WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Veritas Forum, engaging
university students and faculty in

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discussions about life's hardest questions
and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all

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of life.

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I'm trying to figure out why everybody
came here this evening.

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I'm sure it was for the iPad.

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Or your professors made it a matter of
faith and morals and passing the course to

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be here.

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I'm sure that's it.

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In any case, Jesus will bring out anybody,
I suppose, and everybody, and that's the

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one, I guess, we should attribute this
splendiferous attendance to, believe me.

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It's a fun topic because Jesus,
the character of Jesus, has been

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manipulated, changed, caricatured,
denied more than that of any other figure

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in history.

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You love him or you hate him, evidently.

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And so there are so many caricatures out
there that I'd like to begin by the unreal

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Jesus, people playing what I like to call
the Jesus game.

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Here's how you play it.

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You read the New Testament quickly,
and not very carefully.

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Then you put it away for a year or two,
and then you let the facts mellow in your

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brain, and then you be very creative about
it, and you draw another picture of Jesus,

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mostly not drawn from the Bible.

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And if the resulting image of Jesus is
anything like you see in the New

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Testament, you lose the Jesus game.

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But if you get something really off the
wall, something over the top, something

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that could not possibly have been Jesus,
then you win.

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It's sensational, everybody will talk
about it, they'll be the path to the

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bookstore and get your latest put down on
Jesus.

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And really it's kind of unfair the way
this historical figure has been treated

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most recently in the last century and a
half, I guess.

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There's been most of the critical attacks
on Jesus.

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The debate, by the way, is changing.

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The debate used to be between those who
thought Jesus was indeed what he claimed

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to be the Son of God, and those who
thought he was only a man.

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Now the debate has shifted to,
well, we know he couldn't be Son of God,

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but was he even a man?

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And you get the other school coming along
and says, no, he wasn't even a historical

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figure.

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So it kind of shows the directions in
which this thing is lurching in terms of

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the historical Jesus.

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And so I think it's high time that maybe
we ought to step back a little bit from

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the battle over the figure of Jesus,
and check out and see what some of these

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other caricatures may be.

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Now it was really, the first part of the
20th century, too much serious stuff was

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going along.

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World War I, the Great Depression,
dust storm, World War II, pretty serious

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stuff.

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And so they weren't engaging in the luxury
of putting down the figure of Jesus.

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But after World War II, when things
settled down, then we find one book after

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another coming out with another portrait
of Jesus.

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First of all, we have Jesus, the Passover
plotter.

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Now you guys, the younger people,
won't remember that, but your parents will

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tell you about it.

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Hugh Schoenfeld, a British author,
came across with this book, The Passover

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Plot, in which he has Jesus now plotting
to finish off all the prophecies that

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Matthew and the other Gospels made about
him.

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And then he then designed his own
fulfillment of those passages,

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and he was supposed to evidently be given
some kind of a narcotic on the cross,

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and it didn't do the job, and so he
survived.

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That's how the resurrection happened.

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Okay, that's one view, and the guy had the
audacity to publish this as fact and not

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fiction.

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But anyway, we go on to Jesus,
the radical revolutionary.

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Now you recall the Vietnam era,
you older people, and you recall how

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everybody was getting the campus rioting,
except at Iowa State of course,

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but then you think of Berkeley,
California, and so forth, you know,

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and the students getting together,
deciding, shall we burn down the dean's

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house tonight or tomorrow night,
and so forth.

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Very radicalized era.

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Well, we have then the new authors coming
along and drawing a caricature of Christ

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as the radical revolutionary.

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What do they base that on?

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By cutting little snips of Scripture
apart, and Jesus had 12 disciples,

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one of them was named Simon the Zealot.

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Okay, there you have it, the zealotry was
one of the radical political parties at

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the time, so Jesus was a radical
revolutionary from the start, and he

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therefore would approve of burning
American flags evidently, and so forth.

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That didn't work too well.

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S.G.F.

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Brandon was a British author who had that
idea, and before his death he said,

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I think maybe I overdid it.

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No kidding.

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No kidding.

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Then let's see, oh yeah, John Allegro
comes along, who's one of the dead sea

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scroll scholars, and a decent scholar
before he wandered into la-la land,

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wrote a book giving us the image of Jesus
the Mushroom Cultist.

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Yeah, hear me out, you won't believe this.

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He wrote a book called The Sacred Mushroom
and the Cross, and in this 700 page book

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published by Doubleday, a responsible and
otherwise responsible publisher,

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until it came to the Da Vinci Code of
course, we have him seriously arguing that

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the Gospels were written by a group of
mushroom-eating freaks who got high on the

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hallucinogenic properties of the
red-topped, white-stalked mushroom,

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the kind you see in fairy tale books.

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And then he wrote the Gospels as kind of a
code for their particular group.

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And they try to prove it by wonderful
methods.

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For example, the raising of Lazarus now
proves this image of Jesus.

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How is this possible?

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Well, raising of Lazarus, one of Jesus'
big miracles.

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Lazarus sounds like lapis lazuli.

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I don't think it does, but let's say it
does.

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That's the rich Mesopotamian blue,
but if you add red to blue, you get

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purple, royal purple.

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And that's the red top of the mushroom.

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I kid you not, this passes for reliable
pros.

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Unbelievable.

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And the mummy-like wrappings that Lazarus
had on, that's indicated by the white

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flecks on top of the red-topped mushroom.

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This is madness, of course.

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And yet, Doubleday published it because
half the book is scholarly notes in 20

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different languages.

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None of them mean anything.

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They're word salad, but did they ever
hoodwink the editors at Doubleday?

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And yet people were buying this book and
made it something of a bestseller at the

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time.

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And then there's Jesus, the master
magician.

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Oh, that's a popular one.

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Yeah, Jesus did miracles like David
Copperfield does miracles.

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And so again, the secret gospel written by
a professor of ancient history at City

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College of New York.

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And this, of course, Morton Smith his name
was.

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And this, of course, now has proven to be
the secret gospel of Mark.

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Some of you specialists will understand
what I'm talking about, has proven to be a

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forgery by Morton Smith himself.

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Unfortunately, then we have Jesus,
the senescent Savior.

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Jesus didn't die at age 33 or so.

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No, he lived on.

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Somebody took his place.

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This is, of course, what Muslims also
believe.

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He lived on, didn't die at Calvary,
and lived on to a jolly old age in a

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mansion overlooking the Dead Sea or
something like that.

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Sorry folks, no evidence for that either.

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Then there's Jesus, Jesus the happy
husband.

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Oh yeah, that one's, of course,
repopularized by Dan Brown.

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Jesus, of course, was a Jewish rabbi and
teacher.

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They had to get married in those days,
so Jesus also had to get married,

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even though his wife isn't named in the
Bible.

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Well, I'm sorry, didn't they have Jewish
bachelors in those days?

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Some guys probably too ugly to find a
wife.

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I'm sure they did, and yet there's no
evidence of that whatever, despite what

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Dan Brown and others may say.

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I don't know why it's Mary Magdalene all
the time.

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Why is she always Mrs. Jesus?

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You know, even in Jesus Christ Superstar.

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Well, I don't know.

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I love him.

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I don't know why I did that.

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That's the last solo you'll get this
evening, folks.

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That's the only one.

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But they have tried to get him married
off, and it doesn't work, simply because

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there is no evidence like whatever.

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And every tool that Dan Brown uses in the
Da Vinci Code to try to get Jesus married

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off, and there are many scholars like him,
they're all like a bunch of worried mamas

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with a 55-year-old son who hadn't found
his bride yet.

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Got to get him married off, you know?

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It doesn't work.

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And in this case, any argument that Dan
Brown uses in the Da Vinci Code,

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it's like trying to get a rusty nut off of
a bolt with a paper mache wrench.

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Use it the first time it falls apart.

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And numbers alone will do it.

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What is the Da Vinci Code name for
Leonardo's great portrait of Jesus and the

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12 disciples, right?

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How many heads should there be in the
painting?

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12 plus 1, otherwise known as 13.

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Okay, now Mary Magdalene comes along,
and Jesus wants to sit next to his wife,

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of course, so he tells John to go to the
end of the table, right?

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How many heads should there be in the
painting?

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14.

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Now, the next time you see Leonardo's
great painting, count the number of heads.

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13.

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Well, maybe John was drunk on the wine and
fell under the table.

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That's been suggested too.

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Well, sorry, Leonardo's tablecloth does
not go down to the floor.

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There are only 26 legs there, folks,
not gonna work.

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And so it goes one after another.

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The characters just show up.

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John Dominic Crossan, you've seen him
probably in a lot of TV shows in Jesus,

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the wonderful Irish states, the author who
has all of these put-downs on

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Christianity.

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For instance, he loves to rattle Christian
cages.

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Jesus' body wasn't buried in Joseph's
tomb, dogs ate his bones, you know,

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this kind of thing, always his little
bombshell.

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Well, he wrote Jesus, the life of a
Mediterranean peasant.

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And he has pictured Jesus as a wandering
sage, telling jokes against the

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government, kind of a corrosive character
with a good sense of humor.

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I don't know what image we can give Jesus
on that one.

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Seinfeld the Savior, maybe?

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I don't know what it would be.

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But you have these again and again and
again, and the latest is the Gnostic

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Gospels.

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Oh, I tell you now, we have all kinds of
portraits of Jesus showing up from this

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apocryphal literature that shows up from
the 2nd century on, 3rd and 4th century,

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everybody making a big fuss about the
Gnostic Gospels.

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Never mind that nearly all of them are a
word salad, and where they do have serious

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content, you have nothing there which is
anything but derivative material from the

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four Gospels that we're familiar with.

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Little gildings of the lily, little
additions to the Bible.

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We had biblical novelists 2,000 years ago,
or at least 1,900 years ago.

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And so again they're giving us different
images which are supposed to be

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sensational, and indeed the public very
often runs with them.

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Let me tell you, the selection of the
canonical Gospels were not some kind of a

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March Madness situation, where you came
down to the Sweet Sixteen, and then the

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Elite Eight, and the Big Four finally made
it.

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Not the way it happened.

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And so all these other views you get of
the portraits of Jesus, they're really all

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caricatures.

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And well let's take one of them,
the Gospel of Philip.

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Now Dan Brown uses that to prove that
Jesus got married.

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Now let me show you the paper mache wrench
that he uses.

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Gospel of Philip claims that Jesus was
married.

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No it doesn't, it doesn't.

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Gospel of Philip doesn't even say that,
but I don't care if it did say that.

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I don't care if the Gospel of Philip said
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene,

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and John was his best man.

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I don't care who's a ring bearer or
whatever else.

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But it's a late third century derivative
Gospel.

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Nobody would give it the time of day,
but again those who want to see Jesus get

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married off, go with Dan Brown's argument.

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Okay here's the argument.

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The disciples come to Jesus and they say,
Lord why do you prefer Mary Magdalene over

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us?

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Think of it folks.

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If Jesus were married to the woman,
would that question make any sense

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whatever?

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Jesus would have answered, because she's
my wife you dunderheads.

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If I didn't prefer her I'd never hear the
end of it.

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They just don't work, they just don't
work.

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So enough of that, enough of that jazz.

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You didn't come for that this evening.

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What do we know about the portrait of
Jesus which is more accurate?

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Now naturally you heard from the
introduction that I'm going to be kind of

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in favor of the Gospel views, but not just
on that basis, not just because it's in

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the Bible or anything else, but I liked it
as an ancient historian.

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As a matter of fact I was for 50 years a
professor of ancient history at Western

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Michigan University, and I finally hung it
up last year because the students were

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switching the adjective.

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No longer professor of ancient history,
but ancient professor of history.

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That was it, that was enough, that was
enough, that was enough.

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But no, what I like to do, and I think we
all of us should if you choose to react

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with the image of Jesus or so,
use your specialty, whether it's art or

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law or whatever else, use your specialty
and approach this time honored greatest

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story ever told.

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And in my case I'm a historian,
so I tried to use the tools of the

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historical discipline to pry apart all
these wild images of Jesus and try to go

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back to what he really was in terms of the
eyewitness testimony of contemporaries and

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in terms of the new evidence that we can
get if we use all of the material which

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has come down to us from that
all-important first century.

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Well don't we have it all?

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No!

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We're getting more every month,
every year there are more evidence coming,

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there's more evidence coming in from the
archaeological finds that are being made,

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there are more interesting research into
the documentation of the time,

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we have 2,000 years of good biblical
scholarship, most of it has been good.

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You don't hear about the good material,
you always hear about the sensationalist

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radical revisionist views.

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They're the ones that make all the press
and whatever else.

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But the solid scholarship which has been
devoted to this so-called greatest life

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ever lived is copious and is getting
better every year.

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You also have the new evidence of
archaeology coming along, making

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spectacular discoveries, most of which you
don't even hear about.

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I'm just amazed at that.

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And by the way, everybody thinks that
archaeology is an old discipline,

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we even have sympathy for the poor
archaeologist, his career is in ruins.

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Not too hot a joke, I realize.

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So if you ever try to dump on the audience
that way, do have a good chaser.

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Here's the chaser.

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Especially to our beautiful young co-eds
here at Iowa State.

