Paul Maier Presentation | March 26, 2015

I'm vibe schoener the interim pastor here grace and on behalf of the community both at Concordia and here we welcome you tonight and what will be a very exciting and wonderful evening together so on behalf of the congregation again welcome here and if there's anything we can do while you're here let us know it's my pleasure to introduce dr. Ronnie who will introduce our guest tonight your friend and mine Paul Meyer I'm Marilyn writing and the vice president of academics at Concordia Chicago and I am delighted to welcome you melody cultured and Christian community series the series began in 1997 and was founded to provide a forum for sharing ideas in regard to our rapidly changing culture and its effect on the lives of faith filled people this evenings lecture is sponsored by a generous grant from the Hilda a Brett Slav foundation located in Milford Michigan hilda Brett Slav desired to assist students possessing high integrity become responsible citizens dedicated to serving society and improving morale and democratic standards we are honored to have representatives from the brett's Law Foundation with us tonight and I would like each of them to stand as I introduce you Cathy limbic office manager now treasurer and secretary vice president and Gerald Radke president and we are so appreciative of your participation I would also like to thank Concordia faculty development committee the marketing department the foundation and Joanne Ternan for their role in preparations for this evening and a special thank you to our good neighbors Grace Lutheran Church in school for generously providing the space for tonight's lecture we are deeply grateful to you our 200 2015 Brett's law lecturer is a world-renowned Christian scholar and author dr. Paul Meyer is professor emeritus of ancient history at Western Michigan University and the author of 250 scholarly articles additionally he has written 16 books and more than 5 million of them are in print in 20 languages his children's book the very first Christmas received the gold medallion award and it's not often that a theological thriller becomes a national bestseller but such was the case with dr. Meyers a skeleton in God's closet his non-fiction works include in the fullness of time a book that examines the association between sacred and secular evidence from the ancient world that impacts Jesus and early Christianity he also hosted six video seminars focusing on Jesus st. Paul the early church and current Christianity dr. Maier appears frequently on national radio television in print interviews and is in high demand as a lecturer he has served as second third and fourth vice president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod although not simultaneously he's a graduate of Harvard and also has an MA from Harvard as well as a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in st. Louis he holds the PhD from the University of Basel in Switzerland we are indeed blessed to have dr. Maier and his amazing breadth of perspectives as he reflects on cultural change and the response of faithful people welcome 9h dr. Rai neg at this point they you please say delighted to beat the difference is I mean it yes without I'm a just wonderful thank you so much for the invitation and the Brett's Life Foundation and and represent the red keys and others thank you so much for funding the occasion and the I always like to begin with a little bit of humor in regard to keeping the Lutheran's separate from one another or identified and we're on neutral ground here because grace River Forest is independent Lutheran as you well know but here's a handy dandy way of figuring out the Sonata chol affiliation of somebody who is at a Lutheran gathering first of all if two couples arrive in the church parking lot and there's a husband and wife in front and a husband and wife and back you waved them off they're probably Presbyterian they couldn't be Lutheran's car drives in two men in front and two women and back need I tell you Lutheran Church Missouri Synod it's almost one of the commandments isn't it car drives in two women in front and two men and back that would be the ELCA whether or not the men are holding hands no no no no no no no we're not gonna go there we're not gonna go there car drives in two men in front and two women pushing the car that's all what's constants in it okay anybody for most kinds of certai I just just in any case to get to the point this idea of Christianity and its impact on civilization there's a very elegant it's a great series I don't quite know where to stick the echo from working but can you hear me okay or is it too eques if it's too many that can push this further down try this okay anyway what's interesting is the various effects at different times in history if we're talking about the earliest church that then we find that there's not much influence but there will be the short time if we're talking about the Middle Ages we have maximum influence of the Church of the Middle Ages on everything in regard to the European state I very often I'm asked am i able to bring Christianity into my history lectures at Western Michigan University well the answer is the Pope Catholic yeah of course how can you teach medieval history without involving a heavy dose of Christianity those were the so-called Christian centuries not the bang scenes but what happened in fact and then of course came the realignment of the Enlightenment and the Renaissance and things like that and the secularization began and then what has happened in the 19th century everybody's still gung-ho and everybody's waiting for the 20th which will be the Christian century a group in Chicago of all places got together and decided that if we work all this right maybe by the end of the 20th century it will have proven the great Christian century and the magazine was founded as a result of that dream didn't quite happen did it and we're living today in an age it makes one sometimes wonder does Christianity have much influence left in terms of what's happening I see in fact a reverse of the influence of the current culture on the faith rather than the faith on Christianity deaths are going to be talking about this evening the change in climate we're all familiar with remember when sunday used to be the day when we're closed and now you know soccer moms can't even find they attend to go to church on Sundays because there are soccer tournaments somewhere something like that hard to believe this is the time when newspapers don't even recognize a sensational archaeological discovery when it happens the bones of the first biblical personality ever to come to life discover a happened in November 1990 and hardly anybody knows about it but I maintain the Chicago Tribune would have had this in front-page headlines if as it happened back in 1934 1920 it's a different world we're living in we have tremendous competition from other religious systems we don't own the world anymore President Obama says we're not a Christian nation although majority wise we are nevertheless this is the claim made and today more than anything else we find the faith I think under heavier attack from the outside world then about any time since the first century in a matter of fact a lot of theologians claim that we're very much in a first-century type of environment where we are now trying to be overcome by the secular culture of the time and I don't think we hear enough of Christian apologetics in our church a Lutheran Church we've kind of left this job I think to the reformed denominations I know when I was in the Board of Regents at Concordia Seminary in st. Louis I kept saying we've got to