Double Book Review

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. It's 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.

Challenging Peter Lumpkins and Demanding Documentation

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line before we get to the most important information today. I have two books to review today. I think they're very important. I think you'll want to stay tuned.

I think it's Some most important stuff we've looked at in a long time for the health of the modern church. I Wish to call out a certain individual. I normally don't do this, but I think it is necessary.

Most of you are aware of the fact that during the height of the Ergen-Kanner scandal, which is of course ongoing Just nobody talks about anymore. It's just a we don't think about that anymore type situation.

There's a Southern Baptist by name of Peter Lumpkins who made a name for himself by editing videos changing words he's put out silly little videos with cartoon characters and things like that and been documented to be dishonest and You know a troubler of the brethren and he continues in that role.

He has said a number of times That he has absolute information. That I will never teach for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary again, we send a letter to Someone recently had me on their program.

They had simply looked at my at my bio. Saw that I've been teaching for Golden Gate since 95 taught many many different subjects and no one disputes that by the way from systematic theology Christology Apologetics Christian philosophy religion Greek Hebrew Greek exegesis Hebrew exegesis Islam atheism Etc. Etc. Etc.

And Always as an adjunct obviously and so he sent an email.

To.

This individual let me read here as I have fully documented James White does not teach a Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. His last teaching contract with an institution was one of 2010. He has no contracts presently in and Official seminary personnel has indicated he will be offered no contract in the future.

That's a direct quote. Later on It says the fact remains however, it serves the public readership and in your case the listeners as well. No honorable benefit for him to be profiled as presently teaching at an institution which definitively Cut its ties with him long ago.

So here's my challenge to Peter Lumpkins. First of all prove it tell us who this individual is so that I can contact this person because no one from Golden Gate has told me that and So I want to know who it is so we can get to the bottom of this because if this is the case and if Peter Lumpkins is behind this and I don't think Peter Lumpkins doesn't have the The standing to be behind something like this.

He's doing this for somebody else. I have a feeling I know who it would be. But prove it I'd like to contact this person like to talk to this person and if it is true It would be a sad thing to have taught for Golden Gate for all those years and then not be informed of this.

In this fashion, but I would like everyone to think for just a moment. The twistedness of someone like a Peter Lumpkins that would be illustrated by this. We have a man Ergen Kanner who has publicly Lied over and over and over again about his background.

He has claimed to have done debates with Muslim imams in Arabic in mosques. But he can't speak Arabic. He has told newspapers that he has done more than 60 debates with Muslims. But we can't find a single one.

He has claimed that he had debated Shabir Ali twice. He's never debated or met Shabir Ali. Here's a man who? Claimed to have been born in Istanbul and raised in Turkey and come here in 1979 and studied in Madrasas and Istanbul Cairo and Beirut and all of it was a fraud just never happened and yet Peter Lumpkins has defended him and I really doubt Peter Lumpkins is writing to Liberty or to anybody else saying that Ergen Kanner shouldn't be teaching there.

On the other hand take the individual who all you've got to do is go to YouTube. You can find on YouTube the debates all four debates. I've done with Shabir Ali. They're they're right there two in the United States and two in the United Kingdom and You can find debates.

I've done with Abdullah Kunda in in Sydney, Australia, and you can find debates with It's Sammy by the way, Peter S-a-m-i Sammy Zottery Not Sanny as you have in one of your videos Sammy Zottery at Trinity Road Chapel and Abdullah Al-Andalusi and Bassam Zawadi and Farhan Qureshi and Numerous other people that you can you can go and you can find these things there.

The documentation is just as clear about the truthfulness of my claims in that area as it is about the lies of Ergen Kanner in His areas and so the twist in this here would be you you want the man who has lied To continue teaching but the man who's actually engaged a wide range of Muslims.

You don't want him teaching not an apologetics no you do. He's debated Bart Ehrman and you don't even know enough about the subject to recognize bad Argumentation of Bart Ehrman, but John Dominic Crossan and John Shelby Spong and but but no that person should not be teaching but the person who Has no background at all should be that's that's calling light darkness and darkness light.

That's about as twisted as it gets and that's Peter Lumpkins. So mr. Lumpkins Pony up the name. Who is it? I'll get in touch with him and Then come on this program. Mr. Lumpkins. We have a lot we could talk about we could talk about editing videos and defending falsehoods and I'd like to talk about the work.

