apologize, but I'm happy to make it clear now.

13:01

In fact, I'm just writing up a little article about this, and I'll put it on my website and let you respond to that so you can have all the references.

13:08

But what I was referring to were the quotations from Josephus in Eusebius, in his work,

13:13

The History of the Church, which is also readily available, both Josephus' The Jewish War, which

13:20

Eusebius claims did make references to James, although we don't have them in the version we have now, and Eusebius' The History of the

13:27

Church are available in Penguin paperbacks, very easily referenced. And what I would refer people to would be in Eusebius' History of the

13:35

Church, or Ecclesiastical History, as it's sometimes called, book two, the entirety of chapter 23.

13:41

It's called The Martyrdom of James, the Lord's Brother. And in that passage, Eusebius, who refers to Josephus' testimony, both about Jesus and James, many times, tells the whole story.

13:55

And he cites, in the course of his History of the Church, not only Josephus, but he also cites

14:02

Hegesiphus, who's writing, of course, at the beginning of the second century, he says it's the next generation of the apostles.

14:10

He cites Clement, he cites a variety of church fathers who themselves, some of them are testifying independently, and some of them are actually quoting

14:18

Josephus. Jerry, I'm having a real hard time hearing you. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know if you're speaking into your mouthpiece or not.

14:25

My mouth is right up against the phone. Okay, well, we'll have... I'll try to speak more loudly. Okay, well, we'll try to amplify it a little bit here as well.

14:31

But if I could... I just saw the entirety of the Eusebius quote scroll by in our chat room.

14:38

It was posted by a minister back from Georgia. And I never saw anything about an age in there.

14:47

Are you saying that the age is provided by Eusebius, and if so, where? Yes, let me give that to you.

14:53

The book I would recommend that people get to that brings all the primary source documents, Josephus, Eusebius, Hegesiphus, Epiphanius, all together, is a book that came out in 1997.

15:07

I had not seen it at the time, in fact, that I had the debate with Eric, but I would recommend it as probably the easiest book for someone to find in a bookstore, only because it has a reputation as being a sort of Christianity debunking type book.

15:20

It's a liberal book. Let me emphasize, it's not a Catholic book, not even a Christian book. On the contrary, it seeks to deconstruct the traditional view of the establishment of the

15:27

Christian faith. And yet, the virtue of this book, if I can put it this way, is that it does bring together all the relevant primary source documents.

15:35

And it's a book by Robert Eisenman, who has also written a book called The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, called James, the

15:41

Brother of Jesus, published in 1997. You can get it in a big fat Penguin paperback, 1074 pages.

15:47

Have you read that, Eric? I have not. Okay, have you read it, James? No. What's the reference to Eusebius, please?

15:53

Okay, the references to Eusebius and to Josephus alike are as follows. I'll give them to you. Again, I'm typing this up, and we'll put it on my website.

16:00

But if you want to copy them down now, Eisenman mentions the description of James' death in Josephus about 16 times, and they are on the following pages, pages 64 and 65, 111, 188.

16:15

395 begins a whole lengthy six -page section titled, quote, Josephus' Testimony Connecting James' Death to the

16:22

Fall of Jerusalem, unquote. Jerry, is there a reference in Eusebius? Could you give it to us? We have folks online right now that will pull it up instantly if you'll just give it to us.

16:31

Okay. What is the reference in Eusebius? Well, I'm giving you the references in Eisenman to Eusebius.

16:37

But if you want just me to give you the quote from Eusebius itself. We can read Eusebius ourselves and decide whether there's an age,

16:44

I think. You have a section in Book 2, Chapter 23, which I mentioned. You have a section likewise in Book 3.

16:50

But Book 2 to 23 doesn't have an age in it. The big issue here, obviously, is the assertion that you initially made in 97.

16:58

In the debate that we did, we unfortunately did four different topics, so there was no interaction on it. Then repeated with Eric, and then

17:07

I asked about it. The only thing that's relevant here is not the death of James because we know that James died.

17:13

The issue is how old he was when he died. I'm sorry. I'm getting to that.

17:19

The point I was trying to make is that there are two numbers here that have to be correlated. The one is the number of the year of James' death.

17:27

Everyone agrees, both ancient and modern, liberal, conservative,

17:32

Protestant, Catholic, that James died in 62 A .D. The second point that I'm making is that Eisenman gives you all the references to the age of James at his death.

17:43

In Eisenman's book, those can be found on page 303, 320, 326, 340, 345, 467, 831, 839, 1007, and Note 21.

17:55

Those are just some of the ones I found. You can simply turn the index in the back and look up James' longevity.

18:01

In every single case, he cites ancient testimony, whether from Eusebius, whether from Hegesippus.

18:06

Where? Where? Everyone on the channel is going, we just want to look it up.

18:12

If we don't have Eisenman, where is it in Eusebius? It's in Hegesippus.

18:18

It's in Epiphanius. And in every single one of these... Jerry, you do realize that... Let me finish my sentence, and then

18:24

I'll respond to your concern. In every single case, he cites the testimony of ancient fathers that James was not 80, as I misspoke.

18:31

Forgive me, again, for my inaccuracy, but it's actually stronger than I said. He was 96 when he died, and Eisenman states this, not once, not twice, not three times, not four, not five, six, seven, or eight, but at least nine times, and probably more, as I haven't read all the footnotes.

18:47

And he cites here, and he gives all the citations from Eusebius, Epiphanius, Hegesippus. If you want me to read them all out verbatim,

18:53

I can. But my point is this, gentlemen, do the math. Do the math. If James, the brother of Jesus, was 96 when he was martyred in AD 62, then he was born in 34

19:04

BC. He could not, therefore, have been a son of Mary since he was born before she was even born. End of discussion.

19:09

Case closed. End of discussion. Case closed. That assumes that your author is correct in what he says.

19:15

We want to look at the references ourselves, which is why we've been asking you for them. You're giving us page numbers to Eisenman.

19:20

We don't want page numbers to him. We want page numbers to Hegesippus and Eusebius. Okay.

19:26

And Epiphanius. Epiphanius, Against Heresies, Book 78, Chapter 13,

19:32

Verse 2. And there he says he's 96. Yep. Okay. He says, quote, James, after giving a lengthy, here,

19:39

I'll read it right out to you verbatim. He, after giving the, this is, let me see here.

19:47

Okay. So, this is the description via of James, via Hegesippus. It says, here's what Eisenman says.

19:52

He's quoting Hegesippus. This is page 303 in Eisenman. The description of James via Hegesippus in all early church sources, quote, he was holy from his mother's womb.

20:02

He drank no wine or strong drink, nor did he eat meat. No razor touched his head, nor did he anoint himself with oil.

20:09

And then he says, he says Epiphanius adds, he died a virgin at the age of 96.

20:15

Do you also know that Hegesippus cited James, the brother of the Lord, as the head of the temple in Jerusalem?

20:25

Which is pure speculation and, in fact, rejected by every scholar. No, he didn't describe him as the head of the temple. He says because he came from a priestly family, he would go into the

20:34

Holy of Holies and pray. He didn't say he was the head of the temple. He said he was thrown off the pinnacle of the temple.

20:40

Okay. At this rate, we're going to get to about two clips because we've gone for 20 minutes.

20:46

You're asking for the evidence I've given it. Okay, yes. It wasn't in Josephus and it's not in Eusebius.

20:52

It's in somebody else. No, no, no. It's in Eusebius. Have you read Eusebius? Eusebius gives the number 86 or 96 or 80 or whatever it was.