get more apologetics in terms of defending the faith publicly because of all the attacks on it and yeah they'll not nicely and nothing happens it's still only a graduate optional elective course taught by professor who says that apologetics aren't necessary same thing in Fort Wayne and and I really think with always attacks taking place Christians sometimes are a little wavering about their faith but a little concerned about the future they take some of these to heart and the people we are losing are the religion shoppers you might say the marginal source those who wanted to simply try religious system for them and might have given Christianity a fair shot except for the fact that was some new put-down has come along and they'll believe down and so the church has a harder time even getting its message the first base in the life of so many people and I am so frustrated because as a professor of ancient history I see how beautifully grounded the Christian faith is in terms of absolute secular history not just religious history and there's no other denomination no other belief like it our parent Judaism comes close does pretty well for the Old Testament not the new but we have the addition of the New Testament which integrates so perfectly with the warp and woof of ancient greco-roman history that I guess Christians don't realize how easy it is the defend of faith and that's what I want to talk about tonight so that you can be aware of these resources at anytime that you find the faiths candid that you can once once again work to get Christianity's impact back on track on culture where it ought to be now in terms of the record of the church there is a massive wonderful positive impact which the church has had on secular culture and there have been good books written in this area I think almost instinctively of Auschwitz book under the influence nothing to do with alcoholism but rather the influence of Christianity the late D James Kennedy wrote a book a great book what if Jesus had never lived and how different would be and in terms of every aspect of human culture we've had a tremendous impact it's we've been the single greatest impact a driver in our culture in the last two thousand years politically it talked about the emancipation of the church from one man one rural situation in the Middle Ages in terms of economics it was the the one impetus behind the vocation concept every person has a calling by God Luther said in terms of working out his is his life career and then later on of course you know with in terms of Calvinists taking over God rewards your life on earth also and therefore be good stewards and and their emphasis also on growing wealth for the Lord and themselves and their their use of time I understand the main theme in a Reformed Church is not a cross but a clock they is it so we have and we need I mentioned in terms of social improvement how important the church has been for Jesus message also to the poor and the imprison those who were the frigg's of society very high in his sight and on into the aesthetic era alone look at all the greatest works in art in literature in music clearly have been driven by this spiritual urge the spiritual impetus which if it hadn't been there and it Handel's Messiah Bach's Madison B minor just sung here a short time ago the Mozart's greatest were its Requiem they're all religiously themed we know it from Menace influence the church has been there also and in terms of architecture painting you name it so I'm not in any way trying to deny the history of the impact of Christianity and civilization I'm only saying why does it have the same impact today and it doesn't because of the tremendous outside attacks being made on the faith and also by the fact that we don't get a fair shake we have a wretched double standard in our society today which goes something like this you dare not attack anyone else's religious system bad hey Oh unless it's Christianity then help yourself you ever notice our jokes our movies our magazines our TV shows we'll have no trouble picturing a or they'll do anything they want with the image of Jesus Christ but have you heard Buddhism attack that way this past week or Hinduism or Islam watch out for Islam you may get a fatwa on your head if you look at the image of Muhammad the wrong way you shouldn't be looking at an image you know no but Christianity held up for ridicule wherever you want ranging from that book of lies in DaVinci Code I did Brown it's amazing but I've never seen a book where every time Christ or Church or Christianity or Jesus is mentioned it's a lie every last time it's a lie either an all or in part yeah but it's only a novel my way is so excited people read novels as though they're straight we had a German exchange student in West Michigan University bright gal here on the German national scholarship and also in the Western scholarship and when evening they were having a kind of a bull session on religion and somebody's mentioned in Christian and she laughed and said that's been disproven by The Da Vinci Code right Gil disproven by The Da Vinci Code it's incredible an era in which I like use local examples Al Capone John Dillinger have killed their tens or 20s by the machine guns today a person who's a co-pilot can switch two things in a cockpit and murder 149 other people what a horrible thing that happened but I mean this is the kind of error in which we are today totally different with different challenges and many think that Christianity is not equipped to handle it and it's been under its now I would say basically ever since the German hired critics of about 1870s 1880s I quieted down the criticism did first part of the 19th century or 20th they should say in the 1900 it's too much serious stuff was going on world war 1 Great Depression Dust Bowl days world war two but then silly season began when peace descended that then we have all the the nice new biographies of Jesus coming out which are all part of the Jesus game how do you play that well you read the four Gospels only once quickly as possible then you put your New Testament aside and then let your own creative yeast work on that material let it steep in your mind for a while and then come out with their own version of Jesus and if it even resembles the New Testament version you lose but if you with something over-the-top off-the-wall caricature of Christ hey then you publish it and you win the Jesus game because people will be two paths to the bookstore in order to get your latest put-down and they've come one after another anytime that you want to get on national television usually the rule used to be find something different we don't want somebody to defend the faith we want something unusual why do our newspapers always report the crime and not the good things crime is sensational new and weird views of Jesus are sensational not bright and true and this is you know hurting our witness as simply because we don't get equal time it's not fair it's not fair what are they doing with Jesus I mean you know even the National supported Foundation endowed one of these awful things called piss Christ in wish Jesus the crucifix is a Betty embedded in a bottle of urine I mean unbelievable things they knew all questions it's unfair but I think I know the reason why and the clue is the presidential Republican primaries what or at least play now before you arrive at the brother looking candidates or debates right and you have about seven or eight people on the stage right do you ever sit every time there is eight candidates seven will gang up on who the front-runner they always do that's the safe way to do it that's the way you do it your gang up in the front-runner