The Jesus Debate: Lord or Legend?

so so Johnny it's got to be difficult for you before for a non-believer the conversation and continuing now become citizens reporting of time for people to change their minds one way or the other which whoever wrote that was making an allegory a fable okay so now I get to introduce our moderator for the evening he's currently the CEO of secular media group LLC LLC and the founder of atheist audiobooks dot-com he is the author of baptized atheists and his weekly live radio show has had nearly 3 million downloads with over 140,000 listeners every month so ladies and gentlemen to host the dogma debate David Smalley 2015 this is the dogma debate I'm your host David smiley and we are broadcasting live from Sacramento California yes yes your checks are in the mail thank you so much for coming out without any further ado I want to get started and I want to talk about this exciting show that we have Jesus Lord or legend this is going to be a debate from two guys who have actually been on this live broadcast but I think most of you have heard David Fitzgerald on the show you've heard john Christie on the show I did a film with John Christie last year called my weakened atheism there are actually copies of it over there where we tried our best to make an atheist out of John Christie that didn't work out too well no but it's a very fair film it's a very good film and and I think John did a great job directing it it gives you a deep inside look from a Christian perspective which i think is super super important so I want to go ahead and introduce the folks that are going to be here debating today the whole concept here Jesus Lord or legend is Jesus the real deal or is Jesus a legend to pass down so that's what we really want to try to figure out today taking a poll before we saw that I think this is majority slightly majority Christian audience which is which is a good thing but there are several people here who are non-believers and about four who just do not care at all we saw you and I don't know why they're here so if you're standing in the back walk over to them and move them out of the way you you should sit down there we're gonna start with the guy who's been on the show several several times he was co-founder and director of the world's first atheist film festival he's the author of the complete heretics guide to Western religion book 1 the Mormons and his best-selling book nailed 10 Christian myths that show Jesus never existed at all he's currently working on the follow-up to that book titled Jesus missing in action please welcome David Fitzgerald hello David hello hello our next guest is a Christian filmmaker with a degree in religion and biblical studies who is beginning his graduate work this fall in Christian and classical studies he's the director of the documentary my weakened atheism and he's currently in production on a second documentary titled 40 churches in 40 weeks with Sharon baalam ladies and gentlemen please welcome John Christie guys welcome back to Dogma debate the the first time you guys were on I think John was in studio and David called in from San Francisco you're from San Francisco Bay yes yeah and so now you guys are actually it's the first time you've been in person both of you on Dogma debate at the same time how do you feel ready to fight yes a lot love and David was also in the film my weakened atheist very cool so John give us a quick breakdown and I know we're gonna get started John's gonna have an opening statement first right after the first break and then David Fitzgerald's gonna have an opening statement then we're gonna kind of have a discussion period I think that's really important a lot of formal debates miss out on that piece of it you know they do the formal debates each side gets to have their views heard but they never really have a discussion with one another and so it was important that we did that and then they're actually gonna take questions from you guys so I think that's an important point to get across John what are you hoping at the end of the day people get out of attending this and and listening to this debate that the story we have of Jesus as presented in the New Testament is accurate and reliable not only as historical information but also as the gospel which it is the testimony of God's manifest work in this earth and David what is your point here that the opposite is true well that was a short segment I guess we're done here so you guys actually met through this show that's right right and you basically live down the street from each other one of you doing God's work than one of the other of you trying to undo all of that so so how do you feel about each other as as people I mean obviously John being a Christian what he has to like you know know it's yeah if you ever heard of the show before you'll get it like this is this is kind of what happens all the time so so John it's got to be difficult for you I mean for for a non-believer who is friends with a believer it's not offensive to a non-believer that you exist right it's not offensive that the things that you say aren't a problem but I think for a believers and I have a lot of respect for believers who befriend non-believers because you talk about the issues but you know you'll still go have a beer with a guy you'll still go sit down and talk with them and I think the one thing all three of us definitely agree on is that having the conversation and continuing to have the conversations is extremely important but how John do you separate the friendly aspect of it from literally david Fitzgerald here trying to you know actively D convert people out of Christianity and you're actively trying to do that obviously the friendship is not false you guys are obviously friends I've been friends with you for a while so how do you compartmentalize how do you separate that be able to have the debate and still be able to shake his hand at the end of the day I don't know that I separate it first of all you know a little bit of David and I I picked them up at the train station and you know we came here together which I think it's pretty rare for a debate yeah we're genuinely friends you know we get along throughout the year there's text messages back and forth phone calls we've had dinner several times so I don't know that I necessarily compartmentalize them I sometimes have just as much of a challenge amongst Christians who wear the label of Christian but really don't know really what I'll be safe and say what the Gospels teach Christianity to be what's your email address by the way that's great but so it's not a matter of compartmentalizing it's the way I look at it is you know we're all still here we're all still thinking there's plenty of time for people to change their minds one way or the other which happens in both cases and that's what this is about is doing the debate doing the discussion and and I plan on seeing both of these guys with me in eternity so okay I'm fine with that answer are you good with that okay all right well I think everybody's ready to get started John's gonna be first so we're gonna take a very very short commercial break and then we'll be back with John Kristy giving his opening statement right here at the podium more dogma debate coming up welcome back to dogma debate to go ahead and get us started with his opening statement ladies and gentlemen John Christie thank you okay so tonight's debate is the question is Jesus Lord or legend now by that I'm going to sum it up in one other question can we trust the Gospels this is important because what skeptics will claim is that we don't know who wrote the Gospels the testimony of Jesus Christ and in fact what they will say is that the Gospels were written in some cases hundreds of years later into the second century but what I'm here tonight to argue is not whether the Bible is the Word of God which happens to be my personal belief but that's aside tonight that's not my argument my argument tonight is can the Gospels be trusted are they trusted as ancient literature tonight is about investigating primary and secondary sources of the first century while I do have my own beliefs again I want to emphasize those are not what we're talking about tonight this is not a debate about God says so this is a debate about primary and secondary sources I want to do this tonight by defending the Gospels in three ways first that the Gospels are eyewitness testimony now by that I mean that they were taken by again first primary sources who were there at the time of Jesus's ministry who did walk with him who did talk with him who did learn from him and either directly passed it down or gave that information to the author of the gospel second point is that the Gospels were written early by early I'm gonna claim tonight that all four were written before 70 AD that they were not something that was done at the end of the first century or into the second century but they were very close within the lifetime of Jesus I'm also gonna argue that the Gospels were authoritative by that I mean that they were trusted they were circulated they were taught from and they were considered with apostolic authority meaning they came from those who learned directly from Jesus no one else has ever been giving credit for any of these four Gospels other than Matthew Mark Luke and John there's never been another person to stand up and take claim for those writings there's never been another tradition attributed any name to those writings other than Matthew Mark Luke and John david Fitzgerald I'd like to draw your attention to the screen for a moment you may recognize this graphic this is a graphic from David's book called nailed ten Christian myths that show Jesus never existed at all this is called his timeline of supposed i witness --is to Jesus now I want to focus on this tonight and what I want you to focus on and notice is that very large gap there between the lifetime of Jesus and the end of the first century this gap will lead people to believe that there are no eyewitness testimonies in the first century of Jesus Christ the interesting thing about this chart is that all the names listed on the right not one of them ever themselves claims to be an eyewitness not one of them is ever considered by any other author to be an eyewitness so I'm not sure why this is referred to as a timeline of suppose that eyewitnesses none of these people are what we're gonna do tonight is focused in on the first century this area in red and we're gonna look at who are the eyewitnesses and what information is missing from this chart now to do that I need to fill in a couple dates quickly I'm gonna first take the crucifixion scholars will argue about this some will say thirty thirty three others will say 36 ad I'm gonna settle in the mid-ground at 33 AD the next date that I want to bring up that's very important is the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem that occurred in 70 AD this is very significant we're gonna go ahead and fill in here the 40s 50s and 60s and now I'm gonna begin with my timeline now what I'm gonna present to you tonight is pretty much what has is becoming rapidly the consensus among modern biblical studies this is a timeline that more and more biblical scholars are revising and getting closer to and this is what I'm presenting to you I'm going to begin first outside of the Gospels briefly with the book of Acts Acts is a book written by Luke who was a companion to Paul and it is a two-part series it's actually part two of a two-part series the first being Luke acts being the second part now Acts ends rather abruptly Acts ends in chapter 28 with Paul in house arrest in Rome awaiting trial but it never mentions anything beyond that it says he stayed there for two years and he met with all that would speak with him now this is very interesting because what Acts does mention is the death of Stephen the first Christian martyr and the death of James the brother of John who both were disciples however we know that both Peter and Paul were executed under Nero and in that timeframe we put it roughly between 65 to 67 ad now with that in mind the book of Acts is 28 chapters every single chapter will either directly or indirectly mention allude to or tell a story about Peter and Paul yet he's completely silent on both of their deaths the two most significant characters in the book don't get eulogized it's a very odd thing unless the book was written before they were executed so this has caused many to believe that Acts can be placed roughly around 62 to 64 AD if ax is in that timeframe then Luke logically has to come before Acts we're gonna put Acts Luke probably about 60 now Luke says right away in the beginning of his gospel that he gathered all of his information from eyewitnesses people who were there and he decided to write an orderly account because others had already written something about this Jesus and so his information easily extends into the life of Jesus firsthand eyewitness testimony that he wrote down most scholars also agree that the book of Mark was the first gospel written Luke and Matthew both borrow from Mark so we're gonna put Luke I mean I'm sorry we're gonna put mark in the range between the 40s and sometime in the 50s ad now we know this also because there's topology that marked references of cities that were the names were changed after the destruction of Jerusalem yet he doesn't call them by the later names he calls them by the earlier names I can go into more detail about that but because of time I'm gonna move on Matthew we know borrowed from mark as well Matthew and Luke were if not written at the same time very close to each other they actually seemed to borrow from each other or at least similar sources as well and so Matthew falls in the same category the one thing to make mention of about Matthew is that he is fixated on Judaism he's his gospel is about the Jewish Messiah coming for the world he