21:03

Yes. Okay, and where? 96. 96. He was 96 when he died. And the specific reference in Eusebius to 96 is?

21:14

Okay. Well, we'll look those up and we all know now that it wasn't in Josephus. We really, really, really need to.

21:21

There's so many things we need to look at, but I want to move on to the next issue and that is... Before you do that, can

21:28

I just ask a question? Just a one -sentence question. Real quick. Do you agree that if, and I realize this is an if that you need to check out, but do you agree that if James, the brother of our

21:37

Lord, was 96 when he died, and if he died in 62

21:43

B .C., then it is proof positive that someone born in 32

21:48

B .C. and referred to by all these ancient writers as a, quote, brother of the Lord, therefore clearly indicates that the phrase brother of our

21:56

Lord can be used by people in the first century A .D.,

22:02

like Josephus, to indicate someone who is not a child of the

22:07

Virgin Mary? Josephus didn't use the terminology. You have to get back to the fourth century, which is...

22:13

No, you're wrong. Excuse me? Josephus refers to James as the brother of the Lord. Yes, sir, but he did not use...

22:18

You are taking information that's four centuries later, reading it back into Josephus, and therefore saying, ah, see, this is how they were using it.

22:26

I don't accept that. James, what four centuries later? Josephus is writing at the beginning of the second century when he tells us that James was 96.

22:32

You keep going from...we go from Eusebius to this to that, the other thing. Eusebius is writing in the fourth century, is he not?

22:38

He is, but... Okay, that's what I was referring to. Josephus is writing in the second century.

22:44

He is writing in the second century, but he does make a distinction. He tells us that James was 96 when he died. Josephus does not tell us that James was 96 when he died, and he also makes a distinction between the autophos of the

22:56

Lord. There's a quotation I have in my book. It's on page 99, if you'd like to follow along. He mentions

23:02

James as the brother, that is, the autophos of the Lord, and Jude, who he says, quote, who is said to have been the

23:09

Lord's autophos, according to the flesh, end quote, but then he also mentions Simeon, the son of Clopas, whom he calls the cousin or anepsios of the

23:19

Lord. Now, my question, Jerry, is if he did not use autophos in strictly the sense of a biological sibling, if that was intended to be a wider reference to close relations, why did he feel the need to distinguish between those terms and call

23:33

Simeon anepsios rather than an autophos? The word autophos is used both in a broader and a narrower sense.

23:42

Why didn't he use it for Simeon, the son of Clopas, then? Eric, you're conversant enough with the literature to realize that not everyone writing in the

23:51

Bible, and every church father, is always saying, I've got to use just the exact precise term. This is the same church father in the same passage.

23:58

He calls two men, James, the autophos of the

24:05

Lord, and Jude, the autophos of the Lord. Interestingly, there's two of the four that we find in the

24:11

Gospels themselves. Then he calls Simeon, the son of Clopas, the anepsios of the Lord.

24:16

Now, why do you suppose he makes the distinction between those? If autophos is sufficient to refer to any relative of Jesus, why not simply use the same word?

24:26

Why make the distinction? Well, again, we're not given all the necessary data.

24:33

He could be referring to adopted children of Joseph, as some of the early church fathers suggested.

24:40

In other words, an adopted child would be his brother, in a sense that a cousin would not. We don't know. My point is that someone can be using the word autophos and not intending to fix, in a precise fashion, now exactly how is he related to the

24:55

Lord? Can you cite one New Testament scholar that agrees with you? I beg your pardon? One New Testament scholar that agrees with you.

25:01

There are several that agree with me. Okay, let's get into that. I just got off the phone. Well, I'll wait until we get to Heosu.

25:08

Yeah, let's get into Heosu here. Everybody can look up the various... I think the points have been made fairly clearly there, and I'm sure that there will be further clarification in the future.

25:17

Let's listen to what Jerry said in regards to Heosu in our last debate. I'm happy, Dr. White, to spend time on grammar.

25:25

I'm happy to talk about the Greek. I had the privilege of starting to study Greek at a prep school,

25:30

Philips Exeter Academy, one of the few prep schools that still teaches Greek at the high school level. I did a self -designed major in Classical New Testament and Patristic Greek at University of New Hampshire.

25:40

I went on to study Greek at the master's level and at the doctorate level. And these Greek arguments have been shown to Greek scholars who far outstrip both my competence and Dr.

25:50

White's, who have simply laughed at this. And I can give you a whole article by Fr. Ronald Tisselli, who has shown these arguments about Heosu.

25:57

This thing has been blasted to smithereens, and even retired by Protestant apologists, and yet it's still being dredged up tonight.

26:05

Now, I'd like to ask, outside of Ron Tisselli, who is a philosopher, an expert on Kant, but as far as I can tell is not a

26:15

New Testament Greek scholar of any rank, I would like to know specifically what

26:23

Greek scholars laugh at this material. You didn't listen carefully to both what

26:28

I said and what Fr. Tisselli said in his article. He simply said, in fact he explicitly said, I am not a

26:34

Greek expert. What he said in his article and what I referred to, if you replay that clip again, I said he showed it to Greek scholars and they blew it to smithereens.

26:42

Not that he has. I'm not putting all this weight on Fr. Tisselli, although he's an extremely well -educated and very intelligent man.

26:49

He was simply writing a popular -level article for Envoy magazine citing the fact that he has shown this to reputable

26:56

Greek scholars that he knows in the Boston area, various Boston schools, and they laughed at the idea that although haos has this more elastic possibility, that it could mean that the condition or the main action of the main verb ceases and it could mean that it continues, that haos who, by contrast, has a strict sense and it always requires that the main action of the verb cease.

27:20

Okay, so let me ask you. So you don't know who these Greek scholars are, but you're citing them by hearsay from Ron Tisselli in an article in Envoy where he does not even name

27:29

Erik Svensson. He does not even give sources as to what he's reviewing. And yet, despite all that, you're certain that what he quote -unquote showed these scholars was actually

27:40

Erik's formal work and not merely, say, an internet message where someone summarized elements of that.

27:47

Wouldn't that explain all the inaccuracies in Tisselli's article that Erik has documented in his own response?

27:53

I don't need to be able to cite the specifics of the conversations Father Tisselli had with the

27:58

Greek scholars he consulted. I know that what he says has the ring of truth. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Turn it down,

28:05

Rich. Turn it down. Thank you. I'm sorry. I, myself, consulted. I don't take anyone's word for anything.

28:11

I, myself, just got off the phone moments before, like 15 minutes before we got on air, with Robert H.

28:16

Gundry, Evangelical Protestant, professor of Greek and New Testament, scholar -in -residence at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

28:24

I have spoken to my Greek professors at Westminster Seminary a few weeks ago. These are published

28:30

New Testament scholars of a stature far beyond Erik's. Which ones at Westminster, sir?

28:36

Vern Poitras, Dan McCartney. And do they have

28:42

Erik's work? I haven't seen the evidence. Have they examined the evidence, yes or no?

28:48

I don't know. You don't know? It would matter how the argument is presented. That's not my contention, by the way.

28:54

My contention is that they have examined, they have examined the relevant grammars and lexica and concordances that show the usage of heos and heos hu.

29:07

And they all contained, and I spent a significant amount of time today with a world -class Greek scholar.

