November 4, 2003

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James White. Hey, good morning. Welcome to the dividing line a special.

Well, it's supposed to be a special Tuesday morning broadcast because we announced last week. We're going to be doing this on Tuesday evenings, but we lied and hey, you know, it's sort of like a game.

It's it's can I find the dividing line on live? And you get a special prize or something if you if you manage to work that out I guess and the prize is that you get to listen live you get to call in and do all sorts of neat fun stuff.

Like that. Anyway, the reason we're doing this basically is because we're going to have a special program today. It is going we're going to go 20 minutes long. You might say why not half an hour long?

Well, because we're we're going high-tech basically we are we're doing we're doing the CD thing these days, you know and CDs don't go 90 minutes at least not the old style CDs the normal style CDs I mean on mp3 you go forever.

But anyway, so we're gonna go till 1220 Arizona time 80 minutes today. That'll leave time hopefully for some phone calls if you'd like to make some comments about what we're going to talk about At the beginning of the program today.

That's great. 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. I wouldn't bother really calling right now simply because I have some commentary to present first and then once we get the get that opportunity taken care of. That'll give us the basis for a discussion later on and the primary reason.

We're going along today and doing it earlier in the day. We would run into things in the evening if we did it tonight. Also, there's not gonna be a program this Thursday. I'm going to be in Springfield, Illinois.

For the big seminar we're doing there over this coming weekend. And then it looks like we probably won't have any dividing lines on next week unless we do one early Tuesday morning. I'll haven't. I haven't talked to the powers that be yet about that.

That's a possibility. Maybe even a Monday evening thing. We'll have it on the front page the front page of Alpha Omega Ministries, by the way has become active. It's a living document. Now as it was just being described a little while ago for those of you who have become accustomed to the front page not being updated For months and months at a time.

That's probably not gonna be happening much anymore unless I'm not in town. And if I can remember to get The the proper software on my laptop. I might even be able to take care of that from from a distance in essence and the reason For that is instead of you know the problem with the front page was I was constantly having to come up with a a full-size article and You know when you write a full-size article people in essence You know require they hold you to a higher Standard in essence they they basically say well, you know If you've written a full article on it Then you took time to study it and and I'm gonna hold you to a higher standard actually anything I say it gets held that standard but at least At least with some logical Ramifications the longer things that I write.

So what we've done is we've blogged the front page. And I know Everybody has their blogs today. But you know what? It's a whole lot easier than Writing something really long and there's lots of interesting things that the folks in the chat channel.

I talk with them about it every day. I'll see something online. Look at this consider what that means in light of what the scriptures say here. Well, it's real easy to you know, throw that up there and voila you have You have a blog and so if you look at it today, there's owners four or five things on it.

Once I update this one, I'll start pulling stuff off the bottom and putting it into an archive. So we'll have the past Stuff archived and you know sort of how blogs work and for those of you who are wondering I didn't know this I think it was tired of Utah Mike up there in Utah that that Explained what blog is it comes from web log and you just take the W e off and you've got a blog.

That's where it came from for those of you who didn't know that I didn't know that either. But now I do so I am now part of the elite people and don't even get into lead. I don't want to hear about leap that that's a whole nother thing that really starts getting into really geeky stuff, but Anyway, so up there on that we have we have a new blog and that's going to keep people I think a little more updated and what that also means is right there at the top if you look even right now if you're listening Live right there in big red letters.

It says we're doing the dividing line at 11 a .m Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday and that's gonna be your best way of keeping up and that might actually keep things a little more current there so be watching the main page of A o m I n org and you'll know when we're gonna be on maybe if we remember or something like that.

The Da Vinci Code as Anti-Catholic Pseudohistory

So, why are we doing this today? Well first I I was going to be spending some time talking about beyond Calvinism Arminianism and inductive immediate theology of salvation by C. Gordon Olson, which in essence is a a slightly better version of of a combination of Geisler and Hunt and Vance all sort of rolled into one and When I say slightly better, they're actually, you know, once in a while you'll be sitting there going grief.

Oh, there's there's that same old thing there again up you're not listening to what we said here and then all sudden bang. All sudden he'll say now, you know, the Calvinists have a point here and he'll make a statement.

For example, I'm on Page 240. I was sitting here going through John 6 and the stuff on John 6 is really bad. I mean, it's not good stuff. But in the middle of that I'm reading along and I'm going I wonder when he's gonna get to John chapter 12 you know leap out of John 6 and try to drag John 12 in and Instead I run across this the Lord Jesus used the same word.

