The Matt Walsh Show - October 19, 2018


Ep. 127 - The Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus Is Overwhelming


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

158.56873

Word count

5,857

Sentence count

365

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about the resurrection and whether or not science can prove God didn't make the world in six days. I also discuss the argument that science disproves the resurrection, and whether that's a good or bad thing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.640 Yesterday, I did a video about young earth creationism, and I explained why, in my opinion,
00:00:05.380 based on what the text says and based on what we know from science, we should not interpret
00:00:09.640 day to mean a 24-hour period.
00:00:11.760 And I explained that even if we are taking it literally, I think that in the context
00:00:17.680 of Genesis, the literal interpretation of day would not be 24 hours.
00:00:24.600 That would actually be a non-literal interpretation, because the literal interpretation of day
00:00:28.120 all has to do not with how many hours, but with the rotation of the earth.
00:00:32.740 And there's absolutely no reason to believe that in the first three days of creation, as
00:00:36.800 it's told, that you would have an earth that is rotating on a 24-hour cycle.
00:00:41.240 Anyway, you can go to iTunes, or you can go back and watch that video to hear my whole
00:00:45.960 argument.
00:00:46.380 Needless to say, everyone agreed with me.
00:00:48.920 There was really no debate at all.
00:00:51.800 There was no dissension, and a unanimous consensus was formed.
00:00:55.160 Everybody went home happy.
00:00:56.940 Just kidding, of course.
00:00:59.260 People told me I was a heretic and that I would burn in hell.
00:01:02.220 Well, not everyone.
00:01:03.000 Some people told me that.
00:01:05.000 Many people, though, were very thoughtful and respectful in their disagreements, and
00:01:08.960 it was an interesting conversation.
00:01:10.280 Now, during that conversation, one thing that I heard from atheists that I want to use as 1.00
00:01:15.840 the springboard for today, one thing I heard from atheists quite a bit is this.
00:01:21.600 They said, well, if you're saying that it's scientifically impossible for God to create
00:01:25.980 the universe in six days, then why won't you accept that it's scientifically impossible
00:01:29.820 for a person to be resurrected from the dead?
00:01:33.120 And young earthers actually make kind of the same argument, but they frame it the opposite
00:01:36.440 way, where they say, well, if you think it's scientifically possible for a person to be
00:01:40.080 raised from the dead, why don't you think it's possible for God to make the world in six
00:01:44.900 days?
00:01:45.160 So I'd like to talk about the resurrection and whether or not science disproves it,
00:01:51.140 whether or not it's rational to believe in it.
00:01:56.080 But first, before we get into that, just to clarify, I do not believe and did not say
00:02:00.680 that it's impossible for God to make the world in six days.
00:02:04.580 God can do whatever he wants.
00:02:06.700 God is all-powerful.
00:02:07.620 God could make the world in six seconds.
00:02:09.320 God could make the world in any amount of time that he chooses.
00:02:11.960 God, that's what it means to be all-powerful.
00:02:14.200 But my position is not that he can't do it in six days.
00:02:18.560 It's just that he didn't do it in six days.
00:02:20.740 From my reading of the text and looking at science, I think that he did not do it that
00:02:25.240 way.
00:02:25.380 It's not a statement of what he can and can't do.
00:02:27.960 It's a statement about what he apparently did do.
00:02:31.060 Just like if you believe that God did make the world in six days, you're not saying, I
00:02:38.200 don't think you're saying, that he couldn't have or he couldn't make it in six billion years
00:02:42.520 or 10 billion years or whatever.
00:02:48.060 You're just saying that he didn't do it that way.
00:02:50.080 So this is a discussion not of what he can do, but of what he did do.
00:02:54.780 I think it's possible for God to make babies in the sky and then drop them down into our
00:03:04.540 arms.
00:03:05.060 He could do that, but he doesn't do that.
00:03:08.320 He follows a process for making babies.
00:03:12.680 And in learning about that process, we are by no means limiting God.
00:03:19.000 We are by no means setting parameters for God.
00:03:22.020 He sets the parameters.
00:03:23.480 We're just learning the parameters and trying to understand them so that we can understand
00:03:26.820 more about this wonderful world that he's given us.
00:03:30.540 So, since we're on the subject, let's deal with the atheist contention that science disproves
00:03:38.160 God and disproves the resurrection.
00:03:40.180 Let's ask ourselves whether we must choose between science or the central doctrines of
00:03:45.720 the faith.
00:03:46.500 Or perhaps more to the point, is it reasonable, is it rational to believe in the resurrection?
00:03:52.060 Um, must we leave our reason behind if we're going to venture down that road and become
00:04:00.200 Christians? 0.97
00:04:01.340 So, um, let's start here.
00:04:03.960 Let's start with one basic principle here.
00:04:06.700 Science cannot disprove God, okay?
00:04:10.740 It cannot disprove the supernatural by definition.
00:04:15.540 Uh, science is a thing for the natural realm.
00:04:19.160 The claim of a Christian or of any theist is that there is also a supernatural realm, which
00:04:27.120 science can't tell you anything about.
00:04:30.200 And I think intelligent atheists, atheists who are careful and measured in their arguments,
00:04:35.060 they know this to be the case.
