Textual Variants in Luke 23:34

Alright, we press forward. I know that I left a note with the great keeper of the notes last week.

Unfortunately, well it is, look how early we are.

Look how early we are. We're three minutes early. So, I mean we're supposed to,

I mean this is right, this is good, but still. I left a note with the great keeper of the notes about something we need to make sure to cover, unless someone else wrote it down.

Yes ma 'am? Well, I'm afraid you have a little bit of an advantage over everybody else.

Oh, you're right. You are correct. Kelly gets the prize for today.

Kelly gets the prize for today. That was

Luke 23, 34 or 39? 43?

Is it 20? Father forgive them if they don't know what to do. Is it 23, 49?

34. Alright, thank you. There it is, okay. Alright.

I think it's appropriate that the light is out over your head.

If anyone has to sit in darkness, it's the guy who can fix it. I imagine so.

There he is. We've been sitting here waiting. And you're actually on time. But actually

Kelly helped you out because I had asked you. No, she remembered the note that I had asked you to write last week.

So, we're good. Actually, I forgot my cup of water while we're at it.

Alright, so why don't you turn to Luke chapter 23. Now for those of you who weren't with I don't know what was it, 3, 4, 5 months ago?

I forget when it was. But someone who listens to the, there's a number of people actually who listen to our

Sunday school classes that don't live in Arizona. And every once in a while they'll contact me.

I had made a passing comment. I'm pretty certain it was about the text where the sweating of blood in Luke as I recall was what it was.

And I made some comments about it in regards to a textual variant and someone in the internet wrote and said, you really threw me a curve with that.

And then when I mentioned that to you all, I discovered that either it had been a long, long time or I had actually never done my

New Testament reliability presentation. So, we again put off finishing the synoptic study for something like that.

I'm not putting off the synoptic study today, but I do want to address something and I'll try to be fairly brief.

But if you weren't with us, I recognize that the discussion of what is called textual variation can be somewhat troubling to those who have not been given a background in the manuscripts that are ours, the number of manuscripts, the age of manuscripts, all that kind of stuff in regards to the

New Testament, the talking about where those manuscripts differ can be difficult to follow.

I recognize that. But I sort of give you that as a warning ahead of time that we will be discussing something along those lines.

Now, what prompted this was the discussion of the sayings of Jesus from the cross.

And traditionally, the number is seven sayings of Jesus.

And that is derived by comparing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and putting them together.

And when there is a saying that is not found in one of the other Gospels, it stands alone. When there are some that are similar between the

Gospels, they are taken together as one and so on and so forth. So, especially around Easter time, a lot of times some of the cantatas,

Easter cantatas and things like that will have the seven last words of Jesus.

One of those sayings is found only in the

Gospel of Luke. And as we noted, it is in Luke 23, 34.

And I do not, well, I was going to say I do not know why. I do know why. At least

I can guess why. I personally cannot recall ever hearing anyone preach on this passage who raised a question as to the originality of the portion of the verse which says, and Jesus said,

Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. I, I don't,

I've just never heard anyone do it. Maybe you have. In fact, I'll take a poll. How many of you have heard someone preach through this section and even mention the fact that there is a textual variant?

Yeah. I think I was a seminary graduate before I became aware of this textual variant.

And by the way, that's not at all surprising. A vast majority of textual, a vast majority of seminary graduates examine very few textual variants as a part of their work.

In fact, in a lot of seminaries today, you can actually fulfill your

Greek requirement. You'll love this, brother. You can actually fulfill your Greek requirement by taking a

Jan term class of 13 days, which barely qualifies you to actually use

Bible software to do word studies, to be perfectly honest with you. The idea that you can actually learn to read

Koine Greek in 13 days is a joke. Unless, of course, you happen to be a, also be able to play

Bach at the age of four. You know, maybe someone like that might be able to pull it off. But for us normal human beings, that ain't happening.

And so it's not surprising that there would be many who would just not even be aware of the information.

But there are others who certainly are. And yet, I think in the vast majority of instances, in 99 out of 100 instances, 99 .9

out of, 990 out of 1 ,000, let's put it that way, instances this coming

Easter or this last Easter, whenever, this text might be preached as one of the sayings of Jesus without ever being mentioned, that there is a textual variant here.

Now, there are textual variants all across the spectrum of the New Testament. The vast majority of them are irrelevant.

The vast majority of them are limited to one or two manuscripts and do not have any real chance of representing the original text.