29:12

He has a whole lectureship series established in his name, Dr. John C. Roman at the University of New Hampshire, under whom

29:19

I studied when I did my self -design major in Greek. And I spent a lot of time going over this with him, and I told him, look,

29:25

I want you to be fair. I want to be impartially honest and not use an argument that will not hold water. He said, Jerry, it is crystal clear.

29:31

And this man is Greek. He speaks Greek as his language. It doesn't matter. Koine Greek is different than modern

29:37

Greek. I understand that, but he's an expert in Homeric Greek, Attic Greek, Koine Greek, Septuagint, New Testament, Patristic.

29:43

He looked at all the lexica, and he said, Jerry, everyone, every Greek scholar that I know, every concordance that I consulted, every grammar that I've read, every lexicon that I possess and that I've read that I teach from, completely concurs with what you are saying, that both heos and heos hu are interchangeable in the fact that they can be used in a loose and in a strict sense.

30:08

That is, they indicate there's no change or that there is a change. That's the way it is in the Septuagint. And Eric Svensson admits that.

30:15

Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's the way it's used after the New Testament period, and he admits that. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

30:21

Before you two, I'm going to let Eric respond to this, but I want to make sure our listeners understand.

30:27

Not a single person that you have talked to has, to your knowledge, that you can document, has ever read

30:35

Eric's work, right? I don't know. I didn't ask him all the things that he read. I think that makes the point.

30:41

Eric, you go first. Well, a couple of things. First of all, in most cases, it's hard to know whether my argument is being well represented, and that's well illustrated in T 'Challi's article itself, where he immediately, right off the bat, misrepresents my argument by saying that I claim there is a reversal of the action of the main clause once the until is reached with the phrase heos hu.

31:05

I do not claim that. In fact, I disclaim that in my book. It is not the fact. It is not the case that there is a reversal.

31:11

It is the case that there is a discontinuation of the action of the main clause. That's a quibble. No, it's not a quibble.

31:17

No, it is not a quibble, Jerry, and that's what he meant is a cessation. It doesn't matter whether he called that or not.

31:24

Look, what I'm trying to get across here is that who knows how they have seen that argument?

31:30

Who knows how it's been represented? All right, let me give you both people who have looked at your stuff. If you go to a website that has just been posted, www .catholiclegate

31:41

.com, there's a hyphen. Oh, please, please, Jerry. I'm familiar with the website. This is somebody who doesn't even know

31:47

Greek, and yet he's trying to write a full response to my book. This is a new article that's just been posted just today.

31:53

Who wrote it? No, no, no, who wrote it? It was a collaborative effort on the part of several scholars.

32:00

And where do they teach? What are their names and where do they teach? I think if you go to the website, you'll be able to find them.

32:06

That's called hearsay, Jerry. That's called hearsay. That's all we've been hearing so far. No, there is, excuse me, there is an appendix.

32:12

I'll be happy to give you the quotes of the scholars. There is an appendix to that article with a survey of all sorts of reputable biblical scholars,

32:23

New Testament scholars, professors of Greek, where they are asked, they are shown, it's called appendix to scholar survey.

32:32

These are people that are published world class scholars. But if people want to check this out for themselves, go to www .catholic

32:40

-legate .com

32:45

So you believe these things even when you don't know who the scholars are? I do know who the scholars are. Well, who are they then?

32:51

Reverend Francis J. Maloney, a biblical scholar. Dr. Edward L.

32:58

Bode, M -A -S -S -L -S -T -D. Robert F. Hall. How do you know these people?

33:04

I mean, for example, I'm going to play it if we ever get to it, and I don't think we're going to the speed we're going. You, for example, in a recent debate quoted a medical doctor, which you called an expert in Jewish rabbinic language.

33:19

Rabbinical literature. Rabbinical literature, in a debate against a man by the name of Murphy. I'd like to know who that scholar was, because I think it might shed some light on your use of scholarship here,

33:31

Jerry. Who was that? Well, that's an... Who was that? I would have to pull that name out of my notes.

33:39

You said you had an article. You repeated it three times. You offered to give it to everyone in the audience, and you said it was from a medical doctor.

33:46

Was it Art Sippo? No, it wasn't Art Sippo. Then you don't even know who it was. No, I do. I mean,

33:52

I know it wasn't Art Sippo. That was something that I had read that day. I brought it with me.

33:57

I mentioned, in fact, in the debate, if you listened to the debate, I had just read it on the Internet. I printed it out, and I said,

34:03

Here is an article. I was happy to pass it out. I don't have it in front of me now, because you didn't say that you wanted to talk about this tonight.

34:09

You said you wanted to talk about it. No, the point is, obviously, the point is, Jerry, that I'm absolutely amazed at the fact that you would utilize all these...

34:20

Well, you know, I got this off the Internet. You can get anything off the Internet, Jerry. I mean, you, of all people, should know that.

34:26

I could go to Catholic Answers and get all sorts of stuff about you off the Internet. You've got a website yourself.

34:33

I think everyone knows what the point is, Jerry, and that is you can't believe everything you get off the

34:38

Internet. I've pulled stuff that people have written about me, Roman Catholics.

34:44

Let me finish this. You're misrepresenting the point. The point is not that, hey, we got it off the Internet, therefore it's true.

34:50

We're saying if you look at the stature of people like Dale Allison, you agree that Dale Allison is a reputable

34:55

New Testament scholar. Do you not? Are you familiar with his work? Are you familiar with his work? Jerry, do you agree that Joseph Fitzmyer is a reputable

35:02

New Testament scholar? Do you agree that John P. Meyer is a reputable New Testament scholar?

35:09

Do you agree that Craig Blomberg is a reputable New Testament scholar? These are people who agree with me.

35:18

These are people that look at the lexical evidence, and they see autophos is used in a certain way in the

35:23

LXX, in the Septuagint. I thought we were talking about Haos II right now. It's used in a certain way in the

35:28

New Testament, and the semantic range has some commonality, but it is not the exact same semantic range.

35:34

Are you suggesting that the three men you just mentioned have looked at your contention?

35:42

Craig Blomberg read my book, and that Haos II can never allow for the condition continuing, and that they have put their names to your thesis.

35:52

Is that what you're claiming? Yes or no? Yes, Jerry, I am. You're saying that Craig Blomberg is saying that Eric Fenton is right, that Haos II once upon a time had this flexible sense, and yet inexplicably it became rigidified for the brief time that the

36:09

New Testament was being written, and then it went elastic again. Jerry, he has read my book and endorsed it. He is an expert in Matthew.

36:16

He is an expert in the synopsis. Okay, come on, one at a time here.

36:23

Let me finish, Jerry. Let me finish my point that I wasn't able to finish before, and that is, you're saying you have Greek scholars.

36:29

By the way, Greek scholars, New Testament scholars, there's a fine distinction between the two. You say you have

36:34

Greek scholars who look at Haos II and they say there's no distinction. What I'm saying is, would they say that same thing about the simple phrase,

36:45

Afri, and Afri who? In other words, we have another phrase that is nearly identical to Haos and Haos who.

36:54

We've got another phrase, Afri, and Afri who, which means the same thing. It means until.

37:00

But there are New Testament scholars such as F .F. Bruce, Joachim Jeremias, I. Howard Marshall, several others that recognize that when

37:12

Afri is combined with who, in the subjunctive there is a different meaning than simply

37:19

Afri by itself. But that is not your thesis. No, my thesis is it's the same thing with Haos II.

37:25

Exactly, that's your thesis. Let me finish my point, please. Have any of these people said that?