wants all Jews to understand this yet again he's silent about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem he doesn't consider it fulfilled prophecy he considers it future prophecy this information that Matthew gathers is a lot of teachings as well Matthew was a tax collector he had a ledger he sat at the feet of Jesus this is why in Matthew you find passages like the three chapter Sermon on the Mount in such detail Matthew's information can easily extend into that period of Jesus's ministry now we call these the synoptic Gospels because they're interrelated and all I'm doing here real briefly and I have to move on is showing you a slide that shows a comparison between mark and Matthew and how they match up identical in a story this is in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 when Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple and notice where Matthew differentiates from Mark he's not just telling something different but he's doing that Jewish flair where mark says when you see the abomination of desolation staring we're standing where it ought not to be Matthew fills it in and says spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place he's being very Jewish in his wording at the end there where he talks about that that you pray that it may not happen in winter matthew has to go one step further and say pray that it does not happen in winter or on a Sabbath because my audience is Jewish so where they're different there's no contradiction there's just simply more information what we know about these Gospels as well is that not only do they borrow from each other but they fill in for each other now this is not what people do when they copy when you copy something directly you copy what Luke does with mark is pretty interesting mark makes a claim at Jesus's trial that the soldiers began to spit on him and cover his face and to strike him saying to him prophesy but it doesn't tell us what the prophesy was was he looking for lottery numbers was he trying to tell them something of the future what was the prophecy well Luke fills us in for us borrowing the same passage Luke says now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him they also blindfolded him and kept asking him prophesy who is it that struck you now the prophecy makes sense he's blindfolded he's being slapped in the face tell me who hit you mark doesn't give us that level of information how did Luke know this it's very simply because he talked to people who were there and who saw this and who gave that level of information but let's move on I want to add in here the Gospel of John now I'm putting John before 70 AD as well I'm aware that many people like to place him at the end of this century the problem with that is that John makes this claim she says in chapter 5 after this there was a feast of the Jews notice the present tense and Jesus went to Jerusalem now there is he moves to the present tense I'm sorry that I say president he was in the past tense now he's in the present now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep gate a pool in aramaic called Bethesda which has five roof colonnades and then he goes on in these lay multitude of invalids and then he says one man was there the story is going from past to present to past again the only reason he's mentioning that there is in Jerusalem a sheep gate which has a pool that has five colonnades is because at the time of this writing in the assumed time that his readers would be reading this there would be a Jerusalem with a sheep gate in a pool near it that had five colonnades the problem is that was all destroyed in 70 AD it no longer existed it was a pile of rubble in fact for many years people claimed that John had made this up until over the last archaeological discoveries found this pool and it was by the Sheep gate and it had five colonnades and John is all of a sudden credible you only talk that way if you're referencing something current John as monk from many other reasons as well was definitely written before 70 AD but let's move on to another source something outside of the Gospels let's look at the Apostle Paul in his ministry now Paul excuse me was converted roughly between 33 and 36 ad to Christianity depending on the date of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection Paul spent many years under his revelation that he received from Christ teaching and preaching this to Gentiles he goes back to Jerusalem to times once approximately in 36 to 39 a second time in 52 53 to line up his message with the message that the brothers have in the church in Jerusalem and when he does he comes to the agreement that they're all preaching the same thing how is it that they're all preaching the same thing well he tells us in first Corinthians pride delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures now that passage Christ died for our sins you can gather that from the Old Testament however they didn't see it that way at the time but in hindsight being 20/20 after Christ's resurrection they did see the Messiah would die for their sins so I'll give you that however the next statement he makes that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures now Paul's using very technical language wrote first Corinthians 15 which we know is an early letter of Paul's and he's claiming that scripture teaches these things the only place you're gonna find any reference to the Messiah third day raised on the third day is in Matthew Mark Luke and John you don't find that in the Old Testament Paul is recording this as Scripture if they did not exist at the time Paul wrote this or at least one of them not just an oral story in Scripture why is he making this reference now Paul also quotes the Gospel of Luke in his letter to Timothy he says for scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain that's a passage from Deuteronomy he also says in the laborer deserves his wages you cannot find that anywhere throughout the entire Bible except luke 10:7 where it's an exact verbatim quote and remain in the same house eating and drinking what they provide for the laborer deserves his wages at the end of Paul's life Luke had been written Luke was a companion Paul knew Luke Scripture it's very likely that the same passage in 1st Corinthians was referring to the Gospel of Luke all of this leads us to believe that Matthew Mark Luke and John were written before the destruction of the temple and were very early eyewitness testimony now outside of local evidence it's nice that we have some other people like Clement of Rome who David has on this slide at 95 I'm assuming he's claiming that's when clement wrote his epistle to the corinthians first of all that's not the only year that clement lived so by the fact that we don't see his lifetime it leads that there's a gap so clement was born in 30 and he lived to 180 so first of all his lifetime he was a contemporary of peter and paul and he refers to their death he talks about those beloved disciples and in his letter in first corinthians that some will attribute to the end of the first century he does the same exact thing that John did he says not in every place brethren are the daily sacrifices offered as if it's happening now or the peace offering sent offerings of trespass offerings in Jerusalem only and even there they are not offered in any place but only at the offer before the temple he's speaking as if these things are there and you can see them it wouldn't make much sense for me to draw any parallel to this using the world trade centers twin towers today speaking as if they existed when we all know that they're not there anymore I would talk about them in the past Clement is letting his readers know they can go to the temple to des and CD sacrifices and he goes on it's clear that Clement was written before 70 AD when there was no more temple furthermore Clement quotes the Gospels he quotes the words of the Lord Jesus and says that he spake be merciful that you may obtain mercy forgive that you could be forgiven as you can see where this goes if you know your Bible you know this is clearly teaching of Jesus almost verbatim this is from Matthew and Luke in addition to that Clement says remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and then he goes on to quote how he said woe to the man by whom offenses come it were better for him that he had never been born that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect yea it were better for him that a millstone should be hung around his neck and he should be sunk into the depth of the sea then he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones you'll find this passage in Matthew Mark and Luke now he's giving credit to Jesus speaking these words in the same letter that he's giving credit that the Temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem exists these Gospels were used authoritative ly as the words of Christ before the destruction of the temple so we have the Gospels we have Paul and we have Clement we also have on this chart two other names Ignatius and Polycarp again Ignatius is listed as 110 well that's the year he died Polycarp is listed as 155 that's not when they were born Ignatius was born in 30 he lived at the same time as the disciples in fact he was a disciple of John and he goes on to quote Matthew he goes on to quote Luke and he goes on to quote John I don't have time to give those I can do it later in the Q&A if you'd like in addition Polycarp he was born in 69 and he died in roughly the 5565 period he also was a disciple of John this is what you call a secondary source and he quotes the Gospels as well between the two of them they quote all four of the Gospels now the question is not whether they were quoting them before the destruction of the at this point that's become irrelevant I think I've established enough for that what that shows is they carried it on that these Gospels from the time of their inception until well until the 2nd and 3rd centuries before we had a Canon of Scripture were quoted from taught from they were considered authoritative and they were changing people's lives now we can add to this list a pious mathetes and the Epistle of Barnabas all quoting from Scripture all of these early early writings but they're not on this chart at least until now what we need to do when we look at these is understand that through the first three centuries before Constantine legalized Christianity where people like to believe the Scriptures were compiled which is not true at all but I won't go into that if we extend this to the 2nd and 3rd century between the 1st 2nd and 3rd century with all the Church Fathers we have over 19,000 quotes of the Gospels again let me reiterate 19,000 these are done in letters and lectionaries and different teachings they're authoritative they're not quoting from the Gospel of Thomas they're not quoting from anyone else's writings other than Matthew Mark Luke and John if we extend that to the entirety of the New Testament we have over 36,000 over 36,000 quotes we can almost put together all of Jesus's teachings at least the nuts and bolts of what Christianity is just from these alone if we had no Bible of our own I want to close with a quote from Agustin of Hippo around 400 he wrote an apology against this exact argument it was pretty much the first time that anyone had come and said I doubt that Matthew Mark Luke and John wrote those Gospels and in his letter or his apology he says in comparison how do we know the authorship of the works of Plato Aristotle Cicero and Varro and other similar writers but by the unbroken chain of evidence why do we trust these writings as being legitimately by the people they claim because over the years they were quoted from taught from and respected this is the same exact chain of evidence I'm trying to show you tonight that from their initial writing to us today the Gospels are intact we have an extremely high rate I'll wager up into the 90 percentile of factual theological points that are accurate today as they are in the earliest manuscripts we have we don't find differences what we find is an extra n at the end of a word an extra space a missing word but nothing that makes of any concern whatsoever when we step back and examine the evidence closely and we see that there is no gap there is no time that the Gospels of Christ were not being taught in reference during the first century there is no timeline of suppose that eyewitnesses but there is a timeline of valid eyewitness testimony thank you alright now for the counter presentation to what you just heard ladies and gentlemen David Fitzgerald so before we talk about what we're talking about tonight I just want to reiterate what uh what John says and just bring up some things about what this talk is not about and first of all it's not a gladiatorial fight and I think that's pretty obvious usually in in debates like these we go into it and the audience is already prepared to kill one or the other of the opponents and I think it's pretty abundantly clear that we have great affection for each other and we're not that now that said this is probably wrong time to say this but I hate debates I hate them and the reason I hate them is this is because for two nights before the debate I don't sleep no my brain at 2:00 in the morning is going well okay if he says this I'll say this if he is this I'll say this and this is I'll say this and when it comes time to debate you put together your slideshow you pull graphics on the thing and you never get the right thing even though we've been calling each other text each other so we're gonna talk about let's not talk about this let's talk about this let's talk about the reliability of the Gospels just great let's do it right so here we go right what we're not gonna be talking about is what I'm most well known for is saying that Jesus didn't exist this is not about whether Jesus did or didn't really exist that's not even about whether