The Harmonization in the Gospels - Dr. James White

well good morning we have a very limited amount of time this morning and I'm going to tell you straight upfront if you didn't get your coffee this morning you're in deep trouble this is not a sermon this is not going to be an Amen fest I am NOT going to make you all a walk out of here on an emotional high or a spiritual high or anything else this is a lecture and I do not apologize for that at least not in the sense we use that today I will give you a classical apology for it we can profess our love for the word of God we can confess its authority we can proclaim its authority but the reality is that the Apostles went into the the marketplace they went into the area of debate they reasoned with people and they gave a defense of their faith and we can talk about how the Bible is consistent but it would be very good if in talking about that we are able to demonstrate that we've thought through what we're saying about that and so this morning is quite simply I'm taking on the role of seminary professor that's what I do a lot and you are the class there will be a test at the end you cannot leave the room until you pass so and vodi Balcom will be at the doors if you try to get out that makes it quite serious so harmonization harmonization what in the world am I talking about well when I went to Fuller Theological Seminary in the New Testament classes the one option that was not allowed when you were talking about tensions in the text was to harmonize the text and and the argument basically was this well when you harmonize Matthew with mark you no longer have Matthew and you no longer have mark you now have so a strange inter mixture of the two and they would point to for example those people in the early church that that created a single gospel by cobbling together parts of Matthew Mark Luke and John and they would argue you no longer have Matthew you no longer have mark and a lot longer longer have Luke you don't have what they were intending to communicate and on that level they would be true they would be they would be right because we don't want to conflate the Gospels together into one gospel but we do want to allow them to speak and to speak truthfully and to speak with their own style and their own language and all those things but the one option that was never allowed was to was to go well what if John was talking about this and Matthew was talking about this and they're all describing the same event from different perspectives what if Matthew has his audience that he's trying to communicate with so he emphasizes certain things and and so on and so forth that was the one option that was not allowed and I say to you it is the option that takes the most work and it is the option that is the only one available to us who believe that God has spoken in Scripture and so it is something we need to learn to think about it's something we need to learn to do and that's what we're gonna be talking about this morning now let's take a look at some of the presuppositions I told you get a deep seat in the saddle get your pen out because we're gonna be moving at lightning speed but I'm really hoping that what this will do is provide you with some food for thought and some foundations for further study on your own there's some good stuff out there and there's some not-so-good stuff out there so be aware of that there's some way to pop that up on the screen back there that would be that'd be great for me now presuppositions generally when we start talking especially about the issue of harmonizing the Gospels and I would highly recommend to you if possible obtain for yourself a parallel of the Gospels where you can look at Matthew in one column and Mark in the next column and Luke and then John and so you can see what the differences are I think it's important to do that mainly because our critics are doing that and they're going to throw this stuff at us and if we don't talk about it here we're gonna be running into it out there and that's not the time to be running into it okay so get yourself a harmony of the Gospels and when you look at the relationships look at it in that in that fashion and what it raises is the question well what do we have in the Gospels what do we have in the Gospels is this meant to be a journalistic recording of of the exact words of Jesus like if someone was staying there with an mp3 recorder is is that we have and so we have some terms up here generally the the conversation breaks into the first two if system of ox and abscissa movor be' what does that mean well generally theologians like to use Latin because they're weird and because people in the past did that in fact you used to have advertisements in Latin that's how while it widely used it was and it's not so widely used anymore but we still use the the terms of the system of Vox system of verba do we have the very voice of Jesus or the very words of Jesus and that's generally what it breaks down to because the fact the matter is when you when you look at parallel accounts for the same subject the same event in Jesus's life in Matthew Jesus will say slightly different words than he does in Mark or in Luke sometimes it's identical sometimes it's not and so the question is do we have the exact words or are we hearing the voice the voice being the idea that well and most of Jesus is teaching he probably wasn't speaking Koine Greek he was probably speaking what would be called Aramaic and we have that written down for us in Greek and so if Matthew is giving us his translation of the Aramaic that might be different than Mark's translation of the Aramaic or Luke's translation of the Aramaic or something along those lines and so that's one possible place where there might be difference but some of the differences would not be accounted for by mere translation and so the question is is it the voice or is it the words and I would like to suggest that going with that limits us too much I don't know that those using those is the only two options accurately reflects why it is we have four Gospels in the first place why did the Spirit of God give us four Gospels it would have been a whole lot easier for me as an apologist to have one except for certain instances where having another gospel has shed absolutely vitally important light on something was said in