well folks wet I don't know if you know this but it is true the number one frontrunner in every category that's ever happened on the face of the earth is the holy Christian Church there is no other religion there is no other way of life there's no teaching there's no other anything which has the loyalties of over two billion 300 million in the present generational we are number one this is why everybody attacks us this is the reason for the double standard we are number one and in a sense would you rather be number one rather be further down the order having to do with the attack yeah I know I would so in other words when telling you is we're gonna be target now for the rest of our lives and the attack will usually come at our high seasons Christmas or Easter does every year they always time it that way don't they Oh silly season really remember the Judas gospel when was that announced just before Easter you know when it went amateur oh and Bill O'Reilly comes out with this book you know do well before Lent I I get him some of the book is okay others cherry-picking and other parts just dead wrong and he spent eight months on this book Oh like Wow other others have I spend our lives never mind you know unbelievable and of course is ghost written by Bill Dugard but anyway and everybody's kid in the act Jesus does sell and so all you do is you get your put down on Oh what are the put downs the caricatures we've had Jesus a Passover plot now you may not remember your you may not remember earlier in high school the Passover plot by you Scofield in Britain that Jesus again was trying to artificially fulfill all these and prophecies and so forth and the plot didn't work and then of course he had the audacity to present this as fact and not fiction but he was pretty well put down be even by his colleagues in England and he had Jesus the radical revolutionary again showing the site-geist showing the spirit of the time Vietnam War was on spending together deciding should we burn down the deans house tonight or tomorrow night and so forth and so what do you know now we have Jesus says the radical revolutionary and they'll always take a little snippet out of the Gospels and build around it the snippet here is one of Jesus disciples James the zealot holder it is zealot free of course is one of the puppies that led to the outbreak of war with Rome so now Jesus has to be a zealot ii don't think so it was on his deathbed Brandon said I think I've overdone it no kidding gardening to cemani Peter take that sword put it back in your sheath and that's Jesus notice Ella tree never happened then we have the fortress come Morton Smith who gives us such is this the magic no these oh he's the master magician yeah he concocts this lost gospel america hoodwinked the theological world for about twenty years supposedly a secret gospel of mark that is known only to the inner circles it's been a big fuss and all your radicals really I said yeah this is the true mark no we got all this kind of thing until they found out it was a forgery by Martin Smith yeah the whole idea was yeah Jesus did miracles just like David Copperfield does all alone Jesus the senescence here Jesus didn't die agog with us somebody took his place and indeed Jesus lived on to a nice old age maybe in a mansion overlooking Galilee well I get far be it for me to begrudge Jesus a longer life but folks come on it's the most documented death in history and it didn't happen okay it says that by the way that Jesus survived but that didn't work oh yeah and then of course Jesus the happy husband they're all trying to get Jesus married off I think these scholars are like a bunch of very concerned mamas with a 55 year old bachelor son and potted bride yeah let's have the ladies over for lemonade and watercress sandwiches make something we'll take I mean give me a break and what did Dan brought and brown wooden the first you get that all from three British authors Bayesian Lincoln and lay who wrote a book Holy Blood Holy Grail in 1984 don't know if you remember that one that's forgot the whole plot in fact when the code came out I wonder why did those authors not sue Dan Brown for really plagiarism turns out they did sue him I didn't know that they sued in a British Court yeah his wife had a copy of Holy Blood Holy Grail about everything's underlined in the whole book so we know where Dan got his stuff in any case he didn't win the case but win the case but they slept and Browns and uncles pretty soundly for what he did no nothing that Dan ever brought up in that book proves that Jesus married Mary Magdalene my gosh menthol walking throws it off now Jesus the 12 disciples are at the table right how many heads should there be 13 yeah 12 okay but no according to Dan the guy sitting next to Jesus was not a guy at all it was his wife Mary Magdalene okay now how many head should we have the table 14 yeah next time you see Leonardo's last summer count the heads 13 well they say maybe John had too much wine he's drunk under the table not gonna work there are only 26 legs there when the other thing that Dan loves to use is the Gospel of Philip nasty gospel I don't care if the Gospel of Philip said Jesus was married Mary Magdalene was his wife and and John was his best man i thats a late gnostic gospel from about the 250 AD it's worthless but not even the gospel the philip says that all it Browns arguments are like a guy with a paper mache wrench trying to unlock a rusted nut they fall apart the first time you use them all right what is it gospel save the disciples bring Mary Magdalene to Jesus and they say Lord we have a problem Mary Magdalene is a woman and of course women cannot inherit the kingdom of God well Jesus says first of all I've been turned into a man and then she can make it what you sow I'll fall sack Gospels but then they all wait a minute Jesus why do you prefer Mary Magdalene over us it married the girl would that question make any sense he just said because she's my wife via dunderheads if I didn't prefer her I never heard the end of it ridiculous and so it cool yeah it just keeps going what Jesus the Mediterranean present peasant yeah the the Irish leprechaun John Dominic Crossan used to always be all over the television shows every time this one done Jesus there would be this Catholic monk who am I sure that that nobody would agree with in the Catholic Church now but in any case you would say what Jesus body wasn't buried in Joseph's Tomb dogs ate his bones you know rattle Christian cages well he wrote the book of life of a Mediterranean peasant in which Jesus would wisecrack about the government along the roadsides with his disciples I don't know what to call this kind of peasant humorist how about Seinfeld the Savior nah not gonna work I see and so you have always put downs coming along and then they recycle themselves Raisa a salon and brim the darling of the media a couple years ago or maybe only half year and half ago he is a Muslim who is writing a new life of Jesus called zealot oh right back to the 70s and sgf Brandon the zealot books nothing new there but oh the great adoring press gives him all kinds of TV exposures for again another worthless book on Jesus and so it continues then you have those that are even more radical and it's always uh neck I needed that tell you the guy who was taken in the Irish leprechauns place is of course part airman he always proudly says that he's in the buckle of the Bible Belt as chairman of the religion department of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and he is himself an agnostic of course and this happens in a lot of state universities reminds me back at my campus ministry days worst advice parents