Christianity is true or not but what I am gonna argue is that regardless if whether Christianity is true or false regardless of whether Jesus was a real figure or not the evidence we have for him is not a reliable source for him and it's not a reliable source for early Christianity this is where it gets a little what do you wanna say when it comes to biblical history New Testament history and above all Jesus stories there are so many rabbit holes we can fall down to these are things I would like to be talking about and I hope we talk about in the discussion but I'm not going to jump on first is the fact forgery in the New Testament he was mentioning what Paul said in first Timothy I was very surprised to hear him say that because it's well known that Paul did not write first Timothy it's well known in secular biblical circles that Paul didn't write half the letters attributed to him and that's I shouldn't say secular biblical circles because that's true in evangelical circles as well look up pseudo-polynomial Pauline's and you'll see that what's more we can go further because it's not just forgery in the New Testament it's also forgery of letters like Polycarp letters like Ignatius letters like these that we just mentioned there are also mistakes in the New Testament there are miss quotes of Scripture Jesus misquote scripture in mark there's errors in geography and Judean life and basics how do we know that over one thing because Matthew goes and corrects Mark's mistakes there's also historical impossibilities there's obvious fictions and there's anachronism we haven't even gotten to the date yet but there are already things that just don't make up no matter when these were written they don't hold up for instance the portrayal of Pontius Pilate in all four Gospels they're all slightly different but they all show him as this dithering hand reading overly concerned dishrag who gets stucked over by the Jewish leaders and they force him to to crucify Jesus basically ridiculous ridiculously crazy what everything we know from every ancient source about Pilate says he was exactly the opposite they complained that he did whatever the Jews begged him not to do and would refuse to do whatever they begged him to do when he did finally get recalled from Rome it wasn't from any reluctance to kill Jews it was because he had one too many massacre of Jews of Samaritans there's also theological allegories who can recognize that guy in the picture there anybody somebody said Barabbas and you're exactly right here's the funny thing about the whole story of Barabbas it's given details in Mark's Gospel you've got Barabbas a rebel and sedition who is guilty as sin of all the sins and yet for some reason he is released unharmed into the wilderness whereas Jesus the perfect Jesus who was not guilty of anything is crucified when Jewish scholars looked at this and realized oh wait Barabbas that's Airmech for son of the Father we have two sons the father one takes the sins of Israel sedition and murder on his head is released into the wilderness and the other one is perfect and is sacrificed to death and we can repeat that cycle throughout all four Gospels but especially in Marx the first gospel lack of corroboration from the rest of the New Testament Paul and the other New Testament writers John mentioned that Paul likes to say things about Jesus was crucified on the third day how does he know this according to Scripture cotta grapha not just in accordance with the scripture that doesn't capture the real meaning of that he says according to Scripture how do we know this is it from what the Apostles told him no he repeatedly tells us he didn't get his gospel from any man whatsoever he got it from revelation from God himself and from Scripture constantly that's how we know he died that's how we know we rose on the third day and yes that is attributed in the Old Testament look up Richard carriers book on the histories of Jesus and he talks about the motive of the Messiah not just suffering not just dying but rising on the third day also the Lord's Supper I bring up the crucifixion and the Lord's Supper because scholars for generations have talked about the strange silence of Paul and it's not just Paul because it's all the writers of that first generation of Christianity they seem to have no interest in Jesus whatsoever except for the fact that he died on the cross according to Scripture and that he had a Lord's Supper he doesn't say he has a Last Supper and the interesting thing about that is Christianity is not the only religion and it's not the first risen to have a Last Supper sorry at Lord's Supper in fact even in the New Testament Paul complains about all the other Lord's suppers being done by the pagans those are the cup of demons but this is our Lord's Supper for us there's only one Lord and one God and we have to take this one don't take those ones there's also the lack of cooperation outside the New Testament all right here's a chart that should be familiar to you why is this say eyewitness timeline well in the book itself it talks about these are the ones that are commonly trotted out as eyewitnesses they are not eyewitnesses he rightly points out they don't even claim to be eyewitnesses and yet you go into it like a typical Josh McDowell book other apologetic books and these are the guys these are the names you'll get and even some other names that have that are ridiculously unnecessary to be in there from the 5th century 6th century here's the thing history in the gospel there are so many things in any of the Gospels that should have been noticed outside Christianity for instance the main one just the main one right there in the center all the dead Saints in Jerusalem came out of their graves in Jerusalem walked into Jerusalem and appeared to many and yet for some reason even though we have many accounts of what was going on Jerusalem at that time we have many accounts of much less interesting messiahs and would be saviors not only does Jesus never make the cut in that report any of those he never leaves a footprint at all outside the gospel outside of Christianity but neither do accounts like this that would have been noticed by everybody but aren't even noticed by the other Gospel writers and we can we can expand that examples that ad out for everything that happens in Jesus's life not to say they should have noticed that huge gap that was in the chart one thing it should be filled up with is that there were plenty of contemporary notices who did notice things going on in Jerusalem in in Judea in Jewish life not anything about Jesus even though some of these people like Gallo actually appear in the Gospels and the Gospels themselves yeah we have four Gospels but it should be pointed out there are a few discrepancies behind them in fact there's so many discrepancies that when you take the three synoptic Gospels the first one and you take John's Gospel it's like they're not even talking about the same person in fact John's Gospel has Jesus all the synoptic Gospels have him as a secret Messiah some have said John's gospel has hymns declaring that he's God openly right out of the gate so there had to have been a rock shortage in Jerusalem to keep him being from stoned to death five minutes in the gate it makes no sense historically at all and then there is the blackout period of early Christianity and I want to talk about his I want to push back on that quote he has about the quotations from from second century Church Fathers first of all they are a second century Church Fathers why don't we have any quotes from first century church fathers why don't we have any fragments of anything from the first century why don't we why don't people aren't people talking about the Gospels in the first century he mentioned clement of rome quoting from the gospels except his quotes don't match exactly what we have in our gospels to any of our gospels so how can that be that the leader a major church leader room can't even quote a gospel he seems to be paraphrasing from something that's not ours what's worse than that is he says that clement of rome talks about the death of paul he sure does he doesn't say paul was killed in rome he says that paul was died in spain that that is our earliest christian witness or rather of the death of paul not that he was martyred in rome but that he died in spain this is the size of fragments we have of the New Testament well into the second century that first one there at the lower left hand corner is P 52 it's the oldest fragment of the gospel we have it is always dated between 125 to 175 we don't have any way of fine tuning that range anymore and every Christian I know always says oh it comes from the Year 125 no that's the very lowest ebb of it these these scraps and p25 basic will fit on a credit card that's the size of this we don't get complete books of the New Testament until clear into the second century we don't get complete New Testaments until the fourth century and then we have two of them codex sinaiticus and codex Vaticanus now here's the thing about that those Bibles are not the same as each other they have books that the others don't have both of those books have books we don't have we have books both of them don't have so it's even pushed back further than that he gave a number was at 19,000 368 I said what that is like it's never you must have got that from Josh McDowell and I looked and sure enough yes josh mcdowell saying that will you look at somebody that has been shown false by bruce metzger who has also made similar inflated claims and yet shows that we look throughout the whole second century these exact quotes we have aren't exact quotes and these quotes from some things like be like Pappy as' whose quotes from a a gospel he calls Matthew and a gospel he's Paul's mark when he's telling us what these are they're clearly not our Gospel of Mark and our gospel Matthew meaning that are either our Gospels weren't around then or they were changed into something else completely different than what he was talking about in the middle of the second century and we can expand that example frequently as well let's keep moving ignoring spelling and grammar errors and there are thousands of they're there in fact no to New Testament texts are the same period that's not a problem that's not we're worried about what we are worried about are the many many passages in which scholars cannot agree is the original true reading and actually I always had another thought in there what is worrisome is not that there are changes and not that there are differences but when they are different there are deliberate changes and deliberate changes and we don't have any way of knowing who did the changing and who was the original in fact the problem is even worse than that because even if we did have a copy of the original text in our hands we have no way to tell if it was the original and again for the first hundred years of Christianity we had nothing nothing no scriptural evidence no textual evidence we don't have any people talking about the stories of Matthew Mark Luke and John we don't have them quoting them we don't have this until the end of the first century for Matthew and Mark and not until the second century for all the rest it gets worse than that because that's a bad situation for any historical claim but for Christians it gets even worse because here's the catch-22 if the Holy Spirit inspired the originals as we're often assured and I'm sure John believes then why couldn't he also preserve the original because we do not have that apologist try to assure us that this doesn't matter this isn't a problem they say because it doesn't threatens anyone salvation well how do they know how could anybody know we don't have any way of knowing for the first hundred two hundred and fifty years possibly as least 250 years we have no idea what the Christians were writing in there their scripture because our oldest manuscripts don't match what we have in ours and if it doesn't matter then why do Christian biblical scholars spend their entire careers fighting over which is the original reading okay all these concerns and still are important issues for the reliability in New Testament and I want to talk about all those because those are what is firmer in my mind when we talk about these things but let's talk about a few core issues how much time do I have all right what biographical information reliable or not do we have for Jesus well ultimately everything we know about Jesus biography stems not from Paul not from the epistles not from anything outside the Gospels but from these four Gospels so who wrote them and when well john will tell you that it's exactly these four guys whose names are attributed to them not true not true at all and worthy eyewitnesses they are not eyewitnesses lets starters just read them they don't claim to be eyewitnesses they don't read like eyewitness accounts they don't say I knew Jesus when I first met him when in 1952 in a name we did this and we did that they don't read anything like that in the first person they're all in the third person they all are titled and these titles came originally these were all anonymous but these titles that were assigned to them were called the Gospel according to not the Gospel according by or the gospel of the Gospel according to which is already a sign that this is of a tradition not of a specific author and those names to that tradition were fought over as we always said there were already other Matthews other marks other Peters other John's all these other Gospels they're mean how many one did take a guess how many Gospels we know of from the second century he said about fifty and that's not a bad answered at least between 35 and 50 that we know of or that we have fragments of in fact our second oldest papyrus fragment is from a gospel we don't know what it is it's totally unknown gospel all of them were originally anonymous all of them have