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Ladies, try to marry an archaeologist,
because the older you get, the greater

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interest your husband will take in you.

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But it's a young discipline.

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It's only 125 years old.

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Scientific archaeology began in the 1870s.

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And look at the hundreds of thousands of
artifacts that have been discovered that

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beautifully, 90% of them rather
immediately confirm the biblical record.

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You can argue about the 10% if you want.

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You don't hear that.

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You always hear about the radical,
over-the-wall archaeologists who have a

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totally different time grid from anybody
else in the archaeological discipline,

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and therefore their evidence is going to
come up differently, right?

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Computer people have a word for it,
garbage in, garbage out.

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When you depart from the recognized
international standard for archaeology,

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and have your grid 150 years off like some
of them do, sure, you're going to get

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different results.

18:39.580 --> 18:47.880
But by and large, 85 to 90% of the
discoveries being made in any land of the

18:47.880 --> 18:53.040
biblical world today almost immediately
agrees with the biblical record.

18:53.320 --> 18:59.080
You can quarrel over the 10 or 15% if you
want, but most of the archaeological

18:59.080 --> 19:01.360
discoveries affirm the biblical record.

19:01.540 --> 19:07.460
And some of the finds taking place are
sensational in a good sense.

19:08.420 --> 19:12.800
For example, last century the German
critics were coming along.

19:13.280 --> 19:17.100
I can attack the German critics because I
have a German background myself,

19:17.260 --> 19:18.340
Maya, you can tell that.

19:18.560 --> 19:24.180
But anyway, they were saying, again,
like some of the people today are saying,

19:24.260 --> 19:26.800
there never was a Jesus, a historical
Jesus.

19:28.000 --> 19:31.900
You can see it in your computer blog
jesusneverexisted.com.

19:32.220 --> 19:36.540
Some claims are made that he never
existed, even as a historical personality.

19:36.940 --> 19:40.400
The man on whom we have more primary
evidence probably than anybody else in the

19:40.400 --> 19:40.880
ancient world.

19:41.120 --> 19:42.020
Yeah, he never existed.

19:42.420 --> 19:48.600
Well anyway, one of the critics was named
Bruno Bauer.

19:48.960 --> 19:51.980
Now he had originally been a good
Christian, but he made shipwreck of his

19:51.980 --> 19:57.860
faith, and then decided not only was Jesus
not son of God, he wasn't even a human

19:57.860 --> 19:58.320
being.

19:58.480 --> 19:59.360
He never lived.

19:59.940 --> 20:04.720
Well then even Bruno's colleagues in
Germany said, ja aber, they said,

20:04.840 --> 20:11.320
wait a minute, Jesus does interact with
historical characters, like Caiaphas,

20:11.500 --> 20:16.060
the high priest, or Pontius Pilate,
the governor who condemned him.

20:16.980 --> 20:20.400
Yeah, Bruno's answer was, those are
interpolations.

20:21.040 --> 20:25.760
Somebody wrote those into the manuscripts
to make the New Testament look good.

20:27.280 --> 20:36.220
Well now, too bad old Bruno wasn't around
in 1962, when an Italian archaeological

20:36.220 --> 20:40.280
expedition was digging away at the
waterfront theater at Caesarea,

20:40.780 --> 20:45.660
and they came across a strangely shaped
stone in a stair landing.

20:46.380 --> 20:51.620
They pried the stone out of the matrix,
and they found an inscription on the other

20:51.620 --> 20:52.040
side.

20:52.820 --> 20:58.780
The inscription was in two-inch Latin
lettering, and it reads as follows,

20:59.240 --> 21:06.020
to the people of Caesarea, Pontius Pilate,
the governor of Judea, has presented this

21:06.020 --> 21:07.980
building in honor of the Emperor Tiberius.

21:09.200 --> 21:15.440
You know, I just wish old Bruno had hung
around, and not gone on to his reward,

21:16.140 --> 21:19.560
or whatever direction that was,
I shouldn't be judgmental, okay.

21:20.360 --> 21:26.640
I would have loved to have gotten Bruno's
head in an arm lock, and gently rubbed

21:26.640 --> 21:29.780
that unbelieving nose of his in the
inscription.

21:29.780 --> 21:35.320
He could have learned via the Braille
method alone, that there was a Pontius

21:35.320 --> 21:35.820
Pilate.

21:35.920 --> 21:38.580
Yeah, here he shows up in stone,
okay.

21:39.500 --> 21:42.280
This has happened repeatedly in history.

21:42.700 --> 21:46.940
All kinds of archaeological evidence has
come along, most of it immediately

21:46.940 --> 21:48.160
confirming a biblical record.

21:48.440 --> 21:53.340
So to a historian, this says we better
take a look, a second look at this

21:53.340 --> 21:57.860
biblical material, and not decide that
it's all a collection of early mythology.

21:58.820 --> 22:00.280
Now here's another one.

22:02.620 --> 22:06.880
1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered,
and of course a stupendous archaeological

22:06.880 --> 22:07.480
discovery.

22:07.920 --> 22:11.680
I'll give you another one that I think is
right up there with the Dead Sea Scrolls,

22:11.680 --> 22:14.480
and nobody seems to know about it.

22:15.020 --> 22:20.620
I don't know why, but listen, the bones of
the first biblical personality ever to

22:20.620 --> 22:26.380
come to life were discovered in November
of 1990.

22:27.420 --> 22:28.560
Kind of fresh discovery.

22:29.000 --> 22:30.440
I'm talking biblical bones.

22:30.620 --> 22:34.880
I'm talking the bones of a gentleman,
there I've given you a 50% chance right

22:34.880 --> 22:40.400
there, a gentleman who is well known in
New Testament history.

22:40.660 --> 22:45.920
And you would think that everybody,
even non-christian, should know his name.

22:46.960 --> 22:48.060
Here's a story.

22:49.260 --> 22:54.620
November 1990, a bulldozer was excavating
south of the temple area in the old city

22:54.620 --> 22:55.240
of Jerusalem.

22:55.360 --> 22:58.820
I should immediately point out,
a bulldozer is not your average

22:58.820 --> 23:00.120
archaeological tool.

23:01.620 --> 23:02.460
Try brush.

23:03.080 --> 23:05.720
Well the dozer was an intending
archaeology.

23:05.800 --> 23:09.660
The dozer was building the base of a water
park.

23:10.260 --> 23:14.480
Blue plastic slides and all, and it starts
sinking into the ground.

23:15.020 --> 23:20.020
So they back it off, turn off the diesels,
called in the archaeologists, they shine

23:20.020 --> 23:25.100
their flashlights down in the hole there,
and without even going inside,

23:25.780 --> 23:32.620
these Israeli archaeologists could
identify it as a first century AD burial

23:32.620 --> 23:32.980
site.

23:33.820 --> 23:35.260
How could they know that?

23:35.920 --> 23:39.440
Because there was a collection of 10
ossuaries inside.

23:40.020 --> 23:43.640
Those are limestone chests for burying
bones.

23:44.280 --> 23:46.400
It's called the second burial method.

23:47.000 --> 23:49.440
They're running out of space in a mound of
olives.

23:50.080 --> 23:52.740
You know like that last scene in
Schindler's List, remember the movie,

23:52.820 --> 23:54.860
you can see how grave upon grave,
too many graves.

23:55.140 --> 23:59.860
So they were designing a space-saving way
of burying people.

24:00.160 --> 24:07.080
So they now had the idea of putting the
bodies in a sepulcher, let them decompose

24:07.080 --> 24:12.320
for a year or two, get the bones that
remained, and put them in one of these

24:12.320 --> 24:14.360
limestone bone chests.

24:14.800 --> 24:18.480
Jesus himself was in the second burial
system.

24:19.580 --> 24:23.140
Hadn't been for the resurrection,
as Christians claim, well they had

24:23.140 --> 24:25.840
gathered his bones a year or two later and
done the same thing.

24:25.900 --> 24:32.300
Anyway, now one of these ossuaries was
magnificently carved, beautiful,

24:32.440 --> 24:37.560
fluting around the edges, two giant
rosettes with sub-whorls inside.

24:37.640 --> 24:42.680
I've never seen an ossuary so
magnificently carved, unlike anything I've

24:42.680 --> 24:43.080
ever seen.

24:43.680 --> 24:48.920
So there's a VIP inside there,
obviously, and on the other side is the

24:48.920 --> 24:50.160
name of the VIP.

24:51.460 --> 24:54.580
Give it to you in Aramaic and I'll bet
quite a few of you will be able to

24:54.580 --> 24:55.080
translate.

24:55.980 --> 25:00.940
The name of the occupant was Yosef
Barkayefah.

25:01.760 --> 25:03.860
Yosef Barkayefah.

25:04.340 --> 25:05.480
Who does that sound like?

25:06.340 --> 25:07.140
Caiaphas.

25:07.720 --> 25:13.320
The high priest who was the chief
prosecutor against Jesus on Good Friday

25:13.320 --> 25:16.200
before the tribunal of Pontius Pilate.

25:16.500 --> 25:18.640
Very important person.

25:19.340 --> 25:23.300
How come nobody seems to know about that,
including Christian pastors?

25:23.600 --> 25:28.200
I can be talking to a pastoral conference
of 300 pastors and I'll ask about the

25:28.200 --> 25:30.560
biblical bones, well one or two percent
will know.

25:30.880 --> 25:32.840
I don't know how to get the story out.

25:34.060 --> 25:39.460
It is a lead pipe cinch, it's correct,
they've done carbon-14 tests on the bones.

25:39.860 --> 25:41.940
They are from 20 centuries ago.

25:42.420 --> 25:46.860
They've done other tests to see the age of
the bone at death, and we're talking about

25:46.860 --> 25:48.880
a 70-75 year old person.

25:48.880 --> 25:52.080
It works out perfectly only for this
particular Caiaphas.

25:52.240 --> 25:59.020
The only one with that name, and it is we
might say a lead pipe cinch, that is the

25:59.020 --> 26:00.840
case of the bones of the high priest.

26:01.540 --> 26:07.000
Even the Israel Museum, which is not
Christian, has taken the question mark

26:07.000 --> 26:07.360
away.

26:07.440 --> 26:10.820
When they first brought it into the Israel
Museum they had a question mark whether

26:10.820 --> 26:13.080
this is the one, they've taken the
question mark away.

26:13.700 --> 26:19.600
I think it's rather important to
understand that the new archaeology taking

26:19.600 --> 26:24.840
place and the new finds being made are
very very friendly to the biblical version

26:24.840 --> 26:27.140
of what happens in the case of Jesus.

26:28.540 --> 26:34.200
Then we've got another test we can level
to see if we're going to get reliable

26:34.200 --> 26:35.840
fresh information on Jesus.

26:36.520 --> 26:38.180
What about the geographical test?

26:38.860 --> 26:40.380
We overlook that one all the time.

26:40.400 --> 26:41.740
Who needs geography anymore?

26:41.980 --> 26:46.000
We've got a Garmin global positioning
device, you know, can't even read them,

26:46.080 --> 26:47.440
don't even need a map anymore.

26:47.700 --> 26:54.600
Well the Bible is chock-full of
geographical names, so it's very important

26:54.600 --> 27:00.160
to see if we're getting a con job when it
comes to the geography or are these real

27:00.160 --> 27:00.660
places.

27:01.520 --> 27:08.860
Now unlike the holy books of any other
world religious system, the geographical

27:08.860 --> 27:14.360
locations inside of the Old and New
Testament are absolutely authentic,

27:14.860 --> 27:19.540
can't tell you all of them, first ten
chapters of Genesis, cut me some slack,

27:19.680 --> 27:22.000
can't tell you where Eden is located,
all right?

27:22.620 --> 27:28.080
But after that we find it's been estimated
that 93% of the place names are known,

27:28.620 --> 27:33.140
know where they are, and some have been
excavated archaeologically.

27:33.960 --> 27:39.280
Now that's important, because so many
other holy books begin like an English

27:39.280 --> 27:45.140
fantasy novel, at a time long long ago,
at a place called Middle-earth,

27:45.220 --> 27:46.220
or something like that.

27:46.440 --> 27:49.380
I'm not trying to make fun of other
systems, I know terribly politically

27:49.380 --> 27:53.700
incorrect and I'd be stoned off the
platform here, but I'm only trying to show

27:53.700 --> 28:00.100
that when you do talk about Bible lands,
they are real, there is a real Jerusalem,

28:00.240 --> 28:02.720
a real Bethlehem, a real Nazareth,
and places like that.

28:02.760 --> 28:06.960
We're not kidding anybody, these are real
places, so one very important clue when

28:06.960 --> 28:10.560
you're checking out your holy book,
is are these real places or not?

28:10.600 --> 28:13.780
Is the stage solid on which these things
happen?

28:14.100 --> 28:18.040
And again, you find the Gospels passing
that test beautifully.

28:18.840 --> 28:22.980
You got a travel record of St. Paul,
taking three mission journeys at least,

28:23.520 --> 28:26.760
Luke faithfully recording wherever they
went from place to place, they're all

28:26.760 --> 28:31.800
traceable today yet, Luke's got the order
right, he's not screwing up the itinerary,

28:32.260 --> 28:35.160
so it's very, very reliable the geography
is.