Hell QO Again in John 12 32 and I if I'd be lifted up from the earth will draw them into myself in the context. Especially of 1220 it is clear that he is referring to Gentiles as well as Jews when he speaks of all men.

Which we know can be translated as all kinds of men. Therefore I would not claim this passage as a proof of general redemption and it's like whoo-hoo. Yay something, you know bright light Blinding. Ooh, give me my sunglasses neat thing.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. But since I already wanted to do that had told some folks about that something then happened yesterday as most of you know ABC last night and ABC stands for always bashing Christianity or anything but Christianity.

We can come up with a lot of things that would be reflective of the fact that ABC is the The news outlet that is it that is most clear and open about the fact that we are not Christians. We don't like Christians.

We think Christianity is stupid and we're going to do everything we can to mock it. We are journalists but we are going to use our journalistic position to completely and just destroy any claim of Objectivity whatsoever and we are going to mock Christianity in every possible way we can.

Both directly by attacking it as well as by Airing the most egregiously Perverted stuff we possibly can and pushing the envelope and all the rest of stuff. So Anyway, ABC last night aired and I was thankful that at least here on the West Coast.

Well, I'm not really the West Coast but in the Western time zones Mountain and Pacific Which are now different for us here in Phoenix. But anyway That sort of got knocked back into the real late hours of the night by Monday Night Football.

So sports continued to to you know edit things but ABC aired its Jesus Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci primetime special thingamabob you lover. And I had heard about this thing coming. I'd heard about a couple weeks ago and The yesterday Sean Hannity had had the reporter at that did it.

No, no disrespect tenant, but on the on the program and was you know talking about that and all the rest of stuff. Well, I was heading to a doctor's appointment yesterday. Everything turned out fine. Thank you and As I'm walking into the building my phone rings and it is Michael Fallon good old Mike from back in Florida.

Actually, he's younger than I am. So I should say I'm sorry Mike he normally does listen and Make long story short for a while the possibility existed. It was never a really big possibility, but it was enough of a possibility that I really had to act on it.

There was a slight possibility of having an opportunity to respond to this stuff on a a national television program. I was gonna have to run down to a TV studio and do all the rest of stuff and It didn't work out.

In fact that program didn't even end up addressing the the issue last night probably wisely since It would have come on right after it had shown only in the East and in the West. No one would have had any idea what in the world you were talking about.

So I guess that makes sense. Maybe they'll do something about later. I don't know but there was going to be an opportunity. And so it forced me to gather up, you know, I've been reading a few little things, but but when you're not Thinking about doing anything special on the Da Vinci Code and all the rest of stuff.

You just sort of read some stuff you I had a bunch of bookmarks that I had put together and it started reading some articles. And then bookmarked it and said, you know, if need be come back to it later, etc, etc so Last night we recorded the program.

I'm gonna play a few clips for you. No, we did not stay up till all hours in the morning. It's it's nice to have access to a satellite system but we recorded it and Obviously, you know, that's why we're doing this special program today obviously the big issue is well, first of all, this is nothing new except for the The new packaging the book by Dan Brown, which has been a bestseller now for a number of weeks the Da Vinci Code published by Doubleday $24 .95 if you pay the full price for the thing not sure if you could even find it for full price anywhere but anyway this.

The only thing that's new about this is that the packaging. This is old old old stuff. It's it's the Gnostic Gospels mingled together with Grail mythology and and the whole nine yards it really to anyone who is familiar with the Gospel of Thomas and and Second-century Gnosticism and the the struggle of the the early church.

Against that, you know, I've got some students that through Columbia Evangelical especially that are studying church history and One of them joked just this past week. Something along lines of I think I'll do something unique.

I'll write something against Martian. What he was referring to the fact is that for centuries? Early church writers wrote against Martian. I mean the guy made a made a splash well, he was a an early Gnostic he had particular Gnostic view of of Things and and you had Valentinian Gnosticism and it was it was a major it was the major After Judaism in the first century.

It was the major apologetic concern from a religious perspective what we might call Interfaith Apologetics over against an apologetic against The philosophers the day, you know things like that it was a big thing in the early church very very big and.

So if you're familiar with those things if you've read the Gospel of Thomas and and you've you've gone through all that stuff. You Obviously recognize the necessity of dealing with these things, you know where it's coming from.