been edited and - and sometimes accidentally interpolation sometimes deliberately and all were Litton long after the facts they described now how do I know that well here's another timeline we like timelines alright mark is doesn't just allude to the destruction of the temple but the whole gospel appears to be written in response to it and mark 13 S little apocalypse is nothing the short of a Survival Guide for the survivors of the war with Rome which is why the majority of scholars evangelical well except except I should say for the hardline evangelical but the majority of biblical scholars are very comfortable saying this was written sometime in the 70s mark and math Matthew and Luke as John says they borrowed from Mark they borrowed from him so they have to come later still well Luke also borrowed some historical details from Flavius Josephus a Jewish historian from a book that was written in the year 93 or 94 we know that for a fact and we know that it was doing the stealing from Flavius not the other way around because in all the cases where we have these parallels Luke has got this information not quite right Felipe's does it happen in the right context he gives more information it gives it in the proper order it's part of the story it doesn't just throw it out as window dressing and every single point curiously that Flavius brings up Luke happens to bring up to just those exact same ones just happen to pull those three at random you know so it's very odd obvious that the Gospel of Luke and the acts were based on a book that was written in 93 94 which is why secular scholars will say that this is probably written in the second century around 116 or so the synoptic problem when we say mark Matthew and Luke borrowed from Mark that's a very euphemistically way to put it what they did was Matthew supposedly an eyewitness took the story of Mark who's not an eyewitness he's supposedly the the secretary of Peter took this story cut and pasted it copied it corrected his mistakes added things he wanted to add and took it in completely new directions but he didn't write his own story an eyewitness did not write his own story he took somebody else's too a non eyewitness and beefed it up correcting his mistakes and and put it together and also doesn't write in the first person doesn't claim to be Matthew doesn't claim to be an apostle Luke does the same thing too in fact Luke steals from Matthew and from mark some scholars say that that is what Q is it's it's materially share in common though we've never found Q and there's a growing number of scholars you think Q never existed along with M or L or all these other hypothetical oral traditions or pre literary sources for the Gospels Luke take the material we call Q is where Luke is taken from Matthew as well as mark so we call it the synoptic problem really it should be called just the synoptic isn't that an interesting situation that all these Gospels are pulled from each other it's really not a problem unless you want the gospel to be something they aren't independent eyewitnesses accounts Luke contains 55% of mark still word for word Matthew contains 90% of mark so the ramifications are this is we don't have four independent sources for Jesus we only have one that the others have been built on the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke felt free to our altar add two and remove parts of stories they didn't like that is not what historians do that's what theologians do John came later still and though he's still working off marks big story and reworking it to make things shake up in fact if you take the synoptic Gospels and take John they don't match up almost in any sense of the word at all not even on basic timeline stuff I saw on that discrepancy none of them agree on like who John the Baptist was what his relationship was with Jesus no them agree when Jesus died when Jesus was born we have no dates for anything that happened from Jesus's birth to Jesus's death they are all those years that were spewed out were guesses work the 30 we say 31 30 will it had to be a year that Passover was on a Friday during Pontius Pilate reign unless John was right because he says it didn't happen on Passover that David after Passover who would have to have to make it a different dear year altogether they can't even get the same day / year right for these things are happening and when you read just the last two weeks of the Jesus's life just read the last two weeks of what was happening they're doing completely different things in different different ways for completely different reasons John's Jesus gets in trouble for raising Lazarus from the dead that's what gets him in trouble with the Jews Lazarus doesn't even show up any other Gospels except as a fictional character and one of Luke's parables the construction of the Gospels the differences are not the result of eyewitness testimony or differing oral tradition no why do we know that because when they match they don't match just a little bit they match lockstep except when they're making deliberate changes or when they contradict the others irreparably the differences that they make are deliberate literary choices and they're made by each new author and even led your editors because as I said all of them have been added to for theological reasons and again that's just do we have the original not anything to the point of yeah this is the original this is what the original wrote was it true was it true or were they just making it up and was Mark's Gospel even meant to be taken as history in the first place well there are many many signs that that's not the case whoever wrote mark was not an Aramaic speaking apostle howling around with Jesus in the first century he was a highly educated person well-versed in Greek classical forms and theology he spoke Greek not Aramaic he employs mini-story elements that make no sense at all historically like jesus' trial like Pontius Pilate like the Sea of Galilee having storms on it but all these things that make no sense at all historically and minute there's many many more of those they all have theological and symbolic meanings Jesus's travels when you read Mark's Gospel they make no sense geographically and church fathers like Origen complained about this thing that if you try to put this on a literal interpretation it makes no sense that's almost a word-for-word quote of him he seems to pop here and there at random he said Origen said you have to interpret these things mystically and spiritually mark has created a care and place names that are conveniently apt and this tradition continues with the other Gospels as they add in more characters or give names to characters who weren't named and those character names are suspiciously apt I won't give you an example joseph of arimathea it's not a coincidence that joseph is also the name of Jesus's father but Arimathea is a town that never seemed to existed before the Gospels were written what's Arimathea mean will era nithya means best disciple ville basically in aramaic it's completely extremely coincidental and is very apt and you see that with characters and place names throughout the Gospels he does other things are very sophisticated he uses literary tropes and methods like reversing expectations like the reason that no one's heard this story before is because the women ran from the tomb and didn't tell anybody that's how Mark's Gospel originally ends he does a thing called intercalation there's nothing wrong about it or strange about it it's just breaking up a scene and slipping in sandwiching another scene in it for emphasis of dramatic effect but one thing it does tell us is that when when the other Gospels make their breaks at these seemingly arbitrary points the that is a sign one of the signs one of the many signs that they're copying from mark not making up their own story there's a classic structure that emulates Old Testament passage in fact the entire structure of his unfinished sentence here to be pinned of his gospel emulates Old Testament figures like Elijah like Jonah like a Cariah and he does a deliberate use of vernacular he speaks his Greek is a folksy rustic grammatically loose form of coiny Greek he's a very smart guy pretending to be a very down-home just played jokes kind of guy Matlock style and there are more and more and more so our original biography of Jesus doesn't appear to be a biography at all it's an allegory and every single gospel we have after that every single commentary we have from seconds the since secondary sources is based on that so that said let the discussion begin anybody changed their minds yet you guys you guys have some work to do you guys still have some so I think what we're gonna do now is have this open discussion but during the presentations both folks who are taking a lot of notes and so John actually wanted to go back to a slide which has got to be a little frustrating for our radio listeners so we'll put on the website on Dogma debate calm as well as our Facebook page a link to where you can actually watch this online once it's all ready so John I know you're you're actually talking about the slide you have up here so you can actually start off the discussion and tell us why you wanted to address this slide I'd like to try to focus on in this because there's a lot thrown out there by both David and I is try to narrow it down to who wrote the Gospels in what time frame and in doing that we end up with this borrowing that we both have talked about which some will say is it called the synoptic problem and so it's hard sometimes for people to visualize and David had thrown out a number that Luke comprises 90% of mark and that Matthew was I think the number was 50% or vice-versa okay 50 and 90 okay so Matthew uses 50 90% of Mark and Luke uses 50% of mark what we have here before you is the four Gospels Luke being the largest it comes in in about eleven hundred plus verses Matthew being the second largest at about 10 68 69 John is in the 800 range and Mark is down by himself in the six hundreds clearly the smallest gospel mark is a very concise and quick gospel when you say numbers like Matthew contains 90% of mark that sounds like a lot until you compare their sizes and what you see is that Matthew while he does contain 90% of mark is almost twice the size so he has plenty of information on his own similarly with Luke so this becomes important in the copying category to try to figure out well they're not even saying anything differently well clearly they and even within the things that they copy as I've already previously shown you Matthew puts his own flair to things for a Jewish audience so that was the first thing I wanted to address and I guess I should bring it into a question sure yeah David a question about okay so I would say this let's start with the authorship given that we have these names Matthew Mark Luke and John Matthew and John being disciples Mark and Luke clearly not disciples mark in fact very obscure Luke if it wasn't for the gospel by his name we wouldn't even know who he is that's not true he's mentioned in Paul's Laird's where they got the name in the first place wait but what I'm saying is we wouldn't know it okay we wouldn't know anything about Luke we wouldn't know who he is is what I mean by we wouldn't know anything about Luke not that he wasn't ever mentioned my point is this if you were going to put out a document and claim it was the authority the as mark begins the gospel of the Son of God Jesus Christ why would you attribute it to mark if it's Peters story why wouldn't you attribute it to Peter why mark why would my significant name there's a great question there's a great answer for that all those names as I mentioned were added in the second century those were not the only names floating around these were not the only Gospels that had those names floating around we actually did have a gospel of Peter and gospel Peter during the time of the 2nd century was far more popular for instance than the Gospel of Mark we have three times as many texts surviving texts of the gospel of Peter as we did of the Gospel of Mark in that same time unfortunately the gospel of Peter is not in our Bibles anymore why is that well probably one of the reasons is is that by that time the story has continued to grow if you look at Mark's Gospel it's the most no-frills human fallible Jesus we have he doesn't always get his miracles right he makes mistakes he loses his temper he can be to people sometimes and yet he dies in total agony on the cross saying my God why have you forsaken me Matthew doesn't like that so much it's not just that Matthew is a bigger gospel absolutely it's a bigger gospel but it is built on that first gospel and he takes it and carefully changes thing uh expands on it adds things like a nativity that wasn't okay but hold on hold on one second what I'm asking is why would you choose an obscure name like mark who for example let's know who mark is just so you know he's mentioned in acts mark is a traveling companion of the Apostles Paul and Barnabas he turns into basically a coward and wants to flee and so Barnabas and Paul have a disagreement they fight over him and they basically split now this is the man you're gonna choose as an authority someone who ended up as a coward and left the ministry to write Peter's gospel and put the name to it why not Peter that's what I want to know why would you cheat your little market coalesce it really nice three times before the crowed but here's the real answer okay so your ability to power the answer is that some other gospel beat them to it and that gospel is what we call the gospel of Peter we don't have it anymore it didn't survive the games they got attributed to in the second that was a coal arms race that was going on and some people said oh we've got the gospel of Mary we got the Gospel of Judas we've got the gospel you've got the ghazal Thomas well we've got the Gospel of John they there