28:35.300 --> 28:36.540
Then there's a final test.

28:37.860 --> 28:42.800
The words that have come down to us across
20 centuries.

28:43.400 --> 28:45.520
What about the other records?

28:46.220 --> 28:47.900
What about the inscriptions?

28:48.240 --> 28:49.440
What about the coinage?

28:49.720 --> 28:55.560
What about the history which is being
written by others 2,000 plus years ago?

28:56.440 --> 28:59.200
Now that's very important information.

28:59.940 --> 29:04.580
Archaeologists dream of finding not only
stones, but inscriptions.

29:05.340 --> 29:08.100
The words are so very important.

29:09.700 --> 29:15.000
We have indeed so much lost that I can't
even begin to talk about it from the first

29:15.000 --> 29:15.360
century.

29:15.580 --> 29:17.120
Library fires didn't help.

29:17.820 --> 29:22.460
Oh man, remember the biggest library in
the ancient world, 750,000 book scrolls?

29:22.840 --> 29:24.060
Library of Alexandria.

29:25.160 --> 29:32.580
And I tell my students in my ancient
history courses, I used to, that if we'd

29:32.580 --> 29:39.960
have had the detail from those books that
were burned up, book scrolls, in the great

29:39.960 --> 29:46.220
library at Alexandria, every course in
ancient history would be six times as long

29:46.220 --> 29:52.440
as it is, for which the students get their
matches and are ready to burn down another

29:52.440 --> 29:52.820
library.

29:52.960 --> 29:55.280
I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I certainly know
that.

29:57.160 --> 30:03.500
But there's been a quite an amazing amount
of secular outside material which has come

30:03.500 --> 30:09.440
down from the ancient Greco-Roman world,
especially in that all-important first

30:09.440 --> 30:09.920
century.

30:11.640 --> 30:17.720
It's not only beautifully confirming every
Roman official that shows up in the

30:17.720 --> 30:23.180
Gospels in the New Testament, or the
Jewish rulers like Herod the Great.

30:23.360 --> 30:27.780
My goodness, Flavius Josephus gives us two
whole books on Herod the Great.

30:27.920 --> 30:33.480
He has only a cameo role in Matthew
chapter 2, but Josephus gives us two whole

30:33.480 --> 30:34.660
books on Herod alone.

30:35.020 --> 30:39.520
Same kind of character that shows up in
the Massacre of the Innocents in

30:39.520 --> 30:40.020
Bethlehem.

30:40.240 --> 30:45.080
That's the kind of guy who could do that,
because after all he married 10 wives,

30:45.980 --> 30:51.720
all of them producing princes for him,
and all the princes are scheming to

30:51.720 --> 30:52.260
succeed.

30:52.260 --> 30:56.320
If they didn't have two or three
collateral plots in the palace before they

30:56.320 --> 30:58.700
had cornflakes in the morning,
something was wrong.

30:59.500 --> 31:04.380
And so Herod finally executed three of his
own sons on suspicion of treason.

31:04.820 --> 31:10.740
He put his favorite wife to death,
the beautiful Maccabean princess Mariame.

31:11.900 --> 31:13.320
Killed his mother-in-law.

31:17.960 --> 31:19.440
All right, sorry ladies.

31:20.400 --> 31:23.080
Should have said killed one of his many
mothers-in-law, okay.

31:23.760 --> 31:26.060
Yeah, killed several uncles, couple
cousins.

31:27.020 --> 31:29.440
You might say Herod was a family man.

31:31.520 --> 31:35.580
Invites the high priest down to a swimming
party at Jericho, drowns him.

31:36.480 --> 31:40.360
You know, it's a kind of guy who could
have killed a dozen babies in Bethlehem

31:40.360 --> 31:40.980
very easily.

31:41.360 --> 31:46.080
But then we have additional evidence on
other personalities in the Bible,

31:46.520 --> 31:48.640
like John the Baptist.

31:49.720 --> 31:55.800
Now you recall of course his story,
but so does Josephus, the first century

31:55.800 --> 32:00.820
Jewish historian, never turned Christian,
but he writes sober history as he sees it.

32:01.120 --> 32:05.720
He also reports John the Baptist's
execution exactly like the Gospels do.

32:06.680 --> 32:10.620
He even adds precious detail to the gospel
record.

32:10.920 --> 32:16.040
Yeah, I'm telling you, these outside
sources from the secular world are very

32:16.040 --> 32:21.840
valuable because they not only coordinate
with the biblical record, but they add

32:21.840 --> 32:23.020
neat detail.

32:23.400 --> 32:29.120
In some cases, threads that have been left
hanging in the Bible are tied down by

32:29.120 --> 32:30.060
Josephus.

32:30.860 --> 32:32.220
Incredible character.

32:32.620 --> 32:34.880
He was a genius, no fact escaped him.

32:35.260 --> 32:40.180
He wrote this enormous history of the
Jewish people, 28 book scrolls.

32:40.680 --> 32:44.860
He wrote 28 times the size of material in
one gospel.

32:45.580 --> 32:52.580
So here we get all the delicious detail
that beautifully completes our picture of

32:52.580 --> 32:55.280
Jesus and his times in the New Testament.

32:55.680 --> 32:57.240
Now, case of John the Baptist.

32:58.400 --> 33:00.000
Where did he get executed?

33:00.780 --> 33:03.020
And don't some wise guys say at the neck.

33:03.160 --> 33:04.620
Yeah, we understand that.

33:05.400 --> 33:08.640
Where was the place where it happened
geographically?

33:09.460 --> 33:14.960
Well, Josephus tells us it happened at
Machairus, which was the fortress palace

33:14.960 --> 33:18.120
of Herod the Great at the northeastern
corner of the Dead Sea.

33:18.840 --> 33:21.720
Now it's important to know where things
happen, right?

33:21.800 --> 33:24.560
And the Gospels don't tell us where it
happened, Josephus does.

33:24.840 --> 33:29.200
I'm not knocking the Gospels, I'm trying
to point out they're dealing in historical

33:29.200 --> 33:34.680
fact here, so much so that a non-Christian
will report the same thing about what you

33:34.680 --> 33:35.760
find in the Gospel.

33:36.180 --> 33:43.340
Hey, Josephus even... even... in fact,
I'm going to prove that all of you have

33:43.340 --> 33:44.100
used Josephus.

33:44.240 --> 33:46.100
You probably never heard of him before he
came to this evening.

33:47.060 --> 33:52.060
Joe who people usually respond when I talk
about Josephus, first century Jewish

33:52.060 --> 33:57.040
historian, born in the city of Jerusalem,
four years after Jesus' crucifixion.

33:57.260 --> 34:01.580
He is a box outside seat to the events
reported in the Gospels.

34:04.410 --> 34:09.470
If I were going to ask you who... what's
the name of the little gal, daughter of

34:09.470 --> 34:14.070
Herodias, who did her dance of however
many veils or whatever that is,

34:14.510 --> 34:17.430
that caused the death of John the Baptist?

34:17.750 --> 34:20.050
All together now, what's the name of the
gal?

34:21.310 --> 34:23.510
Salome, you say correctly, that's right.

34:24.170 --> 34:25.390
And now you'll be shocked.

34:26.090 --> 34:28.950
You can't find her name in the New
Testament.

34:29.290 --> 34:33.550
All you get for the beheading of John the
Baptist is daughter of Herodias.

34:33.930 --> 34:35.530
How do we know her name, Salome?

34:36.250 --> 34:37.590
Thank you, Josephus.

34:38.210 --> 34:40.330
See how beautifully the evidence
coordinates?

34:40.670 --> 34:46.250
Who was the first bishop of the Christian
Church anywhere on earth?

34:46.410 --> 34:48.710
And don't give me Simon Peter,
he was not.

34:49.210 --> 34:51.670
The first bishop of the church,
according to the Bible itself,

34:53.390 --> 34:57.970
was James, the just of Jerusalem,
Jesus' half-brother or cousin,

34:58.110 --> 35:00.070
we're not going to get in that argument
right now.

35:00.670 --> 35:04.310
But Eusebius, the earliest Christian
Church historian, says it was James,

35:04.750 --> 35:09.790
and indeed, we wish the New Testament
would finish off his history, but it

35:09.790 --> 35:10.430
doesn't.

35:10.430 --> 35:11.290
Guess who does?

35:11.910 --> 35:12.470
Josephus.

35:13.110 --> 35:18.910
He says that 29 years after the
crucifixion of Jesus, James, the brother

35:18.910 --> 35:23.590
of Jesus, who was called to Christ,
was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin in

35:23.590 --> 35:28.490
the absence of the Roman governor,
Guyot and Gartner he had, who tried to do

35:28.490 --> 35:33.510
exactly what Pontius Pilate tried to do,
and that is get Jesus off the hook.

35:34.250 --> 35:39.590
But Albinus, his name was, he arrived too
late, by that time they'd done a kangaroo

35:39.590 --> 35:47.250
court execution on James, the half-brother
of Jesus, and here you have Good Friday 2.

35:47.710 --> 35:50.210
You have a perfect parallel to Good
Friday.

35:50.970 --> 35:56.450
Good Friday 1, you have Caiaphas,
whose bones have just been discovered,

35:57.010 --> 35:58.030
who's the prosecutor.

35:58.950 --> 36:05.930
In 62 AD, 29 years later, you have
Caiaphas' brother-in-law, Ananus,

36:06.750 --> 36:14.510
who again saw that this stoning to death
was kind of railroaded, but here you have

36:14.510 --> 36:19.250
again a perfect confirmation, a perfect
mirror of what happened in Good Friday.

36:19.730 --> 36:25.550
And by the way, the second one was by a
Jew who never converted to Christianity,

36:25.970 --> 36:29.530
so he's not some sweet gospel writer
trying to make the New Testament look

36:29.530 --> 36:29.730
good.

36:29.850 --> 36:33.490
This authenticates the evidence even more
strongly.

36:34.090 --> 36:41.350
And of course, in a famous passage,
Antiquities book 1863, section 63,

36:41.930 --> 36:49.710
Josephus gives us the longest reference to
Jesus in first century sources outside of

36:49.710 --> 36:50.450
Christian literature.

36:51.170 --> 36:53.890
It's in the middle of the reign of Pontius
Pilate.

36:54.010 --> 37:00.150
And by the way, Josephus gives us about
five major episodes in the life of Pontius

37:00.150 --> 37:04.830
Pilate which are not in the Bible,
and they're real, they happened.

37:05.250 --> 37:10.350
They explain why Pilate is acting so
strangely on Good Friday, why he seems

37:10.350 --> 37:11.070
under pressure.

37:11.530 --> 37:13.790
Here's the answer Josephus gives us.

37:13.950 --> 37:18.690
This guy has not been mined enough for all
the gold nuggets there inside.

37:19.250 --> 37:25.630
So anyway, right in the middle of Pilate's
administration, he gave this wonderful

37:25.630 --> 37:29.230
testimony to Jesus, almost in Christian
language.

37:29.350 --> 37:32.150
In fact, it was too good to be true.

37:32.750 --> 37:32.970
Yeah.

37:34.130 --> 37:40.810
My colleagues in the ministry or in the
rabbinate will know that everybody agrees

37:40.810 --> 37:43.670
that passage had been interpolated.

37:43.910 --> 37:51.410
Somebody thinking to do God a favor took a
perfectly decent passage on Jesus and

37:51.410 --> 37:55.070
baptized it, made it too Christian for
words.

37:55.910 --> 38:00.750
The passage read something like this,
about this time there was a wonderful man,

38:01.290 --> 38:06.630
if indeed one ought to call him only a
man, he was the Messiah who rose from the

38:06.630 --> 38:06.830
dead.

38:06.930 --> 38:12.370
Now look, a good Jew would never have
written that and stayed a good Jew.

38:12.410 --> 38:15.650
He would have been a Jewish Christian,
like Paul at Tarsus.

38:16.050 --> 38:20.590
So we were told never to use that at the
seminary.

38:21.450 --> 38:24.250
So, wind o'clock back to 1955.

38:24.590 --> 38:28.270
I just graduated from Concordia Seminary
in St. Louis, young pup of a grad student.

38:28.550 --> 38:33.050
I was so ticked off that this largest
reference that Jesus had been screwed up,

38:33.050 --> 38:37.630
that I wrote the world's ranking authority
on Flavius Josephus, a Jewish scholar in

38:37.630 --> 38:39.230
London named Paul Winter.

38:39.750 --> 38:41.790
And I asked Dr. Winter two questions.

38:41.910 --> 38:45.170
One, do you think that Josephus ever
referred to Jesus?

38:45.810 --> 38:49.470
Because the critics were saying,
throw the whole passage out.

38:50.290 --> 38:54.110
Second question, if you think he really
referred to Jesus, how do you think the

38:54.110 --> 38:54.830
passage read?

38:55.670 --> 38:58.170
Three weeks later, got an airmail letter.

38:59.270 --> 39:03.450
This does nothing for you people,
either instant messaging, I know,

39:03.530 --> 39:03.830
I know.