There's nothing new there. By the way, do excuse me, I should have done this right at the beginning for those of you tuning in going Hey, where's Jerry Manateeks? He said he couldn't be here today. He had initially said this week would be fine we I tried to arrange for that I'm too busy I've offered him one opportunity the only opportunity that I've got is the 18th of this month and if he can't make it for that well we tried and Did our best so I'm should have mentioned that raft top, please forgive me.

We will just simply put it up there and since this is the digital age just cut and paste that up there in your favorite Sound editing software and all will be well, so we go back to what you're saying about the Da Vinci code.

So this is this is a work of fiction. It is it is a work of fiction. It is. And when I first picked up the book I Thought well, you know that the perfect defense for Dan Brown the author in in when he's on ABC tonight would be Basically along the lines of Folks it's fiction.

It's it's just it's just a story. It's it's just you know, I'm just making things up as I go, but that's not how it's being presented. Is it those of you who saw the program? No, that's not how Dan Brown is presenting it.

It is being presented as if this is this has meaningful Historical validity to it when in reality it is a mishmash and frequently a grossly Perverted twisted Errant mishmash of unfounded mythology it's it's just so bad to anyone who has almost any even a surface level knowledge of Of History to just boggle the mind and yet because the writer is a good writer.

We live in a society now where it's not the substance of what you say. It's how you say it. It's it's all appearance. And when it comes to writing, it's can you write nicely, you know? I'm not. I don't want to insult the man by the parallel.

But it is somewhat like why so many people are willing to just grab hold of NT rights views on justification. He's a good writer. He writes about difficult subjects in the way people can understand and he shows passion well, you know Dan Brown writes writes a good story and so People glom on to it as if somehow this has some sort of meaningful Historical element to it and then of course what he does is he does what anybody who wants to sell a book?

And believe me Dan Brown has sold a thousand times more books than I will ever sell already. So he knows how to do it and that is in essence All you got to do is make plausible connections especially in a fictional context and the American people especially will just go wow.

That's cool. That sounds like it's really important. And the reason we're going to address it this morning Even briefly is this Obviously how has and will become an Apologetic issue. I know how many times I've had to deal with the books that came out like Holy Blood Holy Grail back in the 80s and Most people have forgotten about that.

Well now it's coming back again. It's even mentioned here. I'll mention in a second here the Da Vinci Code once these things get out there, even though they are protected under the cloak of Fiction so you don't have to stand up to the same rigors of when you're writing nonfiction they are presented as if they are not fiction as if they have some kind of of meaning to them.

Now you need to understand right off the bat that Dan Brown is an anti-catholic. Now when I say that you might go well, so are you? You know, there is a vast difference between being a committed Protestant apologist a committed Reformed Baptist apologist who has theological biblical and historical Objections to Roman Catholicism, especially since the positive claims of Rome.

Would say that my beliefs are wrong there's a vast difference between being that and Being an anti-catholic like Dan Brown. There is a vast difference between saying all the evils in the world are due to to Rome and I know of Fundamentalists who are that kind of anti-catholic that you know, there's a there's a Pope.

There's a bishop. There's a priest behind every bush. They're just waiting to jump out and get you. That's that's you know. There are those kinds of folks and if you think that's what I am Then you obviously have either never read a word that I've I've written or listened to a word that I've said or listened to a single-debate.

Or you are so incredibly biased that that rationality is has has waved. Goodbye to you a long long time ago. Those are the only possibilities Honest Roman Catholics will admit. Yeah whites perspective and whites approach is very different than all of that stuff.

His response to Catholicism is theological and biblical in nature. It isn't all this stuff like that well, Dan Brown is an anti-catholic. Dan Brown's book is specifically designed to Attack the Catholic Church as an institution and vilify it as an institution.

And in the process and this came through in the ABC thing last night to in essence identify Christianity with the Roman Catholic Church. Which of course I object to very very strongly in fact Rich and I were talking about one of the statements made by one of the Catholic priests O 'Brien that they kept Interviewing last night.

He was lots of fun wasn't he and One of the things he said was well Christianity has had a very unhealthy attitude towards sex. And by the way, there's a lot of sex in this book. That's one of the reasons I'm sure it sells and is being referred to other people.

But He said Christianity has had very unhealthy attitude towards sex. No, Catholicism did you see from his perspective since Catholicism and I'm not talking about Dan Brown here I'm talking about the priest since Catholicism Christianity are the same things then.

You know. There his statement for him makes perfect sense. He's not even including what any of the rest of us would be saying. There's no question that especially during the medieval period and starting even earlier than that with the rise of monasticism There was in the external formalized church even before it could be called a Roman Catholic Church very unbiblical and Truly non-christian views concerning sexuality no two ways about it.