can ever give their kids and you'll bear me out of this is oh by all means when you go to your secular public université course in religion terrible advice because I'll get you know some cutie up there will say well I want you folks know where I come from I'm across between the Zen Buddhist and a Confucian is you know and then Christianity gets as much space you know as the Olmec religion in Mexico or something like that I mean yeah we're stood and we campus pastors that constantly clean up in the second University after these people well so here give you a chairman of the religion department so again doesn't believe in God and again he makes a cottage industry out of what you find at the bottom of your Nestle's New Testament namely its sexual variations none of them not to hill of beans all they are slight differences in the transmitted manuscripts in terms of spelling a proper names punctuation word order not one of them has ever impacted a major even minor belief in the crypt of faith and yet what a snow-covered Mount Everest Bart airman has tried to make out of these flat little moles that amount to nothing he's still I just don't know what it's going to finally take to shut the man's mouth I think we may have in a short time a monumental just probably the first remains of a gospel dating back to the first century up to now the oldest piece was P 46 papyrus 46 at the Rylands University University of Manchester and that goes back to about 105 or 110 AD pleco the Gospel of John by the way way up the Nile River discovered a thrilling discovery kind of giving alive Ferdinand Christian power and the proving in school that said the gospel it probably written 175 ad a little late for eyewitness purposes wouldn't you say you know well even a flake could John much earlier you know it's a thrilling thing attacked by the way the whole sway now in the new testament scholarship is an earlier dating for the Synoptics it used to be part of almost of our union card to agree that the Synoptics were written after the fall of Jerusalem and here's your big argument on the way to the cross Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem well therefore he couldn't have known that and they put the prophecy in his mouth after the fall of Jerusalem that CD logic still covers that much the liberal theology of the day and it's a stupid argument I don't care if Jesus was no more than an acute human being which he certainly was in addition I don't care if he's a good punted political observer he alone as a human could have predicted the fall of Jerusalem caval a run and say it with the Romans so that's a silly argument and here's the one that John 18 Robinson came up with neat British author we used to not like him because in 1984 he wrote a book called honest to god in which he brought out all problems in Christianity you know here's what he wrote reading the Gospels and he honestly said that if you examine the evidence every time you try to prolong the writing of the Gospels of the other way you raise more problems you ever consult when you rather tuck them in before the fall and before the burning of home even then it all makes sense it explains why Luke here Luke is bringing us with Saint Paul to the best trial of all since Jesus Paul before Nero how does a book of Acts in frustratingly it hadn't happened yet that's why and if this had trial look Paul before Nero took place probably sixty-two ad therefore if that's written acts written before sixty-two the gospel had to be earlier yet so that's long before and here's the point that Robinson makes Matthew his writing is gospel always prophecy fulfillment it's almost though Jesus is walking through with a day planner okay which do I cover today you know not come off one by one and how often we get that phrase this was done by Jesus that might be fulfilled with the Prophet said number how often that happens wild horses couldn't have prevented Matthew when Jesus is creating his cross and the people he's warning about what's going to happen if this had been written after the fall Matthew would absolutely have said then was fulfilled later doesn't do it no Jewish author could have written anything in the New Testament if it had not if the fall of Jerusalem the burning of the temple had already taken place they would have been lied to Luke could not as a Gentile author have written after the fire of Roman 64 if it had happened in the first grade persecution Luke's talking about the first persecution by the Jews in Jerusalem he would not have failed to have included that happen yet now lest you think this is you know a very conservative thinking I would give you the name of David Knoll Friedman who is so pretty well-known as the editor of the great anchor Bible Dictionary six volumes eight hundred pages each the biggest biblical dictionary ever written and he's for an earlier dating because of this very reason he's not passed on interesting guy a Jew who turned Presbyterian by the way interesting guy yeah so but I saw in other words this is not just the right way I'm thinking here this is the way it's going which is great for our side and so it goes we are having today a festival of discovery being made in so many different fields and at wait a minute on Cohen full circle now back to this first century manuscript discovered in mummy wrappings in a Christian Coptic Cemetery in which they often in addition the mummy would have taken a paper mache faces of the dead and in this Christian cemetery they did destroyed they had to destroy this to get the windings unwound and carefully they unwound them and I think they have a flake of the Gospel of Mark the calligraphy shows late first century this would be a first generation copy from Mark's autograph and it will show again how faithful our present text is see Bart Ehrman doesn't admit the fact we have more manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part than any other book ever written homers a terrorist we have a zillion six hundred copies from the ancient world and how this has grown when the King James Bible was translated in 1611 they had about six major manuscripts and that was about it then when the revised version came out in 1870 were already up to two thousand across the world today there are five thousand seven hundred fifty texts in whole or in part from the New Testament a total embarrassment of riches and therefore with always copyist figured out math wise permutations and combinations sure they're going to be a lot of tiny little variations not one of them amounts to a hill of beans and this is where we have a cottage industry on the part of Bart Ehrman but the attack is even more basic from the people who will go and say and this I just can't believe this coming back but jesus never exists that even as a human being and this one is such madness that I hate even to respond to it because it takes time out a decent discussion because that's such an inane thing to say nevertheless all of your marginal people are looking for something like this you're believing it that's the tragedy these people be given the faith a fair shake are now the Jesus doubters I don't know what to call them a Jesus dehumanizes or whatever these are people who are I think I'm really scared to discuss seriously what about Jesus and looking for short quick shortcut is why are we wasting our time talking about Jesus he's only a myth you can't believe how many people are coming back to this idea there's a blog on television Jesus never existed calm and they try to bring out their pathetic arguments and I call once how is invited to debate University of Wisconsin just north hair from the FFR foundation Madison Freedom From Religion