Is the Pope Catholic? Who Knows? Mark 1:1 and Bart Ehrman. More on Hillsong

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to the dividing line it's sort of a normal time though I guess on Tuesdays it's normally more in the morning but hey it's a

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Tuesday Thursday things it's pretty pretty close welcome to the program an article appeared the date on this was the 23rd of July let me read you some of this somewhere in Pope Francis's office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history it declares an end the hostilities between Catholics and evangelicals and says the true two traditions are now quote united in mission because we are declaring the same gospel close quote the

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Holy Father is thinking of sign the text in 2017 the 500th anniversary of the

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Reformation alongside evangelical leaders representing roughly one in four Christians in the world today

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Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over he believes it ended in 1999 the year the

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Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification the doctrine at the heart of Luther's protest the

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German firebrand had accused the Catholic Church of teaching that man was saved by faith and good works rather than by faith alone that's not exactly the most accurate statement

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I've ever read in 1999 after extensive talks Catholic and Lutheran theologians conclude that the two communions now shared quote a common understanding of our justification by God's grace through faith in Christ and quote a subject that we addressed at that time actually long long ago in 2006 the

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World Methodist Council also adopted the declaration I have somehow missed that one but not one major leader of born again

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Christians has publicly endorsed the text so most of the world's 600 million evangelicals don't realize that the protest is over from the shanty towns of Sao Paulo to the high rises of soul evangelicals and Catholics still

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I each other warily well of course the one of the main problems here of course is that the document does not carry dogmatic weight now

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Francis could change that but it did not carry dogmatic weight and the

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World Lutheran Federation does not even represent meaningfully historically

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Lutherans so the idea that that we somehow have missed the idea of the

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Reformation is over the protest is over now many of the former are reluctant even described

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Catholics as Christians while the latter often dismiss evangelical groups as sects well there's reasons for this that evidently the author is unaware of but not everyone is not is resigned to enmity as far back as 1984 an influential charismatic magazine published an essay entitled three streams one river the author

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Richard Lovelace Lovelace argued that Catholicism evangelicalism and Pentecostalism were three tributaries forming one great torrent of Christianity many observers would count evangelicalism and Pentecostalism as a single stream given that most

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Pentecostals are evangelicals which once again illustrates what Karl Truman was talking about when he said that the term evangelical no longer serves any meaningful function

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Lovelace wrote there will be many knots to be untied before we have a united Church which is truly

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Catholic evangelical and Pentecostal many knots to be untied day at phrase calls to mind

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Pope Francis he has popularized devotion to Mary undoer of knots which seeks our

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Lord's help in resolving unseemingly intractable problems the rift between Catholics and evangelicals as long seem to belong that category for much of his life

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Francis must be must have viewed evangelicals with suspicion an old -school Argentine Jesuit he would have watched in dismay as his flock drifted off to evangelical churches nearly one in five

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Latin Americans now describe themselves as Protestant you can imagine his discomfort when in 1999 he first celebrated mass for charismatic

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Catholics they spoke in tongues like their Pentecostal counterparts when he elevated the host but as Archbishop of Buenos Aires he began attending noisy praise -filled gatherings of evangelicals and Catholics at first he sat discreetly discreetly sipping mate no idea what that is but in 2006 he went on stage where he knelt as Protestant leaders prayed over him a pastor the microphone hollered fill him with your

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Holy Spirit and power Lord in the name of Jesus oh there goes theology matters again the image of the

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Cardinal kneeling head bowed beneath the outstretched hands of evangelicals was so startling that a traditionalist magazine ran the headline

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Buenos Aires set a vacant a the Archbishop commits the sin of apostasy a papal biographer says that after the blessing the

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Cardinal was on fire he began to meet evangelical pastors monthly he would arrive by public transport and enthusiastically join their improvised prayer sessions they never discussed indulgences or the immaculate conception

