Eichenwald and Newsweek Refuted: Part 2

Well here we are right at the end of 2014. Welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is

James White. It has been quite a year. Normally on this particular program we might review some of the things that have happened over the course of this year as I think back

I've been to Spain, Kiev twice, Johannesburg, Durban, Berlin.

It's been a year. It's been an incredible year.

I have stood and debated in the Juma Masjid in Durban.

It's been incredible. And then Clementine came and visited.

So they're right up there. Right around the same level I guess. But maybe we'll have an opportunity to do that later.

I think you said you're jetting at the end of the week, right? You don't know. If he doesn't jet at the end of the week then maybe we'll arrange something.

That reminds me I need to make a phone call. Why don't you make that phone call while I talk over here and we'll figure it out.

Anyway, be it as it may, normally we would have a review of these things but we have something important to do today and that is continue and finish up our refutation of the

Newsweek hit piece on the Christian faith. And it is a hit piece on the

Christian faith. When your article concludes by stating the following, when it says the

Bible is a very human book, Jesus didn't teach that. Jesus held men accountable to the words of the

Old Testament. In fact, the very section of scripture that the author Kurt Eichenwald attacks earlier in the article at the beginning of Genesis.

And he said, have you not read what God spoke to you saying?

So for Jesus and Kurt Eichenwald, the Bible is two very different things.

And to say the Bible is a very human book in light of the context of this article is to deny its divine origins.

And so this is an attack upon the Christian faith. It was written, assembled, copied, and translated by people.

Well, in the sense that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, sure.

But that's not what this article is saying. That explains the flaws, the contradictions, and the theological disagreements in its pages.

Once that is understood, it is possible to find out which parts of the Bible were not in the earliest Greek manuscripts, such as Mr.

Eichenwald. You want to give us some examples? Tell me, since the last program,

I would think if someone had taken the time, as we did, to interact with your article so fully, as we did, to read entire sections of it, to direct people to it, and then to point out, you know, we've addressed these things over and over again, written entire books on these subjects, debated the people, the few people that you cite, and then you don't even cite them in a meaningful fashion.

I thought in journalism, if you cited somebody, it might be good to give references, you know, some way of being able to look things up, put them in context.

Obviously, I'm old school. I guess as I grade people's tests in classes that I'm teaching and stuff overseas,

I just shouldn't expect them to have footnotes and things like that. I guess that's just old school.

But I've debated Bart Ehrman and John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong and these various ultra -liberals that you are so enamored with.

And I asked Bart Ehrman about what he feels was not original.

Any reading that we don't have the original reading for anymore in the Newshouse, he came up with one example, the difference between Enoch and Enochi.

That's it. So what are these passages? It is possible to find out which parts of the

Bible were not in the earliest Greek manuscripts. So are you talking about the longer ending of Mark?

The Kamiohanium? Are you talking about the Perikope Adulterae? Those are all well -known things.

You don't even have to have the Nesialon 28th edition. All you need to have is actually read the teeny tiny little font notes down at the bottom of the page in the

ESV or New American Standard. Even the New King James will tell you where the textus receptus disagrees with the other texts, with the modern eclectic texts.

But what does that have to do with once that is understood, it is possible? See, those of us who know these fields, sir, recognize that you do not.

You engage in so many category errors where you connect things together that have no business being connected together.

There is nothing relevant about your assertion of the contradictions and errors in the

Bible and the subject of textual criticism, the transmission of the text. You seem to think that there is, but I would love, and as I've said,

I have invited you repeatedly.

You are active in Twitter, even today. You are responding to people who have responded to me since before the last program.

But you wrote a lengthy response to Dr. Michael Kruger on his blog, and so you're well aware of what's going on.

And by the way, let me mention this right off the bat. We predict problems with the video feed today.

We just, our internet connection, so far, I hope so, but our internet connection today has been unreliable.

We've reset stuff. We've done what we can on our end. It seems to be network issue beyond us.

And so there is an audio link at aomin .org.

If you go to the first blog article, there is an audio link. And the audio link pretty much works.

It's pretty much bulletproof. So if you start getting max headroom stuff, hiccups, interruptions, so on and so forth, please feel free to go to the audio.

And obviously, we're recording the video locally. And if there are problems, then we upload a fresh copy to YouTube later on and make the needed adjustments so that if you're not watching live.

But if you are watching live and you start having problems, my suggestion would be to go to the audio link.

I wanted to mention that in passing. Anyway, which are the bad translations and what one book says in comparison to another?

And then try to discern the message for yourself. The point is, even in your response to Dr.

Kruger, you make the assertion that, well, look, I'm not presenting a theology here.

Yes, sir, you are. And if you would take the time, like I said,

I was communicating with you. We have a phone number. It's toll free. I've sent it to you five, six times in Twitter.

Other people have repeated it to you. You know you have it. 877 -753 -3341.

It's toll free. In 52 minutes, right at the top of the hour, we'll pause.

And if you want to respond to what I've said up to that point, then call in and respond.

We're opening it up to you. I don't think you will, but I hope you will.

You didn't last week, but we're making the opportunity available to you. Most people wouldn't do that.

We're demonstrating that the presentation you made of fundamentalists and evangelicals in this article is a strawman presentation.

Am I saying that there's no one like the people you describe? I'm not saying that, but we decry them as loudly as you do.

The reality is, though, the conclusions you come to are theological, and they impact all of the

Christian faith. Let's keep going, because there's a lot to get to.

I'd like to try to get through most of it before the top of the hour, if I can, so that Mr.

Eichenwald can call and we can respond to some of these things. I'm not responding to everything in the article.

It's, I think, either Dr. Kruger—is it a Dan Wallace who's responded,

Albert Moeller, or Dr. Kruger mentioned. It's like 32 pages long, and it takes so much basic repair as far as the fundamental errors that Mr.

Eichenwald has that it's hard to say. Yes, Brandon, wonky is an official technical term.

It is an official technical term. I've heard network engineers use wonky. I'm not sure when it got defined, but they have—that's when you don't really know what's going on, and it's just wonky.

So I think that's—so anyways, it's starting right where I picked up last time. We read,

To understand how what we call the Bible was made, you must see how the beliefs that became part of Christian orthodoxy were pushed into it by the

Holy Roman Empire. By the 5th century, the political and theological councils voted on which of the many gospels in circulation were to make up the

New Testament. Now, Mr. Eichenwald, Dr. Kruger, who is one of the greatest living experts today on the subject of the canon of the

New Testament specifically, because that's the only thing that would be relevant here—canon of the Old Testament was already a fixed deal long before this— wrote two articles on his blog site demonstrating that you have no earthy idea what you're talking about here.

I will just simply echo his statements. You seemingly are not aware of the fact that we have the vast majority of the

New Testament in manuscript form before Constantine comes along. And even if Constantine tried to push something into the text of the

New Testament, it would be impossible for that not to be detectable. I wasn't going to do this.

I wasn't going to do this. I will have to change what I'm—open recent.

All right. Let me show you, Mr. Eichenwald, where the problem with this theory you're presenting is.

I made up this graphic years ago.

Again, I used this in my debate with Dr. Ehrman.

Here is—you've got it? There you go.