Foundation in which I was going to discuss the general one of the vice presidents and the theme was there was no historical Jesus and I said you got to be kidding really you want to debate that I mean what did debate is did it deity or something like that okay give you a debate going but you never lived historically no he didn't believe okay it was always on so I didn't prepare for the debate I'm he just had such fun with it I enjoyed it had a wonderful time and after his ovaries perspire his I don't know I've debated quite a she keeping them well the worst time and and then I said some I apologize to this day I said well well thank you but you got to remember I've never debated anyone before I didn't take the bait in high school I know what the rules were but that's how he it is to defend historical Jesus shooting ducks in a pond I mean nothing to it but yet there's a recalcitrant mentality around that confronted by all the obvious evidence will still say no to it I don't know what it is that's how humans are get their dander up and they're gonna look for any possible evidence in reverse okay let's take this last quiz now number two Christmases ago we had Bart Ehrman doing for the one of the last issues of Newsweek until it got revived the myths of Christmas so everything you read in Matthew and Luke Solomon say of course a nice thing to do for the world just the time of Christmas now the Washington Post published an article by an Australian whose name was Rafael lat Esther he wrote a book there was no Jesus there is no God okay and it tells you what he's going from right okay and in this he tries to present the arguments that their number was historical Jesus they're all threadbare they're all worthless but again a prestigious journal like the washer boys won't publish you I'm and again you find this happen again and Newsweek I think that time did a big article on the Bible and the mythology there it just keeps going folks just to kill that one once and for all years ago I wrote an article in senator review about the outside historical evidence for Jesus of Dan never was a New Testament from the historical overspill in a secular world number I love the secular evidence we have six major points of reference to Jesus of Nazareth and I got a letter from an angry atheist in Florida challenging me if I show one place where Jesus mentioned he's willing to give me or any charity I would name a thousand dollars folks l was a 60 years ago and a thousand dollars was a thousand dollars so salivating away at the typewriter I gave him six asked him to make this check for six thousand payable to our church you know Kalamazoo is my favorite charity wouldn't have heard from the Lord again but let me give you the famous six there are probably 12 or 14 but the the big six would go like this three Roman historians secular Roman historians Cornelius Tacitus Suetonius Franco's plenty of younger those three okay Tacitus tremendously important reference annals 1544 this guy's given us a year-by-year and what happened to the Caesars and Rome every year in Rome and in the empire he's missing for some strategic years we weep we'll probably never have him but fortunately for the year 64 AD he's there and he tells us what happened in July of that year Rome burned up at least the majority of Rome did and it happened on Nero's watch and so Nero gets blamed for setting fire to Rome but then to save himself taz this goes on the blame was shifted to the Christiani Christians Annie testable sect that has invaded Rome and he goes on to explain the orbit of the name Christmas Christ was crucified by one of our governors Pontius Pilate and the pernicious superstition was almost eradicated until suddenly gained new vigor you want outside view of Pentecost Easter Easter Pentecost there it is suddenly gained new clear and even flowed as far away as wrong that common cesspool into which things hateful come from all over the Mediterranean doesn't like the Krishna's does he great he's hostile love hostile sources I can squeeze more truth out of hostile sources and friendly source friendly sources you can't tell for exaggerating hostile source watch what they concede because that then covers what historians call the criterion of embarrassment meaning are going from A to Z but on the way you encounter someone doesn't help your case it all hurts it but you gotta admit it because everybody knows is true wrap-up cocoon around it try to explain it away but it's there then what they concede opposite of their attendance is true two thousand years later and so look what they concede here in Tacitus then we have so atonia sees the lives of the twelve Caesars and writes of the reign of Claudius that there was a big riot in the trance Tiber area in Rome region fourteen over the claims of Christ plenty of younger reigning the emperor trajan 110 ad say what do I do about these Christians they get up early Sunday morning and they sing hymns to Christ as if you were a God see already in 110 Dan Brown said not till a council and I see you 325 when Jesus made God by a very close vote vote was 312 2:2 lie after lie after lie uh and by the way we could trade you the answer he says yes there are plenty the krish's are it's the line if you make a perfect case against them I suppose the law has to be followed I don't like that for weasel wording but don't go hunting them out and don't take any unsigned accusations which are out of context with the liberality of our a see there's a case where the umpire was moderating the Roman persecutions were not one long Horace debris they were on again off again on as Eusebius the early church historian tells us then as if those three weren't enough we have the Jewish rabbinic traditions which do mention Jesus you bet they do and probably mention them more often except for this stupid error Christians made in persecuting the Jews forcing him to live in ghettos and when they saw Jesus in their writings they would then burn the Torah or the their writings and so the Jews were you know not to use that name so there probably were originally a lot more but the earliest section of the Talmud is the Mishnah and the Mishnah and a famous tractate senator in 43a has the very arrest notice of Jesus which is not in the Gospels wanted yeshua ha-nozri Jesus of Nazareth that's how you name spells name correctly but he shall be stoned because he's practiced sorcery and Lord Israel to apostasy now Christians may say Oh was terrible our Lord was crucified went in stoned and he's done terrible to Karl Lord's miracle sorcery no no no for those two reasons it's authentic Hebrew future is used he shall be Aramaic future haven't arrested him yet if it would have said he shall be crucified I'd say worthless total forgery because nobody ever thought Jesus will be crucified he wouldn't come to Jerusalem when the Romans were there woody yeah see and these had to go out 40 days before any cat little case these arrest notices so it's it's it's really authentic and by the way does the criterion of embarrassment ever apply here this is outside proof of the supernatural he's practice sorcery what's that that's something extraordinary or supernatural accomplished with help from below what's America same deal accomplished with help from above so here in a hostile source where they put each other shut up about it or if they were dishonest someone lied about it they concede that Jesus is doing something supernatural love it love hostile sources far and away the greatest single source of additional information we'll ever be able to find I think about Jesus of Christianity anything else will come from the writings of Flavius Josephus hands up for those who are pretty