I've done in my scholarship and the books that I've written which you probably haven't even read. And we can talk about the Bart Ehrman exchange. I'd like to talk with you about that because you don't know anything about textual criticism.

And it would be nice to point those things out might be useful to folks so we'll open up next Tuesday morning for Peter Lumpkins to call in and We'll have a great discussion. But first he needs to provide his names.

Because I'd like to contact these folks if you're gonna go around Saying these things people it's time to put your cards on the table. And I'd like to know who you've talked to and I didn't like to know why they haven't contacted me.

So there you go. Mr. Lumpkins. The challenge is to you. Will you will you shed the dishonesty of your past because we've documented your dishonesty. We've documented you making videos where I say one thing and then you change my words on the screen.

That's called dishonesty and and that's a documented fact. So maybe you've repented of that I haven't gotten any notes where you've repented of that, but I You know, maybe it got lost in the mail. You know what happens I suppose got caught in a spam filter.

It's it's possible. But there you go. Mr. Lumpkins, who have you talked to and We'd like to get in touch with them and Then maybe we'll hear from you. So there you go now moving on to actually important things very important things.

Comparing Rob Bell’s Love Wins and Bart Ehrman’s Forged

I Hold in my hand.

Two books.

They're hardbound. They're published by the exact same publisher. They are written by men who claim to be speaking the truth and Both of them would say that it is important that people know what the truth is.

They're brand new books and There are a lot of similarities between them. Both authors at some point in time were part of a Fundamentalist Christian tradition. And I you know Fortunately that can mean a lot of different things but by their own Confession they were conservative Christians and both today are not.

One would claim to be to remain absolutely Orthodox the other does not. So there are interesting similarities between them both of the books. Want you to not believe in conservative Fundamentalist Understandings of Christianity both of them want you to to abandon that there's no question about that now.

One thing that is really really interesting to me before I get in the content of the books is What they illustrate about our changing world and folks I don't know about you. But it is changing so fast that change is becoming the norm.

I Don't think a lot of us realize how different that is than preceding generations. I Don't know that someone today could even begin to understand the medieval mindset. People who on average never traveled more than seven miles any one direction from where they were born.

People who really believed that things had pretty much always been the same as they are now. That's why they they painted pictures of people of David you know and he lived in a medieval castle and he rode a horse with armor and things like that because things have always been the same and and There's such a huge vast chasm Between that and how we think today that today for for the people.

For my kids Change is the norm not sameness. The evolution of our society of Western society is so fast now That no one feels like there's any kind of solid foundation upon which to stand. Other than the foundation of change these two books illustrate one element of that and That is I Had read both the books Before I ever possessed the paper copies.

I That's this has never happened before. I Had read both the books before I ever possessed the books at least in a physical form. Obviously what that means is I had received the Kindle versions before I received the physical versions.

And.

That tells you something about where publishing is going and How it's going to look in the future and how we're gonna read books in the future if anyone even continues reading books. But one of the books also illustrates something it it's fascinating because I Listened to it.

I Recorded it from Kindle To an mp3 file and then I listened to it. It's amazing how much more sense it made When I listened to it than when I read it, I mean I opened it up and I started looking at it.

There's so many one-liners Two-liners, it's it's like a Twitter book. There's there's almost I Well, okay, there's a there's a paragraph and it takes up about a third not quite about a quarter of a page and There's one Two there's three sentences in the pair.

That's about as long as it gets. It's a Twitter book. It's it's specifically designed to be read by people who can no longer Invest enough attention.

To.

Read a paragraph that that has four or five or six sentences and. And that's that's the next generation. It's a Twitter book now it also happens to be a Fluff book and what I mean what I mean by fluff book is The the papers thick and there's a lot of white.

There's a lot of there's a lot of space in here. It could have been typeset and Made about half the size it is it's 202 pages long and and I would say you get about I don't know. You get about a hundred pages worth of stuff maybe approximately.

I'm looking at the only picture in it right now. That's that's interesting. I had heard it described but I had never Actually seen it sold just now look at that. That's interesting. Anyway Two very different books.