Here's just a quick run -through of this graphic that I made a number of years ago. The initial

Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were written in various places at various times. Some were written for distribution within the community, such as the

Gospels. Others were epistles sent to specific locations. You know, the problem is that this isn't going to show the really cool animation that I did for this.

That's the problem. What happens—this could go back to me, because this might just completely go wonky as well.

There we go. What happens if—oh. Are you able to find the proper screen there?

I should have practiced this beforehand, huh? No? Yeah. Yeah, and I know why, too.

Here, I can fix it. Watch this. Watch this. Boom.

That fixed it, didn't it? I'm getting good at this over here. I'm getting techy.

All right. Here. The initial Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were written in various locations at various times.

Some were written for distribution within the community, such as the Gospels. Others were epistles sent to specific locations.

Then copies would be made and sent elsewhere. Often, Christians traveling from one place to another would encounter a book they had not heard of before, and hence would make a copy to bring back to their own fellowship.

And though a graphic that would represent how many different lines of transmission there were and how often they were interconnected would rapidly become useless due to the number of manuscripts that would be on the screen, the fact of that complex history of transmission should be kept in mind.

Over time, single books would be gathered into collections. This was especially true of the Gospels and the

Epistles of Paul. Hence, we have P75 and P66, which are Gospel collections. P46 contained the

Epistles of Paul, all dating from the middle to the end of the second century. These collections would then come together until finally, after the

Peace of the Church in AD 313, you could have entire copies of the Scriptures, such as we find in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.

But the important point to note is the multifocality of this process. Multiple authors writing at multiple times to multiple audiences produced a text that appears in history, already displaying multiple lines of transmission.

This results in a textual variance we must study, but it also illustrates something else, specifically. It's vitally important to realize that the transmission of the text in the

New Testament did not follow a phone game single line, despite what you said, Mr. Eichenwald. Not only are written documents less liable to corruption than what is whispered in the ear, but the phone game involves a single line of transmission.

The New Testament originated in multiple places, written by multiple authors, with books being sent to multiple locations. This multifocality leads to the final considerations that demonstrate the bankruptcy of the modern attacks on the

New Testament, including yours, Mr. Eichenwald. To make specific changes in a text like the New Testament, which is what you just asserted happened by the

Roman Empire, which originally circulated as a group of texts, not as a single body, would require a centralized controlling body that could make wholesale changes in these widely dispersed texts.

But the fact of the matter is, no such central agency ever existed or could have existed. Christianity was a persecuted religion made up mainly of the lower classes.

There was no central authority that could ever have gathered up all the texts and made wholesale changes. Such was impossible in the earliest days of transmission, and given that we have such ancient texts today, obviously it could not have happened at a later point without giving clear evidence.

In fact, Mr. Eichenwald, we can prove beyond all doubt that this kind of corruption did not happen, since papyri have been found that date back to the second century, and that only within the past hundred years.

Had any later centralized organization sought to alter the text, those later texts would show stark differences as older and older manuscripts are found, but just the opposite has been the case.

Now, Mr. Eichenwald, I wrote those lines and put that material together a very long time ago, a number of years ago, and the reality is that it describes your position absolutely perfectly, because you have given us nothing new.

You have simply given us, well, what you've given us has been a wiki scholarship.

It's wiki scholarship. You, sir, are the mirror image of the fundamentalists that you despise so much.

Just as they unthinkingly and uncritically and without examining other perspectives, hold on to one particular perspective and say things that are inconsistent, you do the same thing just in reverse.

You have your sources and you will not listen to the other side. We saw this in looking at your previous material.

We see it here as well, here as well. So what you're saying in this paragraph is simply false.

I challenge you to prove it. If you think you can back this up, 877 -753 -3341.

I have the critical text right here. I have, Rich put up,

I've got my New Testament textual setup right here. I've got the

Ness Yolen text, Metzger's textual commentary, Comfort's textual commentary. I've got the CNTTS apparatus right here.

Show it to us. Show it to us. I've got the best scholarship offers us right here.

Call in. I've got the phone thing right here I can see. Show us where this happened. Show us where the Holy Roman Empire, show us where the

Roman Empire decided what gospels were going to be in the New Testament, sir. Show us when that happened.

You seem to indicate that Constantine had something to do with it. He didn't. I want you to show us how the

Holy, you called it Holy Roman Empire. Well, there was no Holy Roman Empire, by the way. That's incredible anachronism.

Yeah, the Roman Empire. The HRE comes into existence during the medieval period, so you're hundreds of years off on that.

And we have the functional four gospels way before the end of persecution by Rome against Christians.

So we are truly left wondering what it is you're talking about.

Because the beliefs that became part of Christian orthodoxy were not pushed into the New Testament by the

Holy Roman Empire. And fifth century councils did not determine the issue of the canon of scripture.

It's just bogus. It's just false. The phone's ringing.

But it was you testing it? Just making sure it's working, huh? Okay, go ahead.

Freak me out if you want to. It's all right. See, you just keep getting my hopes up there.

Thanks a lot. Well, at least on this show I didn't do the dial tone thing like I did last time.

Well, it's true. Okay. All right. Then it says,

With the power of Rome behind them, the practitioners of this proclaimed orthodoxy wiped out other sects and tried to destroy every copy of their gospels and other writings.

Again, it would be nice if you would provide footnotes, references.

Even Wikipedia does that. But you just throw this stuff out there as if it's just common knowledge.

You seem to think that the Gnostic gospels were widespread and extremely popular.

You know, you can have a meaningful discussion about the rise of sacralism.

And that's what you're talking about here. I don't think you understand it, but that's what you're talking about here. You're talking about the rise of the church state.

And Nicaea is an important element in that. Theodosis is a much more important element in that.

And it takes quite some time. But the reality is that the groups with their other gospels were disappearing long before this period of time.

Do you know, Mr. Eichenwald, how many manuscripts, for example, of the Gospel of Thomas we have?

Do you know what language is there in comparison to New Testament? Do you know what the dating of such things as the

Gospel of Peter or some of the others that you mentioned elsewhere in Europe?

Do you know the dating of those? Where they actually come from? They don't come from the first century.

And the early church recognized that and recognized they were not apostolic. Anyway, I recall they were already working from a fundamentally flawed document.

Now, we actually saw that Mr. Eichenwald, again, and Mr.

Eichenwald says I'm guilty of calling him names because I keep saying you're ignorant.

Well, when you produce a document that's published as a cover article, where you make documentable errors, when

I can put the error on the screen, I can put the Greek text up here, which you admitted you can't read, and go, that's what it actually says, and this is what

Mr. Eichenwald said. What other term would you like us to use? Truth challenged?

I mean, how postmodern can we get here? You don't know what you're talking about.

You just don't know this. You claim in your response to Dr. Kruger that you've been studying the

Bible for 30 years. Sir, I teach theology and textual criticism and apologetics and church history in a number of different places.

And sir, this, if you turn it into me, you ain't graduating.

It fails. It fails. It's not acceptable. It is so riddled with errors that it's not acceptable.

What do you call someone who studied something for 30 years and can't submit a paper that would pass the very basic levels of examination?

What do you call someone like that? What name would you suggest? I don't know. I think the proper term is ignorant.