another gospel so I guess even then it's good that we have them but my it's it's a challenging thing to bring them together and to read them in in parallel with one another and to understand these things I would like to suggest a a third category of sysem EPSA Summa in tender bonds what does that mean the intended the intention the exact intention that God desired us to have the very words he intended us to present to have and to have in the text why is that well I don't think that it's appropriate for us to expect Matthew Mark Luke and John to be written by the standards of Western journalism well of course journalism today whatever that is but but Western mp3 recordings that type of a thing because no one was was standing around with a with a steno pad taking shorthand or anything like that to try to do what you do in a law court you know sit there with the thing and taking down the exact words and that kind of stuff that's not what was going on but what we need to remember is what is the locus of inspiration in the Bible what did we say yesterday all Scripture is god-breathed the process leading up to it all that stuff is left that's that's that's God's thing but what is god-breathed is the result of all that somehow he's super intense all of that so the result is exactly what he wants and so what we have in Matthews version of a story and what we have in Marc's version of a story is intended by God for some reason and even when there are differences we can be confident that the difference is there to teach us something or to show us something if we don't have that then we're left with what most liberals do today and that is they look at the differences especially amongst the synoptic Gospels and they start psychoanalyzing Matthew Mark Luke and John well I wonder why Matthew changed mark here well probably because his background and he had a prejudice against this and that they're stuck with just doing psychoanalysis that's not gonna get us anywhere but if we do believe that God gave us these scriptures for our edification for a purpose then we have a reason for looking at them very very closely in trying to learn what these things are saying to us now let's let's take a look at an example I should have put the reference up here I apologize look at Matthew chapter 9 and Mark chapter 5 this is where a parallel would help this is a story of the raising of Lazarus daughter and let me see here okay Matthew 9 18 and Mark 5:22 following is the is the reference here I'd like to introduce you to a a concept that will that will sort of stand for many other examples that we could give as we examine the synoptic Gospels especially Matthew Mark and Luke soon up to Oh to see a like so Matthew Mark and Luke Luke looking the same way John's very different in his ordering and in his in his approach so he's not considered a synoptic gospel let me give you an example of why I believe that we need to look at these Gospels and allow the writers to have the freedom to express their story the way that they choose to do so let me give an example how many of you in here are planning on writing a have already or will be writing a some sort of blog entry or Facebook entry about your time the g3 conference alright now let me ask you something unless every single one of those blogs is identical all your are you all liars well any of those blog entries be identical to another blog entry word-for-word but are you all in this room okay so the fact that matter is as you're observing me right now and listening to me right now if you blog what I said today you're all going to put something different aren't you and some of the ladies are going to be distracted by the weirdness of my bow ties and things like that and some of the guys are gonna be distracted by the use of overheads and things like that they're gonna focus on different things there's gonna be differences and also depending upon what you want to communicate if you happen to like me you might be nice about what I say if you don't happen to like me you might not be in so you're gonna focus on different things there's going to be different purposes for which you're writing each one of your blog's well when we look at the Gospels we know Matthew's writing for one audience Mark's writing for a different audience we look at the length of the Gospels mark is much shorter than Matthew but interestingly enough when Matthew and Mark are telling the same story invariably mark tells it more fully and Matthew tells it in much shorter words for example this particular story the healing of gyruss his daughter remember he comes to Jesus and Jesus is going to heal his daughter and the woman with the issue of blood comes up and touches his garment and then the men come from the house and tell him she's died and Jesus says don't worry and and they go to the house and he raises her up we all know the story generally but what I just did was mixed together what Matthew and Mark said there were some elements of that that were in Matthew that weren't well there's some elves that were in mark that were not in Matthew and what I just said and so when we look at it Matthew uses only 139 words over only eight verses to narrate this event mark uses 379 words over 22 verses to narrate this event I mean when your books only 16 chapters long he spends a lot of time on this one and so Matthew's version is only 37% the length of Mark's or look at the other way Mark's version is 2.7 times longer than Matthew's so what does that tell us well when we look at this particular instance mark is giving us more information that means Matthew is summarizing he's summarizing things and all of you if you're gonna write a blog about this presentation you're gonna have to summarize what I'm saying unless you're recording it you're just gonna post the video right that's not an option in that in that time period and so who gets to choose what you summarized and when you summarize something are you gonna summarize by topic or by chronological order well that's up to you you might choose someone might choose that to summarize by chronological order is gonna make more sense than by topic and other thing no no no I'm I'm just gonna talk about the topics first and whether he's addressed that first or last or somewhere in the middle doesn't matter all depends on what you think you can do best in