And so it's not that it's unusual that people don't mention these things.

In fact, most ministers won't mention these things unless they can tell that the people in their church have a wide enough variety of translations that they need to mention it because some translations may have a phrase or lack a phrase or put a phrase in brackets or things like that.

That's probably about the only thing that forces most people to address these things. Yes, sir? No, I do not believe that it was.

I believe he mentioned the drops of blood one, but I don't recall if this was one of them that he used.

One of the main reasons for that will become apparent here in a moment when we talk about it. The reason, though, that I think, there's a couple reasons why this text needs to be addressed.

And that's because a tremendous amount of popular theology has been based upon this particular text.

I have seen this text cited without any reference to its textual basis in theological debate from a number of different perspectives.

And that right there means that there needs to be some understanding of whether this is an original portion of Luke's gospel or not.

Now, I don't imagine, I would imagine if you have a

New King James, there is, is there a note in the New King James in the textual, in the bottom of the page or in the margin or anything like that in regards to this text?

I would sort of doubt that there is. Anyone? No. Does anyone have a translation where there is a note?

NASB, what does it say? Is there, are there brackets around the words in the actual text itself?

No. No. Just a note. Okay. ESV, anything there? Any ESV?

Okay, so there's a textual note in the ESV. Any NIVs? There's a note in the

NIV as well. Okay. Alright. And the New King James, what was that? It does have one.

Yeah, okay, that's true.

It's amazing that the New King James actually has a little more textual data than most of the others. Remember that NU means

Nestle -Aland United Bible Societies, which is the standard Greek text that is utilized in New Testament translation today.

And so they do, since they're translating from the Textus Receptus, they note those differences, which is very, very useful.

I think also makes them very much hated by King James only as well. Just mention that in passing.

Alright. Now, the second reason that this needs to be addressed is the fact that this is a major variant.

And when I say major variant, that means that there is a very strong case that can be made against the originality of this phrase.

Now, what constitutes a strong case? Well, you may recall from however many months ago it was that we did the study, we went through some of these.

We looked at textual variants. We looked at 1 Timothy 3 .16 and John 1 .18 and 1

John 3 .1. And remember, we looked at a number of these variants. But I'm trying to keep from totally derailing our gospel study just to cover this one.

But I want to cover it well enough that you have an understanding of where it's coming from. A variant has a lot of strength when it is represented in the earliest witnesses we have to a book.

And also when it is represented across the families of the

New Testament manuscripts. Remember when we talked about this, we talked about the three major families are the

Byzantine, the Western, and the Alexandrian. The Alexandrian is generally considered by the vast majority of scholars to be the earliest.

The Western is what lies behind what's the Latin Vulgate and certain other Greek manuscripts. And the

Byzantine is the majority, the majority of the Greek manuscripts, but they tend to come from a later period of time.

And what is important to recognize about this particular variant in Luke 23 is that these words are not only not found in some of the most important early manuscripts.

For example, one of the most important and most accurate manuscripts we have of the

Gospels, I showed this to you, I showed a picture of it to you, is P75. P75 is a very important manuscript.

The scribe was very, very good. This was someone who clearly was trained in the scribal art, shall we say.

But he wasn't trained in making fancy manuscripts.

He was probably trained in doing business manuscripts, which actually is a good thing. Because if you're copying business stuff, you've got to get your numbers right.

You've got to be a good copyist on detail. And so it's not a pretty manuscript, but it's an accurate manuscript.

And P75 does not have this phrase. Sinaiticus, the first corrector, which is probably in the scriptorium itself, does not have it.

It's actually marked out. Vaticanus, which is in the same line as P75, does not have it.

Now what becomes interesting, so those are Alexandrian manuscripts. So the earliest Alexandrian manuscripts do not contain this.

And the earliest manuscript we have of Luke does not contain this, which is

P75. But then we have Codex D.

Now D, D's weird. Codex Beze Cantabrigensis. But it's normally weird in what it has that's unusual, not when it is not possessing something.

And D is part of the Western manuscript tradition. And some of the old

Latin manuscripts go along with it. So you have Western manuscripts. You have

Alexandrian manuscripts. And then most importantly, we have Codex Washingtonianus, Codex W.

And Codex W is one of the earliest. Some people would argue it is the earliest, though Alexandrianus would be in the

Gospels Byzantine. But it's right in the same time period. It's one of the earliest Byzantine witnesses that we have.