The second book isn't like that. The second book is is is longer thinner pages it is Just over 300 pages long and it's not a puff. It's not a puff book major difference next major difference between the two books one has no references.

No footnotes. No end notes. No nothing I mean even in the text itself you you you're lucky to get a verse reference when the Bible's quoted sometimes you don't even get that and in the other you have I was gonna take the time to look at it, but I had other things do but hundreds hundreds.

Not a hundred not hundreds, but you have lots and lots of footnotes. Lots and lots of references very different. Okay, y 'all know what I'm talking about. You know that in my hand right now. I am holding Rob Bell's love wins and Bart Ehrman's forged.

I Think that Bart Ehrman is probably not happy with Rob Bell today. I Think he's not happy With Rob Bell because Rob Bell's book they're both published by Harper one Rob Bell's book comes out and it just dwarfs poor Bart.

If Rob Bell's book hadn't come out then there there would probably be some meaningful press coverage of forged. But people are sort of burned out on that right now. And you know with Japan and all the rest of stuff going on so I guess you know.

Forged.

Writing in the name of God why the Bible's authors are not who we think they are. By Bart Ehrman New York Times best-selling author of misquoting Jesus. Notice it doesn't say Jesus interrupted. There is praise for Jesus interrupted a back praise for God's problem and praise for misquoting Jesus.

In forged leading Bible authority Bart D. Ehrman Exposes one of the most unsettling ironies the early Christian tradition the use of deception to establish the truth. With a scholarly expertise and provocative claims for which he's known Ehrman reels which text were forged in the name of Jesus disciples and considers how the deceptions of an unnamed few have prevailed for centuries.

The untold story of widespread forgery in the ancient world sheds new light on how documents of scandalous origin Became part of the Bible we have today. I could have told you ahead of time which books he was going to go after because well, that's just nothing new and Ironically instead of actually using the books today as I talk about them I'm gonna be using Kindle right in front of me because I can put little bookmarks in it and just click on stuff and you don't have to it's Great.

It's great.

Two reviews.

Very quickly since it's already 20 minutes after that's why I don't know. Sorry Eric I just don't know whether we're gonna get to you today or not. It would be a completely different topic. Anyways, so we'll see Rob Bell Obviously hit a chord, didn't he?

Given that there's Reviews online and programs have been online and I've talked a little bit about it Hit a chord. In fact, it's interesting these two books Hit in two areas that illustrate once again that I Can't even use the term evangelical anymore.

I Guess I'm you know, we've got to come up with a big long Name that identifies people who actually believe the Bible is Word of God. You have to believe all of it. What is that? You know Toto script script tourists?

Tota script tourists. Solo script tourists solo Toto script tourists. There we go something So solo Toto's solo Toto's. Thank you very much rich rich Pierce has now thrown his hat in the ring and Solo Toto's Toto solos, whatever.

Something like that. But there are two areas. What it's so toll us.

I.

Can't hear you loud enough to hear that you got it. You got it. You got to use you got a microphone in there stole us stole us you conflate it. Okay? Well, that's not really that's not conflation because it's never mind.

Stole us as that works good. All right. Anyway, two areas that stole us. Don't spend a lot of time thinking about. We don't I mean how many? believing Christians can explain why. Can give you even a a semi rational explanation of why there is such a fundamental Syntactical grammatical and linguistic difference between first and second Peter.

How many even know. Why new perspectivist for example function on a minimalized Pauline corpus and which books do they function on? Why are there modern scholars who don't believe Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians and the pastoral epistles or second Thessalonians.

Though they might believe he wrote first Thessalonians. I think a lot of people are vaguely aware of those things but they're just it's just I just never looked into it and about the only thing less Known and comfortable than issues of Canon and authorship.

Would be the doctrine of hell and so in eternal punishment, I mean it's it's the subject we don't talk about. It's sort of there in the background and it's it's something you want to be saved from but Man, I really don't want to talk to anybody about this.

I don't want to make it part of my presentation mainly because we also know people that's all they ever talk about. And we don't want to be like them. We don't want to be a Fred Phelps. We don't want to be one of those folks that.

All they ever talk about is you're going to hell, you know, I've been told that by lots and lots of folks. And I didn't take him seriously. When I was in London a number of weeks ago now Doug McMaster's and I were we got some fish and chips and then we tried to find a place to sit down and eat we Walked city blocks.