were all these jockeying for bright okay for all these different ones and these aren't again these are not the only Gospels of Mark the only Gospels of Matthew the this is what we have out of all these are the ones that considered authoritative who know this is one that some people considered authoritative John for instance was not considered okay give me a hold on one second one second give me a give me a can and list that had in it the gospel of Peter and not the Gospel of Mark you can start with the moratorium which is the early I was gonna start with a moratorium okay but you know what wait wait sorry attic is in Vaticanus they also have books that aren't the same enough and that's not asking I would have to go is mark incent senator senator kiss yes right but here's is he in the moratorium Canon well do you talking about third and fourth century documents now no moratorium came in second century you the end of very into the second century but here's the thing I'm trying to say is I'm saying this is another question all these names were attributed to why okay okay that's that's not the time we know pay pious around 115 115 middle a second century 115 is not the more this is the year 2050 115 he gives a credit to mark having become the interpreter of Peter wrote down accurately accurately whatsoever he remembered it was not however an exact order he goes on to say Peter accommodated his instructions to the necessity of his hearers now that's a key point too because that shows you that mark wrote who I think is your intellect one second that's the one John I think one thing that you threw out there was that mark has this kind of duo schizophrenic you know one hand Stephen Hawking the other hand Matlock my point is pay pious attests to right here that Mark wrote down Peters recollections and peter accommodated his instruction to the necessity of his hearers so that's where you could definitely have the sense of two different people talking no that's not the truth because the pappy the the Matthew and Mark I mentioned we have Gospels that Pappy has mentioned we have Gospels that Pappas images those are not our Gospels he says those were written in Aramaic he says these were written he's giving the official Church law here I can read you I can go on but with no intention of giving regular narratives of the Lord sayings mark made no mistake writing as he remembered them he took a special care not to admit anything he heard not to put anything fictitious into statements he's claiming that mark is making a diligently all the other Gospels have more information about Peter than that gospel not not in comparison to the size of them no that is not true at all I can show you another chart right now every other gospel has Jesus saying to Peter you were going to be the rock in whom I build my you do mark doesn't if you do a search that's that's day one stuff I will turn this car around David hold on hold on these points number one if you do a search I use a program called logo software it's incredible Bible Software and not just that but every electronic document I could get my hands on I've done the search in that if you do the search for the name Peter and Simon you end up with the two largest by far our John and Mark that deal with Peter not to mention mark every scenario almost is littered with Peters side of the story be there in Peters house the first thing Jesus does when he declares to be the Son of God and heals them are and forgives a man of sins it's all about Peters side of the story secondly the point to that is I forgot can you can you tell me some real quick John John clarify for the audience why this this is so important to proving your point well okay going back to my first my first point which is really still has not been answered in fairness my point is this if you're going to give an authoritative Scripture if I am going to write the official biography of President Obama and I credit it as written by Larry no one has any idea who Larry is worse yet if it happens to be Larry who was the guy who snuck in and poisoned the dog well now you have really bad reason to know to believe anything Larry has to say mark had a tainted character it's not to the end of Paul's letters that he finally says mark turned his life around but at this point there is no reason you want to give credit to mark why not give credit to Mathias why not give credit to the other Judas the zealot why not give credit to anyone else but not mark he abandoned Peter and Barnabas okay so so okay so so your point is that my point is is that that shows authenticity the reason why they attribute it to mark is because mark is the one who wrote down Peters words okay now give him let's give David a solid three four minutes to respond even early Christian Church Fathers like Eusebius said happiest was an idiot and didn't know what he's talking about but when Pappy's is talking about his Matthew and his mark he's not talking about our Matthew in our mark for starters I just want to say that and that's not something a theist made up that's something biblical scholars say but here's the thing why did they attach the name mark because they made mark quickly Oh why mark who's never heard all right well he was Peters secretary that's why that's the only reason okay so first thing that's where they're complete you're conflating a few things pay pious in his writings is discredit I mean I'm sorry Eusebius in his writings is discrediting fabious for his theology no is intelligence he's got they're not true but then he quotes him as giving credit to the writing of mark so it goes against what you're saying he didn't discredit him and say and therefore it's not mark who wrote it he said well this guy might be a bozo he's right about this I've had plenty of atheists say that to me I know what that's like and that's a good credit state learn when your enemy or your antagonist gives you credit for being right in something it holds a lot more weight secondly what are you talking about not on mark and Matthew what mark and Matthew you said he's not referring to the low-key Dominica these were right sayings of Lord in his language in Aramaic and I'm not what Matthew was that is not what Matthew was he hid the Matthew he's talking about that is what not art says yeah no he's talking about a different gospel all together cuz if our Matthew is not a collection of the Lord's sayings in Aramaic the Sermon on the Mount I gave you if you come that came from Mark's Gospel you can't have it both ways you can't say oh oh it is a collection of the world saying Airmech no it's not it's a take it's okay I know what you're saying oh oh he has more notes why I brought quotes because one thing that happens in these are you quoting 2nd century Church Fathers as if they're an impeachable source these are the guys who put this together these are these are our sources David and you either have to show that they were wrong friends you haven't okay mark couldn't have been written before the world were thrown you seem to just blindly go by that it's like oh there's no destiny it's not even an issue for you because somebody in the second century said that somebody who works for Jesus somebody is part of Jesus Coe said oh yeah the official party line is the is Kirk totally correct no does I'll say that no of course they'd say did you just say Jesus co-write right now look let me let me let me know what I'm talking about let me back up to your uh let me back up to your statement about pay pious what pay pious tells us is that Matthew and I I'll just put it this way you can look into I snuck up give rants about what PPA says because I think I know about PBS even other Christians said all right gullible and he repeats stuff that's not true okay what hold on hold on hold on let me answer you what what paper says and I'm gonna and I'm gonna do some what goes against my better nature is just paraphrasing people and just cuz you run the risk of being wrong or just getting it wrong so without trying to fumble through and find papers um not as good as that is I wish I was what I'm just gonna do is paraphrase what he says the way I see that he says it you can go read these things for yourself pay pious says that Matthew wrote for his Jewish hearers according to his Jewish hearers that's what David's talking about not saying that he didn't write in Greek he wrote in Aramaic what he did was form the story so that the Jews would understand it better this is exactly the same point I was making he adds things like pray that it doesn't come in the winter or the Sabbath Jesus can't trip over a rock without Matthew mentioning that this was done to fulfill prophecy and not just prophecy he'll tell you this was from Daniel this was from Zachariah this was from Isaiah he's littered with Jewish symbolism Jewish analogy Jewish history he wants his Jewish audience to hear it mark was written for a Gentile audience and it was a quick quick brief synopsis so this thing of saying it's it's difference between Greek and Aramaic he's reaching Jewish people so he has a Jewish flair to it we don't disagree on that but that is the matthew that pay pious is referring to there is no other and if you think there is presented to me because I've given you first century evidence from Clement Ignatius and many others that those were quoted okay when you talk about cleanness Ignatius Polycarp when you're talking about figures like Ignatius and Polycarp we don't agree that those are even authentic writings we think those stories came to us from people like that's not true at all we have Dan's letters we have seven authentic letters of Ignatius we have letters that were written in the name of Ignatius to the churches in there saying obey your bishop obey your bishop do everything and leave it here the bishops my god you can even go to Wikipedia and they're gonna agree with me on this well don't go you can use that as your source and you're gonna find a actually I don't find it Wikipedia agrees with me that often so that's big deal wait wait I want to get one thing straight I want this on the record so you're saying that the seven letters attributed to Ignatius are not I'm saying that they are disputed and everything well right and there's this pitted mean that there's some guy in Minnesota that writes a blog that said I don't think so or that scholars have disputed this because the overwhelming consensus on Ignatius is these seven are authentic though the overwhelming consensus for anything in biblical studies is predominantly by Christians for starters so please don't beat me over the head with e their overwhelming consensus so if I turn that on its head and say the overwhelming consensus of evolutionary biologists is done by evolutionary biologists do you think there's exactly the point right the point I will send something painted the point is is your argument fails because you can't say because a field of biblical studies is predominantly made of Christians therefore they have a bias that can say that there is there is concern that those letters from Ignatius were not written by Ignatius anyway let's go back because what I really want to talk about is mark and Matthew and how can mark be written before the war Drome how can Luke be written before Josephus wrote his book all those things you say oh they wouldn't have said it this way sure they would have said it they're writing historical novels if they were writing a they wanted to portray something that was happening decades before and if they didn't why don't we have these stories before then why don't we have if there's an oral tradition if there's a literary sources for them why don't we have any trace of that of anything from the first century I've already shown you that I've shown you Clement I can show you Ignatius embolic oh no no he's not reading at the very end again and and what you show me is a guy who says things that aren't in Luke he says that plant died in Rome he says Paul died in Spain he says this is a quote from our Lord and then can't I never made the claim Paul died in Rome I made the claim that Paul was executed under Nero that's exactly that's okay he does not say Paul was executed under Nero he says Paul I'm a beast each may call Nero piece but he says that Paul died in Spain under so you guys watch the UFC you have to go you have to go you'll have to go read first the First Epistle of Clement to the come hold on hold on here sometimes the referee stops the fight like wait right before you want them to stop it I don't want to be that guy but also don't want to let it go on too long so I want you both to get your points across and I want to go a little bit long on this segment because I know that you were taking a lot of notes during his opening and I wanted you to have an opportunity to address some of the things he said in his opening and ask him some questions but I also wanted to know David whenever you whenever I first read your book and I saw that timeline it was very convincing going in in you of course say they're not I witness accounts they don't claim to be eyewitness accounts this is something that comes up a lot in debates people will say none of the like Matthew Mark Luke and John most Christians maybe not people in this room I don't know but a lot of Christians will honestly think that Matthew Mark Luke and John are people that follow Jesus around and wrote down things that he said and so they're like well jesus said this jesus said that something I got out of your book is that you don't believe that that's the case and not only that but John even just confirmed that he says by eyewitness accounts and John this may be for you too by eyewitness accounts you save iowans accounts I mean people talk to people who were there well that wouldn't be eyewitness accounts so I wanted to ask both of you about how closely like he I guess John puts it about at what 40 John 40 years after Jesus died the first person wrote about Jesus no I