You do not know the field. When you can say Constantinople declared

Jesus to be the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you do not know the field. It's a fact. Simple fact.

We're all ignorant of things. If I wrote a cover piece on finances or the history of Belgium or certain common foot funguses,

I would be easily identified as ignorant by those who actually know the field.

That's what's happened here. And that's what's amazing, is that Newsweek would actually publish something like this and not pass it on to someone and go, well, what do you think about this?

Errors and revisions by copyists have been written in by the 5th century, and several books of New Testament, including some attributed to Paul, are now considered forgeries perpetrated by famous figures in Christianity to bolster their theological arguments.

Well, most in our audience anyways will remember that when

Forged by Bart Ehrman came out, we not only reviewed the book, but we also played and reviewed the interaction between, if I recall, it was

Daryl Bach, someone from Dallas, I'm pretty sure it was Daryl Bach, and Bart Ehrman on the thesis.

And again, you show zero familiarity or at least any willingness to admit the existence of any meaningful scholarly defense of the apostolic authorship of any of the books to which you might be referring.

You specifically don't like 1st Timothy, 2nd Peter, any of the

Petrine Corpus, evidently. Are you familiar with the meaningful scholarly defenses of those books and their apostolic origin?

Who have you read? Who have you read? You've been studying for 30 years. This is supposed to be a piece of journalistic with journalistic integrity.

Who have you read? Why do you dismiss them? Why didn't you mention them? How do you interact with their argumentation?

How do you interact with the fact that, for example, when Bart Ehrman attempts to create a minimalistic

Pauline corpus of only seven books, that the standard argumentation he utilizes is to say, well, when we look at the

Pastoral Epistles and we graph the unique vocabulary found in the Pastoral Epistles, they're different than what's found in what we identify as the

Pauline corpus. Many people have pointed out for a very long period of time now that that is a bogus standard.

Why is it a bogus standard? Well, sir, it's pretty simple. If someone took your published work, if someone took this 32 page document that you have written on the subject of Bible and compared the particular vocabulary in it, the unique vocabulary items in it, in comparison to, oh, say your emails over the past two weeks written to friends and family about the holidays.

Would not your emails demonstrate a completely different set of vocabulary than this particular piece of writing?

Which would be equal to, I don't know, at least one of the major epistles, maybe longer. I don't know. I didn't do a word count.

But the point is that the Pastoral Epistles are written to individuals in a completely different context.

And therefore, the idea there is going to be a difference in the unique vocabulary of those of those letters is a given.

And yet that's the primary basis, that and a particular theory of what the early church looked like.

And it's just a theory. That's the basis of rejecting the authorship of these books as well.

You know, they're addressing things that really hadn't happened, really hadn't developed yet. And Mr. Eichenwald, are you not aware of the fact that only only 150 years ago, if you had if you had gone to school in Germany, you would have been assured beyond all question.

The Gospel of John was written around 170, 180, 80. That was the assured result of the experts.

Well, until we found P52 anyways, which was written around 125. And that sort of caused the problem.

And and we found documentation that what the experts thought based upon their theories, which all begin with the assumption that whatever the

Bible is, it's not what Christians have always believed it was. That's the bedrock assumption. It's got to be something other than that.

That's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. And the problem is you don't seem to be aware of it.

You don't seem to be aware of it. It is small wonder, then, that there are so many contradictions in New Testament.

We haven't found any of them. We certainly have found your unwillingness and inability to harmonize text or to allow text to speak for themselves.

But some of those contradictions are trivial, but some create huge problems for evangelicals insisting they're living by the word of God.

Now, again, this is just standard. The standard unbelieving stuff that we get all the time, just without even meaningful good examples.

It's not like this is anything new. And it just wonders. We wonder how it gets there.

It's interesting that there I guess there was a picture. I have this in Evernote, but I guess there was a picture of the

Westboro Baptist at this point. Nothing like going for the low end, right? Don't want to deal with the best.

We want to go for the low end. And then we have a brief discussion of Christmas.

And I'm just going to be brief on this. You may not recognize this version, but it's a story of Jesus' birth found in the

Gospels. Two Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell the story of when Jesus was born, but in quite different ways. Contradictions abound.

Your presentation here, Mr. Eichenwald, again, shows no meaningful appreciation of any of the harmony of the

Gospels that have been produced. Any of the meaningful work that's been done on the Synoptic Gospels. For example,

I've been teaching through the Synoptic Gospels with lots of breaks, obviously, but for about a decade.

And using the Åland Parallel, the students using the

Greek, I'll use Greek. Students using English, I'm using the

Greek or the English. And we have dealt with so many of the alleged quote unquote contradictions.

I don't get any evidence. You didn't even bother to define what you mean by contradiction.

If one Gospel says there were two angels and another says there was one, is that a contradiction?

Why? Have you seriously thought through why there are four Gospels? Have you seriously thought through why an author would include more information, another author less information, depending upon the size of the book they want to produce, the audience they're seeking to communicate with?

I mean, obviously, Matthew is writing to Jews. Luke is not. Mark is leaving out a bunch of the teachings of Jesus that Matthew and Luke include.

But interestingly enough, when Mark includes one of the pericopes that, for example,

Matthew has, Mark will almost invariably have a longer rendition than Matthew does.

There's just all sorts of things that are required of someone to meaningfully engage in synoptic studies.

You just simply put it all aside. That's irrelevant.

It doesn't matter. It's just a bunch of contradictions. Can you understand why those of us who, you know, you say you've been studying the

Bible for 30 years. Well, so have I. I can just prove it. 24 books, 140 debates, hours and hours of this program.

I can actually prove it. And I have all sorts of critics, from atheists to Roman Catholics to Mormons to Muslims to Oneness Pentecostals, so on and so forth.

So, man, what I say gets examined really, really carefully. You think you get examined carefully.

You ought to sit in this seat for a while. But I don't just shove all that stuff aside.

Can you see why someone who puts out the effort and who then actually listens to what you have to say and has read.

I mean, the number of books I've read by people like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg and Bart Ehrman and people like that.

I know. Why don't you read what we have to say? That's what a lot of us are asking. Why no evidence of this?

You know, you say in creating the familiar Christmas tale, Christians took a little bit of one story, mixed a little bit of another and ignored all the contradictions in the two.

Well, again, are you talking about people who've never wrestled with the synoptic studies?

Evidently, you are. And see, in our brief Twitter conversation, you said, I wasn't talking about people like you that study the

Bible. I'm talking about and, you know, it's the people you want to go after. Governor Perry and people like that, that you find to be just gross hypocrites.

Those are the people you're talking about. OK, then how come your conclusions are about the entire nature of the

Bible? That's the problem. You can't just go. Well, I wasn't talking about you folks. Your conclusions sure are.

Your conclusions sure are. You say and both

Matthew and Luke offer that proof. Both trace Jesus' lineage to his father, Joseph. And they're back to David, except Joseph wasn't

Jesus' father. Jesus, son of God. Remember, we're over the genealogies account. The two gospels are different.

Each identifying different men is Joseph's father and grandfather. Mary, the mother of Jesus, can be the only parent with a bloodline to David.

But neither gospel makes any mention of that. Again, if if you gave if you then follow this up.