There's no place to sit in London. It's amazing. That's why everybody walks because there's no place to sit other than on the tube. We finally found this sort of this stoop sort of outside of a closed business.

We sat down there to eat our fish and chips and our mushy peas. Yes, I ordered mushy peas. It was actually pretty good. I like peas. But anyways, you know, you'd never eat mushy peas. It doesn't sound good.

Well, anyway. And while we're sitting there we see a street preacher not very far away and I'm just sort of watching this guy because we're gonna be doing some street preaching pretty soon ourselves and Pretty much all he talked about was, you know, hell and stuff like that and I'll be honest and nobody was nobody really cared.

Nobody really listened. We don't want to be like that. So these two areas, isn't it? Interesting? Areas that a lot of people even if they do pick it up if they do start reading thing. Yeah, I've never even thought about this stuff.

Let's talk about love wins. I'm sure this book was written and titled long before winning Became really popular. So that's not a connection there. At least we hope not. There are a growing number of us.

I'm quoting now who have become acutely aware that Jesus story has been hijacked by a number of other stories stories Jesus isn't interested in telling. Because they have nothing to do with what he came to do.

The plot has been lost and it's time to reclaim it. Now, please recognize something for all of Rob Bell's ooshy-gooshy squishy squishiness. He's saying something is true and something is false and what he's saying is false is his own background.

Isn't it interesting that both Bell and Ehrman spent time in fundamentalism and both have abandoned it for different things and What he said here. No, so he says stories Jesus isn't interested in telling.

Isn't interested in telling Rich we've got a Visitor outside that's just pulled up and that's a friend of mine if we could get them in here so they can watch that would Be great. Appreciate that. I was gonna try to type that out for you, but I can't.

It's like walking and chewing gum. He is telling us what Jesus isn't interested in telling. Rob Bell knows. When we ask him all sorts of other questions, he doesn't know. But one thing he does know is that there are certain stories Jesus isn't interested in telling.

And that's a story of God's wrath and The exclusivity of the gospel and things like that. I Go on I've written this book for all those everywhere who have heard some version of the Geo story that caused their pulse rate to Rise their stomach to churn their heart to utter those resolute words.

I would never be a part of that. Isn't that exactly what? Paul was talking about in first Corinthians. In fact didn't he described the gospel as as a stumbling block a scandal on. I Think he did. I've had a lot of people.

Who when you talk about the holiness of God and their sin who said I would never believe that. Isn't that the natural? Reaction to To the gospel on the part of a lost person. Yeah, it is. He goes on to say you are not alone there are millions of us.

He puts himself in that camp and I think that's a rather resolute statement on his part. This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. Everything's you know, the Jesus story.

It's not revelation. It's the Jesus story. See we all have our stories. This is the emergent element of it a Staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful joyous place called heaven.

While the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It's been clearly communicated to me that this belief is a central truth the Christian faith and rejected is in essence to reject.

Jesus.

This is misguided and toxic and you need to need to understand in Rob Bell's world toxic means false. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus message of love peace forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear and So this book you need to understand something.

What you just listened to those are Rob Bell's words. Listen to it again. A Staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful joyous place called heaven while the rest Of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.

It's been clearly communicated to me that this belief is a central truth the Christian faith and to reject it is in essence to reject Jesus now. When you hear that kind of summary, I hope the first thing across your mind Was wait a minute.

That's completely man-centered Rob Bell Comes from a background of a Man-centered gospel, it's all about me. It's all about what I do. Notice, it's there's nothing about God here. There's nothing about God glorifying himself or how he's glorified himself.

There's nothing about the cross and the resurrection and and a people joined to Christ and and and God's self-glorification. No, no, no, no, there's nothing about that. And if that's the kind of Fundamentalism that Rob Bell was a part of well, I I can understand why he doesn't find that to be very attractive.

I Certainly don't you see folks? I know I sound like a broken record.

Why Hell, the Cross, and God’s Holiness Matter

Theology matters.