I would say within the lifetime of Jesus he's a while Jesus okay so and I can explain that Matthew Mark Luke and John then all of them were no question about that if that was true then why why did the Gospels say things like and this is believed even down to our day why does Luke start his gospel by saying I needed to so many people are running Gospels that I needed to go down see the traditions that were handed down you guys thrown a lot of things at me so let me go back to your question to start and I can work up to this cure um let's let's be straight Matthew is the Gospel according to Matthew in fact the earliest description we have attributing it to Matthew says exactly that it's according to Matthew most scholars do not believe Matthew was written in one sitting most scholars believe that Matthew was a compilation in other words it could happen just like I had said Matthew was a tax collector he has a ledger he's sitting there with his book and he's taking taxes at the gate and he's writing things down and Jesus says come follow me and he says yep I'm going with that guy and then he's sitting there on the Sermon on the mountain he says oh he's making some really good points here I'm gonna write this down and he writes these sayings these teachings down which we hear all about from first and second century authors and then what he does is after mark has put together his brief synopsis of the Gospel he says that's pretty good but I got more to add to this there's a lot more to add to this and he goes back and he back fills what Matt what Mark said and then creates his own gospel using his teachings Luke says I got this from eyewitnesses it's not people who heard people who heard people it's this is what eyewitnesses tell he says this was handed down to our generation no that's not what was right at the gate he says this was handed down to us neither one of you have a Bible on you anybody yes I do but I also have them one the Atheist has the Bible up front let me just read it because this is one I actually Luke says in as much as many have under touches one or two but many many we don't know what many could be that could it's more than two but anyway the point being and in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us yes those from those who delivered this to us okay which is a lie because he's taking his information from Matthew it seemed good to me also having followed all things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught keeping up reading reading I want to bring up that's really put the absolute well the most like let me finish what I'm saying with this if that doesn't sound like someone who sat down and wanted to collect eyewitness accounts to assure Theophilus who is writing this to that what you have been taught meaning what you've already been learning what's already been passed to you authoritative Lee is correct Luke is basing his life on the fact that what I'm telling you is the truth Matthew Matthew Mark oh yeah you can trust what they're saying Theophilus no he's what mark he says many are doing this I'm sure there ain't many he says there are many are doing this so he wants to give the truth he's not saying Matthew smart know what he's saying just stealing from Matthew and Mark he doesn't mention well John different I witness not because he disagreed then why doesn't me ever say that well I just played why he ever state that why does he from Matthew Mark why doesn't he ever say okay I may not be the smartest one up here but I have the buttons I wanted to ask you Dave why no why why why why do you think why do you think that none of these Gospels were written in the lifetime of Jesus hold on talking to the blanket they all have giveaways like that these are written long after the fact like the fact that mark seems to be written in response to the end of Jerusalem to the destruction of Jerusalem it's all taking place before that they're all taking place in the first part of the first century but they're all from the perspective of somebody who has survived that actually I shouldn't say mark has survived that because he's clearly not even in the same country because he makes basic mistakes about geography so Judy in life that Matthew ate more a more Jewish community corrects in his gospel so so you don't think mark a person named mark actually wrote mark you think that that there were stories that were passed down when I think the guy screwed up mark didn't pass down anything oral tradition yet other sources he created it as an allegory and every single thing every structure in that gospel that we read everything that happens and the way it happens in the order in which it happens there is a structure to it a chiasmus structure that that emulates things that we see in the Old Testament and puts it together okay Allegretto parable okay so then you don't think any of the things that were written in the Bible were written by people who actually walked with Jesus yeah I can't emphasize that enough nothing in the New Testament could been written by anybody who actually could claim okay to be okay so you don't think those names were attached to them because they would ok so John why do you think then that they were actually written by people who walked with Jesus okay so first point let me deal with John because John 19 specific explicitly states that this is John's Gospel the beloved who had his head on this on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper this is his testimony and we know it is true this is how John ends his gospel it doesn't say John wrote the words it says this is his testimony John may have been dictating it to ascribe this is very common obviously John is loaded with commentary of everything throughout his gospel that lends towards I was there this is the way it was he tells the event and then he gives a commentary on it let me adjust one thing about 70 AD in the destruction of the temple one of the main reasons and this is a significant point first of all it doesn't necessarily matter as great as we're making a big deal of it as to who the actual people were that write it as long as we're claiming it was or I'm right and claiming it was eyewitness testimony if we find out that Matthew was actually written by Philip nothing's lost another disciple if we find out that mark was written by Barnabas nothing lost what would he me nothing's lost well it it that's not that critical the names of who the actual people are the fact that they were there they were eyewitnesses is what's critical okay if we find out a different disciple wrote it it's it's not that big of a deal in other words that doesn't invalidate it that's just but my point with that and we can have that argument I do believe it is those four but my point with that is this one of the main reasons you'll find in biblical studies that those skeptics that want to place these after 70 AD do it based on one of the most common arguments is it has to be after 70 AD because Jesus talks about the destruction of the temple and if you're a naturalist which you already saw was one of his points miracles don't happen prophecy do not exist therefore this has to be late well if you're a Christian and if you look at the internal evidence and you see that everything adds up to pre 70 AD you say Jesus predicted the future and it happened and here's a key point why didn't none of them talk about the destruction of the temple as something that happened it's one of the it is the greatest prophecy that was fulfilled of Jesus's okay even Matthew doesn't make reference to the fact that it was completed but yet he'll find some obscure saying of some reason why Joseph had to leave Bethlehem so that Isaiah could be fulfilled Jesus just predicted that the entire temple would be destroyed into rubble and within 40 years of that prediction it occurred and Matthew was silent about it because well you'll figure it out for yourself and put it together I don't think so okay Matthew wants to make sure you don't worry about it being the base okay so just just respond to you a couple of points then we're gonna go to break in the Q&A all right just a few things before I lose it all right you say John ends his gospel John does not end his gospel that John's Gospel ends and then other later editors add to it you have proof for Johnny first the book ends and another thing on and I consider McLean's all bad John that's not atheist making this stuff up that is biblical scholars recognizing that and anyway so just ridiculous something to show that here's the thing if he was in fact the Beloved Disciple and again he doesn't claim to be in the gospel itself in fact that beloved because disciple doesn't even show up and the other Gospels at all the only reason we call him John is because again that's guesswork they said well it couldn't be Matthew it couldn't be this guy it had to be somebody who was closing let's say it's John okay it's John it is pure guesswork but you say he's his everything about that gospel shows I was there there well no it's written in third person from the this from ignition narrator just like all the other Gospels that's how they know what was in Joseph's dreams that's how they know what Mary was thinking that's how I know what happened in secret meetings with us not because they that because they were making it up so in some secret meeting they said we need to mention about that pool by the sheep gate with the five colonnade you know because because we had anyone go try to look this up and see the bubble but there's a great book called gone with a win they get every single detail write about priests antebellum South and yet the whole thing is made up it's incredible you know then so you'll get credit so you're you're good time for me why didn't Matthew not mention the destruction simple because the story didn't take place then the story because what I did what I feel like I keep doing is giving you some hard evidence of what you keep doing is speculating on it line up for your question I gave you we're taking a break go look up Matt Matthew Mark Luke who the disciple was that laid his head on Jesus chest at the Last Supper it was John and John claims to be that one that's a fact now tell me why you throw it in we're gonna take a break come back with your questions line up what if your question is for either David or John please specify here are questions for or whether it's for both of them thank you thank you my name is Yan and my David my question is for David fidgel you made a lot of claims based on the assumptions yes there's a lot of sumption switch are not proven in fact based on what you're saying if we apply to you and to your claims the same the same you know how do you know anything is true at the end your claims and how do you so you said and particularly you know one example you mentioned about Luke stealing from Josephus Flavius which is might be true might be not be true but why should we believe Josephus in that Luke and not vice versa why in that particular why should we trust that it's Josephus who's being stolen from and not juicy for stealing from Luke in every instant there's a parallel some sort between those two first of all Josephus has it in the proper context it's part of the story it's not something pulled out and slapped in as window dressing I heard that but how do you know how do you know that the rest of the source is us right that their lineup with the Josephus they're not getting that wrong wrong because you relying on some and some resources and some sources that you claim to be worth closer to the truth sherry I understand your question you said how do we know that easy stole from yeah how do I know that all those traditions were right and those who are claimed that those traditions were right or those was history that steals from Josephus are not like major portion they're little niggly details that he gets wrong he says he has gamma while saying things about a revolution under Festus that didn't happen during his life that happened about 20 years later that kind of thing he makes mistakes in his use of the information he steals from Josephus and my question is how do you know that that is true well let me back up a little bit because your first question was most apt it was how do we know any of this is true every single historically he had said well what's evolution but they know based on you know crazy guesses by scientists no there is a lines of evidence by that support any claim in anything and in Biblical has not just difficult history but any kind of history every single claim we make is provisional based on how many lines of evidence supported and how plausible it is not out possible but how plausible it's a given the context giving what we know of it giving other things so David to clarify John didn't say that science was made up by crazy claims by scientists no no let me let me clarify what he was saying is when you challenged him let's not let's not talk about that Bible is true because yeah biblical scholars are mostly Christian he says then why would you trust evolution because it's all evolutionary biologists so I think I think your point is I think it's the evidence right that's what I was trying to get to you is that that's that's his point it's not is on the same evidentially level is anything in the physical sciences at all whether Christian is true or not whether Jesus was real or not it's still not the same thank you for your question resolution affair that's true of history you're comparing apples to bananas at this point you can't claim that a better physical science and going back into history reading people's writings and trying to piece together whether or not they're right or wrong is if let me make one quick point about Josephus with that because there always seems to be a lot of stock put into Josephus when he seems to disagree with Luke but that is an excellent question how do you know he's right and Luke's wrong let me give you another