With now, of course, I've taken the time to read.

The many, many pages in Daryl Bach's two volume commentary on Luke.

And then I I cross referenced Carson's work on Matthew.

And I've put these together and looked at these other in -depth articles that have been written by Christian believers in the subject of genealogies and Matthew and Luke.

If there was some of the rest of that, then we could go forward from there. But again, this is wiki scholarship.

And you clearly are not aware of issues relating to genealogical studies.

The use of, you know, for example, Matthew very clearly breaks the genealogy up into sections numerically.

He's writing to Jews. They didn't have a problem with doing that. You're assuming certain modern standards for genealogies.

It's just it's stuff we've talked about many, many times in the past. But unfortunately, again, maybe you just haven't taken the time to really look into all that stuff.

And then you do the Bart Ehrman thing. And I'll just run through this quickly and then just refer people to where we have, for example,

Bart Ehrman does this very same thing. Almost word for word. Well, let me read it and then

I'll direct you to where we respond to it. The stories in the four Gospels of Jesus' death and resurrection differ as well.

When brought before Pontius Pilate in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks only two words and is never declared innocent. In the Gospel of John, Jesus engages in extended conversation with Pilate, who repeatedly proclaims this

Jewish prisoner to be innocent, deserving of release. The Book of John was last to be written and came at a time when

Gentiles in Rome were gaining dramatically more influence over Christianity. That explains why the Romans are largely absolved from responsibility for Jesus' death and blame instead is pointed toward the

Jews. That has been one of the key bases for centuries for anti -Semitism. So just throw a bunch of stuff in there.

And who went to anoint Jesus in his tomb? And Matthew was married and another woman named Mary and an angel met them there.

And Mark was married to Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome and a young man met them. And John, it was Mary alone and no one met her.

It's told in Matthew that the disciples go to Galilee after crucifixion and see Jesus ascend to heaven. An accident by Luke, the disciples stay in Jerusalem and see

Jesus ascend from there. That's a very poorly slung together version of Ehrman's stuff.

And so it would be much better for folks to go to our response to Bart Ehrman.

We've done it here on the program where we have gone through his better rendition of these alleged contradictions.

I think if I recall correctly, it was either from his debate either with Mike Lycona or with William Lane Craig.

That's my recollection. And I'm assuming it was sometime in 2008 or 2009, as I recall, where we went through all of these and much more in depth.

And I would direct people to that because you're going to be at least there. We're not dealing with the low hanging fruit version.

We're dealing with the Bart Ehrman presentation of it. Next paragraph.

For example, evangelicals are always talking about family values. But to Jesus, family was an impediment to reaching

God. In the Gospel of Matthew, he states, The only reason

I can think why you used the King James was you didn't have to worry about copyright stuff.

Is that right? Is that really why? I mean, wow. Anyway, family was an impediment to reaching

God. No, sir. Love of anything on earth that is above love for Christ and for his gospel is an impediment to being a disciple.

That would be the meaningful reading of the text. The idea that the

God -ordained family is an impediment. Now, if you really wanted to have a meaningful discussion, you would want to deal with what

Jesus said about I've not come to bring peace, but a sword to bring division between father and mother, so on and so forth. Then we could talk about living the gospel in divided families.

Jesus's recognition of what the gospel is going to mean when the gospel goes out into the unbelieving world, etc.,

etc., etc. But you didn't bother to do that.

Then you start talking about eschatology. Two problems.

That does nothing to counter what either Jesus or Paul said. And even in ancient times, many Christian leaders proclaimed second period to be a forgery, an opinion almost universally shared by biblical scholars today.

It is not almost universally shared by biblical scholars today. That is a great overstatement.

And I'd like to know who the ancient in the ancient times, what Christian leaders proclaim second period to be a forgery.

And again, take you back to, again, the discussion of, you know, why is there, for example, a lexical and syntactical difference, fundamental difference between the writing style of first and second

Peter? I know you can't read it to know that, but those of us that can have known that all along.

And this is nothing new to us. I mean, Mr. Eichenwald, believing Christians back in the 17th and 18th centuries in England, by their junior year, and it didn't map exactly to our way of doing things, but by their third year in higher education, not only had to be able to read

Greek, they had to be able to debate in Greek. You think they missed the stylistic differences between first and second

Peter? Excuse me. They didn't. And so there's nothing new here.

You may notice that one of the two epistles of Peter makes specific reference to the

Immanuensis, the scribe, who is the one who wrote the epistle. Hence, it is quite possible that Peter may have dictated the epistle in Aramaic and then that individual rendered it in Greek.

That may have happened with both for that matter. That's not a problem for our understanding of the inscription process, because it is what is written that is theanoustos, that is

God breathed. But again, that's being fair. That's just being fair and discussing it.

Then you just started really getting silly with some Old Testament stuff. Again, not showing any familiarity with any, basically any believing scholarship on the subject.

You said the next time someone tells you the biblical story of creation is true, ask that person which one. Oh, someone alleging that there is a difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Well, you know, again, more wiki scholarship. And it's become such a given that I can forgive you for not even knowing where to look.

I've lamented many, many times that we, in general, have given the

Old Testament over to the liberals. Not completely. Thankfully, there are still believing scholars that can argue their cases very convincingly.

But in general, that's certainly been the case. But you don't, again, in all of this, in this entire discussion of Genesis 1,

Genesis 2, you don't even show the slightest familiarity.

You don't even give a tip of the hat, any indication that you realize,

I know that there are intelligent Christians who actually believe this is the word of God, and they have engaged everything

I'm saying. You just don't show any of that. And nothing that you say.

You do actually quote Richard Elliott Friedman. Why not?

See, you can find folks like this. Why is it you only find the ultra -liberals? Why don't you go?

I would think, as a journalist, that you would go, I wonder if someone has responded to this.

It seems you have the presupposition that we don't know what people like Friedman have said.

And that we don't care and we've never responded. You may actually believe that to be true. You may actually believe that to be true.

A lot of people function that way. A lot of people function that way. And then you make the conclusion,

These conflicting accounts are only serious matters because evangelicals insist the Old Testament is a valid means of debunking science.

Really? We do? Who says that? Who says that?

I'd like to know who that is. That's a misrepresentation. And I know who you're even misrepresenting here.

That's not even a semi -valid statement. I know who you're talking about.

And what you're actually talking about is that there are people who believe that the

Bible is the word of God. It provides a coherent worldview. And that when you construct that worldview, you can then interpret the facts of science within it in a consistent, coherent way.

But you see, it wouldn't serve your purpose. And you do have a purpose. You say you're not presenting a theology.

You are. And here's a good example of it. Here's a good example of it. It would not serve your purpose to put it in that way.

Would it? No. But as these examples show, the

Bible can't stop debunking itself. The Bible can't stop debunking itself.

And you say you're not presenting a theology? And you say that I calling you ignorant is name -calling?

What's this? You're now taking on the role of the victim.

I've been attacked. All these people, whenever anybody says anything to you, oh, that's not very Christian of you.

You think that is? You think that is? Now, by the way, anyone who calls himself a

Christian, you shouldn't be going after Mr. Eichenwald for anything other than what he's written.

Challenge him on the facts. Don't insult him personally and say your nose is big or something.