So in other words, the earliest witnesses of all three manuscript families omit this phrase.

That makes it a major variant. Because when you, it's one thing for it to disappear in one manuscript family.

But for, when you have all the manuscripts family, you're talking about that which represents the entire breadth of the

New Testament witness. And so it is found early on.

But for example, even Codex E has it. But it has obeli, asterisks around it.

Meaning the scribe who originally wrote it went, yeah, but.

There, I know of other manuscripts that don't have this. And this is questionable and so on and so forth.

So when you, especially when you have manuscripts that put it in there, but with notes. That also is an extremely important thing to add in as well.

And so one of the fundamental rules of interpretation that I think is important to follow.

Remember I've mentioned to you what a hapax legomena is. What's a hapax legomena? So hapax means once.

Legomena means to name. So a hapax legomena is a word that appears only one time in, as Sean puts it, a body of literature.

So in other words, you will have terms that are used only one time in the

New Testament. And you'll have words, especially in the

Old Testament, that are used only one time in the Hebrew Old Testament. Sometimes you can find those words used in secular documents.

Sometimes you can't. And if you have a disputed hapax legomena, which means there is a dispute among scholars as to what it means.

It is a simple rule of interpretation. You do not base some kind of major dogmatic concept on a term where you're just not sure what in the world it means.

In the same way, when you have a real textual variant. Now, I don't mean a weak textual variant.

And I've told you this story before, but we've been doing this for 20 years, so I guess we can repeat things once in a while.

Years ago, I was sort of debating online with a Jehovah's Witness, and he asked the question.

He was a real sharp guy. I asked the question. We were talking about John 20, 28, where Jesus says, my

Lord and my God. Or Thomas says, my Lord and my God to Jesus. And he asked me a question.

The phrase, ha -kuri -as -mu -kai, ha -the -as -mu, is in the nominative there in John 20, 28.

And at the time of the writing of the New Testament, there was another case called the vocative, which is what you would use to address someone directly.

But it was passing out of use, and was not as popular, and the nominative was taking it over.

And so this guy asked a question. He said, is there any place else in the New Testament where God is addressed in the nominative?

Now, I knew that there was. It's in Revelation chapter 4. So he asked that question, and in the next line, because this is a written forum, he says, that does not contain a textual variant.

So he knew about the fact that in the book of Revelation chapter 4, God is addressed in that form.

But there is a minor textual variant in the text. And that's how he got around it.

Now, that's how the cults do their thing. Minor textual variants are not enough to overthrow a sound text.

But this is not a minor textual variant. This is a major textual variant. And that is why you have the notes that you have.

And that is why, from my perspective especially, if you're trying to create a theology of whatever, this would not be a text to go to to build your foundation.

Because as I analyze the text, I would come down on rejecting the reading as being original.

But since it has become so popularized, it has to be noted, it has to be recognized, because there are entire sermons on it.

Unfortunately, a lot of those are based upon not knowing that there is that variant that's found there.

Some people hypothesize that, well, where would it have come from? Well, remember Stephen? Stephen says something very, very similar.

And one of the theories is that somebody didn't feel like Stephen should sound more gracious than Jesus.

But see what the danger is there? Because Stephen has no control over what is happening to him.

But Jesus does. Jesus has said this is coming. Jesus has said this is how it must happen.

This is not something outside of Jesus' control as far as that is concerned. So, you know, some scribe may not want

Stephen to sound more gracious than Jesus, but in the process they're only showing how little they understand about what's really going on in that particular situation.

But another reason to make sure when you're reading through the text, I don't know how

I had missed that little note. It's been the New American Standard since as long as I've been reading the

New American Standard. I mean, I think I started reading, I think

I switched over to the New American Standard somewhere in the late 70s. And so, you know, it had been there the whole time.

But it's very often easy just to read right on through and not see those things and not notice those things.

And it's good to see that it's down there. So, yes, sir. Well, it's only part of the verse.

If it was up to me, it would be a footnote. Yeah, I would. I would put a big old footnote there and put that in.

Same thing with John 7, 53, 3, 11. But I would always make sure it's a footnote.

Because you have to recognize that it's entered into the consciousness of people through repetitive use over time.

And so, to be honest with you, I think the reason that most modern

Bible translations take a very, very, very, very conservative approach and keep a lot of stuff in there that the scholars would actually rather have totally relegated to footnotes is called sales.