39:04.550 --> 39:05.470
Cut me some slack.

39:05.550 --> 39:06.330
55 years ago.

39:06.470 --> 39:06.630
Okay.

39:07.770 --> 39:11.430
Answer to the first question, yes,
he was quite sure that Josephus was

39:11.430 --> 39:12.410
referring to our Jesus.

39:12.970 --> 39:18.310
Second question, using his good textual
critical skills, he prized away what he

39:18.310 --> 39:23.710
thought was a Christian addenda by some
stupid monk in the second century or

39:23.710 --> 39:29.130
something, and gave me a version that I
thought was very convincing.

39:30.330 --> 39:33.870
Tragedy, Paul Winter died before he ever
learned how close he had come,

39:33.930 --> 39:40.050
because the great good news is that
another great Jewish scholar, Shlomo Pines

39:40.050 --> 39:43.750
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
discovered a manuscript tradition of

39:43.750 --> 39:48.090
Josephus that was not interpolated at that
point.

39:48.550 --> 39:53.970
It reads almost word-for-word like what
Paul Winter predicted it would read if

39:53.970 --> 39:55.510
they ever got the accurate manuscript.

39:55.930 --> 39:58.670
So in my translation of Josephus,
that goes back in a text.

39:59.290 --> 40:03.130
And it's only at the end of the chapter
that we have the rather Sunday-schoolish

40:03.130 --> 40:05.910
laundered version that we can't accept.

40:06.590 --> 40:12.830
And that is a very fair outside view of
Jesus by someone who didn't necessarily

40:12.830 --> 40:16.550
believe in him, but he's trying to write
fair history.

40:16.870 --> 40:22.150
Goes something like this, about this time
there was a wise man called Jesus,

40:22.510 --> 40:25.630
and his conduct was good, and he was known
to be virtuous.

40:26.350 --> 40:30.650
Many people among the Jews and the other
nations, the goyim, the Gentiles,

40:30.690 --> 40:32.790
the other nations, became his disciples.

40:33.630 --> 40:37.010
Pilate condemned him to be crucified and
to die.

40:37.930 --> 40:41.870
But those who would become his disciples
did not abandon their discipleship.

40:42.150 --> 40:47.270
They reported that three days later he
emerged from the tomb alive.

40:47.670 --> 40:52.750
Now notice he doesn't say he rose from the
dead, he said they reported that he rose

40:52.750 --> 40:53.270
from the dead.

40:53.390 --> 40:55.310
See that's the New Testament says the same
thing.

40:55.470 --> 40:56.250
So he's trying to be fair.

40:56.530 --> 40:58.650
That's something a good Jew could have
written.

40:58.870 --> 41:03.310
That he ends up by saying, accordingly he
could possibly have been the Messiah,

41:03.830 --> 41:08.170
concerning whom the prophets have reported
wonders, and the tribe of the Christians

41:08.170 --> 41:11.850
so named after him has not disappeared to
the present day.

41:12.170 --> 41:16.210
So this is what he actually wrote,
and so it is brilliant outside testimony

41:16.210 --> 41:19.150
for like, duh, the historicity of Jesus.

41:19.450 --> 41:23.830
And there are five other major references,
about 12 in all, but five other major

41:23.830 --> 41:26.170
references in secular literature about
Jesus.

41:26.690 --> 41:32.550
So how somebody can come along and claim
that Jesus was only a myth, I shall never

41:32.550 --> 41:33.150
know.

41:34.110 --> 41:40.570
Ah, just quickly to tick them off,
Cornelius Tacitus, first century

41:40.570 --> 41:44.470
historian, he writes from the second
century into the first, gives us a

41:44.470 --> 41:46.450
year-by-year account of what happened in
ancient Rome.

41:47.670 --> 41:54.130
And for the year 64 he reports the great
fire of Rome happened under Nero's

41:54.130 --> 41:59.930
administration, and Nero's throne is
tottering because it happened on his

41:59.930 --> 42:00.450
watch.

42:01.510 --> 42:05.890
So to keep from being overthrown,
Nero then has to search for other

42:05.890 --> 42:08.910
scapegoats, and he lands on the
Christians.

42:09.850 --> 42:12.370
First time they show up in secular
history.

42:13.790 --> 42:18.550
He says, the Christians are named,
careful scholarly, he says the Christians

42:18.550 --> 42:24.350
are named for a Christ who was crucified
by one of our governors, Pontius Pilate,

42:24.790 --> 42:31.650
and the pernicious superstition was almost
eradicated, but suddenly it gained new

42:31.650 --> 42:32.530
vigor again.

42:32.990 --> 42:36.870
You want an outside proof for the
resurrection and Pentecost, there it is.

42:37.770 --> 42:42.710
Suddenly it gained new vigor and even
flowed as far away as Rome, that common

42:42.710 --> 42:47.050
cesspool into which garbage flows from all
over the Mediterranean.

42:47.430 --> 42:50.910
So here's a hostile source, doesn't like
Christianity, so much garbage,

42:51.830 --> 42:58.330
but that very fact alone proves that his
concession, that there was a Jesus

42:58.330 --> 43:05.670
crucified by Pilate and had followers,
is absolutely authentic historically,

43:06.330 --> 43:11.650
because it satisfies the great criterion
of embarrassment.

43:13.650 --> 43:17.470
I'll get over these sidebars in a second,
but listen, I gotta give you a couple

43:17.470 --> 43:22.530
sidebars here on how does a professor of
ancient history figure out if something

43:22.530 --> 43:25.790
claimed 2,000 years later really happened?

43:26.070 --> 43:29.610
The guy may be padding his story,
may be telling a fairy tale.

43:29.730 --> 43:34.250
We know the ancients love to pad their
numbers, the historians, so how do we know

43:34.250 --> 43:38.730
that a fact claimed by an ancient
historian is true?

43:39.350 --> 43:41.430
There are 12 tests, but two of the
biggest.

43:42.130 --> 43:47.990
First is the criterion of multiple
attestation, meaning are there a lot of

43:47.990 --> 43:53.350
different sources not copying from one
another that agree that this happened?

43:53.690 --> 43:59.710
Then that's a pretty firm, I mean a lot of
people say Julius Caesar assassinated,

43:59.830 --> 44:04.030
Ides of March, Julius Caesar, and it keeps
going around, and yeah, probably happened.

44:04.770 --> 44:07.250
The other one is the criterion of
embarrassment.

44:08.930 --> 44:15.410
You're arguing in a given direction,
and yet you come across evidence that

44:15.410 --> 44:20.050
contradicts your thesis, but you gotta
admit it because everybody knows it's

44:20.050 --> 44:24.330
true, but you build a wall around it
trying to explain it away, right?

44:24.870 --> 44:32.810
Then 2,000 years later, that problematical
counter evidence is absolutely authentic.

44:33.390 --> 44:33.710
See it?

44:34.650 --> 44:37.930
See, otherwise they wouldn't have had
bothered to defeat the argument.

44:38.390 --> 44:42.110
So here in a hostile source, it would have
been in their interest to shut up about

44:42.110 --> 44:47.690
Jesus entirely, to ask there's so much
sewage, but he was an honest historian

44:47.690 --> 44:51.330
trying to figure out where this crazy sect
started, okay?

44:51.770 --> 44:54.090
This is pretty overpowering evidence.

44:54.270 --> 44:58.170
Tacitus alone would prove the historicity
of Jesus, but we have more.

44:58.830 --> 45:04.070
Suetonius, another famous Roman historian,
writes Lives of the Twelve Caesars,

45:04.470 --> 45:06.950
gives quite a bedroom history of them and
so forth.

45:07.670 --> 45:09.850
It was a bestseller in the Middle Ages,
by the way.

45:11.490 --> 45:12.710
That's the way it usually goes.

45:13.490 --> 45:19.490
But he says that in the reign of Claudius,
there was a big demonstration riot in the

45:19.490 --> 45:22.370
Trans-Tiber area and Rome over the claims
of Christ.

45:24.290 --> 45:32.490
Pliny the Younger, governor of Asia Minor,
he was a cross from the Bosporus on the

45:32.490 --> 45:36.450
Asiatic side of Istanbul, that's where
Bithynia is located, northwestern Turkey.

45:37.770 --> 45:42.290
He writes the Emperor Trajan about the
year 110, and he says, Dear Emperor,

45:42.310 --> 45:43.830
what do I do about these Christians?

45:44.470 --> 45:50.210
They get up early Sunday morning and they
sing hymns to Christ as if you were a god.

45:51.470 --> 45:54.790
You know, so much for Dan Brown's claim
this happened at the Council of Nicaea,

45:55.710 --> 45:59.670
225 years later, early on.

46:00.230 --> 46:01.130
What do I do about them?

46:01.150 --> 46:02.130
They're against the law, aren't they?

46:02.230 --> 46:03.390
We got Trajan's answer.

46:04.070 --> 46:08.110
He said, Dear Pliny, yes, the Christians
are against the law, and so if you can

46:08.110 --> 46:11.350
make a perfect case against them,
I guess the law has got to be followed.

46:11.610 --> 46:16.390
But don't go hunting them out,
and don't take any unsigned accusations

46:16.390 --> 46:19.650
which are inconsistent with the liberality
of our age.

46:19.930 --> 46:22.630
See, there is a case where the Roman
Empire is moderating.

46:23.330 --> 46:25.930
See, the persecutions were not one long
horror story.

46:26.170 --> 46:28.010
They were on again, off again,
on again, off again.

46:28.310 --> 46:32.130
But again, Jesus, as God mentioned Christ,
and so forth.

46:32.910 --> 46:35.990
The Jewish rabbinic traditions mention
Jesus.

46:36.470 --> 46:43.150
They're hostile also, but they admit there
was a Yeshua Hanotsri, Jesus of Nazareth.

46:43.330 --> 46:49.790
They even give us the arrest notice
published by the Sanhedrin for his arrest.

46:50.250 --> 46:55.710
Goes something like this, Wanted Yeshua
Hanotsri, he shall be stoned because he's

46:55.710 --> 46:57.070
practiced sorcery?

46:57.470 --> 47:00.870
And he lured Israel into apostasy.

47:01.790 --> 47:07.490
Now again, you might, hip quick shoot
reaction might say, wait a minute,

47:07.650 --> 47:08.190
there's no good.

47:08.450 --> 47:10.250
Jesus was crucified, he wasn't stoned.

47:10.790 --> 47:14.950
And isn't it terrible to call the Lord's
miracles sorcery?

47:15.030 --> 47:15.270
No.

47:15.470 --> 47:18.670
For those two reasons, it's authentic.

47:20.270 --> 47:23.970
Future tense is used in this Aramaic
inscription.

47:24.190 --> 47:26.770
Future tense, haven't arrested Jesus yet.

47:27.430 --> 47:31.150
No Jew would ever written he's going to be
crucified, that's a Roman punishment.

47:31.810 --> 47:37.490
If they'd have caught Jesus anywhere but
Jerusalem, any time except for when the

47:37.490 --> 47:40.410
Romans were there, how would they have
terminated him?

47:41.570 --> 47:42.170
Stoning.

47:43.650 --> 47:44.990
Penalty for blasphemy.

47:46.470 --> 47:50.650
Rabbis have this wonderful account about
how God's creating angels went across the

47:50.650 --> 47:51.590
world to create the world.

47:52.010 --> 47:54.890
Angel in charge of the forest,
dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

47:54.950 --> 47:56.110
Studied in all the trees.

47:56.490 --> 47:59.630
Angel in charge of the seas, poured out
the oceans.

48:00.730 --> 48:05.330
Angel in charge of the rocks, however,
hit some headwinds flying over the Holy

48:05.330 --> 48:05.730
Land.

48:06.090 --> 48:07.330
Had to drop them all there.

48:08.290 --> 48:09.730
It's the weapon of choice.

48:09.930 --> 48:11.670
Anybody's been at the Holy Land,
is that right?

48:12.330 --> 48:15.630
Limestone outcroppings all over the place,
it's the rockiest spot on earth.

48:16.590 --> 48:21.890
So this is realistic, and folks,
did you notice the criterion of

48:21.890 --> 48:27.330
embarrassment showing up in that
statement?

48:27.330 --> 48:30.210
Sometimes I'm asked, can we prove the
miraculous?

48:30.590 --> 48:32.970
Well obviously, not to everyone's
satisfaction.

48:33.550 --> 48:35.510
This one comes close.

48:36.650 --> 48:38.430
He's practiced sorcery.

48:39.530 --> 48:44.050
Now wait a minute, wouldn't it have been
simpler for that hostile source not to

48:44.050 --> 48:44.930
mention that?

48:45.650 --> 48:50.370
Because sorcery and miracle are the same
thing if you're not talking cause.

48:51.530 --> 48:55.590
A miracle is something extraordinary or
supernatural with help from above.

48:56.390 --> 48:58.630
Sorcery is the same thing with help from
below.

48:59.670 --> 49:04.850
But in conceding that Jesus is doing
something extraordinary or supernatural

49:05.390 --> 49:10.870
from a hostile source, this becomes very,
very important testimony.