example with Josephus in his in his the Wars of the Jews he makes a reference to our class who was Herod's son having a dream and in the dream he sees nine years of corn and there he in by an ox and it bothers him and he finds out that each year represents or each ear of corn represents a year and he tells a story about it that that would be how long his his reign would be well the problem is that was written around 75 ad when Josephus revises that story in about 94 ad in his antiquities he matches how long our class was a reign which was which was ten years and he says no it wasn't nine years of corn it was ten years actually doesn't correct it he just states it was ten years of corn because he wants like matter of fact so the point that's right about that is first of all we see Josephus can be wrong about something and secondly he goes back and corrects himself on it because and he doesn't do it in an honorable way he does it in a sneaky under-the-table type of way Josephus is not the most credible source you would want to look at for holding up the truth of history go read the aberrations that he talks about at the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem we gotta get back to work with the cow giving birth to a land you can state your first name if you want to and then hi my name is Andrew and this question is for John okay yes why do you follow worship and study the New Testament as opposed to other works that maintain more reliability such as the Quran or older works such as the Hindu Vedas I think I've shown you a timeline that puts these testimonies fairly close the Quran was developed by dictation to the to the Prophet Muhammad who was in a cave and according to it though it says it's the Word of God absolutely so let's hear how it was put together because that's how we need to judge it it was oral tradition that was dictated to him for over 200 years where then it was finally put into writing so that line that I had talked about of evidence doesn't exist in that okay God but my question in it though is it is the Word of God so why is that not a part of your particular scripture I guess well anything because it does say it's the Word of God that's that's your point because it says it's the Word of God then you should believe it's the Word of God I don't well I don't so Jon wait a minute wait a minute cuz now hold on what does that have to do with peppiest I set it out from the beginning I'm not claiming this is the Word of God while I may believe it happiest is making a statement that no one refuted no one argued against no david Fitzgerald hundreds of years later at the time of his let me clarify I think what he's getting at is when her you were talking earlier you mentioned that that their stories were based on on scriptures their stories were based on witness testimony the Quran was not the Quran is based on oral traditions over 200 years that were supposedly dictated to Muhammad in a cave no one else no one else has any information so what you're saying then is that just because a book says it's the Word of God doesn't necessarily mean that it is absolutely exactly I haven't even made that statement at once tonight okay I'm not a question I do believe it's the Word of God and we can talk about that if they would give me the next that's not the argument were having tonight well then all of your arguments kind of fall apart if it's not the Word of God because why would they what what why why would they fall apart because Jesus was the son of God and if he was in the Son of God then your entire basis of Christianity becomes untrue because he's the center of Christianity but we're not arguing whether the Bible is the Word of God that's a separate argument I'll have that argument but that's not what we're arguing we're arguing can't you trust these writings to be the testimony of Jesus meaning the eyewitness story of Jesus that's what we're arguing okay thank you thank you good question your name my name is David well we're if you are gathered I don't know that could be argued you say yourself that mark is Peter secretary would you agree with that statement no that's what he was attributed to be that's the official story okay would you for argument's sake say that that could be true no whoever wrote it and was not an Aramaic speaker he was a Greek speaker he was an educated theologian he was not that brings up a point - so I'll get there so I was just saying you said yourself in the statement and then makes all these mistakes that somebody who lived in Judea around the time that Jesus wouldn't have made many many many mistakes which some of which Luke copies unbeknownst to himself some of which many of which Matthew corrects so some where I put you say yourself David mark is Peter secretary so that do you have a secretary sorry do you have the secretary what is that I was just saying it now G land but he wasn't the secretary asking me yeah because I had it in my notes that you said it yourself I was just asking that he made the point that he is attributed to being Peter secretary it's because yeah why mark yeah we shouldn't listen to him oh no no he was Peters secretary that's why mark okay that whole attribution was to give him the authority that otherwise he would not have it all okay so then I just was asking if you had a secretary if she ever wrote down anything for you so with that point could that might prove why mark wrote down things instead of Peter himself writing down the things so I was asking if you had a secretary who might take notes for you and then you said yourself that quote-unquote mark was Peter secretary how would I know if if I had a secretary or if Peter had a secretary what would be some things that would tell you that that was true I was just asking if you had one because she might write down things here here's my question you're saying is it possible that some guy who was a secretary Peter wrote these things and I'm telling you no because he traveled with Peter you said but that's not how I'm Barnabas first wouldn't you say that right out of the gate hi I'm Peter I'm Paul I was I this is Peter talking through his secretary mark I'm the story Adam David secretary your phone David what I'm saying why would whoever wrote that gospel not say if this is coming from Peter why would they not say that this is from the apostle they note they say nothing like that whatsoever in fact they say that this book is called the gospel of Jesus the Son of God according to Mark no no they don't say that that happens in the second century over a hundred years later that's where those names get attributed we don't have anything like that originally all of them were anonymous when you read them they read anonymous John do you accept that that they were all anonymous originally and then the names were attributed later and it's not a theater saying that it's biblical don't know the thing about that the reason why that's a difficult thing to answer is they were written okay if you know anything about Christian I just want to know if you accept well no because that's it's not I have to say it this way if you know anything about Christianity you know the purpose is not my will be done but thy will be done the glory is not for me the glory is for my Savior Jesus Christ so I am writing to you the gospel of Jesus Christ removing myself from the picture that's the intent that they all had so they intended to step into the shadows and not be known that's why John to su atención his name so it doesn't bother you that they were anonymous in the beginning well by anonymous it doesn't mean that they they weren't within the writings ever attributed to them but that doesn't mean people didn't know who wrote them there's a difference there John takes his name out of it John doesn't just take his name out he takes out the fact that the Beloved Disciple is the guy writing this at all and it really well what they're says this was written by the disciple that you're gonna have to show proof of that because I can start making claims of any of you maybe your Christian encyclopedia look up Johan een appendix and see what it says so David almost no scholars who agree with you that those are original to John and the reason is because you read the book it stops I can give you a laundry list of scholars that will agree with me on this I are you saying are you saying that that wasn't part of the original writing that that was added no I'm saying it's not even a part of the writing that we have now you you read it the original part of it and there's nothing about saying that this guy is John there's nothing about saying this was written by this guy the Beloved Disciple and what more to the point is in all the other Gospels the Beloved Disciple no googling during a debate no googling hey that's David's laptop what are you doing used your Bible here's the thing though here's the thing I'm gonna make this very very clear you've never seen a debate like this before I promise you it's probably good thing but yeah disciple doesn't even appear in the other Gospels when you see the stories Paul Peter runs to the tomb well in the John's Gospel Peter and the Beloved Disciple run to the tomb when Peter is at the trial of Jesus outside and the okay we have a lot of people when he asked questions yep I guess my question another question was do you agree with his timeline of 7080 salutely not okay I thought I made it abundantly clear that those couldn't have been written before the yourself and then in your lecture you don't give any examples so you stay too late Oh baby girl do you know how much they match up so you didn't show how they didn't match up you just stated facts that the Gospels didn't match up but you don't show I'm sorry you're saying I didn't show the Gauss's master so you know like okay everyone says well he took everything from the Bible I'll give him that so it's from biblical but at least he was saying here it is a mark and here it was in Luke etc suit you just stated I have another book in the wings that it's coming to even talk more than that okay I'm sorry look if you want a debate David you can email the secretary thank you very much for the question thank you hi what's your name Ryan hi Ryan I do in question for mr. Fitzgerald mr. Christie earlier quoted from first Corinthians 15 where Paul says if Christ isn't raised our faith is in vain yes so for the Christian that's the consequence sorry I'm not are you fighting the microphone okay average bear the consequence is at least as we understand it our faith is in vain or you might I regard it you might regard it like it's all I'm saying is that Christianity lion your life is wasted that's okay no no that saves me he's joking I really know that's totally fine or you could say it's it's delusion or life spent in fear etc my question is though because you self-identify as an atheist so from your perspective there's no god there's no transcendent lawgiver well no anyway handle it finish Dave what a I don't want to I don't wanna interrupt you there's no transcendent lawgiver that imputed a moral obligation on any of us so so how odd we live in other words how do you deal with the is aunt gap say somebody wants to leave here and run over pedestrian was in punitive or maybe join Isis or a situation like that I mean you know there's no there's a there's no moral issue with that right within atheism how do you how do you deal with that it's all on equal ground okay no thank you is the question over yes the other questions over he's fine go ahead you must think my neighborhood runs red with blood and raping saying you're inconsistent a saner inconsistent inconsistent oh you're here actually this whole other debate all together I know I think it's generous of Christians to let atheists inside the Christian worldview to debate I don't think that's necessary you know you know what you guys step into our world view all the damn time well hold on don't do us any favors seriously that's that is well hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on I'm just saying that I understand a lot of it this is all been an internal debate but there's also an external side I'm just wondering how you answer that question I'm not in so so so what you're asking so your question is if there's no moral lawgiver where do you get your yeah where do you get your morals from David how much time you got how much time you got well you know it boils down to really two things it's like do I want to live in a world where people do these things not really no it's compassion and reason is is this compassionate to other people and is it true that boils down to that there's a lot more I could say about that but and I know it's not my debate but if I could just say that that's not binding on me or anyone else but that is your opinion right of course yeah okay of course yeah that's just I'm not its tell you guys not to be Christians that that's inconsistency that I'm talking about not be Christians I'm saying there is no good reason to be a Christian and the evidence says there it Christianity is not true that is what I'm saying okay I've got a life full of good reasons to be a Christian thank you John I love this man I do not hate this man I think he's wrong just as he thinks I'm wrong about a lot of things but I love this man and if every Christian was like John Christie I would have a lot less problems looks nice she does not do that well look I think I think it's really hard for me to not get involved and try to answer your question because I'm a moderator but on this show document abate we deal with that a lot we talk about compassion I've heard your show oh thank you so so I spend now I think since you've said this it's probably time to revamp that so I think I'll have a segment on an upcoming episode about that yeah because I do want to address that we've addressed it from an evolutionary biological perspective from a scientific perspective as well as from we've had two atheist