communicating this particular this particular event and that's we have here what Matthew is going to do in this this material is to telescope remember I'm not sure if they really have many of them today but when I was a kid you would have these telescopes that you could pull out remember like the old pirate thing you know the Peter Pan pyro thing you know and it would it would pull out or go together in segments okay well that's what Matthew's doing here he is taking this story and he has chosen to make it a fairly minor part of his narration of Jesus's ministry he's going to mention it but he's not going to emphasize it mark has chosen to emphasize it by giving nearly three times as much information now when you telescope something you have to make some decisions as to how you are going to present the information and sometimes you can't keep it in strict chronological order when you're just summarizing things so let's take a look at one of the tensions as they say notice Matthew 9 18 while he was saying these things to them a synagogue official came up and bowed down before him and said what does he say my daughter has just died my daughter has just died but come and lay her hand on her and she will live now look at mark one of the synagogue officials named Jairus notice Matthew doesn't even bother with names but mark does and it came up and on seeing him fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying my little daughter is at the point of death please come and lay her hands on her so she will get well and live notice at every point mark is expanding and giving a longer version the Matthew Asst Matthew is summarizing but the problem is in Matthews version she is about to die and in mark's version i mean in mark's version she's at the point of death in a Matthews version she's already died now you say hmm anyone ever brought that up to you yeah if I ever seen my debate with should be Raleigh at Biola University this was one of his primary examples why we can't trust the New Testament thankfully I had just gone through this in Sunday school I've been teaching this not to Gospels for a decade or more @pr BC and we had just covered this only a matter of months earlier but how would you answer if you're in a situation like I found myself in a conversation with a Muslim in front of 2,500 people raised this as an example of why we can't trust the text the New Testament okay I'll spend the next 20 minutes waiting for you know notice how much fuller this is so what you have is you have mark giving us the idea my little daughter is at the point of death now here's one of the keys to why this is a clear example of telescoping on Matthews part because look at the next this is not a mistake in my part in mark five 35 to 36 while he was still speaking so the woman with the issue of blood has come up Jesus has healed her by that you know touching of the garment so on and so forth again mark gives more detail that than Matthew does Matthew just sort of barely mentions it but while he was still speaking they came from the house the synagogue officials saying your daughter has died why trouble a teacher anymore but Jesus overhearing what was being spoken said to the synagogue official do not be afraid any longer only believe it's not in matthew matthew has nothing about the men coming from the house doesn't even tell that part of the story the point is in matthew what he's communicating is that jesus when he arrives at the house knows that the girl is dead mark gives us the much fuller information that when the man first came to jesus he didn't even know that she was yet dead but on the way found out that she was which explains why by the time they get there there are mourners at the house but matthew has had to make this shorter he doesn't want to include all of this did he know about it we're not told but he makes the choice not to include it if he did he is telescoping it he is putting it together into a more much more a 1/3 length rendition and therefore this part which gives us the further information of the exact unfolding of the story it has it happen is not found in Matthew because he does not choose to put the emphasis upon this that he otherwise would this is what happens when you telescope something Matt mark has the telescope all the way out Matthew has put it down to its smallest its smallest version and sometimes we have stories in the Gospels where it's reversed or marks the longest and Matthew's like this and Luke is the shortest or something along those lines but this happens a lot this happens in any narration of history and it's happened in the comparison of the Gospels as well and so here you have an example of exactly how that works how telescoping functions there in that story now let me move to another one because I said it's already 902 and as you can tell I'm already talking fast and I've got a whole lot more to cover so let me let me let me press forward another real clear example of this is presented by Bart Ehrman remember I mentioned him yesterday he's one of the leading critics of Christianity and in in the english-speaking world today and what you're gonna hear if you go and listen to Bart Ehrman presenting why he doesn't believe that the Gospels are inspired and so on and so forth and and what you will hear in most liberal seminaries and Bible colleges and all the secular universities and world so on and so forth is that there is a fundamental contradiction between the Gospel of John and the synoptic Gospels as to the date on which Jesus died they're going to say that Matthew Mark and Luke have a specific day that Jesus was died Jesus died and yet John does not have that so there's a fundamental clear contradiction without possible explanation between the Synoptics and John as to whether John ate the Passover Jesus ate the Passover and hence upon which day he was crucified whether it was 14 or 15 this on the the date of that particular month the Passover lamb was slain the afternoon of Nisan 14 the Passover Feast of Unleavened bread began that day with a Passover meal that evening beginning of nasaan 15 remember the Jewish day began at sunset so if it's done in the evening that's the first part of the next day that really throws us off because we use the Roman system beginning at midnight they did not do that the day begins at sunset so the