No argument about it all. But by saying that is Christianity. That's where you know, the problem comes in now. Let me read some stuff in the book and Let me then play some stuff from the program because if I keep going like this We're never gonna get we're not even gonna make it in the 80 minutes chapter 60 if you want to skip the garbage and Just get to the heart of the matter chapter 60 starting on page 253 of the Da Vinci code.

That's the hardback edition, which is only available I think Really gives you the idea. It starts off sang real saying real song real royal blood Holy Grail. Which by the way is a completely fallacious and absurd division of a word into improper parts, but anyways The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene the mother of the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ, by the way.

The whole theory here is that the grail literature the grail mythology? Which most people only know? Because of Monty Python. The instead of looking for ear that herb or the Indiana Jones stuff the. The idea here is that instead of the grail being the cup from the Last Supper?

That in reality the grail is Mary Magdalene. That she contained the blood of Jesus in the sense of having born a child to him as his wife. This is the the the great secret that you look at the the Last Supper painting by Da Vinci.

And there's no cup, but John Looks like a woman and therefore. That's actually Mary Magdalene. I'm not sure where John went there's supposed to be the 12 Apostles, but John I guess was out on an errand or something and so John becomes Mary Magdalene and Therefore this is Da Vinci who was a part of this special secret order that went back to France where Allegedly Mary Magdalene went and had this child which was a daughter.

And all the rest of stuff. He was a part of the secret order etc. Etc. So he was hiding this in his in his in his painting see I know I'm ruining all the plot here, but who cares. Okay, if you're to get on national television and use your silly fiction to attack the Christian faith expect folks to reveal your stupid plot in the process anyway so in chapter 60 you've got this conversation going on in a In a library and As you can see my dear teeming said hobbling toward a bookshelf Leonardo is not the only one who has been trying to tell the world the truth about the Holy Grail.

The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians now again in a fiction book. That's one thing but This is being taken seriously and and to say to say things like chronicled and exhaustive detail those are words that have meaning in nonfiction in in true history and There is no such thing as this true history to begin with so it's it's it's just amazing.

So he says this he ran a finger down a row of several dozen books. Ah, what books do we have? Let's see Sophie tilted her head and scanned the list of titles the Templar revelations secret guardians the true identity of Christ.

The woman with the alabaster jar marrying Magdalene in the Holy Grail the goddess in the Gospels reclaiming the sacred feminine all these are wild-eyed conspiracy laden fantasies That from a serious historical perspective are are absurd.

But this the I mean these are the the foundations are being used. Here is perhaps the best known tome to being said pulling a tattered hardcover from the stack and handing to her the cover read Holy blood Holy Grail the acclaimed international bestseller.

So so here you have here you have this book of fiction. Giving as its its documentation of its of its historical claims further books of fiction That have been published in previous generations. It's just a repackaging this whole this whole garbage.

And so he mentions this book and and this Sophie his his names are funny in themselves. What was the church's reactions a book notice Church capital C ie Rome? There is nobody else nobody else even matters in this perspective.

Outrage of course, but that was to be expected after all this was a secret the Vatican had tried to bury in the 4th century. Notice Vatican equals Church. That's part of what the Crusades were about gathering and destroying information.

The threat Mary Magdalene posed the men of the early church was potentially ruinous. Not only was she the woman to whom Jesus had assigned the task of founding the church. But she also had physical proof that the church's newly proclaimed deity had spawned a mortal bloodline the church in order to defend itself against the Magdalene's power.

Perpetuate her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ's marriage to her thereby diffusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving Bloodline and was a mortal prophet. Well there you got it in one paragraph.

In one paragraph Mary Magdalene was supposed to be the founder of the church. Jesus isn't God and The Inquisition was to wipe out all evidence of this that there's that that that the church Proclaimed Jesus as a deity at the Council of Nicaea.

Doesn't that here, but does later and I mean we've all heard all this stuff before you you go to. You go to real history not to the history. You can just simply write for the fun of it. And just throw in anything you want make things up as you go along go to real history and the idea of the deity of Christ being Founded in the Council of Nicaea is absurd.

Remember Ignatius. Multiple times referring to Jesus Christ as our God. Oh Well, that just doesn't appear in the book. I guess we sort of missed missed that in the in the Extensive and exhaustive research of Dan Brown the historian, I'm sorry, but this this stuff is just so by the way.