on that disagreed about where morality comes from and so we like to have the moral discussion Allah so I would just encourage you to continue listen yeah I meant no I meant no offense by the way to anybody here when I said generous I didn't mean like we shouldn't have these kind of debates I'm just saying there's two angles to all right thank you for your question question there was some focus on the writing style of the gospel yes my question would just be just because it wasn't written in first person does that mean that's not okay but I'm just I guess like the question is like the writing style at that period did it not contain them was most first-person historical accounts in first-person is this a question for me or for John let me address this that's an excellent question because in a time when less than 1% of the population was literate who really cares about any writings oral stories oral tradition is where it's at that's exactly why it has chiastic symbolism and things like that set up so that people can remember them yeah there's no mistake that mark has things that David calls allegorical no they're not allegorical you'll find this throughout Genesis which he'll probably think is allegorical you'll find this throughout all types of teaching repetition man that's where it's at we got to get this into people's brains in a memorable fashion that they can remember it recite it and do it again and again so in a time an oral tradition you're talking about people who memorized Homer's Iliad I mean this is serious we don't know what oral tradition is nowadays we have no clue the closest we can come is remembering song lyrics our memories have gotten so lazy they didn't read and write as often as we do so this is a big part of the reason why for many years sayings teachings were what was most important and they would get it right if clever Clement differentiates by a word or two from the Gospel of Matthew who cares they're talking about the parable of the sower it's the same parable you will find to the T there's no difference in all right let's let David respond and then we'll take another question well first of all I want to jump back to that and say do you really think Genesis is not allegory do you really think do you really think a talking snake in a magic garden with fruit is not an allegory do I think Genesis is allegorical or do I think that that story is by the definition of allegorical no I don't think allegorical aghori I don't think it was allegorical I think there is figurative language as a big difference there I must confess I am baffled by that statement and makes no sense to me whatsoever thank you for your question thank you the one Christian if that's your real name the one question I didn't say is it's not just a stylistic difference and also what you said wasn't that how all histories were written at the time no they weren't they and we have lots of different scale of good historians written from ancient times too bad historians and Luke is not on the good historian side and there's many many reasons for that okay step I have a list of 84 facts confirmed by archaeology and evidence of Luke's last 16 chapters of the book of Acts he stole from mark and Matthew no they don't go it they don't talk anything about the book of Acts this is wonderful later sixteenth chapter on his Luke's first-hand account I am highly highly entertained would you like me to dance hello Olivia so my question is I'm not a biblical scholar but I was under the impression that there are periods of time of the life of Jesus Christ that are relatively unaccounted for in the Bible and when the Bible was prepared for for printing when the first belt was printed there is several Gospels that were written that were sort of arbitrarily removed from the Bible because they didn't portray the character of Jesus and the light that you know the so you're talking about this whole canonization process which books were alive in which we're not allowed right and how does that how does that affect how reliable we should see the the what the Gospels that were included okay let's start with John oh okay there's a couple misinformation point you made there first of all just with printed the printing press didn't come in till 1450 so this we have the New Testament we had the Bible long before that the first certain people certainly the first everybody well let me let me back up the first canon of scripture that we have the authoritative finalized these are the 27 books of the New Testament that we're including with the Old Testament was in 383 8 0 at the council of Hippo before that we have starting in the 2nd century in in 170 the moratorium Canon which lists I think it's 22 of the 27 basically what I'm telling you is that as soon as people started writing other false Gospels as soon as people started challenging these Gospels these writings as soon as things started growing into debates like this they started saying we need to codify which ones are official and we can go all the way back into the 2nd century and see that that was already developed so by the time 380 came around and Christianity is now legal and they say this is the Canon of Scripture all they were doing was confirming what people are no that's why it's so important that I said 36,000 Plus quotes from these books not from the gospel of Peter the Gospel of Thomas in fact some of them argue against those Gospels these teachings the 27 books of New Testament were cited from taught from read on Sunday mornings and use for 300 years before they were made into the Bible okay I think the primary question is how much do you know about the Kennedy the canonization process and to her question specifically there were were they're not Gospels that were written but that we're not allowed in yeah okay there was plenty of them that were written and not allowed but it wasn't that they made a decision in saying these are the ones that we're gonna keep these are the ones that were gonna throw out what they did is they is they went with the common consensus because let me give you evidence can I give evidence gonna well I wildly make these columns I think that's what I wanted you to do with your time is to talk about what the evidence was that's what I'm telling you from the mid-second century we have canons lists of what is scripture popping up all the way even into a Vinicius is which is at the Council of Nicaea in 325 which is the same 27 that in 380 becomes the official Canon it goes back for 300 years where you have plenty of if you just look up the Canon of Scripture and look up the canons of the New Testament you'll see these lists they start around the mid second century and they go all the way up to 380 of different lists of what is official what is the gospel and what is not okay thank you now I wanna let David respond agree with like three quarters at that I just want to say really it was just a much messier process and that took longer than that was never finally canonized at any one council and as late as the 4th century our earliest Bibles our earliest complete New Testaments actually still disagree with each other and with our modern New Testament well give me an example of just one of these statements you just made you're telling me we don't have documents of the 380 council of Hippo that says these are the 27 thority and all these things is like no there was never any one time where they Aaron did you could say it's never been canonized as an atheist is theirs and I'm telling you at the 4th century we've got a new test week you just said it's never been canonized I don't know what you mean by backing okay you're saying Oh for 300 years we had the whole Bible is already at one big happy family and it's just like ours that's not true that's not true the Bible's amount wash out of the fourth century Sani Atticus I just got word that we have I just got word that we have ten minutes we have to stop all of this so thank you for your question awesome question let's go ahead and move on to the next question I I think the point is and I'm not trying to pick sides here I think the point is that there are multiple different versions of Bibles that are missing certain books and books are added the Apocrypha the Catholic Bible has from if you're if you're gonna go extended through the years into that what I'm telling you is the earliest lists okay earliest list I'm trying to deal with early stuff I'm not dealing with the Book of Mormon I don't care about no that's not true okay so all right the next question go ahead let's go we've got ten minutes my name is Taylor I just want to know this list that you're talking about John why do you think it matters like why do you think this list matter it's like these are the yeah because what happens is when something so life-altering like the Son of God becomes human flesh and at least claims to be able to save everyone's Souls from or into eternity so that they can live in paradise that tends to change people's lives and when that chance to change people's lives slaves tend to change how they live and how they see life's owners of slaves tend to change basically what I'm telling you is the Empire changed that's why Christianity became legal if something's getting that popular we want to get on board so bandwagon fans jumped on board started writing fake Gospels in saying we can tell you something about Jesus guys published books like nailed saying I can tell you something about Jesus and the early church said hold on a second we're not taking this one we're not taking that one because no one's known these they haven't been circulated that have been trusted they have no authority we need to come up with a list that says to Christians these are the Gospels that for the last 300 years since Christ roamed the earth have been treated have been respected have been authoritative not this other stuff because that's crap that's crap now prove it to me show me evidence don't make it knowing what prompted the founding of the New Testament Canon it was a heretic named Marcion who put out his book when was that in the second century early second room probably around 2/3 so that is the impetuous that theological Sputnik that went up is what caused the Orthodox Church say ooh you know what we should do that too and so your claim is oh we've had this for 300 years no okay and so your claim is it then took them 100 150 so what you're saying is because of marcia on around 140 ad it took them another 140 years to finally respond to that and say this is really shil book the reason why they didn't do it to 380 is it wasn't necessary they knew what was needed I'm gonna give you 60 seconds each what you want people to leave here thinking about John go ahead and go first 60 okay so so we've had this debate about ancient literature and we've talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and as much as I can sit here and make these arguments intellectually I would be so wrong if I left here tonight and didn't say something from my heart and that's this this gospel that I'm talking about is not about ancient literature it's not about historical facts it's about a life-changing intervention where God of the universe condescended to become a human being he humbled himself allowed himself to be suffered to be crucified by those who he could at any moment control and decimate but he did it for us and he did it so he could recognize with us in his sufferings so that we could recognize with him in his sufferings and be raised with him in his glory and that's what it's about when I took my baptism I died to myself I figuratively died to myself I gave up my will and I took on the will of my Heavenly Father as an example through Jesus Christ and I'm assured that because I was raised from the water sorry I get emotional about this but raised two resurrected life and that's not something that happens when I die that's something I am living today I am an eternity today because of my Savior so this nice guy David talks about praise God thank you okay David what would you like people to leave here thinking about you know like I said before snarkily all I'm saying is that Christian is law in your life is wasted by following it when there are other things you could be doing with your life but here's the point there's a point that's not who I want you to take away with that's that's not simple I love this man I don't like this man I love this man I disagree with almost everything he said probably three-quarters to 80% of what he said tonight as he disagree with mine and as we both have sources that we can argue about but the point is this whatever life is in the universe is it doesn't care about us what we said tonight life is what it has been for millions and millions of years and from the beginning of time to the end of time and if there's a afterlife or not an afterlife what we said here tonight isn't going to change any of that so let's be humble before fall and I know I have not been the most gracious example of humility or or go quiet contemplation but what I am saying is that I don't want to believe something that's not true and if I'm wrong about everything I said tonight I want to know so tell me tell you why I think you're wrong thank you so much to all the groups give these guys a round of applause did a great job thanks so much all the groups to help this happen conversation continues so so Johnny it's got to be difficult for you before for non-believers the conversation if time for people to change their minds one way or the other which whoever wrote that was making an allegory a fable

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Views: 91,538

Rating: 4.3628807 out of 5

Keywords: Dogma Debate, David Smalley, David Fitzgerald, John Christy, SCC, Sacramento City College, SECC, SECCTV, Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium

Id: 57MRCF-Yah8

Length: 118min 4sec (7084 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2015