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I just have to stop and go why not if they're true why wouldn't you discuss them if they're part of the divine tradition why wouldn't you explain them

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I'm just one of those old I had that happen

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I'm just one of those old fogey guys um let's see where'd we go and he now believed that their shared baptism was more important than their differences when baptism isn't directly connected to profession of truth as Pope he has continued to sidestep theological disputes unlike the former

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Vatican doctrinal watchdog Benedict the 16th Cardinal Ratzinger he's willing to say let's leave those to the theologians that's giving

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Bob St. Jenna's hives um in Buenos Aires he met a British born South African pastor called

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Tony Palmer we've talked about him Palmer belonged to the Convergence movement which seeks to blend charismatic worship with a more historically grounded liturgy and understanding the sacraments the

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Cardinal became Palmer's spiritual father but reportedly discouraged of becoming a Catholic arguing that he would was called to serve as a bridge builder between Catholics and evangelicals

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Francis said who have told the evangelical leader recently I'm not interested in converting evangelicals to Catholicism I want people to find

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Jesus in their own community let's be about showing the love of Jesus now again those of us who know anything about historic

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Roman theology look at this and just go so much for that old line well is the

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Pope Catholic because today you go I don't know that's a good question does he understand his own theology we wonder like his mentor

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Palmer believed the Reformation had already ended he bluntly challenged Luther's spiritual errors to reject the Protestant label it's like saying you're racist even though you're living in a country that no longer has an apartheid system in place he argued which demonstrates how little he knew about the issue when

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Francis wanted to reach out to evangelicals after he was elected Pope he didn't do the obvious things he didn't ask the

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Pontifical Council for Christian unity organize a conference to seek advice and group evangelicals and Catholics together in America arguably the most advanced such dialogue in the world instead he rang his old friend during a leisurely meeting the

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Vatican Palmer record a video of the pontiff on his iPhone remember we actually showed some of that designated an apostolic representative for Christian unity by Francis Palmer took the film to a minister's conference in Texas in Texas organized by prosperity gospel preacher

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Kenneth Copeland Palmer introduced the film with what must count as one of the great Christian orations of the 21st century really

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I haven't had very many then the 21st century brothers and sisters Luther's protest is over he said remember we played this we actually played this in the program he told the audibly stunned audience that he was speaking to them in the spirit of Elijah who prepared the way for something much greater than himself

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Palmer was unaware of course as he stood the lecture and he had just months left to live but with hindsight there was a spine tingling moment when he announced that he would introduce the papal video with a short prayer this was a dying man's prayer he said when you know that you're about to die you certainly pray the most important prayers a

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Palmer read John 17 20 22 Francis face appeared I'm skipping over stuff la la la la let's see the

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Pope spoke of the need for all Christians to have a personal relationship with Jesus sir as an evangelist that deserves a high -five said

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James Robeson I knew that would wake you up who helped to inspire the rise of America's religious right in the 1980s before he then became an infomercial guy on late -night

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TV once an interpreter explained what a high -five was the Vicar of Christ slapped the beaming televangelist's hand oh wow

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I know one person it would be anyway that day Palmer gave

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Francis a draft text called declaration of faith in unity for mission which he hoped the

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Pope would sign with evangelical leaders in 2017 a month later palm

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Palmer died after motorcycle accident England an event so shocking that has inspired mind -bending conspiracy theory videos on YouTube Francis hasn't given any public sign of whether he will sign the declaration but he has taken steps that seem to prepare the ground for it days after his friend's death he became the first Pope to visit a

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Pentecostal Church offering an apology for Catholic persecution of the movement in Italy last month he asked forgiveness of the

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Waldensians a communion regarded as the world's oldest evangelical church we talked about that but even if the

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Pope does sign the declaration in two years time full visible unity between Catholics and evangelicals will remain unlikely as Father Dwight Longenecker an