beginning of Nisan 15 would be right after sunset of that particular solar day the Synoptics all agree that on the first day of unleavened bread Jesus sent Peter and John from Bethany to make preparation for eating the Passover meal there are the relevant portions relevant references clearly in the Synoptics Jesus ate the normal Passover meal and hence was crucified on this on 15 the next day for us as far as the time period goes many scholars including modern and mainly conservative scholars who include that John has Jesus eat the Passover on this on thirteen so he is crucified at the same time as the Passover lamb on this on fourteen so the idea is well John changes this to make a theological point and that the theological point is that Jesus is the final Passover lamb he is crucified at the same time the Passover lamb is being killed and therefore you have the congruence and it's all meant to be a wonderful Passover story and you know we're to write songs about it and things like that but it's means that John's narration is not historical in its nature okay now there are five relevant passages in the Gospel of John to examine and Bart Ehrman says that clearly John contradicts the Synoptics but is this so that's the question couple things to remember John chapter thirteen now before the feast the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end during supper when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon's son to betray him Jesus knowing that a father had given all things in his hands and that he had come from God it was going back to God so we clearly have this supper taking place during the supper this is what is taking place here in John chapter 13 it's called before the Feast of the Passover so what does that hot how do we understand that how do we understand this is a supper before the feasts the Passover it is assumed on the basis as being before the feasts the Passover that this means this was 24 hours before that is thirteen the son but this requires us to read feast the Passover as referring only to the initial meal not the entire celebration which lasted an entire week in fact most people today when you think of Passover you think of it as a one-night thing but it wasn't it was an entire week-long festival and week-long celebration so instead the text speaks of Jesus doing things during the supper which is clearly the normal Passover supper that is being celebrated and discussed for us in John chapter 13 for example in John 13 27 then after he had taken the morsel Satan under knew him jesus said to him what you're going to do do quickly now the table knew why he said this to him some thought that because Judas had the money back Jesus was telling him buy we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor and so clearly that's directly in parallel with the synoptic Gospels it is assumed the disciples would not have thought Jews Judas was going to make preparations for the feast if the Passover meal itself was already over hence this must be thirteen this on not fourteen but there is no reason to limit the meaning of the feast of the passover meal only but the entire feast of unleavened bread which makes the statement consistent with the synoptic Gospels itself and then in John 1828 then they led Jesus in the house of Caiaphas the governor's headquarters it was early morning they themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters why so that they would not be defiled but could eat the Passover now what does that mean this is the next day obviously therefore when when it says does eat the Passover means simply the Paschal supper know the term Passover is used eight times in John besides this instance and each refers to the Passover festival not simply to the single meal of the supper itself and so they would not go in so they would not be made ritually unpure and could not participate in the rest of the Passover week festivities is what John is referring to there and doing so very accurately you'll notice that second chronicles thirty 22 so they ate the food of the festival for how long seven days since this comment is made early in the morning about the men not going into the and becoming defiled this must mean the fasts the festival not the supper alone as any impurities would pass away at sundown so this is talking about the entire festival not the Passover meal which had been the night before so very very clearly when we look at the historical context we're getting the information that John is not trying to tell us something differently for some kind of theological reasons finally John 19:14 not was the day of preparation of the Passover it was about the sixth hour he said the Jews behold your king now what you need to understand is that you know anybody speak modern Greek in here any modern Greek speakers we have one at our church who attends in Sunday mornings and I asked him this one morning just to just to prove to everybody this particular point you know what the word for Friday is in modern Greek it's para skew a para skew I you know what para skew a means in Greek preparation for 2,000 years and beforehand the name for Friday in Greek is preparation preparation day for the Sabbath that's where it came from it came from the Bible and so when the Bible says it was preparation day that's the same thing as saying it was Friday so John directly says it was Friday the problem is we translated as preparation and so we're going okay it could be preparation for you know maybe a special high day or something like that but the reality is that was the day of the week and so he very clearly says now it was Friday it was Friday of Passover week it was about the sixth hour he said to the Jews behold your king very clearly given to us in John chapter 19 and finally John 19:31 since it was the day of preparation and so the bodies would not remain on the cross and the Sabbath that Sabbath was a high day the Jews asked Pilate their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away every day of the festival is a high day including the Sabbath of the festival this does not mean the first day the fest will coincide with the Sabbath altering the timeline so we see that John is in harmony with the Synoptics on this matter so in many instances the accusation of contradiction the accusation of disharmony is dealt with if we simply