familiar with Josephus pretty informed audience that's not bad I usually get a two percent response Joe who was that they asked glassy-eyed and tell me about his parents mr. mrs. Cephas yeah hey here's her team if I sign a shocker team if I would have asked your grandparents the same question every hand in the room would have gone up and yesteryear everybody read Josephus with almost scriptural fervor can't you not every Christian library would have D heilige shrift or whatever version your Bible was next would be the works of Josephus then the Lutheran hymnal in catechism yesteryear everybody read Josephus and why well because this let me tell you in terms of his material here's the paradox the greatest defender of the Christian faith who ever lived in the face of the earth is that you who never can to Christianity Josephus his work is absolutely categorically necessary the apologetics and he is certainly the three book common words in any biblical article or book or scholarship is what according to Josephus come you've heard that again and again again and the reason is he's eyewitness the later New Testament he's born in the city of Jerusalem four years after Jesus crucifixion his parents were direct contemporaries of Jesus and the Apostles he was a brilliant historian love no fact that were escaped this guy and he decides to write this enormous history of the Jewish people from creation all the way to the fall of Jerusalem he began as a Jewish war correspondent during the Jew or with Rome did such a good job that the empty Emperor Vespasian along with Titus the guy who finally conquered Jerusalem invited him to come to Rome and they would subsidize his literary endeavors because he was taken prisoner in that Jewish war did such a good job translating between Roman and Jewish forces that indeed they would subsidize his literary endeavors and did they ever this is the reason we get detail in this guy like you cannot believe Josephus his works are 28 times as long as one gospel 28 times as long why because the Flavians paid for it all they adopted this guy in the imperial family in a wrong talk about going racks the riches flavia's Josephus they callin bigger flavors for space in the Emperor Flavius Titus and flavia's to mission they subsidize no he had a he had carte blanche could write as much as he wanted all the historical records in Rome everything else and so he writes us an enormous history of the Jews as a prequel to his Jewish war log the war Jewish war 28 books at all and here's where we get marvelous detail I mean and the Old Testament stuff is he works with a rabbinic human reader of course but if you know were sort of medical color why was Adam called Adam because well the Bible says he was created out of the soil but Josephus says he was created out of the red soil and at thumbin hebrew was red you know which I think may indicate that maybe Adam was created either in Colorado or Georgia I mean I want to show you the methodology of the Jesus Seminar and other groups like that yeah but when you get to the intertestamental period oh boy I tell you the more and more detail when you get to the New Testament the needle simply goes off the scale in terms of a detail item here are the great guy who killed the infants you know in the Christmas story we have a cameo appearance in Matthew chapter two and Josephus we have two whole books a whole court history on Herod the Great figuring out if those infants could have been killed or not we have marvelous new detail on John the Baptist on Pontius Pilate my goodness we get about three times as much information on Pilate outside the Gospels as inside and that's so necessary because how they screwed up the life upon chess pilot as well in terms of shooting from the hip your local example Roseboro Radford Ruth or Garrett evangelical writes that the picture Pilate deigning to argue with the crowd is the New Testament as it is ludicrous you said if Pilate were convinced of Jesus innocence as the Gospels claim he would have surrounded and went on regard and marching him back to Nazareth and my head it's the ceiling one she hadn't done her homework she doesn't know Josephus she doesn't know why pilots walking on eggshells politically on Good Friday untold story of the crucifixion the politics there they have not come to light yet and we get it often just a fussing I want people like that hey now here let me say some apparently heretical sometimes we get more biblical detail in Josephus than in a Gospel story let me tell you beheading a John the Baptist now you know the account from the Gospels where pray tell did this take place and I don't want some wise guy to say at the neck yes we all know we've got that one figured out but where geographically did it take place well it's a dumb question Meyer Bible doesn't tell us I know it doesn't but Josephus does he gives us exactly the same account as the Bible but adds further detail he's got room to do it he says this took place in Harrods for Chris Palace Mac iris which is at the northeastern corner of the Dead Sea caddy corner from Masada southwestern corner now you said wait a minute herod antipas in charge of Galilee right no also Perea the Transjordan he has a whole fence Jordan go down to the Dead Sea that's his Miami his fortress there so that's where you're celebrating his birthday down at Fort Lauderdale there's a well you know you know and so this is where it happened yeah yeah here's another one who was the first bishop of the Christian Church anywhere on earth and buin so Simon Peter he'll be wrong the answer is and many of you will know James the just of Jerusalem Jesus half brother or cousin we're not going to argue that one now but acts 15 who was in charge of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem between Paul's first and second mission journeys James wouldn't you think the New Testament would tell us what happened that first question bishop it doesn't guess who does Josephus 29 years after Good Friday we have what I call Good Friday to when Jesus half brother or cousin named James the first bishop of the church was stoned to death by the San adran for his Christianity in the absence of the woman governor who hadn't gotten there yet guy Nell - he was so ticked off at this kangaroo court action but he arranged to have the high priest canned out of office second time a Roman governor's trying to do the right thing pilot the first time and now al - the second time got there - later very important trial totally overlooked member Mel Gibson back when he had a reputation I eat you know that's agonizing Passion of the Christ and everybody was dissing him at the time for daring to follow biblical roadmap well I was screaming really in his behalf saying look here's another version of Good Friday happening only half generation later in which we have a Jewish author not a Christian author trying to make the Gospels look good saying the same thing 29 years later has happened the first time around the high priest here first of all a high priest there was just characters whose bones have been discovered by the way he's the one his bones have been discovered hardly anybody knows that I don't know what it takes again the secular media know I'm not paranoid saying they kept the story off no I'm not gonna say that they didn't know how important it was made a lot of fuss about the so-called James ossuary we're not even sure if that was authentic but the bones of Joseph Caiaphas and discovered a thrilling thing back in November 1990 I refer to that earlier anyway we have here than a perfect resub Stan she ation for what happened on Good Friday and the high priest was campus's brother-in-law 29 years later an annus senator senator Sam the same people hadn't died yet there they are governor here Pilate trying to reluctant to condemn Jesus governor here all - relax and didn't get there in time you know perfect parallel air folks how dear these Jesus never existed people don't know what to do with them it's really they do need psychiatric help there's no question about cuz they're not there they are not thinking clearly look they belong in the League of Holocaust deniers some who say the Holocaust never happened poit guys an hour what a guy he knew he told his photographers the thing him in a doc on book take a picture of this because someday they're gonna deny this man was true that they have to take a picture of this and we see all the bottle bodies lined up good good good for I saw her for doing that yeah are there they're right up there with the people who claim man never walked on the moon it was all filmed on the deserts in Arizona outside of Phoenix you know what what can you do with insuperable ignorance is what it is pathetic so I mean you find it the New Testament account just quite beautifully and other surrounding evidence unbelievably well oh yeah one more example and we'll probably conclude on this very shortly here give you some hope they had all of I can now prove that all of you have used Josephus have you never heard of this guy for he ever came in tonight because tell me now the circumstances of John's beheading you'll tell me all about herod antipas birthday party by the way if you see the series on CNN and John Allen who was Jesus anybody see it Oh Herod Antipas looks like who died and she calls up Harry all over the hillocks Hagrid looks like angry terrible casting the governor is over there were trying to look like Romans who were clean-shaven and so this guy can barely his anyway anyway tell me the circumstances of John being beheaded Herodias in her second wife found that the floor show was getting rather boring and so she parades out her daughter right and her dance weather Seven Veils or not were not quite sure but all together now in one synchronized speech chorus the name of the dancing daughter excellent that's correct here's the shocker you won't find her name in the Gospels for that episode but it's got to be in the Gospels Concordia publishing house sunday-school leaflets call her solo me yeah yeah right right but they got it from Josephus there's a case where the church has used him richly I'm convinced there are Nuggets still lodged in that man's mind a mine I should say so how come with all this going for Josephus oh we don't read him today two reasons one he wrote too much I'm convinced that he worked with the world's first word processor in his office in Rome under a plaque on the wall that read why use one word when 35 will do Road and Road dan ronan wrote and it was all translated by William Weston everybody thinks he worked for a cord a polishing house but no he was Isaac Newton's successor in Cambridge England yeah yeah three hundred years ago yeah and it was all King James II in English you know these are mouths and so forth we really do need now a current available crisp English retranslation of Josephus do it however it's got to be done in a bridge fashion but translate word for word all those passages that do refer to Jesus and I'm gonna read you one in a moment and also Pontius Pilate and also James the brother of Jesus and so forth we really need that very badly actually folks it's been done the author's name escapes me Oh terrible terrible terrible oh I hate myself hate myself but I gotta read you the famous passage now now I already mentioned Jesus once member then James the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ was stoned to death by one of us that's antiquities book 20 section 200 per layer right in the middle of pilots administration antiquities book 18 section 63 we have the longest outside reference to Jesus pastirada and I and the other clergy were told never to use if it's something to remember and I've been interpolated yeah somebody thinking to do God a favor some monk around the lake 200 it's thinking to do God a favor added some Christian phrases to a perfectly good description of who Jesus was and ruined the passage I I was so ticked wine the clock back to 55 I was so ticked at this great reference that Jesus had been screwed up that I took it upon myself to write the world's ranking authority in Josephus a London Jew named dr. Paul Winter asked him two questions dr. winter do you think that Jesus our Christian Jesus was ever mentioned here critics were saying throw it a whole passage out you know baby out they couldn't hear let's throw it out second question if you think that this was referring to Jesus of Nazareth how do you think the passage originally read got a letter by letter three weeks later this does nothing for you with your instant messaging I know cut me some slack 60 years ago okay anyway so back in I got the answer to it two answers one yes he was quite sure that he did refer to Jesus from the way he handled it it came right in the middle of pilots administration or belonged and then using his good textual critical scholarship he prized away the Christian addenda as he saw them by the way nothing wrong with textual scholarship that though the those critics are excellent they give us a better and cleaner version of what the original text was like and as it's a very laudable and very careful enterprise but here is the translation that he gave me I thought it was so good that if I ever did want to Jersey Paz I'd use that but the tragedy is dr. winter died a year before a text was discovered in Israel which is an uninterrupted reads almost word-for-word like what he predicted it would read a thrilling confirmation of great biblical and textual scholarship in my translation I put that right smack dab in the text where it belongs with a note to the baptized version at the end of the chapter goes like this and I think it's very fair Josephus does not like false messiahs they're the guys who brought it in the war with Rome and he hated the burning of the temple and the destruction of the city so he doesn't like but listen to what he says about Jesus I think this is enormous leap fare on his part and really a tribute to him as a somewhat dispassionate author really here's what he actually wrote about this time there was a wise man called Jesus and his conduct was good and was known to be virtuous many people among the Jews and the other nations the the Gentiles became his disciples Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die but those who would become his disciples did not abandon their discipleship they reported they had come back to life three days after he's crucified and then it was alive they reported that's the difference the original versa we couldn't use was he was the Messiah he rose from the dead well you know and thrive of the Christians name for him is still around the stake Christians used to love that passage and say here in the mouth an unbelieving Jew was a confession in the resurrection oxymoron unbelieving Jew he was a if Paul would have written that there's a Jew converted Josephus couldn't have written that this he could have written they reported that he came back to life three days later Testament says accordingly he could possibly have been the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders and the tribe of the Christian so named after him has not disappeared to the present day critics hate that passage they hate the reformed version of the passage they try every way possible to say that that Josephus was dishonest and Eusebius after than all the others it doesn't work no it's back where