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American Catholic priest who was raised evangelical explains there is no single authoritative body that could be reconciled with Rome evangelicals conclude the most rabid anti -Catholic fire -breathing fundamentalists right through to the prosperity gospel televangelist evangelical

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Anglo -Catholics charismatics and modernist Protestants he says he says that few are truly interested in unity of the

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Catholic Church for most evangelicals any reunion with Rome is very low on the agenda if it's there at all this is two reasons despite their current friendliness toward Catholics they still have a deep distrust of Rome it simply cannot conceive the idea that Roman Catholicism has much good in it they might view us as brother

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Christians but we are still deeply deluded and it goes on from there well

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I just I don't know

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I would not put something like that past Francis at all now obviously uh it would be fascinating to read a prequel a pre -release something that would give us some idea of what the uh elements of this would be but you know no one's sitting around going oh well that'll that'll end the reformation well there's already been people you know

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I I wrote a book review for the CRA journal I don't know a number of years ago uh about a

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Wheaton professor that had said yeah reformation's over uh and to be honest with you for the vast majority of people who call themselves evangelicals it is they they don't know what the reformation was about they don't have any passion

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I've I've said over and over and over again that uh if you are opposed to Catholicism for any other reason than a deep and abiding dedication to the gospel you understand solo scriptura you understand

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Rome's denial of solo scriptura and what it has led to what it means you've seen its effect if justification by faith is just one of many doctrines uh if if it does if it isn't something you're you're passionate about uh if you're just if you're not a

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Roman Catholic just because you think the pope looks funny in those long dress things um and you're not really into candles and and you know the crucifix always looks a little creepy to you and if that's why you're not a

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Roman Catholic um then you're not really a part of the the reformation you you may have the freedom to view things the way you do because the reformation but reformation has been overview for a long time so the people that I would think would be the absolutely most panicked about this would be

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Catholic answers would close up shop go home what's left to do uh if we're not if we're not gonna if we're not gonna uh you know evangelize the uh the

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Protestants and of course evangelism for them is first and foremost a reference to the church not to repentance and faith in Christ or any of those things it's church church church church they've got to be looking at this going you've got to be kidding me uh what you know what's going on and uh

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I'll I'll be interested in seeing if something happens uh what their response would would be but um

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I don't know it's fascinating to me uh that was probably by the way from the catholicherald .co

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.uk the pope's great evangelical gamble and um

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I'm it sounds legit to me really does and 2017 would be a time to do it right now we are planning on doing a debate uh in May of 2017 uh with an evangelical in Wittenberg Germany but with a quote -unquote evangelical who basically believes the reformation is over or should be if it's not or that we should all get on board and stop beating a dead horse or in other words someone who's compromised on the issues of the reformation solo scriptura the nature of the gospel justification centrality of these things so on so forth so uh that really caught my attention that that's interesting that is uh that is really really interesting and then oh man where did that go uh let's see here uh uh where did that go um this probably isn't gonna come up for me no it did all right let's see if this is where it was at yeah here we go um

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I was already totally planning on doing the next segment which by the way is on textual criticism and a textual variant so if any of you are really into having your own greek text open or something like that you might want to click obtain open whatever it is um but uh

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Bart Ehrman is going to be doing uh two debates over the next six months or so on the subject of the deity of christ one with Justin Bass on September 18th uh the

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University of Dallas in Texas have to get Emilio Ramos over there to report on this one for me did

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Jesus consider himself God and then February 12th to 13th this will be part of the

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New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has some interesting get -togethers they've had

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Ehrman down there a number of times and he'll be debating Michael F. Byrd on the proposition how

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Jesus became God and that's February 12th and 13th of 2016 um now what strikes me especially about this is

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I remember the fervor I remember the almost anger of Bart Ehrman in emphasizing that he is not a theologian and he will not defend theological statements now

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I know what he's going to do here but I know how he's going to handle it I'm going to be shredding his book um reviewing his book uh in South Africa in a couple months um which which by the way it is as I said