I don't know. All I can see is the only thing I've seen of him is that little teeny tiny thing on Twitter, and who can make anything on that out?

Don't be attacking the man for anything other than what he's written is fair game.

When he says the Bible is debunking itself, then we need to debunk the debunker because, again, this article is absolutely pitiful on any meaningful scholarly level.

It really is just a—what's the term? My daughter introduced me to the term hot mess.

Is that what it is, hot mess? Hot mess, yeah. Okay, hot mess, whatever.

I love the look that Summer gives me all the time. I look at her and go, what? Because, you know,

I don't keep up with that stuff. And then it starts getting really silly. In fact, the

Bible has three creation models, and some experts—some experts. I've got my experts. In other words, some wild -eyed wacko liberals maintain that there are four.

In addition to the two in Genesis, there is one reference in the book—the books of Isaiah.

Notice the books of Isaiah because we've got to have Deutero -Isaiah in there. Well, actually, it says books of Isaiah, Psalms, and Job.

You might want to say the Psalter or something like that, but anyway. Now, I don't—okay, anyway.

In this version, the world is created in the aftermath of a great battle between God and what theologians say is a dragon in the waters called

Rahab. And Rahab is not the only mythical creature that either coexisted with God or was created by him.

God plays a sea monster named Leviathan. Oh, great.

I forgot that I have not downloaded the new version of Kindle for this computer,

DRAT. In my black bag is my new

Kindle Voyage. It's in the purple—it's in the same zipper compartment with the iPad.

You can get my Kindle Voyage. Maybe I'll look it up because there is—I apologize to those folks, but I want to give a reference to folks here.

And if I can't find it here, I should be able to give you a reference.

I was on Apologia Radio a few weeks ago, and they were interviewing this author, and I actually got to go on with him briefly and talk to him.

And let me see if I can find it this way.

Woo -hoo! Found it. Never mind. Never mind. Let it go. Let me—did you find it?

That's my iPad. I don't want my iPad. I want my Kindle. It's the little thing and the same thing. But don't worry about it. I found the book on Amazon, so just put that back.

Thank you for looking it up. Let me—and it's—wow, right now it's only $5 .98.

Let me put in a big plug here. I really hope that Dr.

Oswalt will appreciate this. Dr. Oswalt, by the way, is not a

Calvinist or anything like that. But I've read this book twice, and I may read it a third time, which means

I listened to it. Most of you know I do a lot of my studying on the back of a bike. But let me highly recommend to anyone—

I've read a number of books, and the bibliography of this will help to direct you to others that you might want to read.

But I found this one to be very, very useful. John N. Oswalt, The Bible Among the

Myths, Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? Ancient Context, Ancient Faith.

It's currently—it's 1323 in paperback on Amazon. The Kindle edition is only $5 .98.

Look, I spent more than that at Arby's on the way in. Yeah, I went to Arby's, okay?

I had a fish sandwich, if you really want to know. It was quite good. $5 .98

Kindle edition, The Bible Among the Myths, Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature, Ancient Context, Ancient Faith by John Oswalt.

Let me just recommend that to folks right now. If you want to read serious scholarship, and Mr.

Eichenwald, may I recommend it to you? I really—you know, there's so many of the things you brought up.

Like, in your response to Michael Kruger, you quoted extensively from Sir Anthony Buzzard, and you didn't respond to me.

Maybe you've blocked me. I don't know. I haven't checked. I can see your stuff at least in TweetBot, but I guess

I have to be logged in to—on the net to see if you've blocked me. Maybe you have. I don't know. I would not be at all surprised if you never even bothered to watch this.

I understand that. That's common. Most of the times I debate liberals, they haven't even

Googled my name. They just don't feel we have anything meaningful to say. I understand. But I sent you a

URL to the debate that Dr. Michael Brown and I did with Sir Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Goode.

And most people, when they watch that, get to the conclusion and go, wow, that was really lopsided.

That was really lopsided. So, since you seem so enamored with Dr. Buzzard, don't you think for someone who claims to have been studying the

Bible for 30 years, you might have at least an interest in finding out what happens when

Dr. Buzzard's perspectives are examined by somebody else? I sent you a

URL to it. If you don't like that one, you could go to the

Unbelievable website. Unbelievable is a program on the Premier Christian Network.

That's how they say it in England, in London. And you could look up the program that I did just one -on -one with Dr.

Buzzard and with Sir Anthony Buzzard. I don't think it's Dr. Buzzard. You know, that's what we do.

We check these things out. It doesn't seem that you do that.

You've talked about the Trinity. I've written an entire book on the Trinity. You say it's difficult to understand, and you clearly do not understand it, as we documented last time.

To put it mildly, sir, Dr. Oswald or any knowledgeable person could put so many holes in what you wrote here about great battle between gods.

It requires you to begin with a presupposition. I'm not going to allow the New Testament to speak for itself.

I am going to atomize the New Testament, break it into chunks, and then

I can find this stuff. It's the only way to do it. Would you appreciate if I did that to your entire article here?

Easy to do, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Evangelicals cite

Genesis' challenge to science taught in classrooms, but don't like to talk about those Old Testament books with monsters and magic.

Yeah, you sound like you've been deeply influenced by certain folks that have done debates recently.

Coming up on 4 o 'clock, let me just get to a few more things. And I haven't even gotten to one of the main things

I wanted to get to yet. I am getting to it right now. But at your leisure, sir.

877 -753 -3341. Right now, if you'd like. Even before I get to the issue of homosexuality.

I want to get to it because in looking at some of the other things you've written, this is a big issue for you.

But let me... And I'm looking here. I want to get through the whole thing. I think I might still be able to.

Unless you call in, that's fine. We'll... We'll make room. We'll make room.

Here's... Nothing there. He's just going, hello.

The phone rang. So, Rich is just going, hello, and isn't hearing anything.

I'll continue on then. The Declaration in 1 Timothy, as recounted in the

Living Bible. The New American Standard Bible. Again, you don't seem to understand the massive difference between those as translations.

International Version Bible and others. Could not be more clear. Those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the

Kingdom of Heaven. It would have been very helpful, sir, if you had taken the time to actually look at the text in the original language.

And I don't know why you went to 1 Timothy 1, because the most important use of 1

Corinthians chapter, of Ars Inquietes, is in 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

And so, let me just look at that. If we can here,

I've got... I should have Accordance up for you there. Here's something, sir, that I think you need to understand.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers.

And you know what I want to do here? I want to show you the most popular English, probably really the most popular

English translation today, at least as I'm seeing it, and that's ESV. Here's the exact phrase that you use.

Nor men who practice homosexuality. Now, what that's translating is right here.

Oota Malakoi, Oota Ars Inquietes. In the

Greek. So what the ESV did was looking at these two phrases,

Malakoi meaning soft or effeminate, Ars Inquietes, very clearly, this is the one area where people collapse in doing meaningful biblical exegesis.

And sir, maybe you've just never been exposed to believers who take the scriptures seriously and hence recognize that what is said here really needs to be grounded, it needs to be understood, or we may well be guilty of false teaching and harming other people.

We take that very seriously. Maybe you've just never met anybody like that.