know what the historical context of the words being used and the practices and that can sometimes be difficult in fact what happens when we have alleged problems than the Old Testament that go back to practices that we no longer have a great deal of information about might that not explain some of the problems we have in some of the Old Testament chronologies or issues like that is simply because we don't have enough of the background information and if we don't have enough of the background information wouldn't wisdom be innocent until proven guilty not guilty until proven innocent at least if we were handling the text properly you would think that that would be the way that things are let me give you another example of historical context when at what hour was Jesus crucified now if I had had more time both to make my presentation and to talk to you I would show you a clip but you can go watch it if you want to if any of you are interested go to the Alpha Omega ministries YouTube channel find the debate on the crucifixion or crucifixion fic tion that I just did in South Africa with Ayub Kareem and during the audience Q&A you'll be able to watch a Muslim in full Muslim garb come up to the microphone and ask me how I can believe what the Gospels say because the Gospels contradict themselves as to what our Jesus was crucified how can they be reliable if that is the case because as you can see in mark 1525 it says it was the third hour when they crucified him but according to John not was the day of preparation for the Passover it was about the sixth hour and Jesus said and he said to the Jews behold your king so this is still the trial the trials still going on before the crucifixion at the sixth hour but mark has him crucified three hours earlier my daughter's going but do you know why here are you just gonna ask me you know why all right good I did good she was listening all those years whiteboards in the backseat of the car you know as I asked her I did didn't I bought whiteboards for the kids were you driving around there writing stuff on their whiteboards in the back the car Christian worldview issues and I'm sorry anyways seems like a long time ago there you have it now I'm gonna explain this but again put yourself in the position you you've had to take a taxi ride to the airport and your your taxi driver is a Muslim sees you have a Bible guess what they're more likely to talk to you about religion than you are to talk to them about religion and so they ask you this question how you gonna respond how you gonna respond well I explained to the young fella and he he was uncertain about my explanation so he actually came up to me later gave me his email address and said could you send me more information on that and I did eventually we hooked up I sent him a whole big long thing on this but here you have here you have another instance where knowing something about the historical context will help you and that is we have not always told time in the same way I mean most of us today in here I mean I'm wearing a GPS wat this is a Garmin running watch and so when it gets a GPS fix I I did a 5-mile run a couple days ago and so it still got a good GPS fix so it knows exactly what time it is here so it's right on time and you all have your cell phones and so we're pretty good on time these days right hasn't always been that way and not only that but telling time starting at midnight that's the Roman way of doing things that wasn't the Jewish way the Jewish day started at sunset and even the hours would change lengths depending on the time of the year because what you do is you defy you would divide the the period of daylight into twelve segments so during the summer those would be longer segments during the winter they'd be shorter segments so you still had 12 segments but they would be the ones that would change I mean try to make a wristwatch so to handle that that would be really weird so certain people started the days at sunrise and certain people at sunset and there are all sorts of different ways of doing it now the Jewish way of doing it would have been to start the day at sunset but then the morning out the daylight hours would be at sunrise so the third hour would be around three hours from the time that the sunlight hours begin but John doesn't use that time system at all well why wouldn't he again historically why would he if he is writing late and if he is writing in Ephesus and hence is not writing to people who have ever lived in Palestine or whatever live in Palestine and especially if it is after the destruction of Jerusalem seventy then why not use the time system that people would be familiar with so as to not introduce an unnecessary confusion and so john uses roman time Matthew Mark and Luke used Jewish time and when you when you allow the two of them to come together they're saying the same thing now we don't know the exact hour of Jesus's crucifixion because we're not told we're told it was the third hour in the third hour since when since sunrise will sunrise isn't the same time every single day depending on where you are in the year obviously it changes and I'm not even talking about that silly thing called daylight savings time with you people do I live in Arizona you realize we don't do that we honor time we realize God made it so you can fall back trip forward do whatever the stuff it is you do and we just keep right on going because we tried it once in 1977 and in July it would be 10 o'clock at night still light and a hundred and ten degrees does not work does not work and we said forget it and so there you so as long as you know the background differences you know the historical context there you go you see what the difference between those two particular issues are now we press forward and we hope that it only goes okay just one thank you all right really quickly on this one I had an atheist years ago throw this out Dennis McKenzie of biblical Aaron see now it's now he's online and stuff but back then he would send out a three-page mimeograph thing about all the errors in the Bible and here is one of them that he threw out at Matthew nineteen eighteen in the King James Version it says thou shalt not murder but in romans 13:9 says thou shalt not kill and there are both renditions of the ten commandments and we all know that murdering and killing