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I I know I reviewed it when it came out but it is it is an amazing book because here is a man who admits that until he started researching this book his theological understanding of basic things was absolutely below bible college level and yet he doesn't seem to see any kind of problem in being seen as one who can make pronouncements in these areas this is not where his doctoral research was in um

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I still continue to wonder exactly how it is that the analysis of a certain form of the alexandrian text in particular patristic sources from alexandria gives you the the basics the the basis for making for writing some of the books that Bart Ehrman writes

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I but then again these days as long as you're an unbeliever it's sort of like you know uh most of these well

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Dawkins his scientific research does not give him any basis for saying all the incredibly stupid things that he says but doesn't stop him from saying it anyway so he's going to be engaging in uh in debates on the deity of christ and I like I said

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I I just we were in Rich's office I remember uh you know exactly where I was standing when uh had the conversation unpleasant conversation with Bart Ehrman on the phone because he he did not uh he said he had not agreed to the title uh of the debate and that he would only debate misquoting

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Jesus as if that's a debate title in the first place it's not it's not even a meaningful thesis but uh he had no interest in whatsoever in doing anything that would uh involve his theological claims it's fascinating someone sent me a link

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I haven't had a chance to download it I'll see if I can get to it in fact someone just now sent me another link this time was saying please address this video

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Bob Wilkin oh please wow it's been a long time since had to deal with that name but uh someone else sent me a link to a uh a video from an atheist reviewing my debate with Bart Ehrman and buys into Ehrman's theological assertion that if the bible is inspired there would be no textual variation this comes up again in dealing with the king

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James only us who you know once you once you buy that once you ignore the historical reality of the of the context which revelation comes you gotta go one of two directions either you go the

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Bart Ehrman agnosticism atheism direction or you go the I'm going to pick a text and this is it and I will not defend it in any meaningful fashion because to do so is to put myself in ground that I can't really stand on and I know that a lot of our listeners already know exactly why all that stuff is wrong but that's why we have to keep addressing it over and over and over again with that in mind and uh let me find this uh here um on august uh 4th really it was only uh about a week ago on august 4th

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Bart Ehrman put on his blog an article about mark 1 -1 as an intentional alteration of the text now as is common in most of this kind of material um he hedges his bets very heavily uh he says uh there are thousands of textual witnesses the new testament uh these witnesses attest uh