Let's just be honest. It takes a lot of money to produce a Bible translation. I don't think we need any more

English translations, to be perfectly honest with you. But it takes a lot of money to produce them. And the last thing you want is some kind of terrible, horrible article in some magazine about how you all are a bunch of God -hating

Bible corruptors or something like that. Which is going to happen with any translation anyways, I suppose.

But especially something along those lines. Because Bible translation publishers know that the vast majority of Christians don't know where the

New Testament came from. And they're very uncomfortable when faced with the reality of the fact that the

Book of Romans was once a single bit of parchment in a leather bag being carried by a guy who hadn't showered in three months.

And probably actually never did. And had never heard of deodorant. And people are uncomfortable with the reality that Scripture came to us in some other way than beaming down from the enterprise.

That's just the reality of the way it is. And the sad thing is, if people don't realize that, then they're really up for being beaten up by the bardermens of the world and all the clones that come from them.

Oral tradition for 150, 200 years? Well, because today we take society and our ability to preserve things through memory and that this phrase was preserved orally and so through the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. Well, that's the normal discussion of how things end up in the original writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

That's not normally a discussion of how an oral tradition would expand upon already written documents.

Because now you've got written documents. Luke, for example, who writes this, says he's already relied upon written documents.

And if he didn't include it, then you're going to have to be changing Luke at a later point in time.

Where then does the locus of inspiration take place? Is it with what Luke writes or with what someone writes 150 years after Luke?

That becomes an issue. Because if Luke wrote this and it wasn't there, was it incomplete for 150, 200 years before it could be inserted back into it?

So that's a question I think that, you know, there are people who theorize that this is what's called a dominical tradition.

It goes back to the Lord. Same thing with the John 7, 53, 8, 11. But I think we have to keep in mind that it's what is written that is theanoustos.

And if it's incomplete until a later point in time where some kind of oral tradition alters the written text to finish inserting what needs to be there, when does that process end?

Could there still be more that needs to be done? Could we have lost something in the process?

That raises a lot of questions. Certainly raises a lot of questions for me.

Yes, sir, real quick. Yeah. Well, you know,

I couldn't bring it up here because as we were driving down here I went, and I left my iPad at home, which would have a little bit more here.

The data as I'm looking at it shows an original hand on Sinaiticus, which is then scratched out, which

I'm not sure what exactly that means. I'd like to, if I had my iPad, I could pull up Sinaiticus and take a look at it myself.

But failing that, the earliest that I would see here is

Codex Alexandrinus, which is somewhere around 400 in that area.

There were. Transmission.

So what would be in the way? Let's say that 400 is the... Well, the point is you have to ask, you have to answer the question, why do we have a number of manuscripts before 400 that don't have it?

And they represent all three families. They represent the Alexandrian, they represent the Byzantine, they represent the

Western. That's the real question, is why is it not in this wide representation of manuscripts, not, well, could it have survived to 400?

That's a theoretical question that leaves open whether we should be continuing to rewrite the

New Testament, in essence. But the question is, we have witnesses before that, they don't contain it, that's the real issue.

If it was original, then why is it missing from the earliest representatives of the three families?

They weren't looking at things like this. They didn't have access to what we have. No. No.

No. The early church didn't have cell phones, fax machines, or the

Internet. So you didn't know what somebody had 500 miles from you. You couldn't compare manuscripts in that way.

So they weren't examining, they could only examine variants in manuscripts that they happened to possess.

They're not going to know what's only a couple hundred miles away. No. No, the tendency of Christian scribes was to be very conservative.

So if they had had it in almost anything, they probably would have included it. But the fact that there are some manuscripts that have asterisks in it, does demonstrate that at least by that point in time, this is more like 5th, 6th century, the scribe there knew that the older manuscripts he had seen didn't have it, but other manuscripts did.

So he puts it in with a little note saying, and that's how they handled it. They made a mark and left it up to you.

So, point being, don't ignore the notes at the bottom of the page. They're there for a reason.

And it is not, again, if you've seen the presentation, you know that it is a good thing that we know these things.

It's far better than being in a situation where we have no knowledge. Where we're just simply, we have very limited knowledge.

And so we're going sometimes with things that aren't accurate. We may be looking at a text that's not original.

But because tradition has told us this is what we go with, then that's what we go with. That's not a good position to be in.

Unfortunately, that's sort of where a lot of our Muslim friends are with the Quran. But we have significantly more information than that.

And I guess there's probably, down at the bottom of one of these pages here, that variant listed.