49:12.070 --> 49:16.210
So not only do the rabbinical traditions
mention him, the two references in

49:16.210 --> 49:20.670
Josephus, you cannot say both were
interpolated, not at all.

49:20.950 --> 49:25.430
Second time he talks about Jesus,
half-brother James, being stoned to death.

49:25.730 --> 49:30.350
It doesn't work to say that Jesus was not
a historical figure.

49:31.070 --> 49:33.450
Just doesn't work at all.

49:36.730 --> 49:42.550
You know, even some of the big critics of
Christianity will concede finally that

49:42.550 --> 49:44.530
yeah, there was at least a historical
Jesus.

49:44.570 --> 49:47.730
We don't believe it anymore about him,
but at least there was a historical Jesus.

49:48.270 --> 49:53.930
And I think the critics who try to
dismantle Jesus by using the approach they

49:53.930 --> 49:57.290
never even lived are using a false
shortcut.

49:57.910 --> 49:59.170
It doesn't work.

49:59.630 --> 50:01.130
It just doesn't work intellectually.

50:01.130 --> 50:06.550
In fact, anyone making that statement
should probably be embarrassed for having

50:06.550 --> 50:07.050
made it.

50:07.450 --> 50:11.910
Okay, those are the sources we use in
trying to bring out some new information

50:11.910 --> 50:12.850
on Jesus.

50:14.410 --> 50:17.910
And I want to tell you, those are the
sources that I'm looking for.

50:18.270 --> 50:24.690
The surrounding evidence, the geographical
evidence, the archaeological evidence,

50:24.730 --> 50:26.590
and the documents have come down to us.

50:27.030 --> 50:32.810
I do not get this additional information
by direct revelation, okay?

50:33.350 --> 50:36.270
You know, if this were the Bible Belt,
I'd have to make that very clear.

50:36.790 --> 50:40.490
Because all your television evangelists in
the tube in the Bible Belt, you know,

50:40.590 --> 50:44.090
are talking about the wonderful two-way
conversations they have with God.

50:44.450 --> 50:47.670
You know, I told God, and God told me,
and I told God, God told me.

50:47.990 --> 50:50.210
I don't like those claims.

50:51.950 --> 50:55.170
I don't mind a person saying, I told God,
it's called prayer.

50:56.970 --> 50:59.910
But God told me, better give that one a
rest, huh?

51:00.570 --> 51:01.870
How subjective can you get?

51:02.070 --> 51:02.310
No, no.

51:02.550 --> 51:03.970
These are the sources we use.

51:04.430 --> 51:08.530
In terms of, real quickly now,
to finish my presentation here,

51:08.590 --> 51:09.990
that's so you have a little hope.

51:14.430 --> 51:18.710
Going real quickly through the life of
Jesus, here are some of the new items that

51:18.710 --> 51:19.690
we can talk about.

51:20.450 --> 51:25.770
Again, remember the Nativity account
begins with a very un-Christmassy figure,

51:26.610 --> 51:32.850
you know, not Mary or Joseph or baby Jesus
or Magi or shepherds, Caesar Augustus.

51:33.390 --> 51:36.230
How un-Christmassy a figure can you find?

51:37.370 --> 51:44.190
Has anyone ever gotten a Christmas card
with a marble bust of Caesar Augustus on

51:44.190 --> 51:48.210
the front, you know, little slogan inside,
Caesar's Greetings?

51:51.590 --> 51:55.950
I do not think it would fly, but this is
Luke's method.

51:56.850 --> 51:58.350
I'm using Luke's method.

51:58.530 --> 52:02.790
Luke is the one, especially the author in
the Bible, who's always throwing an anchor

52:02.790 --> 52:07.410
out into the mainstream of Greco-Roman
history to orient the people properly.

52:08.250 --> 52:13.410
So Luke begins with somebody everybody
knew, the great Augustus, one of the best

52:13.410 --> 52:18.110
emperors Rome ever had, too bad he was
first one, and no more, but well there

52:18.110 --> 52:22.330
were a few more, but nevertheless this is
to orient everybody.

52:22.850 --> 52:27.410
Luke's very concerned about the political
background and indeed Augustus did take

52:27.410 --> 52:33.130
censuses when he died and he was put
inside, his urn was put inside the

52:33.130 --> 52:36.190
mausoleum, earned his place in history,
I guess you might say.

52:36.250 --> 52:39.930
Anyway, all right I shouldn't have said
that, I won't use it again, I promise.

52:41.370 --> 52:47.950
We have him having arranged the 36 major
items that he accomplished for the empire.

52:48.170 --> 52:51.790
Point number eight, I took a census three
times.

52:52.550 --> 52:55.690
A very, very important document there.

52:55.890 --> 53:00.270
I can show you a census document from
neighboring Egypt, it's at the University

53:00.270 --> 53:06.430
of Michigan, graduate library,
a guy registers himself at his own

53:06.430 --> 53:12.850
ancestral village for the house-by-house
census of somebody for and during

53:12.850 --> 53:17.130
Hadrian's time, which was about a hundred
years after the first Christmas,

53:17.610 --> 53:20.210
neighboring Egypt that took a Roman census
every 14 years.

53:20.210 --> 53:25.270
The neat thing about that document is it's
not a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy,

53:25.790 --> 53:33.930
it's the original papyrus in which a guy
named Horace registers himself and his

53:33.930 --> 53:34.430
family.

53:35.510 --> 53:36.790
Boy they love that name.

53:36.830 --> 53:39.790
I'm Horace, a cultivator of state land,
48 years old.

53:40.110 --> 53:44.690
I'm the son of Horace, who is the son of
Horace, and I herewith register my wife

53:44.690 --> 53:49.270
Tapachousas, daughter of Horace,
oh I hope that's a different Horace,

53:49.890 --> 53:58.670
and I register my first born son,
Horace, and his brother who's seven years

53:58.670 --> 54:04.210
old, no identification marks, and our
second son, Horion, that means

54:04.210 --> 54:10.250
Horace-like, yeah, one years old with no
identification marks, and so on.

54:10.290 --> 54:14.150
That scar, he says he has, he's 48 years
old with a scar on his left eyebrow.

54:14.370 --> 54:18.090
See that's in place of a social security
number, I guess, whatever it might be.

54:18.450 --> 54:24.210
So we have the census documents,
we have some archaeological evidence,

54:24.370 --> 54:29.710
believe it or not, and that is the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

54:29.710 --> 54:30.850
Let me explain why.

54:31.670 --> 54:36.370
Now I used to be skeptical the first six
times I was in Bethlehem, I was convinced,

54:36.490 --> 54:40.250
oh come on, we know Jesus is born here,
but we don't know where, and so forth.

54:40.610 --> 54:47.630
Well wait a minute, I did a study on the
paper trail going back to that spot.

54:48.410 --> 54:56.710
For 19 centuries the church knew that that
was the cavern, or grotto, or cave where

54:56.710 --> 54:58.170
Jesus was born.

54:59.290 --> 55:02.310
Constantine's engineers, when they're
building that first Church of the

55:02.310 --> 55:06.430
Nativity, interviewed Macarius,
the Christian bishop at Jerusalem.

55:06.610 --> 55:07.790
Do you know where Jesus was born?

55:07.890 --> 55:09.010
Of course we do.

55:09.330 --> 55:13.370
Yeah, church picnics, or whatever it was
like, or Christmas parties, who knows,

55:13.450 --> 55:13.650
anyway.

55:14.150 --> 55:18.230
So he could point out where, and that's
why Constantine built at that site over

55:18.230 --> 55:20.670
the grotto that was hallowed since time
immemorial.

55:20.950 --> 55:22.550
Now let's go back a century more.

55:22.710 --> 55:28.050
Let's go to the church father Origen,
who tells us whenever he went to

55:28.050 --> 55:33.590
Bethlehem, even the pagans there were
willing to tell anyone who would listen

55:33.590 --> 55:37.570
where the great Jesus was born,
whom the Christians worship.

55:37.810 --> 55:40.590
Now we're talking 220 AD.

55:42.470 --> 55:46.610
What I didn't tell you is that Origen
means son of Horus, but anyway,

55:46.810 --> 55:47.910
in Greek, yeah, okay.

55:48.350 --> 55:50.530
Now let's go back to Justin Martyr.

55:51.170 --> 55:54.490
We're talking now within two or three
generations of Jesus.

55:54.850 --> 55:57.830
He talks about that grotto where Jesus was
born.

55:58.410 --> 56:04.970
Finally, I had to bury some of my doubts,
because folks, the place where Jesus was

56:04.970 --> 56:11.410
born was a tourist magnet, a pilgrim
magnet, this was their Eiffel Tower,

56:12.070 --> 56:16.250
this was their Tower of London,
their Colosseum, their Acropolis,

56:16.570 --> 56:19.350
their Parthenon, this brought the tourists
and their money.

56:19.530 --> 56:21.810
Why would they ever forget something like
that?

56:22.050 --> 56:26.890
So maybe I'm getting senile as I'm getting
older, but on the other hand, I'm starting

56:26.890 --> 56:28.890
to doubt some of my doubts about some of
those sites.

56:29.130 --> 56:30.870
So even archaeology comes along.

56:31.310 --> 56:36.210
In terms of Jesus' youth, the synagogue at
Nazareth, where he gave his first public

56:36.210 --> 56:38.290
presentation, has been discovered.

56:38.830 --> 56:43.790
He then changes his address to Capernaum,
as you well know, that's his main post

56:43.790 --> 56:45.970
office address during his Galilean
ministry.

56:46.590 --> 56:51.550
Well, the synagogue where Jesus taught is,
it's a later, two or three centuries later

56:51.550 --> 56:55.990
structure, but it's built on the
foundation stones of the very synagogue

56:55.990 --> 56:57.230
where Jesus taught.

56:58.190 --> 57:04.550
Just one block further south toward the
Sea of Galilee, we have the House of Peter

57:04.550 --> 57:11.330
discovered, which is where Jesus hung his
hat during his three years of ministry.

57:11.490 --> 57:12.930
Remember, he stayed at the House of Peter.

57:14.030 --> 57:16.970
The authentication there might take 15
minutes, I'm not going to take it.

57:17.370 --> 57:23.650
But nevertheless, wherever Constantine
wanted to consecrate a sacred location,

57:23.650 --> 57:27.030
he built a double octagon around the
place.

57:27.090 --> 57:32.250
He had a double octagon around the cave,
he had a double octagon around the House

57:32.250 --> 57:33.770
of Peter in Capernaum.

57:34.150 --> 57:38.090
We have the notation of a pilgrim nun in
380 AD.

57:38.570 --> 57:39.550
Her name was Egeria.

57:40.510 --> 57:45.590
She writes, today we worshiped in the very
House of Peter where Jesus lived,

57:45.750 --> 57:49.490
which the emperor has turned into a
Christian church.

57:49.810 --> 57:55.010
And indeed, the two-room house had the
middle partition taken away and made a

57:55.010 --> 57:56.630
nave of a church out of it.

57:57.430 --> 58:01.910
And there are other clues there with
graffiti on the walls, Jesus' names of the

58:01.910 --> 58:03.890
disciples, Peter, Andrew, and so forth.

58:04.230 --> 58:05.130
Pretty exciting.

58:06.210 --> 58:10.070
A boat has been discovered that Jesus
could have used, yeah!

58:10.950 --> 58:15.090
They call it the Jesus boat, that's too
much, we can't call it that, call it the

58:15.090 --> 58:15.910
Galilee boat.

58:17.190 --> 58:21.890
1986, no rain had come for weeks on end,
it was the driest spring in memory,

58:22.750 --> 58:26.410
and the waters of the Sea of Galilee
starts dropping, dropping, dropping,

58:26.510 --> 58:30.110
and so big wide, halo, a beach shows up
for the first time.

58:30.370 --> 58:35.810
Two brothers from Kibbutz Ginosar,
you see how Gennesaret shows up today,

58:36.030 --> 58:37.590
the one of the four names Sea of Galilee?

58:37.650 --> 58:42.790
Anyway, these two brothers discover a
buried ship's hull, and they were

58:42.790 --> 58:50.130
convinced it was a medieval Arab craft of
some kind, until they called in the

58:50.130 --> 58:54.690
world's ranking marine archaeologist,
he flew in from Texas by the way,

58:55.530 --> 59:03.810
and he identified it as a first century AD
or first century BC biblical horizon hull.

59:04.490 --> 59:05.490
How did he know?

59:05.730 --> 59:08.170
Mortise and tenon construction used only
at that time.

59:08.270 --> 59:14.150
Then they did a C14 test on it,
obviously, and by the way, carbon-14 is

59:14.150 --> 59:19.850
getting better and better, not worse and
worse, don't confuse carbon-14 with

59:19.850 --> 59:26.670
uranium, lead, or potassium, argon,
no, no, this is pretty reliable stuff.

59:27.450 --> 59:31.690
And it dated back 20 centuries,
exactly right.

59:32.030 --> 59:39.110
So this craft alone gives us a neat
commentary on Mark's gospel when he talks

59:39.110 --> 59:41.070
about the stilling of the tempest.

59:42.510 --> 59:45.810
In Sunday school I was a terror,
I didn't mean to be, but I was always

59:45.810 --> 59:47.970
asking Sunday school teacher crazy
questions.