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Bart you need an editor you you it's amazing how many really basic basic spelling and grammar errors fill your your things but anyways these witnesses attests hundreds of thousands of variant variants v -a -r -i -a -n -c -e it's that's that's not the right word but of variants t -s should be among themselves the vast majority of those differences are immaterial and insignificant and don't matter for much of anything that's that's the part that our uh muslim friends skip over don't catch that part um let me let me mention it again the vast majority of those differences are immaterial and insignificant and don't matter for much of anything that's the part that gets lost some of them are highly significant indeed most of the changes were made by accident some were consciously made by scribes who wanted to change the text and mark 1 1 we have a variant where it is hard to tell which it is where it is hard to tell which it is at issue of the words son of god did mark begin his gospel by announcing that it was about jesus christ or about jesus christ the son of god it is a difference of four letters in greek since the son of god would have been abbreviated as one of the all right let's um let's take a look at this i should be feeding you um the appropriate uh information here um here is the text up here in uh the upper left corner rk2 uangelio and then you'll notice the brackets and the sigla here um let's go ahead and do this there we go uh around who you say you son of god jesus christ son of god and when he says it would be a difference of four greek letters let me show you what that means here is sinaiticus and sinaiticus well first i'll leave it let me let me um go back here and show you this first over here is where we have the textual data and here you see the sigla for a phrase added or deleted depending upon the manuscript this little cross by the way is was indicative at least in the 26th and 27th editions of a change between that and as i recall the 25th edition um then you have the minus indicating these manuscripts do not contain what is in the text and you have sinaiticus and then notice the asterisks that is the indication of the original hand but then notice down below where it txt which is the the text that has been included in the reading here which includes son of god text sinaiticus one now when you see especially with sinaiticus but there are a few other manuscripts but especially sinaiticus that's indication of the first corrector now there are entire studies in fact uh here it is here's uh scribal habits of codex sinaiticus entire book just on uh the various scribes and uh who they were and when they worked and all sorts of of uh charts and all sorts of things in there so so the the one indicates the the first hand uh the first corrector of sinaiticus which could quite possibly have been in the actual scriptorium in which the manuscript was original produced so in other words the manuscript is produced and then it is proofed and before it has even been read by anyone else or distributed or published or whatever else we call it you have a correction made now what i was going to show you is exactly what that looks like here and for those of you who before you drive rich insane uh this is uh cordance bible software logos can do this uh i'm sure bible works can do this um but i use accordance as my primary by my primary program here is uh rk2 uangali u jesus christ now notice this is you you have what it looks like it's it's it looks like an i and a y okay i don't want to lose everybody here um with a line over the top and then you have the looks like an x and a y also with a line over top these are called the nomina sacra the sacred names god jesus christ spirit was sometimes included um depends on the specific manuscript as to exactly how they do this and some manuscripts would use only two letters some would use three again somewhat of a conventional thing but the point is that this is how you would render a particular form of jesus christ specifically the genitive form here then you'll notice right here you see that there you can i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and blow it up here um so you can see it even even more there it is right there there are four greek letters um who you who you this is who you but it's just two letters and then barely see there's just slight little indication of a line there but this would be genitive form of the os or uh say you and so you have who you say you son of god and it has been inserted above the the the space where it would be it'd be actually right here where the my cursor is right now is where that would be and so when you look at it um that's the same ink and very much the same hand as the surrounding text uh there are all sorts of corrections like this in sinaiticus um you can you can find them in in many places uh it's a little bit difficult to see here because the there's some fading in the uh in the text on this particular page um but you'll find them throughout codex sinaiticus uh you'll find corrections sometimes in the margins uh sometimes written in between lines and things like that as you have at uh well there's one right there you can see it right right there there's a insertion of a reading above above the line okay so that's that's what it's referring to uh when it makes reference to here in the textual data to the original hand and to the first corrector so what that's saying is we can go back to the the textual data here we can go back to the textual data here there we go uh is that this phrase is omitted originally in sinaiticus it's also omitted in the unsealed theta 28 lectionary 22 11 pc means palsy a few others certain manuscripts of the sahidic and in origin and since there's not a indication of see down here where it says origin pt that would be part of origin but that's not what you have here it just seems that that that's how origin always cited it at least when we say always there's still a lot of origin to be dealt with um irenaeus and epiphanius omit jesus christ they just simply have uh the beginning of the gospel move on to katho skeg reptile as is written in isaiah the prophet there's one manuscript 1241 which is way off by itself which has for you to could you son of the lord which doesn't make almost any sense but and then the text is written as read by the original sinaiticus vaticanus codex bese cantabrigiensis l washingtonianus which is really the earliest one of the earliest full unsealed manuscripts that would represent a byzantine text type 24 27 a few others and then if you have the article the son of god uh who you to say you then you have alexandrinus families 113 33 and then you have the m text the majority text right here um the latin text syriac coptic and the latin of irenaeus so there's the there's the textual data and so the quote -unquote traditional text actually represents um all of the major textual families in the new testament manuscript tradition that is if you have b and you have w and then you have representatives it's called the western text which would be latt um that's that means this reading is represented by the entire breadth of the manuscript tradition so the point is that son of god has an extremely strong textual foundation to it it really does uh both as far as early manuscripts now it would be nice i have a notice this screen that i have which uh in my desktop set up here in accordance is new testament manuscripts i've got sinaiticus vaticanus washingtonianus alexandrinus and then greek new testament papyri and you'll notice sure would be nice if we would have a papyri find of the beginning of the gospel of mark but we don't um and so you know that's what makes it interesting that it has been alleged that the um green material the green collection uh will have a first century fragment from mark yeah but of what highly doubtful it would be from the beginning of of mark now so there's now you've got the data now basically ermine's argument is well it would be very unusual for a scribe to accidentally delete son of god due to what's called homo italiaton homo italiaton similar endings what you have there is what's what's called a a genitive chain and we have lots of examples of where the end of the genitive chain got dropped off because of the repetition of the letters he says that would be highly unusual because this is the beginning of the book and the scribe would be fresh at the beginning of the book though he then goes on to say well he he probably just finished copying matthew and now he's excited about that and he's written his flourishes and now he goes on to mark well which one is it um if you just finished matthew and now you're starting into mark you're not fresh um this is you know just little things that come across the mind ermine loves to talk about all the heretics in the early church and of course he doesn't use that term um he talks about the proto -orthodox and this is one of the reasons why i've emphasized many times the necessity for people who are really serious in this stuff to read books such as the heresy of orthodoxy because ermine is a huge proponent of the bauer hypothesis and the idea of this massively splintered uh early christian movement where nobody has a clue what's going on and there really isn't anything like apostolic teaching and there's no there's nothing like a real core message or anything like that and so he wants to bring in the gnostics and and basically suggest while always hedging his bets and always saying but you know we don't know um that the gnostics uh because of their denial of jesus's true incarnation in fact it's funny let me let me find let me find the quote here because i think it's really important because this is the kind of stuff there here it is this is the kind of stuff that ermine the people who use ermine don't repeat this kind of stuff they they skip um that has made me think the change was made intentionally i can't think of any reason a scribe may have wanted to eliminate the words son of god from the text on purpose the words now listen to this the words coincide perfectly with mark's view of jesus otherwise and the other references to jesus being the son of god are not omitted from the text in our manuscripts did you hear that that's the kind of thing it skipped um so what he's saying is on the one hand he wants this to be oh see this is proof that the scribes changed the text but in trying to argue for the change the text he has to admit it but it didn't really change the text because it says the words coincide perfectly with mark's view of jesus otherwise and the other references to jesus being the son of god are not omitted from the text in our manuscripts so what does he say that the motivation is well you know got to make sure people understand jesus is the son of god so against the gnostics and so on and so forth and this kind of trying you know bart has made his well he's he's famous because he's an apostate but his big orthodox scripture scripture thing is in essence trying to mind read based upon manuscripts that were written 2 000 years ago and i'm sorry but that's not possible to do he's actually promoted the idea of shifting the emphasis from actually searching for the original text to exegeting variants in other words trying to figure out what motivated variants now the vast majority he admits were pure accidents but how do you know which is which well it certainly provides a plethora of publication material to try to make your variant one of the non -accidental variants it's uh it's fascinating um what you don't get from from ermine here is really a meaningful application of the normal standards for textual critical study and that is you have the earliest attestation and you have the widest attestation amongst multiple families text types of the reading son of god and it seems extremely flimsy to me to say well if you're if you're copying the gospel of mark you're going to be fresh you know it's it you're just at the first verse while admitting that that may not have been the first verse they copied that day so you can put that aside as i think of a rather