I don't know. I don't know what motivates you. All I can look at is what the results are, and wow.

But you see, what the ESV did is recognize that you have here a couplet.

Malakoi, soft effeminate. Ars Inquietes. Where does that come from?

Well, let's look back here at Leviticus 2013.

And in the Greek Septuagint, and any serious individual, any person who studies the

Apostle Paul seriously knows that, especially when you encounter a term that is either rare or unknown in the

Koine material that would be contemporaneous with Paul, that you must look at the

Greek Septuagint as the primary semantic source for his terminology.

And when we look at the Greek, kaihos an koimeithe meta arsenos koitein gunaikos.

There's arsenos. There is the male. Koitein. The bed or the marriage bed.

Marital relationship. So whoever sleeps with a man sexually wife.

lays with a man as one lays with a woman. So arsenos koitein comes from putting these two terms together, which are right next to each other in the

Greek Septuagint of Leviticus 2013. Any serious

Pauline scholar has to look at this and go, that's the background of Paul's use of arsenos koitein.

That's where it comes from. Even if he didn't coin it, that's where he's going to interpret it from because you can even go back to chapter 18 and both terms can be found there as well.

Not right next to each other like that, but they're both in the same text. So there it is.

What the ESV translators are recognizing in 1 Corinthians 6 is that what you have here in this couplet are those who practice homosexuality.

That is the passive and the dominant. The penetrated and the penetrating.

That's what's being described here. Hence it's translated nor men who practice homosexuality. And assert the

ESV is translated at the end of the 20th century the beginning of the 21st.

You complain about the utilization of this word because you say but the translation there is odd in part because the word homosexual didn't even exist until more than 1800 years after when 1

Timothy was supposed to have been written. How is that relevant? From a translational perspective.

I mean you're making the claim, sir. And I know you're probably just following Matthew Vines and others like him.

But can you explain how that's relevant? Because, sir, the entire

English language didn't exist then either. So why is that relevant?

Can you tell us that? Um, wouldn't you want to render into modern

English the concepts and meanings of the original terms that would most accurately represent them in the current target language?

Isn't that sort of basic translational methodology?

I don't know. It's right there. You read it. You wrote it. Sorry. You wrote it. But you didn't stop there.

You didn't stop there. Thank you, Carl Rauscher, for posting that for folks.

People are asking me to post links on Twitter while I'm doing this. I can multitask, but there's only so much you can do.

And to be honest with you, I could have done that. But for some reason, since I updated to Yosemite, I can't use this to control all my screens anymore.

It won't go from one machine to the other. It says it's doing it, but I haven't fixed it yet. I could.

I was that close to being able to do it. But I couldn't because of that. I thought the

Mac land was perfect. Remember, the program that does this is not native

Mac. So maybe the people that wait a minute, what kind of phone did you just buy and you're just in love with and you're going, oh, it's so fantastic.

It's an iPhone and it is wonderful. And who made that? Oh, it's an Apple. Yeah, you couldn't get me to use a

Mac for love nor money. A little hypocrisy going on. We'll let that hypocrisy pass.

Anyway, what were we saying? You went on.

You went on. I just gave you a meaningful, fair discussion based upon the original language.

Went back to the Greek Septuagint. I wrote a book on the subject of homosexuality. I doubt you read it.

Long time ago, more than a decade ago. You know what, Mr. Eichenwald? You know what

I did? When I looked at this text, I wrote the section on this. It was a co -authored book. I wrote the section on this.

I actually found a source that might predate Paul that uses

Ars Inquietes. You know how I did that? I had something called the TLG CD -ROM, Thesaurus Lingua Grecae. It's all the ancient

Greek literature for hundreds of years before and after the time of Christ. And I actually did a lexical study on that.

Have you ever done anything like that, Mr. Eichenwald? Now, the reality is that the dating of that particular source, the range is such that it could be after Paul.

And most sources I've found do place it after Paul and would hence possibly be drawing from him.

But, you know, we check that type of stuff out when we write on these subjects. And I don't see a single paragraph in this article where you did that.

Why? Inquiring minds want to know. So I gave you a meaningful discussion of why, for example, the

ESV would have nor men who practice homosexuality. It's understandable. It's logical.

It's biblical. It follows the standard practices of meaningful translation.

What does Kurt Eichenwald say? So, how did it get into the

New Testament? Simple. The editors of these modern Bibles just made it up. Like so many translators and scribes before them, they had a religious conviction, something they wanted to say that wasn't stated clearly enough in the original for their tastes.

And so they manipulated sentences to reinforce their convictions. End quote. Mr. Eichenwald, do you see why my audience looks at your article and says you have been thoroughly refuted?

You have had error after error documented because you write stuff like that.

And that's why the phone's not ringing. Because you can't defend this kind of thing. No one could.

I understand that. I understand that. Totally, but sir, it's irresponsible, isn't it?

That's not why the ESV has that. Mr. Eichenwald, if you actually believe what you put in Newsweek magazine, in that paragraph, after what

I've just shown you on the screen from the original languages, 877 753 3341.

You knew about the program. The facts are there. If you don't call, it is your public statement that you know that what you wrote there is untrue.

Absolutely, abjectly untrue. Then you continued on.

The original Bible verse in Koine used arsenikoitai for what has been translated as homosexual.

For the Latin Bible, it has masculorum concubitores. The King James version translated that as them that defile themselves with mankind.

Perhaps that means men who engage in sex with other men, perhaps not. The next thing to check here is whether 1 Timothy was based on a forgery, and the answer to that is a resounding yes.

Then you quote that wonderful conservative scholar, Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Yeah, okay. Have you ever read the refutations of Schleiermacher's comments in 1

Timothy? Of course you haven't. Wouldn't... No, of course not. Most biblical scholars agree that Paul did not write 1

Timothy. That depends on how you count biblical scholars. If you count biblical scholars as people who actually happen to believe in the

Word of God, that would be untrue. If you count people who just view it as ancient literature, then you might be right.

But it's sure difficult to get those folks to debate the issues. It really is, and we've already commented on that stuff before.

But suppose for a moment that 1 Timothy was written by Paul, and that to defile themselves does refer to homosexuality. Which are both true.

In that case, evangelical Christians and biblical literalists still have a lot of trouble on their hands. Contrary to what so many fundamentalists believe, outside of the emphasis on the

Ten Commandments, sins aren't ranked. The New Testament doesn't proclaim homosexuality, the most heinous of all sins.

No, every sin is equal in its significance to God. Where do you get that from? I mean, in the sense that all sin separates from a holy

God, that's true. But where do you get the idea that all sin is equal? Where do you get the idea that theft is equal to murder?

Where do you get that? I don't know, you didn't bother to say. You just throw these things out there.

I don't know why you throw them out there the way you do, but you do, and I'd just like to know where. In 1

Timothy, Paul, or whoever wrote it, condemns the disobedient, liars, and drunks. In other words, for evangelicals who want to use this book, the

Bible condemns homosexuality. Most frat boys in America are committing sins on par with being gay. No, they're committing sins, and those sins will separate them from God, and they will frequently destroy their lives, and can result in drunk driving, and unplanned births, and all sorts of things like that.

But, are you saying that the Bible condemns drunkenness? Amen! It sure does, just as it does homosexuality.