are not the same thing right so the Bible contradicts itself right well they had to use the King James Version for a reason here your modern translations will both say thou shalt not kill or murder they'll be consistent one way or the other the reason being that the underlying text is oof on you sites in both it's identical and so what you've identified here is an inconsistency in the King James translation sorry if we have any King James only folks in the room but the reality is if you know something about the history the King James it was translated by different committees at different places and when the final product was put together there wasn't necessarily the kind of harmonization of translation they're all translating the same text there isn't a difference in the underlying text at all it's just they chose to use different words and it was different committees that did it and it ended up in the printed edition and so you need to recognize when people are trying to create a contradiction based upon a translation rather than upon the original language very very often that is where the issue is coming from be very very careful especially when you find folks trying to go back to older translations to create a contradiction that really isn't there always look to the original language now there is also textual context textual context and that is there are differences between Greek manuscripts and you'll all have little notes to bomb on your page let's say some manuscripts say this is some manuscripts say that you need to pay attention to them those of you who are my age who can no longer read any fonts below 11 points there are notes down there those are not smudges I know you thought they were but those things down there are actually notes and if you'll get progressive lenses like mine you will find them again they will be they'll come back into your vision and we need we need to be aware of why those notes are down there they're very very useful but let me give you an example we had a guy come up to us we were passing out tracts in Salt Lake City wants and he said what translation of the Bible to use boy I knew where this was going and I said well we use a number of different ones he says well do you use the Bloodless Bible I don't know I've never cut it I knew where he was going but he was talking about Colossians 1:14 because in King James Version it says in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins the NIV says and who we have Redemption the forgiveness of sins and so if you just look at that you go all those liberal and IV translators as if they were actually liberal NIV translators they don't believe in forgiveness to the blood of Christ as they've taken it out and it's the bloodless Bible well there is a textual variant here but it is interesting I pointed the guy I said you know if the NIV was trying to get rid of the blood of Christ why is that that we can go to Ephesians 1:7 which is the parallel to Colossians Ephesians and Colossians have a lot of parallel passages the very same parallel and it says in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according the riches of His grace in the King James and in the NIV in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches God's grace how come they didn't take it out there well you know you're just weakening it a little bit you know it's not found as often that way is the idea well the reality is that by far the best text and in fact what's interesting the majority text the Byzantine text platform all read as the NIV does here and not as the King James there are only a small number about nine very late manuscripts and you know what happened here is obviously someone who had memorized the Ephesians version in copying the Colossians version probably inadvertently because they had memorized it inserted the phrase and the Colossians just because it was the natural way they knew the passage Ephesians one had been used in liturgical settings for a long long time so it may not even bend that someone said well I think this needs to be here it could have been absolutely without malice or an attempt to alter anything but the point is the vast majority of Greek manuscripts and all of the Greek manuscripts before the Year 1000 of the book of Colossians read as the NIV does not as the King James us and we get into the textual area don't have time to unfold it today I want to know what Paul wrote not what someone a thousand years later thought Paul should have written and that's the key issue that's the key issue there lots of stuff on the textual issue that we can we can get into but I'm gonna I've saved the last and the toughest for the end if you're starting to fade a little bit if you see the person ladies if the husband is starting to do this thing you know the caffeine's weren't off hit him in the ribs husbands if your wife's doing that tome toucher bad thing to do very bad just let her go it's okay unless she snores then that bothers me okay so then then you might want to do something but just just whisper near Ross say it Ross and she'll wake up that's what works for me the the the ladies at Ross know my wife's middle name not just first name know her middle name - okay inter textual context what on earth am I talking about here I almost didn't do this I almost didn't do this I'm still worried about doing it this could be the single toughest issue in New Testament studies that I know of could be so in a sense I am expecting much of you and hopefully showing you respect to challenge you on this because I feel that we should challenge believers in the context where we are here much more readily than out there this is the place to do it so what do I mean when I say intertextual context well some of the toughest questions are when the bible quotes itself when the bible quotes itself especially when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament now we know that the Old Testament was written primarily in what's called Hebrew there are about 12 chapters approximately in Aramaic and a few phrases here there and everywhere in Aramaic but Aramaic very closely related to Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek and I'm sorry if you've run into the Hebrew roots guys that are running around saying it was written in Hebrew and all the rest that stuff that is just silliness is just