surface level argument um what ermine and people like him are really pushing is a form of analysis of the text that is much more based upon trying to figure out what people were thinking rather than dealing with the actual factual material what do the manuscripts say let's date the manuscripts go ahead and weigh them not in the sense you know weight them according to what they're due um and let the factual information speak first and foremost and some of you know that for example in my debate with the shabir ali in biola back in 2006 i mean coming up on 10 years on that wow that's amazing um that off top of his head he mentioned this particular textual variant he does it very often uh but when i saw ermine addressing it i wanted to make sure that everyone has that information right in front of them understands that the strongest reading the most widely attested reading uh is that of son of god but to recognize that it's there and that even ermine recognizes that you know it's sort of like how he emphasizes the angry jesus thing in in uh in mark as well was jesus angry was he was he filled with anger or moved with compassion is one of the variants and you want to go back and look at the conference we did before the debate i did a whole presentation on this but anyway uh just see twitter uh by the way can you comment on rabbi tovia singer's claims of isaiah 53 uh really seriously in a uh in one dividing line uh fact the matter is we have thoroughly fully and comprehensively uh go to the blog look up isaiah 53 michael brown and i did what an hour and a half at least 90 minutes as i recall worked through all of isaiah 53 in in hebrew so we we've done that um anyway uh one one people to get to that and is it really quarter till wow how'd that happen um i had this whole list of stuff here let me just i'm gonna skip over well one brief comment uh i think doing stuff like this is important this isn't this isn't the kind of stuff that is going to get us a big huge audience because that's not ever been something we've been trying to do uh we do zero advertising zero networking uh we're just we are any promoters worst nightmare um but we need to be consistent and you can't hide these things when when i look over at kent brandenburg's blog it's funny because the reality is he's so focused just on this one subject just as just this is it you look at look at the archives it's huge he's been at this ever since you know like i said i had not even heard the man's name since 2009 that one little brief thing on the on the blog well i don't know how many articles have appeared since we started responding to him but he's trying to respond to everything that i've said you know here's a time stamp and blah blah blah and i'm just like so much stuff there that it would take forever to even begin it's so way out but i did need to make a correction i guess i referred to him as a reformed king james onlyist he's not reformed well that's good i'm glad to know that someone who acts like that uh is not in the reformed camp we've got enough problems without without that that's that's good um so i did want to make that correction i am very thankful to to know that he is not reformed but he did make the statement one of the last articles he put up that i i do not believe in solo scriptura see this is why this is important um i don't know what kent brandenburg would say about mark 1 -1 and i don't know what he would say about barterman's comments on mark 1 -1 but i know that the position being adopted would not allow any meaningful interaction with barterman because once you've said well i'm going to i'm going to simply grab hold of this particular text and i'm going to invest it with ultimate authority and i am not going i'm going to make that presuppositional rather than talking about the ontology of the text it's god breathe i'm going to skip the necessary distinctions there and say this particular copy limits and encompasses all of the ontology that is that which god has revealed this is the standard once you go there you can't interact with any of this stuff you're you're in the same boat as the muslim who says uthman got it right that's my presupposition that's where i start you're not gonna there's nothing to discuss there there's nothing to discuss there at all no place to go and then when you start saying that unless you embrace that kind of a presupposition to start with you don't believe in solo scriptura um every what athanasius athanasius the great defender of the deity of christ who defended the ultimacy of scripture and solo scriptura would have used an alexandrian text type so you're saying he didn't believe in solo scriptura that that's where again this this whole system is so you know he's just spinning so fast in a circle that it after a while you just must get must get really dizzy um and that's where it it falls apart sounds good as long as you're doing a monologue just don't get into a dialogue with anybody who doesn't share your presuppositions because it's all over at that point it's all over that before i get to the last thing some hillsong stuff um please remember that coming up in october i'm going to south africa once again we are arranging the debate and the debate topic has moved over to an emphasis upon marriage um what i would call the profaning of marriage which is legal in south africa and now legal here in the united states as well but we're talking about from a christian perspective um if we can't get leading if we can't get david gushy and matthew vines and people like that to debate here in the united states maybe we have to go someplace else it's still english anyways so we've got that i was just mentioning the lecture series uh on bart ehrman's book that's also gonna be in south africa uh right now the intention of the muslims in south africa is to fly shabir ali in so i'd be debating yusuf ismail shabir ali again top tier uh islamic apologists there in south africa as well as some of the gentlemen there as well because that's that's a real center of dawah um need your help to get there um you can go to store .aomin