Yeah, and that's exactly what we preach. And you go, but you all think it's the worst sin in the world.

Sir, here's the problem with your argument. I don't know of any funded organizations going around trying to say that being a drunkard is a proper, good,

Christian calling and lifestyle. I don't know of anybody. I don't know about any promoting the idolatrous

Christian movement, the fornicating Christian movement, the adulterous

Christian movement, the angry Christian movement, the strife -producing Christian movement, but I know a bunch of people advocating the gay

Christian movement. And when you have people trying to rewrite the fundamental moral and ethical structure of the

New Testament, we will respond to that. We have to respond to that. We have to respond to that.

That's the difference. You say, but you rarely hear about parents banishing their kids for getting trashed on Saturday night.

That would all depend, of course, on whether that child is coming home and saying, you know what, mom and dad?

God created me to be an alcoholic and I demand that you celebrate my alcoholism as a gift from God.

That could result in that. But you see, sir, that's what's going on. That's what's happening.

And you need to recognize that. You then go on to say, that's because 1

Timothy is one of the most virulently anti -woman books in the New Testament, something else that sets it apart from other letters of Paul.

If I had more time, I would demonstrate how absurd that statement is, but anyway.

Um. What? What, he heard about my

Mac issue? I'll get this working. Now, if we really wanted to prove ...

Yeah, that's for sure. Take that iPhone from him. Did you hear what he said? Oh, man. What?

So you're actually telling me that you can fix ... Where'd that thing go? Are you familiar with Teleport?

You're not familiar with Teleport. Okay. Well, I have a program called Teleport that allows me to, one

Mac to control the other and ever since the upgrade ... Oh, okay. You told me about that?

Oh, okay. Now, if we really wanted to prove we could multitask, Ryan could come in here while I'm doing the program and fix

Teleport, but we're not going to try that. Because that really wouldn't work well anyway, but anyways.

Hey, if you can fix it, great, because it's a royal pain having to do stuff here, but anyhow, what were we talking about?

Oh, yes. In the King James Version, it says women must dress modestly, can't embroider their hair, can't wear pearls or gold, or have to stay silent.

Well, again, moreover, they can't hold any position of authority over men and aren't even allowed to be teachers.

It's talking about in the church, it's talking about making yourself, putting yourself forward if you actually would look at what's said in Philippians Chapter 2, it's the same thing that's going on there.

Meaning, if they truly believe the Bible is the errant word of God, women like Bachmann can't be in politics.

No, women like Bachmann couldn't be an elder in the church. Sir, there's a difference. There's a difference.

Um, I will not even repeat the tweet that just came across, but I, anyway, um,

I'm looking at the clock. I want to try to do this in two because people are going to be tweeting this out and everything else.

Let me press on faster. So, yes, there is one verse in Romans about homosexuality, and there are eight verses condemning those who criticize the government.

In other words, all fundamentalist Christians who decry Obama have sinned as much as they believe gay people have. That, again, sir, is so absurd.

First of all, there is nothing in Romans 13 that says that you cannot criticize Obama. You could interpret

Romans 13 as to say that you cannot seek Obama's ill or to overthrow the authority of the government, but there's nothing about criticizing in Romans 13.

That is a gross eisegesis and a mishandling of the text. Um, what you also seem to ignore, sir, is that Romans chapter 1 and its discussion of homosexuality, and at least

I applaud you for admitting that's what it's about. At least you're not into the ultra revisionist perspective that says it's not even about that.

But what you need to recognize is that Romans chapter 1 is laying a foundation for recognition and understanding of what the effect of sin is upon man.

And homosexuality is used as an example because it is the, it is truly a glaring example of what happens when the creator -creation distinction becomes twisted and distorted, and the result is a damage to the creation itself, even internally to the human individual.

That's what is being discussed there. I doubt you really believe that. I doubt you really believe what

Paul said in Romans 1. I could be wrong. Prove me wrong. But, it doesn't end there.

In the same section of Romans that is arguably addressing homosexuality, Paul also condemns debating all of Congress is damned?

Sigh. Here's, um, here's what we're talking about here.

Let me add the parallel in here with King James. Here we go.

There it is. Romans 1 .29. I looked it up. And I was like, when

Mr. Eichenwald and I had a Twitter exchange before the last program.

He said, and you, you're a hypocrite because you do debates. And Paul said, don't debate. And I'm like, where did he say that?

He debated all the time. He went into the synagogues and he engaged in dialogues and he, he debated.

Here's where it is. Put it up on the, put it up on the screen. Being filled all in righteousness, fornication, wickedness, covenants, malice is full of envy, murder, debate.

King James. King James. Notice what it is, ESV. Strife. Erdos. Um, sir, that's not having debates with people demonstrating from the scriptures that Jesus is the

Christ or anything like that at all. It is creating division within the body.

Creating strife within the body. Unnecessary argumentation. It's not the same

Greek term that's used of what would be descriptive of meaningful debates. Sir. And yet you use that as an example and we're just all left going.

Being prideful, disobeying parents, deceiving people. Yes, all of Congress is damned. There is no bold print or underlining for the section dealing with homosexuality.

Paul treats it as something as sinful as pride or debate. Well, again, your misunderstanding is, uh, apart, aside.

No, he didn't. All these are sinful. All separate from God. But he used homosexuality in a specific way if you'll follow the flow of the argument as the result of the twisting of the creator creation relationship, which results in a fundamental damage to the creation itself.

Here, the human person whose own sexuality then becomes twisted and confused.

This is the result of idolatry. If you can't see that, then you're not following.

You're not even allowing Paul to speak for Paul. And the fact you have to go back to the King James to find this might be indication.

The story is the same in the last New Testament verse cited by Fundamentalists who scorn homosexuals.

How about who have a concern that homosexuals are living a lifestyle that will destroy them, sir?

How about recognizing homosexuality is a part of the culture of death, sir?

How about that? Um, and this wouldn't be the last one. You went backwards.

Because 1st Timothy canonically is after 1st Corinthians. I don't even know why you did this this way. But anyways.

Again, there's a letter from Paul called 1st Corinthians. The translation is good, and the experts believe it was written by him. Well, that's good.

But Fundamentalists rely on this better stay out of court. Paul condemns bringing lawsuits, at least against other Christians. Um, yeah!

We happen to believe that. Adultery, being, greeting, lying, all these are declared as sins on par with homosexuality.

Actually, sir, what the text says, and I think we need to point this out.

What the text says, oops, wrong, uh, there it is, 1st

Corinthians 6. Look what it says, sir. This isn't ridiculing homosexuals.

This is proclaiming hope to homosexuals. Right there, sir. 1st Corinthians 6 .11. And such were some of you.

The whole list. The whole list. This isn't saying that it's all the same kind of sin.

It's not whitewashing any of it. But notice, sir, that is a past tense verb.

See right there? Were. Not are. Not such are some of you, such were some of you.

Do you believe that, Mr. Eichenwald? Will you affirm that? That it's a past tense thing?

All of these things? Or do you support the idea of gay Christianity?

That would require a change of the tense of the verb, sir. Uh, but then you say this.

Of course, there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who have no idea where references to homosexuality are in the

New Testament, much less what the surrounding verses say. You are right. You're right.