Surely there is one thing to be said. The New Testament does not identify Mary Magdalene as a whore. It does say that she was delivered to seven demons. Now that's not overly good in of itself. But it does not identify her as a whore.

She was an important person in Jesus ministry. No question about that. All you have to do is look up Mary Magdalene. She's definitely there. No question about it, but. At least the the story was somewhat correct in that again good old Pope Gregory.

Pope Gregory the same one who wrote the The allegorical interpretation of Job that gave rise to the doctrine of purgatory in the Middle Ages. Who couldn't have exegeted his way out of a wet paper bag?

Likewise preached a sermon in which he identified Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. And so this feeds right into their theory at that point see this Pope, you know. He's trying to bury the Mary Magdalene stuff.

No, the guy was just clueless. The guy had no idea which end was up biblically. He couldn't he could not read the scriptures and come up with the proper interpretation of his life depended on it. Now, of course Rome doesn't like that because now we're getting into a theological aspect.

How do you get a bishop of Rome who couldn't read the Bible for his life? But that's the point and so yeah, let's Know two ways about it. Pope Gregory did that. So anyways, so gee, it's just a mortal prophet.

Not the church's newly proclaimed deity. Yada, yada, yada. Sophie glanced at Langdon who nodded Sophie the historical evidence supporting. This is substantial. I Admit T being said the assertions are dire, but you must understand the church's powerful motivations to conduct such a cover-up.

They could never have survived public knowledge of a bloodline a child of Jesus would undermine the critical notion of Christ's divinity and therefore the Christian Church. Which declared itself the sole vessel through which humanity could access the divine and gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven.

Are you starting to see the real purpose of this whole thing here? I hope so. Then they start talking about roses and they go into Eros and female genitalia folks. Let's just be honest about it I'm not going to read that section.

But then I'll continue right afterwards the point here Langdon said motioning back to the bookshelf. Is that all these books? Substantiate the same historical claim folks. None of them are history. They're all pure fiction.

They're conspiracy laden wacko ism, but when wackos quote wackos in post-modern America all of a sudden it becomes history. That Jesus was a father Sophie's was still uncertain. Yes. He being said in that Mary Magdalene was the womb that carried his royal lineage.

The Priory of Sion to this day still worships Mary Magdalene as the goddess the Holy Grail the rose and divine mother. Sophie again flashed on the ritual in the basement. According to the Priory teeming continued Mary Magdalene was pregnant at the time of the crucifixion.

The safety of Christ unborn child. She had no choice but to flee the Holy Land with the help of Jesus's trusted uncle Joseph Arimathea. Mary Magdalene secretly traveled to France then known as Gaul there.

She found safe refuge in the Jewish community was here in France. She gave birth to a daughter. Her name was Sarah. Sophie glanced up. They actually know the child's name. Far from far more than that Magdalene's and Sarah's lives were scrutinously Chronicled by their Jewish protectors.

Remember that Magdalene's child belonged the lineage of Jewish kings David and Solomon. For this reason the Jews in France considered Magdalene's sacred royalty and revered her as the progenitor of the royal line of kings.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's exactly how Jews would have responded in the first century. Yeah. Yeah. Countless scholars that era chronicled Mary Magdalene's days in France, including the birth of Sarah and the subsequent family tree.

Sophie was startled there exists a family tree of Jesus Christ. Indeed and it is purportedly one of the cornerstones of the sangria documents a complete Genealogy the early descendants of Christ, but what good is a documented genealogy of Christ's bloodlines?

So if he asked it's not proof historians could not possibly confirm its authenticity. Listen to this. Listen to this folks. Teaming chuckled no more so than they can confirm the authenticity of the Bible.

You hear that We've got pure wacko fiction. Being paralleled with the sacred scriptures. You think there might be a little bit of a bias here someplace. Just maybe just a little bit of one. Oh Unbelievable.

Meaning meaning that history is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash the loser is obliterated and the winner writes the history books books Which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe as Napoleon once said what is history?

But a fable agreed upon he smiled by its very nature history is always a one-sided account. So let's destroy any possible objectivity to history and let's just simply remove the Bible from the category of divine revelation and throw it into the realm of Biased one-sided Non-verifiable history, that's what we want to do with it.

Let's let's not let's not allow it to be what it is. Sophie had never thought of it that way. Well Sophie. I'm glad you hadn't too bad that you now do. One last thing the sangria documents simply tell the other side of the Christ story in the end.

Which side of the story you believe becomes a matter of faith and personal exploration. But at least the information has survived. The sangria documents include tens of thousands of pages of information eyewitness accounts the sangria treasure.