silliness it really is I'm sorry but but on every ground that you can examine an ancient text on even Matthew which is about the only book of New Testament where we've got any external allegations that it was written another language even Matthew demonstrates its original language was Greek it is not a translation from something else or anything like that so leaving that issue to the side when the New Testament writers quote from the Old Testament which they do constantly that's one of the wonderful things about the new American Standard you can't avoid seeing Old Testament citations because they're in all caps which makes it impossible to use for blog entries but it's wonderful for reading because they put the Old Testament citations in all capital letters but when the New Testament cites the Old Testament what version does it say oh well the Hebrew no a couple times yeah but for the vast majority of times it doesn't quote the Hebrew it quotes the Greek Septuagint the Greek Septuagint the Greek Septuagint was translated somewhere between 250 and 20 years before Christ it wasn't all done at one place it's not all of equal quality the Pentateuch is really good some of the Psalms are really good some of the minor prophets not so good some of historical books not so good it's of differing quality was done by differing people there were different sort of versions of it so there might even be some differences between some of the Septuagint manuscripts that existed in that day but the fact is the Bible of the early church was the Greek Bible if you lived in colossi and you don't have a New Testament what are you gonna have you're gonna have the Greek Old Testament you're gonna have the Septuagint that's gonna be the Bible that is going to be being used while the New Testaments being written you don't even know there's such a thing called the New Testament as far as a a canon of books at that particular point in time and so if you're writing to the Church of colossi and you want to quote the Old Testament are you gonna quote it from a version they can't read or you could quote it from the one that they're reading every day in church it's pretty obvious isn't it and so the vast majority the citations of the Old Testament found in the New Testament are from the Greek Septuagint which also means there are times in the Greek Septuagint differs from the Hebrew now could I just very quickly warn you all off from making a huge mistake a huge apologetic mistake how many of you have heard about the Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls the Isaiah scroll yeah oh isn't the Isaiah scroll great I mean the earliest manuscript we had of Isaiah was from 900 years after Christ and it was the Masoretic text and then we found the Dead Sea scroll it's a hundred years before Christ and guess what there's almost no change at all it's pretty much identical isn't that awesome and that's exactly true it's exactly true but did you know that the version of Jeremiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls is one-third shorter Oh see we threw out the true part but we don't know the whole story and I saw it happen man I saw it coming it was in the QA section of my debate with Bart Ehrman and up comes this guy and he's gonna show this fellow he's guys show this unbelieving fellow what for and he and I can just see I can just see Airmen going just that coming be very careful tell the truth it is true but it's not the whole story and that's the problem that's the problem there are places or the Greek Septuagint varies from the Hebrew here's one of them look at Jeremiah 31 32 no this is important theologically folks we talk about the New Covenant all the time in Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews a really really important stuff although I was and husband unto them saith the Lord Jeremiah 31 32 from the Hebrew Masoretic text but when it's quoted in Hebrews 8 9 the writer to the Hebrews doesn't use the Hebrew he is the Greek Septuagint as he consistently does through his book which is in christine and how does he render that last phrase and i did not care for them says the lord not all about you but those are not synonymous phrases at least they better not be right so what do you do with that especially because the version that the writer to the Hebrews quotes even more greatly supports his point that he's making about the better covenant verses the old covenant there's a new covenant with a new me a new mediator a new new promises better promises it's a better promises not new promises so it helps support his point and this isn't the only place where this happens there are a couple places there are number of places right near a doesn't I'd say where the New Testament sites what is a textual variant between the Greek sub Jeanine the Hebrew Masoretic text now let me just show you why well here's there we go keno refused to work with me yesterday morning when it came to Greek and Hebrew so I'd use images instead of using the original languages but here is the the Hebrew term right here and it's by Lt by all you've heard of Bale that's really but all and by all means Lord or husband so in the Hebrew I but all a husband to them saith the Lord but in the Greek Septuagint and I did not care for them and in the book of Hebrews it's actually a slight difference the substance they they they allied kaien ago so it just comes on word but doesn't change anything I did not care for them what's the difference between the two well again I would have liked to have used the Hebrew but I had to transliterate but all is the word for husband got all means to despise or not care for and if you know Hebrew you know that the gimel and the bet are very very similar to one another so there is a slight difference in one letter between the two readings that's where the variant came from but what this tells us is trying to establish one ancient line of the text specifically the Masoretic text as the standard is rather dangerous we need to let the New Testament writers tell us which ones we should be using and the Greek Septuagint is extremely important in looking and interpreting the New Testament and knowing what the background passages are now there's a bunch of these that I could show you and I don't have a comfortable answer for you for some of the ramifications this might raise but