it belongs and so we have just there alone a magnificent confirmation of the life of Jesus time and time again in that fullness of time book that I wrote is probably most important book in the table I have the first half of the book full of all the outside demonstrations for Jesus of Nazareth and a second half do the same thing for symbolic Tarsus there it's even easier because when Luke has taken the good news out into the mainstream of the not the back waters at Judea but into Greece in Asia Minor in Rome that's the big central and there Paul doesn't make a move that we can't document with what you can see today there in the tremendous geographical sites and just in closing I want to mention that I could argue the represent representatives of any other world religious system on the basis of the geographical argument alone not even going to historical documents and win the debate because there is no book that is better grounded in geography and archaeology by the way than our old New Testament there is nothing that comes close I have a seminar called Christianity in the competition in which I honestly examine the far eastern religious systems Middle Eastern religious system especially Judaism and Islam and then the Western religious systems which are pathetic really are the ones we invented in this side of the Atlantic are the least credible of all nothing I'm ashamed Evette bottom line is there's no competition for anybody with an IQ over 55 no there this isn't if you use the rules of historiography nothing engages history better than the Christian faith and so I think at a time when we're trying to blunt all these ridiculous attacks on the faith we Christians ought to be more ready I think with our ammunition and not just the let it go by or let it go let this slide against the faith go not pick an argument with the neighbor or don't begin by leaning over the garden fence and saying how can you believe that rod not a nice way to do it oh they're better always do as I say on a cycle but you can't use that but ask what they believe first and then try not to smile when they tell you how pathetic it is yeah and then usually they'll recipients hey what are you blaming it is very carefully give to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that is in you reason huh not just a nice warm feeling reason it was Jesus who said you love the Lord Chicago hers and mine but do it with gentleness and respect to love it you can tell that's post Pentecost Peter he now is past the psychology 100 knows how to handle things you know what my rent raved Oto's they say I do as I do it say no I think the we haven't even gotten into archaeology I mean then the hard evidence my dad used to love archaeology is to have a lecture the stones cry out will they do that's not exactly Jesus use it but nevertheless they do God's great letter they give to us the hard evidence from the ancient world I love it love it 90% of the finds immediately support the biblical record you never hear that you always hear the cessations come along and say this couldn't possibly have happened so forth well no well who are the sensationalist those who have been from time grid one of the loudest mouths is Israel Finkelstein a Jew who loves to sawed off the lemon which he's sitting just loves to yeah and as his his gauge is a hundred years off there everybody else David came 1100 BC not a thousand BC so he says a hab is the one who gets the nod for all the great buildings in Jerusalem what absolute BS means before scholarship oh yeah please please understand I'm certainly going to be vulgar anyway enough of this yes the one thing I want to close with and that is by all means people if you have not been to these biblical sites you really ought to go it's a thrillingly refreshing experience right we've had some alumni and alumnae of Tours I have become a softy I no longer do as many land tours I love do cruises or Sony oh you're not sailing Carnival no no I mean you unpack once 16 days later you back again so whatever you do an early October October 2nd to 17th or 18th were to going again flying to Rome and then on a cruise ship we ply the waters of the Mediterranean and down in Naples across to Sicily and that over across the Mediterranean to Athens and Corinth and then to Mykonos a little tourist trap there wonderful place then to Ephesus where the Greek Theatre riot took place in acts 19 then the Judea and Galilee in the Holy Land Egypt used to be included when their burning American flags there you know maybe not the safest place to visit the neat thing about cruises is you can alter itinerary you know in case there's the ice worth getting shot up so more we go to a different port and that happened already a wonderful way to go oh man I lectured ahead of time on shipboard and tell you what you're gonna see or we feel questions afterwards and then the Holy tour bus is waiting for us land and I'll hop between the tour buses giving you my two cents in the process of the local guides this is just a lot of fun five meals a day six all free breakfast brunch lunch lover supper midnight snack you know your name but entertainment every night I don't want to give you all the blindman's wouldn't it was serious worker after all such fun and then back again across the Mediterranean the whole thing including transatlantic airfare only less than four bills never again will you get a tour like that at that rate we'll all be more than that anyway we if you're interested I will send you a flyer I only have one copy and back or I can email you when electronically if you give me your email and so either mailing address or email address and I will be happy to either your mail snail mail address or email and I'll be happy to send you a flyer now I would say all that but it would be considered as a commercial so I won't I I love that field any questions I know how our time is running and I'm just having a great old time as you can tell and I got a motormouth - got a bridle his tongue better than this but if we have any questions maybe I shouldn't hold you all but we've got a walk-in microphone here and any comments or whatever in regard to biblical sources and how easy it is to defend the Christian faith I've long said there is no other religious belief on earth easier in terms of intellectual credentials to defend than our faith far away far away we have one in the back hello hi I'm a student at Concordia my name is Brenna Christensen and I have a question about reading the primary sources of Josephus so in addition to your book do you recommend trying to read the translations is that a good idea I in addition to reading the Bible what was the question the in addition to reading your book should we try to go read through all the works of Josephus like to study them is it worthwhile pursuit Wow yeah I would never limit your reading just to my books wonderful place to start but I mean no no no no no we certainly yeah so so read widely as you can and other commentaries and books of the Bible whatever else you bet I'm coming primarily about the material that we can find proven not just in Scripture but also outside of Scripture so I've a lot mainly that's what the fullness of time books all about the other geographical archaeological secular evidence for Jesus first half of the book and st. Paul's second half anything else and there is Mike Becker no if not please feel free I'll be in the back love to meet you we have coffee and goodies waiting for us I think and be be happy to field any questions there also sorry for really big

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Length: 79min 43sec (4783 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 02 2015