37:31

Have any of these people said, you know... It sets a precedent, Jerry. What I'm saying is... In your opinion. You can't just look at a word.

37:38

Do you understand how New Testament studies are done? Do you understand how New Testament exegesis is done?

37:43

Of course I do. You don't simply look at a word and have a lexicon in front of you and that's the end all and be all. That is not how

37:49

New Testament studies are done. I understand that. You need to take the phrase, the Greek construction, which is rarely dealt with in a lexicon.

37:56

These are dealt with in Greek studies. These are dealt with in grammatical work, not lexicons.

38:02

You can find basic meanings. You can find semantic ranges. But you're not going to find established usages of different periods within a lexicon.

38:10

I'm sorry. I have to vehemently disagree. That is not the purpose of a lexicon. I have to disagree with everything you just said. Because if you look at a detailed lexicon, if you look at Kittel's TDNT, you have precisely that.

38:20

You have precisely a discussion of the development of a term over time the same way the

38:25

OED does for the English language. Does BDAG talk about Granville Sharpe's rule? Good question.

38:33

Does he? Because everything that I've read so far, and by the way, Jerry, John Pacheco wrote that article, and he's about as fair and scholarly as Jack Chick.

38:43

I mean, it's absolutely amazing. He has absolutely no knowledge of the Greek language. But I tried to raise this issue with you before,

38:50

Jerry, because almost everything that you've said, I've even got a clip here where you're mocking the use of the Logos Bible software and things like that.

38:56

Almost everything you've said, if someone in the year 1800 had gone to Greek scholars in England who had yet to read the work of Granville Sharpe and had presented to them, do you think maybe that there's some validity to this concept?

39:13

They would have gotten all sorts of different responses until the people could examine the relevant scholarship.

39:20

And that's exactly what you're doing here. You'll use Granville Sharpe's. I'm sure that you believe Granville Sharpe. I would hope you would believe that Granville Sharpe is a relevant rule.

39:28

And yet there was a time when it was unknown. There was a time in 1750 when

39:34

Greek grammarians had not yet codified and understood the construction of what's called the

39:41

Granville Sharpe construction today. Actually, it's a group of six of them, but we see it in Titus 2 .13,

39:46

2 Peter 1 .1. But guess what, James? Guess what, James? The Christian faith is something that was taught by Christ the Apostle, and it is not held hostage by the particular…

39:55

That's a clever rhetorical… Yeah, it is. It has no meaning. It's not a clever rhetorical response.

40:00

It has no meaning in the New Testament study. And for you to suggest, look, I'm simply saying let people look at the primary sources that Eric Spencer wants to build his case on.

40:09

If you go to the documents that he himself said in his work that he went through, he used the thesaurus linguae grecae and went through the occurrences of Haos II.

40:19

If people will go to the article that I referred them to a few minutes ago, www .catastrohic

40:26

.com… Yeah, John Pacheco, yeah. And is he going to bring up the same arguments that T 'Challi did? If people will read the actual primary source documents from that period.

40:35

For example, there is a quote there from the life of Adam and Eve from the very period of time…

40:41

Which is included in my book. Wait a minute, Jerry, have you ever read Eric's book? Yes or no? Yes, I have. Okay, then why weren't you aware of that?

40:48

I am aware of that. You're aware I include that passage in my book? Yes, I am. Okay, the lowest limit…

40:54

And I read the article that Eric sent yesterday in which he refers to that. And I'm simply saying because Eric says, look,

41:02

I dismiss this passage as not in fact proving the other side. I'm suggesting that people read the passage for themselves.

41:08

The second thing I would say is that with all due respect to Eric, his desire to say,

41:14

I'm going to set the parameters to 100 years before the birth of the Lord and 100 years afterwards, should more accurately be to 100 years before the writing of Matthew's Gospel and 100 years afterwards.

41:26

Matthew 1 .25, what's relevant there in the use of heos hu is it's not the date of our

41:33

Lord's birth, but the date in which the construction of heos hu was used. If you go 100 years before that, that is to 150

41:39

B .C., or excuse me, to let's say 50 B .C., and you go 100 years after, 150

41:45

A .D., then you can look at something like the work known as Joseph and Asenath.

41:53

And in Joseph and Asenath, and again, this is in the article that I mentioned, here you have a second text where it says

42:00

Asenath was left alone with the seven virgins, and she continued to be weighed down and weep until, heos hu, the sun set.

42:07

And she ate no bread and drank no water, and the night fell, and all the people in the house slept, and she alone was awake and continued to brood and to weep.

42:14

Here we have a classic example that blows to smithereens, if I can borrow the language that you found offensive before,

42:21

Eric Spenson's contention that in the acceptable parameters, you have no instance where heos hu allows the condition to continue.

42:30

Here you do. Heos hu is used in this very contemporary document to show that something can happen until a certain point, namely

42:39

Asenath weeping until the sun goes down, and she continues to weep thereafter. And can you show us any of that in the

42:45

New Testament? Let me see here. You're willing to...

42:53

The argument of Eric Spenson is that we look at all the extra -biblical literature to shed light on how he's in the

42:59

New Testament. That's because that's how you do scholarship. That's because that's how you do

43:09

New Testament exegesis and scholarship. Hold on, hold on. Hey, you know, I can... Wait a minute.

43:15

Jerry, you've gotten 70 % of the talk so far, and you're really filibustering, and I think everybody can see that.

43:22

I just want to make sure before you move on, I want to point something out to you. You have said, well, find it in the lexicons, find it in the lexicons.

43:30

We need to see this stuff in the lexicons. In fact, let me play a section where you said this. And I could cite

43:35

Greek lexicons. I encourage you to do what Dr. White said. Get a hold of Greek lexicons,

43:41

Greek concordances, and you will find that none of them say that heos means one thing, but heos hu means something else.

43:47

They will show you that there's the same range of meaning. Okay, so you've said, if you can find it in a lexicon, if it's found in a lexicon, then would that not then...

43:58

If we could show you something in a lexicon, wouldn't that establish the validity of the point?

44:04

And yet, you then said this. Sumericamide, it coming together, doesn't have to have that sexual connotation in the papyri of the period.

44:12

Since we're talking about contemporary accounts, it simply means to marry. You can look that up for yourself in Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich.

44:18

I have the photocopy right here. So, you have said, you've made the statement on heos hu, you've got to find it in the lexicons because it's not in Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich, and Donker.

44:27

And I've talked to all these scholars, though I can't prove that anyone's ever read the research, but they all said this. But, sumericamide in Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Donker, it just simply means to marry.

44:38

And yet, I have Bauer, Donker, Arndt, and Gingrich, the current edition, in front of me. And it reads, number three, the meaning, the only place where Matthew 1 .18

44:48

is cited, to unite in an intimate relationship, come together in a sexual context.

44:55

Don't stop reading. I'm not going to, because it then gives you 1 Corinthians 7 .5, and then it gives you

45:02

Matthew 1 .18, and then it says, domestic and marital relations are combined, and then, in parenthesis, in marriage contracts in papyri, prosgamon tini sunelfine means marry.

45:18

Also, without prosgamon, and then it gives the rest of the references. Now Jerry, it is absolutely, grossly dishonest for anyone with your background and training to give a parenthesis comment on a particular form that does not appear in Matthew 1 .18,

45:37

and not give the audience the actual translation provided by the source, which is to unite in an intimate relationship, come together,

45:48

Matthew 1 .18, especially when the Greek that is found in Matthew 1 .18 is not what is in marriage contracts.