I think it's far more important that you know about them and think about them then to be all of a sudden hit by something like this and the first thought across your mind is how come all those preachers and teachers I've listened to for years never told me about anything like this you know there's a statement that Paul made to the Ephesian elders that is part and parcel of what motivates me and that is I'm innocent of the blood of all men why because I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God I've let you know I I want you to be fully prepared and to think these things through which even includes thinking through tough things like the relationship between the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew text and recognizing that the later Hebrew Masoretic text comes 900 years after Jesus and like I said briefly yesterday morning just in passing that means they put Val pointing in that his anti-christian like it psalm 110:1 because they well knew what the key passages were nine hundred years after Christ and so we have to keep that in mind we always have to test our traditions because there are some some realms there are some strains amongst reformed folks that makes the Masoretic text the final arbiter of all things and I just don't see how it works so you need to know something about the intertextual context as well let's come to our summary because I am out of time there we go the Bible is a collection of books written in two primary languages by more than 40 authors of the span of 1500 years never forget that never forget what we're really handling is not a single volume written by a single person at a single time God chose to use God chose to bring us his word the world changed a bit in 1500 years kingdoms rose and fell languages changed politics changed and while we in the West might wish that the Bible is more like a printer manual or an encyclopedia we're gonna go I want to know about doctrine of God click boom there it is paragraph one paragraph two sub point a sub point B that's what a lot of people would like the Bible to be a whole lot easier for me as an apologist if that's the way it was but that's not how God worked and in fact given this is a story of God entering into this messy world in the person of his son would you really expect the Bible to be a Western product that looks like a printer manual rather than the book that contains books like Joshua and judges Ezekiel man Ezekiel did some weird things yeah the Bible is different than we might want it to be but that's the way that it is that's the way God's given it to us therefore it's coherence and harmony is found not in a surface level uniformity or simplicity but a deep interior presentation of glorious threads of truth woven throughout its historical narrative and I've really become captured with this illustration of used of the idea of the threads in a tapestry and how you can follow a thread from the very beginning the the one side of the tapestry all the way through to the other and it may not look the same when it comes out here but there is a connection and it's the beauty of that connection and the colors it takes on as it goes through that process as it goes through that history that makes it so glorious and you don't get that in a five-week Bible study and no one has ever traced all the beautiful glorious threads of God's truth in this life we're not smart enough and we don't live long enough but I'm awful glad the Bible's not a printer manual because you know what I could I could pretty much master a printer manual no matter how complex that stupid printer really is but I will never be able to master all its found in the Word of God its depth its beauty the interwoven nature of its character will always challenge me and the real question is do I approach it as one who humbly desires to learn and to submit myself to my master who has spoken therein or do I approach it with the critical Spirit that you need to meet my criteria that's gonna be all the difference in the world it's gonna be all the difference in the world and I am firmly convinced that when the Spirit of God gives us a heart of flesh that heart of flesh is in subservience to the Word of God I believe that's part of regeneration and when I meet a person who is willing to stand up and to critically not critically examine I critically examine the text all the time that's worse numbness greatest light comes from but to in a sense be critical of the very idea that God could have spoken in such a fashion I'm worried about that person I am very very worried on a pastoral level about that person you awake now I threw a lot of stuff at you I talked really fast that's why they recorded it so used use the feature in on your iPod to go to half speed and that will make more sense there really well next time around when you listen to it but I thank you for your attention I hope that this will just be a way of of jump-starting some thoughts on your part and maybe some study on your part to understand what the context and background of the text the scripture is but to not start with the guilty until proven innocent but innocent until proven guilty because there's a lot that we need to know all right all right let's close the word of Prayer father we do thank you for this time that we have had to consider these things and though Lord we we struggle at times with the riches of your word and the depth of your word and and the fact that your word presents us with with difficulties to our mind's eye that Lord as we invest the time as we fairly handle your word we discover that you indeed not only have preserved it for us but you gave it to us originally you you gave us that God breathed revelation and Lord we would ask we would be good students of it that as we have opportunity to give testimony to the truthfulness of your word that you would bless our words that you would use us to be salt and light in this world we pray in Christ's name Amen

Channel: S Apologist

Views: 2,047

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: harmonization of the gospels, is the NT reliable?, is the New Testament the word of God, Textual criticism, purpose of the Gospel writers, misquoting Jesus, bart ehrman, bart ehrman videos

Id: N81KYj0vLv0

Length: 53min 48sec (3228 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 20 2018