Describe it as being carried on for you know in for enormous trunks and those trunks are reputed to be the purest documents. Thousands of pages of unaltered. Unaltered hmm. I wonder what that might mean unaltered Pre-constantine documents written by the early followers of Jesus Revering him as a holy human teacher and prophet believe this stuff ah.

Also rumored to be part of the treasurer's legendary Q document a manuscript that even the Vatican admits they believe exists. Allegedly it is a book of Jesus teachings possibly written in his own hand.

Oh. So Q the Q source is now written in Jesus his own hand. Oh, man. There is absolutely Nothing that can be said in response to such absolute absurdity. I mean you know that is one of the difficulties here.

How do you provide a? Rational response to the irrational I mean here you have someone from what I've understood. I didn't see him. He was on Goodmorning America, I guess but probably I mean we saw him last night on the ABC special a Well-spoken individual and as long as you smile.

And you sound nice and make sure to sound tolerant even if your whole message is gross intolerance as long as you sound tolerant and use the proper words and smile while you do so then. How in the world do you respond to that I?

Mean it's total irrationality. It's pure fiction, but as long as you put it into this form Then it's okay. It's alright. It's just oh My goodness and anyone who knows about Q. Quella the source Jesus wrote that oh really.

Wow. Unbelievable absolutely possible. There's all sorts of other historical factual errors in the book in fact a Catholic writer Crisis magazine, I I don't have the URL in front of me. Wrote an extensive article on you'd find other things and from a Catholic perspective, and it did a good job on it.

So take a look at that sometime, but I wanted Get some of these clips real quick play a few of them because I still want to get to the Olson book in the process Here, but it's just folks. It's this stuff sadly the people at work are reading, and they're gonna be asking you if you're a Christian.

They're gonna be well. What do you think about the Da Vinci code and you might say um well? I prefer real history I mean history that actually has like something behind it something you can point to you know that isn't based upon Wild-eyed conspiracy theories and stuff like that.

You know the real history is like sort of more important. Let's not here. Let's let's listen to this clip this first one just As soon as I heard this I Was just walking around my my my living room watching this just going oh goodness.

Here's let's just start with it. Look sorry about that here. Let's just start with holes in the stories.

We have about the life of Jesus. The church chose the four Gospels that tell his story in the New Testament.

Well now did I did. I mess that thing up. I wonder if it did to cut off the few seconds thing here because there was a. Yeah, well, I don't know how to do that to start. How to do while you're on the program.

Um I Don't I don't see anything on my thing here that I can do that with. Um I Don't know what to do with the. There was there was a section there that got cut off, and I don't know how it got cut off.

I I apologize for that, but There I got it. The the cane that came back from a commercial and.

Well we'll just pick up where it was. Stories we have about the life of Jesus. The church chose the four Gospels that tell his story in the New Testament. But there were other stories written about Jesus other Gospels so controversial the church ordered them destroyed.

And they were except for one set of copies, and it remained hidden in Egypt until about 50 years ago.

Well now is that a true statement. Well? Obviously when you start taking this apart. You have this concept first of all the church chose four Gospels. No again the reporter is functioning upon the concept that there has always been this this Ecclesiastical body that had monolithic control.

Especially during the period of persecution. We've heard this before. We hear this all the time the great boogeyman Church this one monolithic organization with extensive control over all things and No such church existed at that time period.

Rome certainly wished some of her bishops. Anyways like Stephen wished to have such authority, but did not. And especially during periods of persecution there would be no possible way. You know we've heard this for example with with John G The Mormon or with atheists and things like that this you know let's just all blame it on the boogeyman Church well.

Historically it just simply didn't exist to have that kind of power and that kind of authority. There is obviously errors concerning the nature of the canon. There is later there is an amazingly semi-accurate statement made that many scholars believe that the Canonical Gospels were written within a few decades of the time of Christ, but the Gnostic Gospels were written later.

Well that only comes later at this point. It sounds like An assertion is being made that these Gnostic Gospels the Gospel of Thomas and things like that are actually coextensive or equal. With the writings of the New Testament and since people don't know church history even most Christians don't know church history.

They don't know the difference between the time period of the first century or the fourth century the changes that had taken place. Developments are taking place. They don't simply have any idea and so.

This kind of a statement makes people think oh well. You know see the Bible the church just picked and choosed. They they sat around in a in a dark smoke-filled room I guess with stogies. Casting lots as to what books got in what books didn't get in or or because they were a bunch of men.