59:49.210 --> 59:53.250
I was pleased, for example, at a Peter's
house, they opened the roof and let Jesus

59:53.250 --> 59:56.130
down for the paralytic healing,
remember that one, you Christians?

59:56.310 --> 01:00:01.830
Okay, but my question, I was pleased that
Jesus could heal a cripple, but teacher,

01:00:01.990 --> 01:00:03.470
what did they do about the roof
afterwards?

01:00:04.570 --> 01:00:05.890
That's what I drew from the lesson.

01:00:06.030 --> 01:00:07.590
Hey, roofs are hard enough to keep dry,
what?

01:00:07.690 --> 01:00:09.850
Oh, Paul, you know, get lost.

01:00:11.230 --> 01:00:14.510
Stilling of the tempest, I was pleased
that Jesus could turn off the wind,

01:00:15.330 --> 01:00:19.050
but how could Jesus sleep through a storm
in the first place?

01:00:19.810 --> 01:00:21.910
Paul, ask your father, and so forth.

01:00:22.710 --> 01:00:28.950
Hey, now we know, because that Galilee
boat that was discovered, the only

01:00:28.950 --> 01:00:34.010
protected spot would be under the rear
decking where the helmsman would stand to

01:00:34.010 --> 01:00:40.350
guide the craft, and the only protected
spot is under that decking, out of the

01:00:40.350 --> 01:00:43.430
cold wind, wet, Jesus can take a snooze.

01:00:43.590 --> 01:00:47.610
Now Mark says he's also sleeping on the
pillow, the cushion.

01:00:48.450 --> 01:00:50.790
What kind of a throwaway detail is that?

01:00:50.870 --> 01:00:52.550
And why does Mark say the?

01:00:53.350 --> 01:00:55.610
He implies it's part of the boat's
rigging.

01:00:55.690 --> 01:00:58.230
He should have said a pillow, a cushion.

01:00:59.190 --> 01:01:01.790
No, you wouldn't say a rudder,
would you?

01:01:01.790 --> 01:01:02.790
You'd say the rudder.

01:01:03.130 --> 01:01:06.190
Okay, so Mark is trying to tell us it's
part of the boat's rigging.

01:01:06.350 --> 01:01:07.370
Now we know what it is.

01:01:08.030 --> 01:01:14.490
That crazy boat could be either rowed or
sailed, because there's the remains of a

01:01:14.490 --> 01:01:20.370
mast block for the, what am I trying to
say, the mast.

01:01:22.530 --> 01:01:31.350
But now a storm, so what are you going to
do with no keel to hold the boat up?

01:01:31.390 --> 01:01:32.890
Well, there's one way to do it.

01:01:33.590 --> 01:01:34.330
Ballast sack.

01:01:34.930 --> 01:01:39.470
Put your ballast sack on the windward
side, however far out you have to take it

01:01:39.470 --> 01:01:43.730
from the center of the hull to account for
the wind, and that'll make it pretty

01:01:43.730 --> 01:01:44.230
stable.

01:01:44.630 --> 01:01:46.190
But a storm is coming up.

01:01:46.590 --> 01:01:48.190
What do you do with the ballast sack?

01:01:48.190 --> 01:01:50.490
You don't want an eccentric boat going
through the water.

01:01:51.330 --> 01:01:54.170
You stow it a center of midships out of
your way.

01:01:55.230 --> 01:01:57.570
Jesus is sleeping on the ballast sack.

01:01:58.270 --> 01:02:00.250
That's what that crazy pillow was,
and cushion.

01:02:00.490 --> 01:02:04.750
These are little fine details you can add
to the biblical record when you tell the

01:02:04.750 --> 01:02:05.310
whole story.

01:02:05.310 --> 01:02:09.970
When it comes to the passion story,
of course, there the needle goes off the

01:02:09.970 --> 01:02:10.330
scale.

01:02:10.750 --> 01:02:16.170
John gives us almost an hour-by-hour,
day-by-day account what happened during

01:02:16.170 --> 01:02:17.390
Holy Week.

01:02:18.190 --> 01:02:24.910
And I'm glad he did, because Jesus didn't
take a move during Holy Week that hasn't

01:02:24.910 --> 01:02:27.210
been doubted or denied by some critics
somewhere.

01:02:28.190 --> 01:02:36.050
And yet, every last detail in Holy Week
rings out perfectly according to the

01:02:36.050 --> 01:02:38.090
canons of Roman jurisprudence.

01:02:38.430 --> 01:02:43.310
This is how a governor would have
conducted a Roman trial at that time.

01:02:43.550 --> 01:02:49.910
The whole thing opens up when,
again, you hear the politics behind the

01:02:49.910 --> 01:02:50.910
Good Friday episode.

01:02:51.370 --> 01:02:56.470
Really, it's the last aspect of the
greatest story ever told that hasn't been

01:02:56.470 --> 01:03:01.690
told yet, except in a wonderful historical
novel called Pontius Pilate.

01:03:02.370 --> 01:03:06.250
The author's name escapes me, although it
is available on the table and back.

01:03:06.370 --> 01:03:09.970
Okay, I wasn't going to mention that
commercial, but I did anyway.

01:03:10.090 --> 01:03:10.630
Sorry about that.

01:03:10.770 --> 01:03:10.910
Okay.

01:03:12.290 --> 01:03:16.790
When you get Pilate's story, you do get
the whole biblical background for what's

01:03:16.790 --> 01:03:17.870
happening on Good Friday.

01:03:18.270 --> 01:03:22.610
Why Pilate is acting defensively.

01:03:22.750 --> 01:03:28.450
Why he cannot cross the crowd when push
comes to shove.

01:03:28.650 --> 01:03:34.130
And they play out the trump card about,
if you release this man you're not

01:03:34.130 --> 01:03:35.130
Caesar's friend.

01:03:35.470 --> 01:03:42.610
Whoever speaks treason against... whoever
calls this man a king is speaking treason

01:03:42.610 --> 01:03:43.370
against Caesar.

01:03:43.790 --> 01:03:49.090
The next line in John's Gospel,
Greek verb, starathoto, let him be

01:03:49.090 --> 01:03:49.470
crucified.

01:03:49.890 --> 01:03:52.290
It was the end of the trial, as far as
Pilate was concerned.

01:03:52.490 --> 01:03:53.550
They had played out the trump card.

01:03:53.710 --> 01:03:54.470
What is that trump card?

01:03:54.770 --> 01:03:56.930
Yeah, the untold story of Good Friday.

01:03:57.590 --> 01:03:58.010
Resurrection!

01:03:59.430 --> 01:04:02.890
Boy, you know, here I am making Mel
Gibson's mistake.

01:04:03.010 --> 01:04:05.070
Remember Mel Gibson back when he had a
reputation?

01:04:07.390 --> 01:04:10.810
Does the Passion of the Christ,
you know, two and a half hours of agony

01:04:10.810 --> 01:04:12.690
and 30 seconds for the resurrection,
you know?

01:04:13.250 --> 01:04:14.470
It's a little unequal.

01:04:14.550 --> 01:04:16.550
I'll tell you one thing though,
make a long story short.

01:04:17.290 --> 01:04:22.890
We are able, categorically, to prove that
the tomb was empty.

01:04:23.270 --> 01:04:26.270
Now that doesn't prove a resurrection,
I'll be the first to say that.

01:04:26.710 --> 01:04:29.350
But the two phenomenal things happened on
Good Friday.

01:04:29.490 --> 01:04:34.670
Christians believe that Jesus rose from
the dead, and again, I think we have 90

01:04:34.670 --> 01:04:40.170
percent proof for that, or 85 percent,
or 80 percent, but there's a little item

01:04:40.170 --> 01:04:44.710
there called faith, which God,
the greatest psychiatrist of all,

01:04:45.610 --> 01:04:52.730
wants people to respond to, because
otherwise God is only a puppet master,

01:04:53.350 --> 01:04:58.810
he's only a marionette controller,
and then we have no free will to oppose

01:04:58.810 --> 01:05:05.010
his thinking, or whatever, and you know
again the God we have.

01:05:05.090 --> 01:05:08.910
Well, we can prove the empty tomb.

01:05:08.950 --> 01:05:10.750
It's one of the byproducts of the
resurrection.

01:05:11.550 --> 01:05:13.770
Two chapters in one of my books prove
that.

01:05:14.290 --> 01:05:21.990
And so generally, to wrap it all up,
the real Jesus shows up pretty well in the

01:05:21.990 --> 01:05:29.550
Gospels, and I think in subsequent decades
he'll show up even better, with more

01:05:29.550 --> 01:05:32.330
information coming in of an archaeological
nature.

01:05:35.230 --> 01:05:37.850
All right, very good, you have a voice
that carries very well.

01:05:37.930 --> 01:05:38.770
Did most of you hear it?

01:05:39.390 --> 01:05:44.750
He's talking about Professor Karen King of
Harvard Divinity School, and the Jesus

01:05:44.750 --> 01:05:49.490
wife document, one of the Coptic Gospels,
supposedly.

01:05:50.030 --> 01:05:55.370
Remember the Smithsonian got all excited
about it, take big ads, they're gonna have

01:05:55.370 --> 01:06:00.850
a television special on it, trying to show
that Jesus refers to his wife.

01:06:02.070 --> 01:06:04.850
It's a fraud, total forgery.

01:06:05.510 --> 01:06:08.150
The Smithsonian show never happened.

01:06:08.270 --> 01:06:08.530
Why?

01:06:08.830 --> 01:06:15.370
Duh, because it was proven to be a fake,
because they had some of the same mistakes

01:06:15.370 --> 01:06:19.230
copied in a Coptic inscription in this
little fragment.

01:06:19.670 --> 01:06:25.190
They only had a fragment because you can't
really do much more in fraud by the way of

01:06:25.190 --> 01:06:26.650
adjusting a little fragment, see?

01:06:27.050 --> 01:06:28.090
And so it's a fraud.

01:06:28.850 --> 01:06:33.810
And that has happened before, believe me,
including the famous Judas Gospel,

01:06:34.150 --> 01:06:38.910
a lot of spooky things about that one that
are not hunky-dory at all.

01:06:40.850 --> 01:06:46.870
These people who commit archaeological
fraud, and they do that also, I just hope

01:06:46.870 --> 01:06:52.330
there's a special sell in the warm place
for these people who try to defraud

01:06:52.330 --> 01:06:54.250
trustworthiness.

01:06:54.350 --> 01:06:56.130
But it's a good question, I'm glad you
asked it.

01:06:56.430 --> 01:06:58.510
It's totally worthless, that claim.

01:07:03.560 --> 01:07:05.720
I don't think they've caught the forgery
yet.

01:07:05.800 --> 01:07:09.480
I would highly suspect the guy that
brought that document to Karen King,

01:07:10.020 --> 01:07:15.060
I really would, simply because he kind of
innocently says, I hear you people are

01:07:15.060 --> 01:07:17.920
interested in Gnostic Gospels,
I don't know if this thing has any worth,

01:07:17.980 --> 01:07:18.740
you want to check it out.

01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:25.800
And of course she immediately bought his
hook, line, and sinker, and no further

01:07:25.800 --> 01:07:26.660
word about it.

01:07:26.740 --> 01:07:28.960
Mums the word ever since, because it's a
fraud.

01:07:29.700 --> 01:07:30.460
Yep, you bet.

01:07:32.140 --> 01:07:36.020
Okay, in the absence, all those with loud
voices, please use microphone,

01:07:36.220 --> 01:07:37.520
or stay where you are for that matter.

01:07:51.240 --> 01:07:54.700
Oh wait, no, I can hear you pretty well,
but why can't we get the electronics

01:07:54.700 --> 01:07:55.120
working?

01:07:57.100 --> 01:07:58.620
Oh, they're working on it, okay,
good.

01:07:59.340 --> 01:08:00.060
Okay, go on.

01:08:35.210 --> 01:08:37.050
Haha, good, yeah, good question.

01:08:38.810 --> 01:08:43.770
I have used that already, that's called
misusing the Bible, because it was a case

01:08:43.770 --> 01:08:47.970
of the Palm Sunday entry of Jesus into
Jerusalem, and the Pharisees rebuked him,

01:08:48.150 --> 01:08:51.130
look how they're praising you,
and he says, listen, if these kids didn't

01:08:51.130 --> 01:08:53.310
sing the stones themselves would cry out.

01:08:53.570 --> 01:08:56.430
That is the context, that's what Jesus
meant by it.

01:08:56.650 --> 01:09:00.950
But let me tell you, a lot of Christians
have used that for archaeology,

01:09:01.530 --> 01:09:05.090
because the stones do, in that sense,
continue to cry out.

01:09:05.290 --> 01:09:06.590
Yes, yeah, nice point.

01:09:06.870 --> 01:09:07.550
Okay, thank you.

01:09:07.670 --> 01:09:08.010
You bet.

01:09:11.090 --> 01:09:18.590
Yeah, so we heard a lot about,
you know, people misrepresenting Jesus,

01:09:18.890 --> 01:09:19.050
right?