45:56

You have that phrase that is used there. It is absolutely, grossly misleading to people to say, here, this is what this says.

46:03

But my point is this, here is the lexicon. You said, unless we can find it in, oh

46:09

Sue, well here is the lexicon. The lexicon says, to unite in an intimate relationship, come together.

46:16

So if you are consistent, then here is the lexicon. It proves exactly what sunerkami means in Matthew 1 .18.

46:23

Why not? It does. I agree with you. I agree that we should appeal the lexicon. My point here, and by the way, you are making a big hay in Utah that, gee,

46:32

Jerry, because you mentioned Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich, forgive me, it is a force of habit to refer to BAG rather than BDAG, B -D -A -G.

46:39

The third edition does put the abbreviation D after the B and before the

46:45

A -G instead of B -A -G -D. It is the same people. It is Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Dunker. And you were saying,

46:51

Jerry, you must not have the third edition, and therefore you are not competent to speak to this issue. And you just quote about this on and on, and likewise in all these e -mails to me.

46:59

The fact is, James, I have the third edition. I am happy to have you test me on it. You can say, Jerry, what is the third word on page 970, and I will read it to you, or what have you.

47:07

But my point was that the third edition does not reverse any of the teaching of the second edition. Yes, they both say exactly what

47:14

I said they said. Exactly. They both say that the word sunerkami, this Greek word used in Matthew 1 .18,

47:20

before they came together, can mean several things in the New Testament. It can mean come together. That is the first thing given.

47:29

And what does it say for Matthew 1 .18? And I am getting to that. It can say to come or go, one or more persons.

47:36

And number three, it says to unite in an intimate relationship. That is certainly what Joseph and Mary did. They entered into the intimate relationship of husband and wife.

47:44

But it does not say that they had sexual coitus. Come together in a sexual context. Matthew 1 .18, the point

47:52

I made in the debate, was I quoted this very sentence. You just quoted it. You said, what does it say about Matthew 1 .18?

48:00

I said it mentions domestic and marital relations, and it says in marriage contracts, in the papyrus, this phrase, proskaman tini sunofen, means marry, and even without proskaman...

48:12

Jerry, that is not in Matthew 1 .18. Where is gaman in Matthew 1 .18? The point is, it says it means that even without gaman.

48:22

I cannot believe. You are the one that is misrepresenting it to people. Wait a minute. I want everyone to go look at this resource.

48:30

I am going to read it again. This is what the lexicon says. To unite in an intimate relationship, come together in a sexual context.

48:37

I mean, I cannot believe that you would... And that is the meaning given to 1 .18,

48:43

is it not? No. No? Jerry, even the second sentence reference, that statement that you just quoted, is followed in parentheses by a whole bunch of references.

48:55

It is still under the same meaning, to come together in a sexual context. It all means that.

49:01

It is just citing phrases that it might be used in, but it is not literature. I cannot believe you...

49:07

Jerry, come on. It qualifies that by going on to say that in the phrase,

49:13

Prin e sunelfane autous, Matthew 1 .18, that is the phrase that is quoted from Matthew 1 .18,

49:20

domestic and marital relations are combined, and it goes on to say, in marriage contracts and papyri, pros gaman tini sunelfane means marry, also without gaman.

49:29

Which implies a sexual relationship. That is what the whole point of that meaning is. Are you trying to tell us that when it says 1

49:35

Corinthians 7 .5, when it says come together in a sexual context, that that is only the extra -biblical stuff, that that is not the meaning that is given for 1

49:44

Corinthians 7 .5 and Matthew 1 .18? I mean, I have never seen anyone who has looked at this lexicon and has said, oh no, the major meaning here is not how we are putting these together at all.

50:00

That is separate from that. Right. All you have to do is have a knowledge of how outlines work. Once you get to point number 3, everything under point 3 falls into point 3.

50:10

And if point 3 is to come together in a sexual context, and then it lists different ways in which that word sunerchimai can be used within that context, that still falls under that context.

50:23

I agree that it is under the general rubric of uniting in an intimate relationship. I said that. In a sexual context.

50:29

I agree that the marriage of Mary and Joseph was an intimate relationship.

50:35

In a sexual context. Without requiring sexual activity. But this is what

50:41

BDAG is saying, Jerry. You are just saying that you need a lexicon to convince you. Well, here it is. So you are not convinced.

50:48

That leads me to believe you would not be convinced even if hells who were separated from hells in a lexicon.

50:53

Exactly. No, because the lexicon itself tells me, in a marriage contract, this verb can be used to describe the contractual entering into the marital status.

51:12

In a sexual context. In other words, it is going to be implied. That is why it falls under point number 3 instead of another point.

51:20

But you agree, Eric, you agree that in a marriage contract, we are talking about Mr. A and Ms.

51:26

B coming together into a marriage relationship. The marriage contract is not talking about their sexual activity.

51:32

It is talking about them becoming husband and wife. First of all, it is used with the word gamas, which means marriage.

51:39

So really, it is not sun -erchemai, that means that. It is the word gamas.

51:45

It is used in a 2nd century document. It cites a 2nd century document, but that is 100 years after the fact.

51:53

You know, I just think anyone who looks at the reference is going to sit there and absolutely scratch their head.

51:59

I was going to play a section where in your debate with Eric, Jerry, you talked about, well, look at Bauer and Gingrich.

52:06

The main meaning is not, even in Bauer and Gingrich's Donker, this coming together into a relationship.

52:12

As if we had ever said it was the main meaning. I think that is misrepresentational, but I think we have pretty much beaten that one.

52:17

I misrepresented your statement. I have simply said that all that the lexicon requires us to believe is that Joseph and Mary came together in an intimate married relationship, and it does not require, since the marriage contracts do not require, they do not refer to explicit acts of sexual coitus.

52:35

So you are admitting then that a lexicon is insufficient to determine these things? To determine what?

52:42

To determine the meanings of these words and how they are supposed to be used. No, that's not my point at all.

52:48

Well, you're going against what BDAG is saying. Let's leave that to the audience to look it up.

52:55

I have not said anywhere in this conversation BDAG is wrong, have I? Well, actually, you just keep skipping the phrase sexual relationship.

53:03

I'm not skipping it. I've read it. I've heard you read it. It's right there in front of you. I'm commenting on it. Let's listen to this statement. The fact is the profession of Mary is articulated in the first century by the

53:12

Oaths and Psalms of Solomon, in the second century by other documents, and by church fathers, and no church father ever denies it.

53:20

Now, let me repeat this reference to the Oaths of Solomon. Articulated in the first century by the

53:26

Oaths and Psalms of Solomon, in the second century by other documents. So the Oaths of Solomon, first of all, you date them to the first century?

53:33

I'd have to hear the whole context of that clip again. Okay, I'll play it again. The fact is the profession of Mary is articulated in the first century by the

53:41

Oaths and Psalms of Solomon, in the second century by other documents, and by church fathers, and no church father ever denies it.

53:49

So, first of all, I find it fascinating that the Oaths of Solomon took such a central stage in the discussion that we had.

54:01

Specifically, the section that contains this, I'm assuming you're referring to section 19, which

54:08

I have read before, but let me just read it into the record here. No, I wasn't referring to that.

54:14

So you're reading into the record. Okay, so what are you referring to then? What were you referring to then?

54:20

You say it's enunciated in the first century. So, where, the

54:25

Oaths of Solomon, where does it enunciate the perpetual virginity of Mary?