And when you have a man-centered gospel when you have a Jesus who tries but frequently fails to save and it's all up to the autonomous man. Well There are results from that and what Rob Bell, you know Rob Bell asks lots of really bad questions and a few questions that we really do need to think about but one thing that this book made me think about is that the only people that can give a meaningful response to the issue of the reality and may I say necessity of hell in light of God's holiness Are people who actually believe That God has a purpose and what he's done in the creation of this world.

And if you think that his purpose is just you know, he's gonna try and try and try but you know He's just left all those Muslims over there and all those Buddhists over there and all those Hindus over there.

You know the kind of fundamentalism that's just us and our little enclave and doesn't see any of the rest of the world. You know, I understand why he rebels against that. But the problem is the emergent Church has decided to rebel against that and rebel against all truth and Toto Throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

And that's what Rob Bell's done. It's a it's a twisted book. It's it's twisted because He quotes from the Bible, but he's not trying to seriously interact with what the Bible itself is saying. You already know that, you know, the exegetical errors that he makes and historical errors.

You've already seen that in the other reviews I'm looking at I want to try to add something new to this and when I look at it what you see here is The rebellion of a heart against a a man-centered Fundamentalism now he admits there's nothing new here.

He he admits there is absolutely positively nothing new here. He says and I quote this is According to Kindle it says it's page one, but that doesn't make much sense. And then last of all, please understand that nothing in this book hasn't been taught suggested or sell celebrated By many before me.

I haven't come up with a radical new teaching. That's any kind of departure from what's been said an untold number of times. That's exactly right. There isn't anything new here. I mean the way it's presented, I don't know seems a little bit new but it isn't new because as Dr. Moeller has rightly pointed out numerous times.

This is just simply liberalism in skinny jeans. So it is that's what this book is. This is liberalism in skinny jeans skinny jeans with no tie and and a Britney Spears microphone, I Hate those Britney Spears microphones.

You don't have a Britney Spears microphone. Do you good that lapel mic? You're a Baptist. There you go I'm sorry I'm talking to the studio audience. And if hey if rush can do it, I could do it too. That's just all there is to it.

I.

Hate those things. They give me a migraine. They really do. They push on your ear and the Britney. But that's what this is. This is liberalism in skinny jeans with a Britney Spears microphone. That's it.

He hasn't come up with anything new and that's why I said man is as a fuller grad. It's like This is this sounded all so familiar, it's just it's you know what it is here it is Liberalism with skinny jeans and Britney Spears microphone done by Twitter.

There you go.

There you go. That's that's how you that's how love wins got written. Is it's it that that's how it works. Theology does matter. And when you get to the end of the book He says first an observation about hell.

Hell is our refusal to trust God's retelling of our story now. When when Rob Bell says I'm not a universalist. I believe in hell. You need to understand in his book. What he means is he's talked to some people who've had some really rough lives.

We're going through rough things and therefore that's hell.

That's.

Not the hell of Scripture and That's not the actual issue. I'm not gonna go back over it, but I would direct you to Something I posted. Actually the rookie posted it for me last night on sermon audio, but it's on the blog Paul's rather.

Harsh words in.

Second Thessalonians chapter 1 which ironically Bart Ehrman doesn't think Paul wrote.

But.

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well.

As to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting Vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey The gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed. Because our testimony to you was believed now, what does that mean? They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

You see there's something about justice. There's something about God's holiness and there's something about the necessity of the demonstration of God's justice. That's all bound up and what the cross is all about and that's gone that has been Evacuated from Rob Bell's gospel.

It's not there anymore. I was very appreciative. That one of the first full reviews obviously written by someone who has more insider contacts than I do at Harper one Pointed out that Rob Bell's version of God's love is twisted.

It's not biblical. It's that kind of liberal ooey-gooey love that is that God must have but we would never respect any human being who had the same kind of love. We would never respect a human being.

That has the kind of love. That liberalism asserts God has Undifferentiated no categories to it. It's clearly unbiblical and I appreciate hearing somebody else saying this. Because I've said it so many times about my Arminian friends who want to have this peanut butter love.

They can't deal with the Old Testament. They can't deal with the fact that there's clearly a kind of love God has for his people which he I'm sorry Pharaoh would struggle with thinking that this was how God really acted especially after the firstborn were dead but that's the kind of Love and hence kind of God that Rob Bell is promoting and there's a lot of people who want to have a God like that.