01:09:19.230 --> 01:09:23.810
Like, you know, authors are high on
mushrooms, or Jesus is a happy husband,

01:09:24.010 --> 01:09:24.990
or etc., right?

01:09:25.230 --> 01:09:25.230
Yeah.

01:09:25.950 --> 01:09:32.290
But for me, I can't really think of a less
likely story about Jesus than that,

01:09:32.350 --> 01:09:39.190
you know, he was born from a virgin,
or, you know, son of a jealous God whom we

01:09:39.190 --> 01:09:42.030
haven't really heard from since,
raised from the dead, etc.

01:09:42.410 --> 01:09:48.170
So I guess my question is, you know,
why do you think that this story,

01:09:48.450 --> 01:09:53.170
which seems so horribly unlikely,
is true?

01:09:54.050 --> 01:10:02.650
Whereas, you know, all of these other
seemingly comparatively sensible stories

01:10:02.650 --> 01:10:04.470
aren't.

01:10:04.770 --> 01:10:05.270
Thank you.

01:10:05.590 --> 01:10:07.550
Okay, so it's a very good question.

01:10:08.170 --> 01:10:12.490
We have extraordinary things that are
happening, as claimed in the New

01:10:12.490 --> 01:10:16.970
Testament, and I'm not trying by any means
to say that I've proven all this.

01:10:16.990 --> 01:10:18.410
Of course I haven't.

01:10:19.170 --> 01:10:21.650
Have you seen anybody resurrected from the
dead lately?

01:10:21.650 --> 01:10:22.470
I haven't, you know.

01:10:22.590 --> 01:10:27.410
And so there are many things that happen,
which, again, are beyond our normal

01:10:27.410 --> 01:10:32.030
experience, and so I can understand why
somebody would ask a question like that.

01:10:32.170 --> 01:10:34.610
Sure, it's unlikely to have anybody born
of a virgin.

01:10:34.910 --> 01:10:36.610
The whole incarnation is unlikely.

01:10:36.910 --> 01:10:38.790
The whole resurrection is unlikely.

01:10:39.190 --> 01:10:43.170
But maybe that is what proves it true.

01:10:43.910 --> 01:10:49.170
If you had a story that was perfectly
coherent, in many ways, then you might say

01:10:49.170 --> 01:10:50.590
that was invented by humankind.

01:10:51.440 --> 01:10:57.050
But when you have a story which is larger
than normal life, God does things

01:10:57.050 --> 01:10:58.470
differently, you might say.

01:10:58.550 --> 01:11:03.810
And so that objection alone, that you have
extraordinary stuff happening here,

01:11:03.950 --> 01:11:08.870
an unlikely combination of elements,
wouldn't necessarily negate anything,

01:11:08.870 --> 01:11:11.730
because we'd expect God to do something
differently.

01:11:12.050 --> 01:11:17.050
Now, I admit, if there were no contextual
evidence, and we'd only heard about this

01:11:17.050 --> 01:11:19.990
divine being being born of a virgin,
and suffered, died, and rose again,

01:11:20.310 --> 01:11:24.250
in the clips of the creed alone,
and there were no context, it would be

01:11:24.250 --> 01:11:25.050
difficult to believe.

01:11:25.530 --> 01:11:32.670
But when you have this whole thing
preceded by a mess of messianic prophecies

01:11:32.670 --> 01:11:37.070
in the Old Testament, some of them
absolutely uncanny.

01:11:37.270 --> 01:11:43.970
I just did a book on Advent, and I guess I
was reminded again about these spectacular

01:11:43.970 --> 01:11:48.610
prophecies made by a Jewish prophet named
Isaiah.

01:11:49.250 --> 01:11:55.190
This guy acts like he was at Golgotha,
700 years before Christ, he's giving

01:11:55.190 --> 01:11:59.870
predictions about what's going to happen
to Jesus at Calvary, and other prophets

01:11:59.870 --> 01:12:00.830
like him.

01:12:01.350 --> 01:12:07.050
You don't find any book written over a
1300 year period where you have prophecy

01:12:07.050 --> 01:12:08.790
on the one end, fulfillment on the other.

01:12:08.930 --> 01:12:10.470
So that's part of the context.

01:12:10.790 --> 01:12:14.630
And then you have all this other context
in which you can test out any of the

01:12:14.630 --> 01:12:17.910
political authorities that Jesus was
involved with, and get part of their

01:12:17.910 --> 01:12:20.410
biography from Roman history, secular
history.

01:12:20.450 --> 01:12:27.770
So you have something totally here that
absolutely has magnificent confirmation on

01:12:27.770 --> 01:12:28.270
the outside.

01:12:28.710 --> 01:12:31.470
That's why I love these outside sources.

01:12:31.930 --> 01:12:38.110
They are so neat, not only in affirming
the scriptural thing, but in giving us

01:12:38.110 --> 01:12:40.550
neat additional detail.

01:12:41.410 --> 01:12:45.670
This is why I was so turned on by these
accounts ever since Sunday school.

01:12:45.810 --> 01:12:46.990
Always wanted to know more.

01:12:51.320 --> 01:12:53.980
Good, we got others standing up or going
to the microphone?

01:12:54.140 --> 01:12:54.460
Good show.

01:13:05.020 --> 01:13:06.720
No, we got another, I got another
microphone.

01:13:17.420 --> 01:13:17.940
Yes.

01:13:19.540 --> 01:13:20.780
Oh good, thank you.

01:13:21.160 --> 01:13:22.620
Yes, we got sound.

01:13:25.780 --> 01:13:30.940
What would you say is, I would be curious
to hear what your reasons are.

01:13:31.260 --> 01:13:32.060
Proof of the empty tomb?

01:13:32.980 --> 01:13:36.960
Okay, I'll give you the the three minute
version, not the 20 minute version,

01:13:37.040 --> 01:13:37.260
okay?

01:13:38.700 --> 01:13:42.280
We have two forms of argumentation which
we use.

01:13:42.680 --> 01:13:50.260
One would be, an argument that the church
has used for 20 centuries, and it's still

01:13:50.260 --> 01:13:54.600
as good as new, and has never been
contradicted, goes like this.

01:13:55.340 --> 01:13:59.680
It's the answer to the question,
and here's the question, where did

01:13:59.680 --> 01:14:05.820
Christianity first begin in terms of the
organized proclamation that Jesus was the

01:14:05.820 --> 01:14:07.300
Messiah who rose from the dead?

01:14:07.440 --> 01:14:09.000
I want one spot on earth.

01:14:09.860 --> 01:14:13.900
And the answer is, not the Holy Land,
not Galilee, not Judea.

01:14:14.080 --> 01:14:22.020
One place on earth, the city of Jerusalem,
is where the proclamation began that Jesus

01:14:22.020 --> 01:14:24.140
defeated death on Easter.

01:14:24.560 --> 01:14:25.460
Nowhere else.

01:14:26.100 --> 01:14:33.920
Now the point is, in Jerusalem least of
all could the organized proclamation of

01:14:33.920 --> 01:14:41.240
Jesus as the resurrected Lord ever have
been promulgated if the moldering body of

01:14:41.240 --> 01:14:44.640
Jesus of Nazareth were still in the tomb
available for view.

01:14:45.300 --> 01:14:48.940
There would have been no debate between
the disciples and the Sanhedrin.

01:14:49.160 --> 01:14:52.620
They wouldn't been in and out of prison as
they were in the early chapters of the

01:14:52.620 --> 01:14:53.180
book of Acts.

01:14:53.440 --> 01:14:54.280
That would have been the end of it.

01:14:54.620 --> 01:14:59.540
Caiaphas would simply have said,
you poor, denuded, deluded, I should say,

01:14:59.820 --> 01:15:02.660
fishermen, you believe in this dead
criminal?

01:15:03.020 --> 01:15:04.740
Let me show you his body.

01:15:05.160 --> 01:15:07.320
He couldn't do that, the body was not
available.

01:15:07.580 --> 01:15:12.480
Now I'm not telling you, saying,
that an empty tomb proves a resurrection.

01:15:12.620 --> 01:15:13.720
Of course it does not.

01:15:14.480 --> 01:15:19.280
But if you reverse it, you can't have a
resurrection, at least a decent one,

01:15:19.400 --> 01:15:23.320
without the tomb being empty as its first
symptom.

01:15:24.180 --> 01:15:29.800
Now the second argument that I add to that
traditional argument is the criterion of

01:15:29.800 --> 01:15:30.400
embarrassment.

01:15:30.580 --> 01:15:31.240
Remember that one?

01:15:31.940 --> 01:15:34.500
Okay, I searched out Jewish rabbinic
traditions.

01:15:35.160 --> 01:15:37.940
All of them agree the tomb was empty.

01:15:38.400 --> 01:15:39.860
They don't say the tomb was empty.

01:15:40.320 --> 01:15:42.100
They say Jesus' body was stolen.

01:15:43.780 --> 01:15:49.220
Same thing, you know, you can say either
there's money in the bank or it was

01:15:49.220 --> 01:15:49.600
robbed.

01:15:49.720 --> 01:15:52.020
Well that means the money's not there
anymore, okay, same deal.

01:15:52.760 --> 01:16:01.020
So because of those two particularly,
I challenge really any scholar to disprove

01:16:01.020 --> 01:16:02.980
my historical methodology on that one.

01:16:03.660 --> 01:16:05.960
It got interesting responses to that.

01:16:06.300 --> 01:16:10.560
New York Times Book Review gave me a rave
review, and so did Billy Graham.

01:16:10.580 --> 01:16:14.420
I couldn't believe satisfying both Billy
Graham and the New York Times Book Review.

01:16:15.340 --> 01:16:20.500
Most interesting letter I got was from a
Jewish scholar in Tel Aviv, Dr. Galia

01:16:20.500 --> 01:16:20.940
Kornfeld.

01:16:21.120 --> 01:16:25.700
He was writing a book on the Jewish Jesus
rather than the Christian Christ,

01:16:25.800 --> 01:16:31.180
so we knew which way he would take it,
but he came across that argument and he

01:16:31.180 --> 01:16:32.500
was convinced by it.

01:16:32.520 --> 01:16:36.680
Didn't become a Christian, no,
but he had agreed the tomb was empty.

01:16:37.420 --> 01:16:39.980
And then I asked him of course,
how do you explain the empty tomb?

01:16:40.460 --> 01:16:43.880
And he responded by saying he thought that
Jesus never really died.

01:16:44.440 --> 01:16:49.400
And in the cool of the tomb he revived,
well back in some days we learned that was

01:16:49.400 --> 01:16:52.140
the old swoon theory, you know,
the resurrection.

01:16:52.600 --> 01:16:58.520
And then I had to explain to Dr. Kornfeld
the batting average for death by

01:16:58.520 --> 01:17:01.880
crucifixion was about a thousand among the
Romans.

01:17:02.060 --> 01:17:04.820
They didn't let guys escape by feigning
death.

01:17:05.380 --> 01:17:11.600
Even in these human demolition derbies
called gladiatorial combat, they had a

01:17:11.600 --> 01:17:16.480
little guy dressed like Pluto with a red
hot poker, and he would touch all the

01:17:16.480 --> 01:17:22.200
bodies that were on the ground,
and if they flinched, Pike went right to

01:17:22.200 --> 01:17:22.920
the heart.

01:17:23.200 --> 01:17:26.600
And in fact that's kind of what happened
on Good Friday.

01:17:26.600 --> 01:17:30.300
They didn't have red hot poker there,
but they had somebody with a lance

01:17:30.300 --> 01:17:33.700
piercing Jesus pericardium and so on.

01:17:34.420 --> 01:17:42.720
So then Dr. Kornfeld said I understand
that, and I will indeed let you provide a

01:17:42.720 --> 01:17:44.600
response to my version of it.

01:17:44.680 --> 01:17:48.540
I couldn't believe he would do this,
he was as good as his word.

01:17:49.920 --> 01:17:55.260
You know, he gave this explanation for the
empty tomb, I nailed him to the wall with

01:17:55.260 --> 01:17:59.920
it, in a nice way, of course it was his
book, but he gave me the last word.

01:18:00.140 --> 01:18:04.340
See, this is Christian Jewish cooperation
of the first water, so the evidence is

01:18:04.340 --> 01:18:05.140
really very strong.

01:18:25.810 --> 01:18:27.850
Paul, would you repeat the question?

01:18:27.970 --> 01:18:29.170
Of course I plan to.

01:18:30.850 --> 01:18:34.410
The question was about the Roman seal,
Roman guards around the tomb, would there

01:18:34.410 --> 01:18:36.190
be any archaeological evidence for that?

01:18:36.270 --> 01:18:39.030
No, we don't happen to have particular
archaeological evidence there.

01:18:39.410 --> 01:18:42.950
But we do know there were rolling stone
tombs, I can show you 15 of them,

01:18:43.210 --> 01:18:44.710
in and around Jerusalem for example.

01:18:44.910 --> 01:18:46.650
One of these would have had a Roman seal
on.

01:18:46.910 --> 01:18:50.610
Not that it was sealed, caulked,
cemented, no.

01:18:50.950 --> 01:18:56.270
Like the seals you see in your electric
meters, you know, little wires,

01:18:57.070 --> 01:19:01.670
then that was the seal that nobody's
tampered with your meter box.