And we just, 317? Yeah, yeah.

Other ancient authorities omit the sentence. Okay. Yeah, there it is.

So it was, yeah, section 344. And somehow

I skipped right past it. And so I apologize for that. So that's why we had to go back.

Yes, sir. You want me to leave? You guys may want to go somewhere else because it's going to get bad.

Oh, there's lots of speculation about that. There's lots of speculation as to what kind of motivations there would have been.

But what I've heard it used most of, okay, there's a few things. It's frequently cited as an anti -anti -Semite passage.

So, in other words, Jesus, you know, the assertion has been made that the

New Testament creates anti -Semitism because of the Jewish role in the crucifixion of Jesus.

But since Jesus said forgive them, then we should as well. Okay, that's one use of the text.

Obviously, it's always used in regards to, in context with bless those who curse you, bless and curse not, you know, forgiveness of those who trespass against us.

You know, it's always cited in text like that. But theologically, it has been cited to say that as an anti -election passage.

Obviously, there's nothing about Jesus dying for an elect people here because he's praying for these individuals to be saved.

Norman Geisler uses it in that way. And yet we have no evidence that these soldiers were all saved or something like that.

So, it's been utilized in context like that. But there's a lot of different ways you could, you know, utilize text.

I'm not familiar with any particularly wildly, you know, heretical group that says this is our baby.

We're going to come up with something wild and crazy from it. But it's just, I just think it's important to lay down the parameters.

Because if we don't think those things through, then we're really stuck doing the same thing that Rome did at the time of the

Reformation. At the time of the Reformation, Rome had settled the issue of the text. It was the Latin Vulgate.

And look, God had used it for 1100 years. Who are you to question what God's done for 1100 years? I mean, how arrogant are you?

And if God wanted us to have anything other than what was in the Latin Vulgate, don't you think he would have done something by now?

You know, and there was a lot of, you know, Erasmus came under tremendous pressure for printing the

Greek New Testament because the Greek's the language of the heretics. Those are the Eastern Orthodox guys, the

Greek Orthodox guys, they're the heretics. How dare you even learn their language? Let alone print it page by page as Erasmus did, facing pages

Latin, Greek, Latin, Greek. So, he took a lot of heat, not only for correcting the

Vulgate in places where it needed to be corrected, but likewise for putting the Greek in there. And so, if we don't, if we're not upfront and honest with these texts, and make our, if we're not willing to be uncomfortable for a few minutes on Sunday morning, then in all likelihood we're going to end up being very compromised when we attempt to respond to the real full -on attacks on our faith.

That's just been my experience. I see people all the time, you know, you read the stories of these people who went to Bible college and became enlightened because at their church back home in Tennessee, or wherever, or Phoenix for that matter, it was decided that, yeah, it's just, can't cover this, it's not exciting enough, it'll bore some people, or it'll really trouble other people, and so we were deciding to talk about it, and so they all of a sudden end up in a university classroom, and someone's droning on about John 7 .53

through 8 .11, and it's like, and a lot of them have the sense that, well, if they didn't tell me that, what else didn't they tell me about?

You know, why aren't you being honest and upfront with me? At the very least, nobody here has that excuse.

They go, no, we got a really weird one. He throws stuff at us all the time that just makes us sit there and go, really, is he doing this again?

Oh, no. But, there you go. That's how it works. You all win the 2015

Patient People of the Year Award for putting up with me. Yes, sir, brother who anchors the front row.

Is that a variant as well?

Is that written in the early manuscripts as well? No, there's no variant there.

No major variant. I mean, I'd have to look at the specific text. But, no, I'm not aware of any major variant there.

No, the manuscripts are clear on that.

All right. Okay. We talked about the time. We talked about Eloi, Eloi, Lama, Sabachthani.

Everyone in this room, if a Muslim ever says to you, why did

Jesus say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Everyone in this room is ready.

Right? That was confident. We have, we have,

I am. And, everybody else is like, nah, nah, nah, nah. I'm serious about that.

I want to make sure it is one of the best openings for presenting, for doing two things.

Presenting the Gospel and clarifying the doctrine of the Trinity for Muslims in the world. Because it seems to be the most often, in my experience in audience questions, it's the most consistent question that comes up over and over and over and over and over again.

I started reviewing a debate this week. I started reviewing a debate with a really nice Muslim guy named

Wael Ibrahim in Hong Kong, on the dividing line. So, if you get a chance, catch that.