54:31

Because you keep saying it's a 2 ,000 year old belief. 2 ,000 years. It's a constant teaching in the church. So, where in the

54:38

Oaths of Solomon do you have this enunciation? Outside of section 19, which specifically makes reference to the womb of the virgin, took it and she received conception and gave birth.

54:54

And it says that she labored and bore the son, but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose.

55:00

And she did not require a midwife because he. I'm losing you.

55:08

I can't hear you. I can't hear either. Yeah, we've lost James here for a second.

55:14

His microphone, our sound board's gone. Eric, hang on just a second.

55:24

Something. Ah, there I am. Hello. There you are. I have no idea what just happened, but I guess we just fried another channel on the sound board.

55:31

I don't know. Maybe we need to keep it a little bit cooler in that room or something. I don't know. But if that's not the section that you're looking at, section 19, she did not require a midwife because he caused her to give life, etc.,

55:45

etc. What are you referring to? Okay, I said earlier in our show that I owed both Eric and you an apology.

55:51

Eric, for my not expressing myself clearly on where the Josephus passages were.

55:57

They were the ones in Eusebius I was referring to. To you, I owe an apology for having mentioned the odes of Solomon without having a passage in front of me.

56:06

And I don't believe, if you play that tape carefully, that I cite a – I know for a fact, since I didn't have it in front of me, that I had a particular passage in my mind.

56:17

So I didn't have anything in print. I didn't have a specific passage in my mind. And I am gladly willing to retract my reference to the document at all.

56:29

The point of my statement was to say that this is an idea that we can show existed at this early period.

56:37

I don't know of any Greek father who quotes the odes of Solomon as a proof text for the perpetual virginity of Mary.

56:46

I don't know of any Catholic apologetics text, either ancient or modern, that says, here's why.

56:52

I'm not aware of any systematic theology textbook, Ludwig Ott or anyone else who says, why do we believe

56:59

Mary is a perpetual virgin? Well, the odes of Solomon says this. Well, I understand that. I understand. Did you bring it up? If I muddied the waters by seeking to –

57:08

I mean, I wasn't seeking – by seeming to create the impression that there are proof texts for this that I was ready to cite in the odes of Solomon, I apologize and ask you to forgive me.

57:18

I did not mean to lead you down a side path there. Okay, well, you did say in that same clip, there are 2nd century ones.

57:25

What are the 2nd century ones? Sorry? You did say in the clip that we just got done playing that you have the 1st century in the odes of Solomon.

57:32

If you're saying I retract that, then you said we also have 2nd century sources where this belief is enunciated.

57:38

And so what would the 2nd century ones be? I don't know if that was referring to a separate document. I think what

57:43

I probably had in mind there – and again, that was an overture dictum. That was an off -the -cuff remark. I think what I had in mind is that if you look at the 2 -volume set of the

57:50

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha that Doubleday has published, J. H. Charlesworth is the editor of that, it refers to the odes of Solomon as a late 1st to early 2nd century

58:00

A .D. work. I think that was my point. I was simply trying to say this idea was in circulation in the 1st and 2nd century.

58:08

The context of my remark was your claim that, hey, no one even thought to ascribe a sexual opportunity to marry until centuries later, centuries after the fact.

58:17

And I was saying no, that's not true. This work itself shows that the idea was being bandied about.

58:22

But no Catholic apologist says it's true because the odes of Solomon teaches it. But you're saying that the odes of Solomon does, in fact, represent this?

58:34

No, I'm saying the odes of Solomon shows us that the idea was one that was known at that time.

58:41

Certainly, we both, both of us, you as a Protestant and I as a Catholic, agree that we can cite, for example,

58:48

Josephus as a Jewish historian who was neither Protestant nor Catholic, but he is a useful witness to the fact that certain facts are known, certain ideas were present at a particular point in time.

59:01

So you are saying that the odes of Solomon give testimony to a belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

59:08

Is that what you're saying? I'm saying that the odes of Solomon are an example, which you said, if I understood you correctly, and if I didn't understand you,

59:16

I apologize. I understood you as saying at that moment, and I responded on the spur of the moment, that you were not aware of any 1st or 2nd century document that even conceived, no pun intended, of Mary as having been a virgin, let's say, in the act of giving birth, for example.

59:35

I'm trying to make the point that the Bible itself teaches that in Isaiah 7 .14, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son.

59:43

She's a virgin in the act of giving birth. And I cited the odes of Solomon as an example of something in which that idea was prevalent at that time.

59:49

Granted, it's an extra -biblical work. I'm not claiming it's inspired, I'm not claiming it's authoritative,

59:54

I'm not claiming it's orthodox. I'm not basing my doctrine on it. I'm simply saying it shows us that there were people, that that idea existed at that time.

01:00:02

Okay, so when we read, A cup of milk was offered to me, and I drank it in the sweetness of the

01:00:08

Lord's kindness. The Son is the cup, and the Father is he who is milked, and the Holy Spirit is she who milks him, because his breasts were full, and it was undesirable that his milk should be ineffectually released.

01:00:18

The Holy Spirit opened her bosom and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father. Then she gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing, and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.

01:00:29

The womb of the virgin took it, and she received conception and gave birth. So the virgin became a mother with great mercies.

01:00:35

That that actually is recording for us a true element of apostolic tradition that does not become dogmatically defined until later?

01:00:46

No, you're misrepresenting my position. My position is not that this is an articulation of the apostolic faith. Clearly there are

01:00:52

Gnostic elements there. You know, and I know, James, that at that debate, I did not cite that passage as a proof of what the church teaches or where it gets its doctrine.

01:01:04

Nor did you cite it. You came up with that later on. No, no, no. In my opening statement, Jerry, I mentioned, because it's standard in the references, that the earliest references that can be even construed as having anything to do with this are found in the

01:01:19

Ascension of Isaiah, the Protevangelium of James, and in the

01:01:24

Odes of Solomon. And I pointed out that as with so many other elements of Marian dogma, these are not orthodox materials, as we just demonstrated.

01:01:35

Of course. I agree with the Odes of Solomon, and I'm not orthodox Christian writings of church fathers. That's not my point.

01:01:40

But you did say in the debate, however, that this is a historical reference to a concurrent belief.

01:01:46

Why wouldn't this be a historical reference to a corrupted belief that ends up in Roman Catholicism later on?

01:01:56

My point is that both you and I, as apologists, as students of the history of theology, can cite unorthodox works.

01:02:04

You could cite Jewish works. You could cite, for example, Jewish polemics against early church fathers, or Gnostic polemics against early church fathers.

01:02:13

You could cite the attack on the Book of Daniel by Porphyry, for example, and the refutations it brought forth from church fathers as evidence that certain things were being said about Daniel's authorship or date or accuracy at that time.

01:02:29

Citing Porphyry is not saying that's where the church got its ideas about this or that, and that was not my point. I never said, and I'm not aware of any

01:02:36

Roman Catholic apologist who has ever said, where do we get our idea about the Proclusion of Mary from the Ode to Solomon?

01:02:41

We're just trying to trace the belief. We're tracing the belief back to its earliest appearances, and when the earliest appearances, such as the bodily assumption in Pseudo -Milito, and that kind of thing, when the consistent sources of these beliefs are all heretical and unorthodox, at least some of us feel that that is a relevant issue.

01:03:03

If you believe in the infallibility of the Church of Rome, evidently these historical elements are not relevant whatsoever.