No question about it. And everybody in this audience, Kurt, will tell you that I have decried that and that I've, when

I had Dr. Michael Brown on recently to talk about his book on homosexuality, we talked about this very thing.

That while it's important to know where these six texts are, if that's all you know, then keep your mouth shut.

Because the Christian message on this subject is a positive Christian message. It's vitally important.

But I don't, again, I just don't get the feeling, sir, you've ever listened to a responsible voice on the other side. Mr. Eichenwald, this is not a responsible voice on your side.

That's what we're saying. That's not name -calling, sir. That's a conclusion based upon, well, so far, two and a half hours, almost two and a half hours of interaction with your exact, citing your exact words.

Citing your exact words. You then go to the Levitical texts, and you say, in other words, and you, you have such a confusion as to the relationship of the

Mosaic Law and the New Testament that I don't even have time to start, and I don't need to because I've been addressing these issues for years.

Preaching through the law code, I didn't this last Sunday for other reasons, but preaching through the law code, the whole nine yards, but you say, in other words,

Orthodox Jews who follow Mosaic Law can use Leviticus to condemn homosexuality without being hypocrites, but fundamentalist

Christians must choose. They can either follow Mosaic Law by keeping kosher, being circumcised, never wearing clothes made of two types of thread and the like, or they can accept that finding salvation in the resurrection of Christ means

Leviticus is off the table. Or, sir, you can discover what Christianity actually teaches about the cross and about the law.

Because Leviticus is not off the table, Leviticus explains to us why the cross was necessary. And we have spent, sir, and I know you've never heard of me before,

I'm a nobody, but if you go back into the archives of this program, you will see we have spent hours, hours, sir, discussing this very issue.

You can go to Sermon Audio, go to Things to Perform Baptist Church, just a matter of weeks ago, I preached a sermon where I actually played, this may be the first time it's ever happened in Reformed Baptist Church, I actually played the audio from the

West Wing segment where the president scorns the Dr. Laura figure with this very argument and then debunked it.

How many people do you know in these fundamentalist churches you're talking about that would do that?

Oh, I'm not talking about you, but your conclusions are about me. You are talking about me.

The fact of the matter is, sir, you shot the low -hanging flute, the low -hanging flute, the low -hanging fruit, that's what you aim for, and you know what?

I understand that. I understand that. There are Christians who do the same thing, and we rebuke them too.

We are consistent. We are consistent. On this program, even people who don't like me, who for some reason watch this program or listen to it, they'll tell you we are consistent.

Then for some reason, you went off on public prayers. And you say, but Jesus specifically preached against this in the

Sermon on the Mount, longest piece of teaching by him in the New Testament, specifically as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus spoke to those who made large public sprays, their own religiosity.

Yeah, I know, you go on and on and on about people praying in public, and you say, of course, the problem, there is a problem in the

Lord's Prayer site, and those two Gospels comes in two versions, so Christians have to choose one or the other. Are you certain that Jesus only taught on that once?

Um, it says, it seems almost a miracle that those who effortlessly transformed

Paul's statement about them that defile themselves in mankind and homosexual magically? I gave you the basis for that.

Can ignore this clear, simple words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. What's most amazing that unlike so many questions about the

Bible, the instructions on how and where to pray are not only not contradicted, they are reinforced time and again. The closest

Jesus came to public prayer in the Bible was when he was feeding thousands of the five loaves and two fishes. I guess you forgot

John 17. It wasn't public, it was only the disciples, I guess. I don't know. I think this was a massively overblown section of your article that to be honest with you,

I'm uncomfortable with how prayer is frequently handled in public settings. I am uncomfortable with people who want to force it into public settings myself because I believe prayer is an act of worship.

And so, I actually don't have too much of an argument with you at this point. I think people who try to cram prayer into the public setting because it is an act of Christian worship,

I've got a problem with that. So, who knows? Maybe we might actually agree on something.

Well, let's get to the conclusion here. We've only got a few minutes left. You used the most often eisegetic words of Jesus, judge not.

Because Jesus commanded us to judge, but with a righteous judgment, even in that text. I've read it before, but here it again is the conclusion.

So, why study the Bible at all since it's loaded with contradictions and translation errors and wasn't written by witnesses and includes words added by unknown scribes to inject church orthodoxy?

Should it just be abandoned? Sir, this is why I have now taken almost three hours to respond to you on this program.

That, sir, is theology. And it's anti -Christian theology. It's not what

Jesus believed. It's not what the apostles believed. It's not what they taught. And it's not what any generation of believing

Christians have ever believed. And if you believe that, you have no basis for preaching the gospel to anyone, sir. That's why we responded to it.

You said, no, this examination is not an attack on the Bible or Christianity. Sir, what color is the sky in the world you live in?

You are whistling Dixie here, sir. We all know that this was an attack on the

Bible and it was an attack on Christianity. And so do you. So why bother with this?

That is just deception. Maybe it's self -deception. Maybe you actually believe those words, but if you believe those words,

Kurt Eichenwald, sir, you are self -deceived because this is an attack upon the

Bible and it is an attack upon Christianity and we all recognize it as such and we have refuted it as such.

We have refuted it as such. Finally, the last thing, I already read it once before.

One last thing. The Bible is a very human book. Well, humans wrote it.

They used their language. But as Peter explained it to us, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. So it is just as divine as it is human. It was written, assembled, copied, and translated by people.

Well, you just want to make sure that this is a naturalistic process.

Where does the Spirit of God come into all of this? Where does Jesus' own teaching come in in all of this?

That explains the flaws, the contradictions, and the theological disagreements on its pages. Or, you, as a sinful human being who refused to accept its spiritual nature and its ultimate author, insert those things through your own ignorance, tradition, wiki scholarship, or whatever else it might be.

Once that is understood, it is possible to find out which parts of the Bible were not in the earliest Greek manuscripts, which, again, we documented earlier.

You're now confusing two completely different areas of study. Which are the bad translations and what one book says in comparison to another?

And then try to discern the message for yourself. Well, after all of this, it's pretty obvious that for you, you just get to pick, well,

I like this, and I like this, and I like this, and everything else I can just get rid of. That is a fundamental attack upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is an anti -Christian piece. And we've responded to it. Now, Mr.

Eichenwald, you evidently don't want to actually interact. I understand why. But Newsweek?

You have now demonstrated that it is your public stance to publish pure fiction as an attack upon the

Christian faith and call it journalism. There's really nothing new about that, but man, you've made your position clear now.

You've made your position clear now. I hope that in responding to it in the way that we have, though brief as it was, three hours, that we've given believers in the audience the ability or at least some direction in how to respond to an unbelieving world.

Because I'm going to tell you something, folks. What you're reading here is what is being shoved down the throats of every young person going into universities and colleges, high schools and junior high schools all across our land.

We need to be able to respond to this stuff. We need to be able to respond to it within our homes, within our churches.

It can't be just up to me. It's up to you. We've got a lot of work to do.

Thanks for watching The Dividing Line today. We'll let you know one way or the other if we're going to be able to do something toward the end of the week or not.

You're up for it. Friday? Friday. We'll try to be back on Friday. Lord willing, we'll see you then.