01:19:02.390 --> 01:19:06.050
And so that's the kind of seal they would
have, probably even a string or something

01:19:06.050 --> 01:19:07.350
with a seal.

01:19:07.510 --> 01:19:09.830
And so that you wouldn't expect something
like that to survive.

01:19:10.230 --> 01:19:16.910
Now I must, however, debate with you on
the Roman guard around the tomb.

01:19:17.770 --> 01:19:19.650
We're not sure it was a Roman guard.

01:19:20.530 --> 01:19:22.750
I think it was a Jewish temple guard.

01:19:23.390 --> 01:19:24.770
Why would I say that?

01:19:24.870 --> 01:19:31.570
Well it all depends on what Pontius Pilate
said that evening when members of the

01:19:31.570 --> 01:19:35.830
Sanhedrin came and said, look,
this deceiver claimed that he's going to

01:19:35.830 --> 01:19:36.790
rise from the dead.

01:19:37.750 --> 01:19:40.590
It was Saturday morning, yeah,
this deceiver's going to rise from the

01:19:40.590 --> 01:19:42.830
dead, make sure the tomb is sealed.

01:19:43.730 --> 01:19:45.550
So guarded, I should say.

01:19:46.050 --> 01:19:47.710
Now what does Pilate say?

01:19:48.330 --> 01:19:55.130
He says either, yeah okay, take a guard,
or you already have a guard.

01:19:55.130 --> 01:19:58.390
Make the tomb as safe as you can.

01:19:59.390 --> 01:20:04.530
Greek is usually very specific,
so help me, both of those interpretations

01:20:04.530 --> 01:20:09.330
are decent translations of what Pilate
said, and to this day we don't know

01:20:09.330 --> 01:20:12.170
whether that was a Roman guard or Jewish
temple guard.

01:20:12.330 --> 01:20:17.470
I personally think it was a Jewish temple
guard because where do these guys report?

01:20:18.310 --> 01:20:23.190
They don't report to their commander,
they don't report to Pilate, they report

01:20:23.190 --> 01:20:25.590
to the Jewish temple authorities.

01:20:26.670 --> 01:20:30.950
There's no way on God's green earth they
would have gone, a Roman force,

01:20:31.050 --> 01:20:32.830
to a Jewish temple authority, no.

01:20:33.290 --> 01:20:36.350
So I think the evidence is pretty
overpowering, there was a Jewish temple

01:20:36.350 --> 01:20:39.130
guard, and so does Tertullian and a few of
the church fathers.

01:20:40.870 --> 01:20:43.870
But again, good question, I'm trying to
knock your question, believe me.

01:20:44.090 --> 01:20:44.290
Yes?

01:20:48.860 --> 01:20:50.760
How did Judas get to Kashmir?

01:20:53.640 --> 01:20:54.140
Jesus.

01:20:56.480 --> 01:20:58.740
I don't know that they ever went to
Kashmir.

01:21:00.960 --> 01:21:06.760
Oh yeah, there is a claimed grave of Jesus
somewhere in Asia, I guess, in Kashmir,

01:21:06.860 --> 01:21:13.980
India, yeah, yeah, I'm fine, hello,
I'm not going to grant any authenticity to

01:21:13.980 --> 01:21:14.660
that one at all.

01:21:16.740 --> 01:21:21.100
They do try to get Jesus traveling all
over the world as a kid.

01:21:21.640 --> 01:21:21.640
Yeah.

01:21:22.580 --> 01:21:24.940
Everybody wants a piece of the action.

01:21:25.660 --> 01:21:27.340
Christians are no exception.

01:21:27.820 --> 01:21:34.300
Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Ames,
or whatever, you know, you all want to

01:21:34.300 --> 01:21:35.920
have something to do with the biblical
account.

01:21:36.000 --> 01:21:37.940
Very interesting itch, isn't it?

01:21:38.800 --> 01:21:40.220
Fun questions, any others?

01:21:40.660 --> 01:21:43.360
Yeah, so I'd like to thank you for coming
out.

01:21:43.660 --> 01:21:50.920
And so in dialoguing with some of my
friends about these issues, and some more

01:21:50.920 --> 01:21:56.440
on the radical fringe of these ideas,
would question the underlying assumption

01:21:56.440 --> 01:22:04.700
that we have the text of the New Testament
without interpolation, or they would say,

01:22:05.120 --> 01:22:11.220
we have a gap between the writings of the
documents and when we have the

01:22:11.220 --> 01:22:15.940
manuscripts, even though they would grant,
yes, this is the best evidence out of any

01:22:15.940 --> 01:22:20.800
work in antiquity, they would still be so
skeptical as to say, there's a gap there.

01:22:21.200 --> 01:22:27.840
And so how do you think the process of
textual criticism comes in to that and can

01:22:27.840 --> 01:22:28.400
help us out?

01:22:28.560 --> 01:22:29.660
Okay, very good question.

01:22:31.320 --> 01:22:37.500
You have to remember that the critics of
the Bible will, first of all, try to deny

01:22:37.500 --> 01:22:39.280
the evidence that's plainly presented.

01:22:40.040 --> 01:22:44.680
But if they can't do that, then they will
criticize the manuscript transmission,

01:22:45.260 --> 01:22:49.560
saying that you have a late manuscript
here, and therefore it's not reliable.

01:22:50.720 --> 01:22:56.160
Fact is, we have late manuscripts for all
the characters from antiquity,

01:22:56.280 --> 01:22:57.780
so it's not really much of an argument.

01:22:58.040 --> 01:23:03.040
But again, you have to remember that Islam
and Mormonism both claim that our biblical

01:23:03.040 --> 01:23:07.440
documents have been somehow miscopied.

01:23:08.040 --> 01:23:11.020
And they use the illustration,
of course, of the children's game called

01:23:11.020 --> 01:23:11.540
telephone.

01:23:12.120 --> 01:23:15.500
I whisper a secret in your ear,
it goes down and so forth, and by the...

01:23:15.500 --> 01:23:20.080
well, you wouldn't have 800, but in a
group of at least 10 or 12, you'd have a

01:23:20.080 --> 01:23:21.640
model then of biblical transmission.

01:23:22.080 --> 01:23:28.220
That argument was all but destroyed by the
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

01:23:28.700 --> 01:23:29.000
Why?

01:23:29.900 --> 01:23:34.640
Two complete scrolls of the prophet Isaiah
found at Qumran.

01:23:35.060 --> 01:23:41.720
The earliest scroll we had of Isaiah
before that was from 1006 AD.

01:23:42.680 --> 01:23:47.140
Now these scrolls were 200 years old in
Jesus' day.

01:23:47.680 --> 01:23:49.820
Do you see a 1200 year gap here?

01:23:49.820 --> 01:23:50.660
Yeah.

01:23:53.220 --> 01:24:01.240
The Qumran scrolls read 99.3% the same way
as they do today, and as they did 2,000

01:24:01.240 --> 01:24:01.860
years ago.

01:24:03.020 --> 01:24:05.780
Generally these are very carefully
transmitted.

01:24:06.040 --> 01:24:11.520
Now to be sure, any pastor will show you a
great New Testament where the bottom of

01:24:11.520 --> 01:24:16.560
the page is 20% critical apparatus,
showing how the various documents may

01:24:16.560 --> 01:24:22.260
disagree in tiny spellings or punctuation,
and then they'll make a big fuss about it.

01:24:22.340 --> 01:24:26.800
Bart Ehrman, a case in point, University
of North Carolina, has made a whole

01:24:26.800 --> 01:24:29.680
cottage industry out of those terrible
variations.

01:24:30.000 --> 01:24:31.720
Well, the variations aren't terrible.

01:24:32.260 --> 01:24:39.020
They're really minor differences in
spelling, sometimes a little bit... not

01:24:39.020 --> 01:24:47.160
one variation of anything in the Old or
New Testament has in any way changed any

01:24:47.160 --> 01:24:52.220
meaning or any doctrinal point in Judaism
or Christianity.

01:24:53.740 --> 01:24:56.660
So really, that argument fails.

01:25:00.700 --> 01:25:01.980
No more questions?

01:25:02.500 --> 01:25:03.160
All right, one question.

01:25:03.380 --> 01:25:03.980
One quick, yeah.

01:25:04.160 --> 01:25:08.800
All right, you said the 90% correspondent
with Josephus.

01:25:09.940 --> 01:25:12.640
I feel like the other 10% might be kind of
important, though.

01:25:13.740 --> 01:25:15.160
Just one quick question.

01:25:17.320 --> 01:25:21.160
The events around Jesus's death that are
listed in the Bible, like the massive

01:25:21.160 --> 01:25:24.220
earthquake and eclipse and saints rising
from the dead and walking around

01:25:24.220 --> 01:25:27.120
Jerusalem, I feel like... I mean,
I've heard this before.

01:25:27.160 --> 01:25:30.960
It seems like those are the sort of things
that would definitely be recorded by a

01:25:30.960 --> 01:25:32.460
historian of that caliber.

01:25:32.940 --> 01:25:36.660
And the fact that they weren't... I'm just
curious, what would you say about it?

01:25:37.240 --> 01:25:38.500
Just trying to bring up a small point.

01:25:38.940 --> 01:25:41.900
You know, I just wish I had stopped with
the previous question.

01:25:43.200 --> 01:25:46.660
You have asked the most difficult question
you can ask of anybody interested in the

01:25:46.660 --> 01:25:46.860
Bible.

01:25:47.020 --> 01:25:50.900
I find that passage in Matthew very,
very difficult, I must say.

01:25:51.260 --> 01:25:55.080
And I'll be honest, I do not have a good
answer for that one.

01:25:55.220 --> 01:25:56.640
I really don't.

01:25:56.720 --> 01:25:58.600
Not that I necessarily have good answers
anywhere.

01:25:58.820 --> 01:26:01.200
What I'm trying to say is that one
especially is quite difficult.

01:26:01.600 --> 01:26:02.320
It really is.

01:26:02.320 --> 01:26:03.560
I'll be honest about it.

01:26:03.960 --> 01:26:10.380
But the other details, like the darkness
and the earthquake and that kind of stuff,

01:26:10.440 --> 01:26:11.980
and it's in that context, remember?

01:26:12.580 --> 01:26:15.440
Yeah, that we can show evidence for.

01:26:16.440 --> 01:26:23.180
Phlegon, P-H-L-E-G-O-N, is a Greek author
of wonders, like Ripley.

01:26:23.360 --> 01:26:26.380
Believe it or not, by Ripley, again,
your parents will know all about that.

01:26:26.620 --> 01:26:28.960
Most of what Ripley reported is true.

01:26:29.500 --> 01:26:33.400
You know, biggest tomato in the world ever
grown in Iowa or something like that,

01:26:33.480 --> 01:26:33.700
you know.

01:26:34.320 --> 01:26:40.420
Well, Phlegon, his name was, was also a
Ripley 2,000 years ago, and he reported

01:26:40.420 --> 01:26:42.300
these strange things that had happened.

01:26:42.340 --> 01:26:43.060
You know what he said?

01:26:43.620 --> 01:26:49.220
He said in the fourth year of the 202nd
Olympiad, there was a great darkness at

01:26:49.220 --> 01:26:54.540
noon, so much so that at Nicaea,
in Asia Minor, you could see stars in the

01:26:54.540 --> 01:26:54.840
daytime.

01:26:55.720 --> 01:27:00.360
And an earthquake took place, which
demolished many of the buildings in

01:27:00.360 --> 01:27:00.920
Nicaea.

01:27:01.000 --> 01:27:03.100
He's writing only about what he
experienced.

01:27:03.860 --> 01:27:07.740
Now, what is the fourth month of the
fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad?

01:27:08.680 --> 01:27:10.640
Just for the heck of it, I figured it out.

01:27:11.360 --> 01:27:14.600
It is April of A.D.

01:27:14.840 --> 01:27:15.320
33.

01:27:16.380 --> 01:27:18.500
That is the date for Good Friday.

01:27:19.320 --> 01:27:21.340
And that's not how I arrived at that date.

01:27:21.480 --> 01:27:25.280
Believe me, it was only after we had the
date in concrete that suddenly I realized,

01:27:25.340 --> 01:27:28.140
hold it, Phlegon's talking about the same
thing.

01:27:28.480 --> 01:27:33.100
And just two months ago, they announced
also, in Jordan River excavations,

01:27:33.540 --> 01:27:36.000
that the strata from 33 A.D.

01:27:36.040 --> 01:27:37.980
do show an earthquake disruption.

01:27:39.120 --> 01:27:42.240
So science is coming through for us in
many ways.

01:27:42.960 --> 01:27:46.660
But again, I realize I have not answered
your searching question.

01:27:46.760 --> 01:27:47.100
That's right.

01:27:48.160 --> 01:27:53.700
But again, I see Dr. Don here,
ready to sweep me off the platform.

01:27:54.380 --> 01:27:55.300
He's the hero.

01:27:55.500 --> 01:27:56.540
He's shutting me up.

01:27:56.840 --> 01:27:58.080
So let's hear it for Don.