01:03:09

Of course it's relevant. No one is denying it's relevant. My point is, just because some idea is present and heretics can incorporate a true idea into their mixed bag of true and false ideas does not prove that the whole thing thereby is tainted.

01:03:24

Yeah, but if you could find it in orthodox sources at the same time, that might help you, but when that's the only sources you've got, that's a bit of a difficulty.

01:03:30

It's not the only source I've got. Okay. It's not the only source I've got, and my point was simply that Charlesworth himself, in his preface,

01:03:37

I didn't have it in front of me at the time, but for example, if you turn to that particular volume, on page 720, let me see here, page 725, in volume 2 of the

01:03:50

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by Charlesworth, he says, subsequent discovery, quote, subsequent discoveries of another

01:03:56

Syriac manuscript in a Greek version of Ode 11, an intensive research on this document convinced many scholars that the

01:04:02

Odes are not Gnostic, but a collection of very early Christian hymns. I said to you at that time, and I've said to you in subsequent conversations we've had by email, that it can be a mixed bag.

01:04:14

Of course it's a mixed bag. There could have been Gnostic interpolations to originally orthodox

01:04:20

Christian hymns. But there's nothing in Ode 11 about this. It's Ode 19, which I just read, and I think we're going around in circles.

01:04:27

You're misrepresenting that. That was simply saying they found a Syriac manuscript of all the Odes, and a Greek version of Ode 11.

01:04:34

The point that he makes is not simply about Ode 11. I'll let everybody read Ode 19 for themselves. It's irrelevant,

01:04:40

James. They can read it a hundred times. I don't need to deny that Ode 19 is

01:04:46

Gnostic. It's not the basis of the perpetual virginity of Mary. The church has never said it is. We didn't say it was, and Rich, I'm losing one channel, which may mean we're losing the microphone.

01:04:56

I'm not sure which. Let's listen to this and see if we can get my microphone fixed. To do three things in my opening remarks.

01:05:02

First, I would like to tell you where I am coming from. Secondly, I would like to demonstrate to you this evening the scriptural support for the church's constant 2 ,000 -year -old teaching on the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of the

01:05:16

Messiah. And thirdly, if time remains in my opening statement, if not I'll do it in the rebuttal,

01:05:21

I would like to challenge Dr. White to handle himself in this debate in a manner different than he has prosecuted the debates we've had in the past, and that made me, in fact, somewhat reluctant to continue debates with him, although we've had many dozens of debates many years ago.

01:05:36

Now, Jerry, we actually have not had many dozens of debates. In fact, I think we've had exactly about one dozen of them in total.

01:05:46

But be that as it may, I found you never did get around to explaining what you meant by how

01:05:52

I was supposed to be prosecuting this debate, and I'd like to ask you what you meant by that in light of the fact that I have documented to you, and since you have, and we provided to you the digital recordings or tape recordings,

01:06:06

I'm not sure what you requested, of the debate, so you've been able to sit down and hopefully listen to them.

01:06:12

I would like to play... I haven't, but I'll take your word for it. Okay, I would like to play here, this is in your closing statement, everything that I am about to play, every single word, is past your time.

01:06:24

This is everything after five minutes of your closing statement.

01:06:30

This is what you got in by turning off your timer. Here's what you said. In all the technical tools that Dr.

01:06:36

White uses and that I use in our exegesis of Scripture, and none of them support Dr. White's contention that you cannot believe what

01:06:44

Christians have believed for 2 ,000 years. Dr. White, therefore, has not given you an overwhelming proof that overturns 2 ,000 years of Christian consensus, that Mary remained a virgin her entire life.

01:06:57

He has given you no Bible verses which require you to believe, no verses that mention the children of Mary, no verses that say the brothers of Jesus are the children of Mary as opposed to Kinswan.

01:07:08

We don't see a mention of other children when they come back on the flight to Egypt, when they find our

01:07:13

Lord in the temple, and when He's 12 years old, you'd expect, if they're having this normal sexual relationship, where are the other children mentioned in these stories?

01:07:21

They're not there. And that is why you should hold fast to the constant teaching that Mary was a virgin her entire life.

01:07:28

There's nothing in Scripture against it. Thank you very much. That was the added material that managed to get in.

01:07:37

And so, in light of your assertion, your opening statement, and making, I guess, the accusation against me of past egregious,

01:07:47

I don't know, violation of the rules or whatever, how do you respond to the fact that twice,

01:07:53

I have documented, you turned off your timer and added that amount of material to your presentation?

01:07:58

I was talking about qualitative and not qualitative things, but I'm very happy you have a valid point, and I've already apologized to you for this in e -mails, and if you want me to do it publicly,

01:08:07

I was intending to anyway. I want to emphasize that I have not had a chance to,

01:08:15

I've had a trip every single week since we've had our debate in Utah.

01:08:21

I haven't had a chance to listen to it. I just had my 10th child born just a week ago. I've had a house full of people.

01:08:27

But I will take your word for it, James, that I went 50 seconds over my time limit in one portion, and you said 50 -something seconds in another portion.

01:08:35

How much? 57. 57, another one. And for that, I'm willing to publicly ask your forgiveness. It was not my intention to have more time than you, but merely to finish my point without the distraction of the beeper loudly going off.

01:08:46

I'm not as stickler as you are on this point, and had you gone over, I wouldn't have minded at all. I have many debates with people in which they go over, and I let them finish their point.

01:08:54

I will permit you, however, in fairness, you have a valid point. You say I shouldn't have more time to make points than you do, and I permit you to sell the tape of that, the video, the audio tape, by cutting those last 50 seconds off, and let my response stand without those, because I don't want to be perceived as being unfair.

01:09:12

As I say, had you gone over, I wouldn't have jumped up and said, hey, you're going over. I wasn't timing you. And I don't know how much

01:09:18

I did go over. I only have your word for it, but I will take you at your word, and I'm sure if I sit down and listen to it,

01:09:24

I will be able to then time it for myself. If you feel better, if you feel that the cause of justice is served by cutting those last 50 seconds off of those two portions of that night's debate and sell the tape to that condition as a punishment to me for going over, that's perfectly fine with me.

01:09:39

It's not a matter of a punishment. As you know, and you said you do not recall this. However, the problem is that this is not the first time we had this problem.

01:09:47

I remember very clearly leaning over. You're a stickler for this, and I'm not.

01:09:54

Believe me, I've had many debates with people where they have gone over, I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, but I'm not the legalist that you are on that, that you would literally, if someone said to your credit, hey, when

01:10:06

James is speaking and the beeper goes off, even if he's right in the middle of a sentence, he sits down.

01:10:11

He hasn't even finished the sentence. No, I don't. The problem is I watch the timer, and I don't need to cut off in the middle of a sentence. The point being that we discussed this over a decade ago.

01:10:21

I brought this issue up. I said it is a matter of respect to the audience. It is a matter of respect to the other person that you're debating.

01:10:29

My point was that it happened twice, and it involves turning off of the timer. You say it to the sound, fine.

01:10:36

I'd just like to ask, what did you mean in your third point? You never got around to it. Was this something about alleged red herrings, for example, when

01:10:44

I talk about, I mentioned, for example, the ultimate authority of Rome. I did so in the context of explaining why

01:10:50

Rome would interpret the passages the way they interpret. Is that what you're referring to? I was referring to the fact that if we're going to debate the evidence for or against the perpetual virginity of Mary, if we're looking at the issue, what does the

01:11:04

Bible teach? What did the apostles teach about whether Mary and Joseph had relations after the birth of Jesus or not?