Things could be a good series. And I started Thursday, I think. And, amazingly,

I'm listening to the audience questions, and right toward the end, here comes the question from a

Muslim, for the Christian speaker. If what you say is true, then how could you say, my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In the Gospel of Luke, it's just over and over and over again.

So, be ready for it. Be prepared for it. No Psalm 22. And going from there.

All right. Now, we have the offering of the bowl of vinegar.

Jesus says in John 19, I thirst. We have the, in Matthew and Mark, we have the discussion of Elijah.

And then we have, what I think I finished up with last time, was the strong emphasis on the fact that in each one of these texts, the death of Jesus is plainly asserted.

And as I said to you last time, you go, why in the world would you even say that? Because, believe it or not, there's lots of folks making money on Amazon, selling books, saying that the

New Testament writers were not attending to communicate the idea that Jesus actually died. There's been swoon theories.

There's an entire group of Muslims, who I don't, again, it shows how little the media knows, but right after,

I think the day after San Bernardino or Paris, I forget which one it was, one of the major networks had a fellow on to talk about Islam and peace.

But the network didn't seem to realize this guy is Ahmadi. And the Ahmadi Muslims are peaceful.

I don't think there is ever a record of Ahmadi Muslims ever having committed an act of terrorism, as far as I know.

I could be wrong, but Ahmadi Muslims are killed by Sunni Muslims all the time in the

Muslim world. Because from the Sunni perspective, which makes up 85 -90 % of the world's

Muslims, the Ahmadi are to them what Jehovah's Witnesses are to us. Now, of course, we don't kill

Jehovah's Witnesses, but they have a prophet after Muhammad, back in the late 1800s.

And so, you know, the final prophet of Muhammad is as definitional to Islam as the deity of Christ is to Christianity.

And so, from their perspective, the Ahmadi are not actually Muslims. But CNN doesn't know that.

They look like Muslims, they say five prayers, they have the Quran, and they have a mosque.

Must be a Muslim. And so, they have them on. And like I said, the Ahmadi are really nice folks.

They're peaceful, and they want to talk to you, and they're really interesting people.

If any of you have seen the work of Nabil Qureshi, who is with Ravi Zacharias now, he's former

Ahmadi, that's what he was. He was Ahmadi Muslim, which, of course, the Muslims attack him for all the time. You were never really a Muslim because you were

Ahmadi, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the Ahmadi believe that Jesus was crucified, put in a grave, but had not died.

And then, you know, does the journey off to India someplace, and his tomb is someplace over there type thing.

So they do the swoon theory thing. The point is that it is...

It was the energy pulsing forth from the uncluttered cerebellum, cerebrum, whatever.

Yes, that's true. Someone goes back there and turns it off, it won't come back on again when it's turned back on again.

We all know what's going on back there. Anyway, now you see what happens there?

So we have all these swoon theories out there. The point is that they are using language that is specifically intended to communicate death.

Obviously, in John, Jesus gives up his spirit. Luke, he breathes his last after saying,

Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Jesus is in control of these situations. He yields up his spirit in Matthew.

Jesus dies. He dies. Now, we'll talk about the curtain next time,

I guess. Make a note about that. But please note the eyewitness of Mark.

And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God.

Now, note his presence, because just a little bit later, he is the one who is going to be summoned by Pilate to verify the death of Jesus.

Now, centurions know what dead people look like.

It's not that they have a medical certificate, and people run around talking about it all the time. Oh, well, they heard a story about the guy who got buried and then dug his way out, and la, la, la, la, la, la.

Okay, well, yeah, maybe so, but he hadn't been crucified, scourged, and stabbed either.

And then left without medical treatment, wrapped in cloths in the cold. Sorry, none of that stuff is going to help you.

The centurion is going to be the one that's going to testify to Pilate he's dead. And centurions had a lot of authority, and they always had a lot of experience.

They weren't newbies at this stuff. They knew what they were doing, and he knew that if he takes

Jesus down while he's still alive, his life is going to be on the line with Pilate.

So keep that in mind. Make note of that. I think it's important when you come up against objections there.

Sorry we didn't get too far, but we will get there. We will accomplish our task eventually.

All right, let's close the Word of Prayer. Once again, Father, we thank you for your

Word. We thank you for this opportunity we have, the freedom that we have, the availability of information that we have.

We have so much. You've been so kind to us. May we never be apathetic. May we be truly thankful. And may we go into your presence now with rejoicing hearts.