They want to have a God that does not have holiness or wrath. Or anything like that, but the problem is folks that leaves the cross dangling in the air. Why? Why the cross? Why Gethsemane? You can't understand the cross in Gethsemane if you don't understand God's justice.

Holiness and wrath against sin and once you get rid of that you may make a lot of people feel much better about themselves. But have you really done anything for them? And what have you done to the gospel?

I get the strong feeling that Rod Bell no longer believes in Substitutionary atonement. No, no, no. That has had to go by the wayside. No two ways about it. Hell is our refusal to trust God's retelling of our story that's not what hell is.

Hell is the place where those Who have refused to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ? Live out their rebellion. It's where those Individuals spend eternity. Attempting to efface the image of God in which they were created.

God's hand of restraint has been removed. And that's why I've said many times. I don't think God has to expend the slightest bit of energy. To torment anyone in hell. They are their own torment think of.

Well, I'm not gonna go there because I've already directed folks to the the debate. I did them on unbelievable on the subject of hell. Posted on the blog last night. Some more comments on that and as the clock is moving quickly, and I have a second book to review.

We'll leave it with that theology matters. It matters a lot and Rob Bell has proven that for us again. I Hope we don't speak flippantly of hell. It is not a fun thing to talk about but it is a necessary thing to talk about.

And anyone who talks about the cross Needs to see the relationship between that the greatest act of God's love and The absolute necessity of punishment. I really hope you see the connection between the two.

It's vitally important.

Bart Ehrman, Forgery, and the Question of Pauline Authorship

Forged.

Somebody at Harper one realizes they've got a potential goldmine on their hands in an apostate and Our and of course Bart Ehrman is an apostate. That's a technical term. He wants confessed something. He now believes it's wrong.

It's a lie. He no longer confesses it. That's apostasy. They realize we got a goldmine here. Because we live in a society that wants to disbelieve. And there are lots of people like Rob Bell who don't want to go Rob Bell's direction into into squishy.

Feel-good.

Liberalism. They realize there's in fact, I. So you would go wait a minute that book only came out on Tuesday and this is Thursday. That's right some of you know that on Tuesday I Spent nine hours and 49 minutes riding a bicycle.

I set my new PR at 157 miles and I listened to the whole book that bride and. There was a period of time I remember right where I was out near Katie Bo's house actually out toward actually I was out toward your neck of the woods.

Right right when this was happening. I think it's what. West wind Parkway. Is there something that. Okay, you know where that is. All right. I was right along there. I'm pedaling along pretty early on the ride.

It was only about 60 miles in. I have a hundred fifty sevens. I still had 90 so I'm to go in and I'm listening to Bart Ehrman just shredding.

Liberals who.

Come up with this, you know, they'll accept. You know, they've abandoned a high view of Scripture but they still want to sort of be religious and Bart Ehrman even sees that's really dumb. And it was a strange feeling to be going yeah, yeah, he's right about that you know, it's I mean like shooting fish in a barrel on this one, but.

Here's a guy Who like Rob Bell has apostatized from his roots. But he's gone. He calls himself a happy agnostic. I'm sorry. I've met Bart Ehrman. That's not really happiness. Okay, this is. He's sort of a semi miserable Agnostic, I think if that's a if that's a category to put things in but I'm certain that his royalty checks make him so a somewhat happy agnostic.

Because he's he's certainly certainly pulling it in. Did I know what he was gonna say? Yeah, I was a little surprised at how much of this book is actually a recitation of all sorts of Gnostic forgeries, which everyone's known about and Did I learn anything from the book?

Well, you know.

There were a couple of things that he narrated that I hadn't bothered to read or something like that. So that was somewhat interesting. But no if you Are a graduate of some place like Fuller Theological Seminary like I am you've heard all this before.

It's it's nothing really new about it and even in conservative seminaries We actually take the time to look at these things and look at the theories and la la la. It's just in the liberal ones. You don't normally listen to the other side the conservative responses.

So if I had if you had asked me before I picked it up which books he was gonna go after I would have said.

Well.

He's probably gonna question I was a little surprised he called acts a forgery. You know, I understand attacking the the authorship issues on you know, Luke and stuff like that. But I would have said he's gonna go for the seven books of Paul and so everything else is a forgery.