01:11:12

I think it is a red herring, and I think most people would agree, whether it's a Protestant or Catholic, for you to say, let me read to you what

01:11:20

I find this outrageous prayer to Mary, which has all kinds of references to the devotional attitude that a

01:11:28

Catholic has towards Mary and so forth. You did it on the air in one radio debate we had, and in fact, I warned people that you would probably do something like that again.

01:11:36

I had no prescience, no knowledge. In fact, you accommodated yourself to me by actually reading that very prayer again in Utah, and I said, ladies and gentlemen, the point is,

01:11:45

I'm not here to defend devotion to Mary or whatever we're talking about, the perpetual virginity of Mary.

01:11:51

You can always bring in things that you consider embarrass the other person's side or position, and therefore distract that person from defending the things they're supposed to be defending.

01:12:02

Now they have to defend other things that are being attacked. So the fact that you begin almost every one of your presentations with a lengthy discussion of your personal testimony, how you were once an anti -Catholic and things like that, those aren't red herrings, but if I read a prayer that illustrates what happens when the ultimate authority of Rome is allowed to interpret scripture, this is the end result of that, that somehow is a red herring, and that was what you're referring to in asking me to somehow prosecute the debate differently, that we should use different standards?

01:12:30

James, I've never said you can't tell people where you're coming from. I don't think that it's a red herring. I think it's a perfectly legitimate way of introducing yourself, and I've never said,

01:12:39

James, you have no right to say how long you've been studying Catholic apologetics and how much you've written against them.

01:12:45

That's perfectly valid. If you want to use your time that way, fine, and I do. I want people to know that I'm someone who was a

01:12:50

Protestant for many years and that I was very anti -Catholic and that I changed my mind on that, but I have an understanding of and a sympathy for,

01:12:58

I can understand how someone can be intelligent and sincere and believe that the Bible teaches Protestants. Let me ask you a question.

01:13:04

When you say you were an anti -Catholic, what books did you write against Catholicism as a Protestant?

01:13:10

Does one have to write books to be against something? Did you write any tracts, articles, or chapters? Does someone have to write something,

01:13:18

I'll repeat my question, to be against it? Did you engage in any debates? That's the only mode. So the apostles that didn't do any writing then were not good apostles.

01:13:25

They didn't carry out any kind of... When you make the claim, are you not in essence saying that you were a believing

01:13:33

Protestant, but in point of fact you never did engage in debates, you wrote nothing, you didn't write any tracts, nothing like that.

01:13:40

You just had bad feelings about Roman Catholicism. You may not have been sure of why they were, but you never actually gave any expression to this by recording any tapes, doing any videos, anything like that, right?

01:13:53

That's absolutely false. Anyone who sat under my preaching ministry as a

01:13:59

Protestant minister heard me give many talks against Catholicism. I did a whole series of talks in John Gerstner's Sunday school class in Wichita, Kansas, about all the standard arguments against Roman Catholicism.

01:14:14

And these are recorded and distributed to individuals? They're available from Eastminster Presbyterian Church out in Wichita, Kansas.

01:14:21

So what does this have to do, James, with whether or not... Please, James, what does this have to do with the fact that all the early church fathers said, the

01:14:30

Bible teaches Mary was always a virgin. We're still waiting for that evidence, Jerry.

01:14:35

We've been waiting forever for the second century to believe this. Sorry? We've been waiting for that evidence.

01:14:43

You keep saying that this has been the constant 2 ,000 -year teaching of the church.

01:14:48

We're waiting for the evidence from the first century and from the second century so that we can establish some kind of tradition so that we can say, yeah, this really was a belief back then.

01:14:58

I think you misconstrue the argument. The argument is not that I have to provide some core sample from every single century.

01:15:06

The argument is that you cannot provide anything from the first or second century of any church father who disputes it.

01:15:13

I can't find... Mary had other children. Well, first of all, I can't find anything where those early church fathers denied the validity of the

01:15:19

Book of Mormon either, but that's a really, really, really poor argument. Oh, come on, James. That's bad even for you.

01:15:26

Explain. The Book of Mormon didn't exist, James. Well, neither did the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. No. That's the point.

01:15:32

That's begging. No, you're begging the question. You're trying to create a positive belief.

01:15:37

We're trying to ascertain whether the Bible teaches that or not. You can't assume what you're setting out to prove. We're not assuming,

01:15:43

Jerry. We're going by the normal meanings of the words and phrases that are used, and then we're looking also at what did the second century church believe about this as well, and what we find is something, even though the writings are not directly talking about the perpetual virginity of Mary, the things that are said assume that there was no belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

01:16:05

I would have to respectfully disagree. Have you read the post in my book? I agree that the New Testament materials themselves are debatable.

01:16:12

It's not debatable. No, the Protestants and Catholics can discuss in a debate, as we are doing, obviously.

01:16:18

But it's not debatable, Jerry. These are the normal usages of the words and phrases. It's not debatable.

01:16:24

That's why I'm telling you to bring up things like we don't need this Logos Bible software to 2 ,000 letters to tell us what the truth is.

01:16:33

You're absolutely right. We don't need that, and that's not the point. The point is when we read the New Testament, we see there's a plain reading of the text, and then somebody like you comes along and says, no, it doesn't really mean that.

01:16:44

Donald Faust doesn't really mean... Eric, Eric, it's not me. Someone like you doesn't really mean until, but not after.

01:16:51

Then we have to look at the Greek more closely. When we do that, we find, lo and behold, the Greek supports the plain reading.

01:16:58

Eric, I'm not the one who's, quote, as you just put it, someone coming along saying, no, this is not what it means.

01:17:04

I'm on the contrary pointing out to the audience, and all the audiences that have come to our various debates, that whenever church fathers begin to discuss this issue, every single church father affirms a...

01:17:18

who does talk about it. I'm not saying every church father said something about the Professor of the Review of Mary. But you do not...

01:17:24

There are many doctrines that individual church fathers don't address. Jerry, Jerry, come on. Jerry, you may not intentionally do this, but I have caught you many times making the blanket statement, all the early church fathers said this, when in point of fact, the large majority of them, even if you had created a time frame, never even made reference to such a thing.

01:17:49

And then you'd say, it's the 2 ,000 year constant teaching of the church, and no one ever denied it.

01:17:54

And that's like saying, oh, well, no one ever denied the bodily assumption of Mary, and that kind of thing. I mean, again, it's anachronistic reading into the text.

01:18:03

And by the way, just so that you all hear it, when it starts, in a moment, the music's going to end, because believe it or not, we're coming up on 80 minutes.

01:18:10

But in fact, there it is right there. And that's the anachronistic element of it. Look, Jerry, your website is what?

01:18:16

My website is www .jerrymatatix .org. That's spelled G -E -R -R -Y

01:18:22

M -A -T -A -T -I -C -S dot O -R -G. And Eric, yours is? It's New Testament Research Ministries.

01:18:30

That's N -T -R -M -I -N dot org. And if you all don't know what our website is, you're not listening to this anyways,

01:18:38

Jerry Matatix, Eric Spence, and thank you very much for the many, many people listening. Thank you for joining us on The Dividing Line tonight.

01:18:44

We'll see you Thursday morning. God bless. Fox 37106,

01:19:43

Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at AOMIN .org.

01:19:49

That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.