00:04:36.700 They understand this.
00:04:37.640 So if you listen to Dawkins or if you, you know, if you read or go and watch a YouTube
00:04:43.560 video of Christopher Hitchens, you'll find that this, this is the way that they phrase
00:04:47.880 it.
00:04:48.040 You know, they'll say something like, well, science doesn't need God or science works without
00:04:53.380 God.
00:04:54.180 They don't say that science disproves God because they know they can't say that.
00:05:00.140 They know that that would be a sloppy thing to say that they can't possibly support.
00:05:04.800 Now, of course, I disagree with their contention that science doesn't need God or works without
00:05:08.880 him.
00:05:09.060 But it's instructive that they do phrase the contention that way rather than saying that
00:05:14.860 science offers positive proof that God does not exist.
00:05:18.380 That's more something that like a sloppy kind of atheist in a YouTube comment section would say.
00:05:26.420 But smart ones know better.
00:05:27.840 They're not going to say that.
00:05:29.500 Naturalism.
00:05:30.100 OK, naturalism is the belief that there is nothing but the natural.
00:05:33.600 There's nothing but the physical world.
00:05:35.160 What you see is what you get.
00:05:36.080 Basically, that is a philosophical position.
00:05:38.260 It is not a scientific position.
00:05:40.860 And if you go into a study of Scripture with that presupposition in mind, then you're going
00:05:47.300 to, of course, rule out all of the miraculous claims that you come across immediately because
00:05:51.320 it contradicts your philosophy, not because it contradicts science.
00:05:59.680 Now, Christians and Jews believe in a God who transcends the physical world and is not subject to its
00:06:07.720 rules.
00:06:08.180 So you cannot disprove God by applying the rules of the physical world to him.
00:06:13.260 He sets those rules.
00:06:14.380 And the fact that the rules are so orderly, the fact that you can do mathematics and you can do physics
00:06:22.960 and you can work out equations and calculations and learn about the world, and it all makes so much sense,
00:06:30.560 that is evidence for God, not against him.
00:06:34.620 You know, there's that famous Einstein quote where he said the most incomprehensible thing about the world
00:06:39.200 is that it is comprehensible.
00:06:40.780 So he was speaking about the incredible order and discernibility of the universe, which is not what you would expect
00:06:47.900 if we're talking about a random universe that came out of nothing and came out of chaos.
00:06:54.000 You would not expect a universe that has ordered itself like this, a universe that can be understood,
00:06:59.620 a universe that follows certain firm laws.
00:07:03.600 In a random and chaotic universe, why should we be able to know or understand anything,
00:07:09.720 much less why should we even be here in the first place as living beings and especially as conscious beings?
00:07:17.600 How could these random forces assemble themselves in such an orderly way and then create out of nothing,
00:07:24.960 out of the void, intelligent beings who can grasp these concepts and talk about them and argue about them?
00:07:31.020 How could that happen?
00:07:31.900 Again, this is evidence for God, not against him.
00:07:34.320 The fact that you can do science at all would seem to give credence to the idea that the universe was constructed by an intelligent designer
00:07:42.060 who had a purpose and a plan in mind.
00:07:45.000 So we can deduce, I think, from the intelligibility of the universe that there must be a God behind it.
00:07:51.420 That's a deduction we can make.
00:07:54.340 Now, of course, we cannot perform some kind of equation and then, or work out some kind of, like, you know,
00:08:01.100 do some kind of calculus and then say, aha, well, there's God.
00:08:04.380 He's right there.
00:08:06.040 You can't do that.
00:08:06.980 Any more than you can perform an equation and conjure up love, right?
00:08:10.640 God is transcendent, non-physical, all-powerful, not subject to the laws that he makes.
00:08:15.740 We cannot say, therefore, that anything is scientifically impossible for God.
00:08:25.520 Now, we can say that certain things are logically impossible for God or for anyone.
00:08:34.140 Scientific impossibilities are different from logical impossibilities.
00:08:37.740 God can create a universe out of nothing.
00:08:41.240 That is not a scientific impossibility for him.
00:08:43.760 He cannot create a round square or a rectangular triangle because those are logical impossibilities in that they are nonsense.
00:08:54.700 And God does not, cannot engage in nonsense.
00:08:58.880 Nonsense is nonsense.
00:08:59.720 So, it's like if you were to ask God the question, what's the color of the number seven, that's a question God can't answer because it is, by definition, an unanswerable nonsense question.
00:09:14.980 So, when confronted with claims, you know, when we are confronted with claims that God did this or that, we can analyze those claims on two levels to try and figure out if the claims might be true.
00:09:30.300 Number one, we can ask, is this claim consistent with the nature of God?
00:09:34.300 Number two, we can ask, is it logically possible?
00:09:36.800 We can't ask, is it scientifically possible?
00:09:39.220 We can't ask, is it logically possible?
00:09:42.100 When someone says that God instructed them to blow up a school bus full of children, we can say definitively that that claim is false because it is not consistent with God's nature.
00:09:52.300 When someone says that two plus two equals 16 because God told them so, we can say definitively that is false because it is not logical.
00:09:59.400 The resurrection, though, does not contradict God's nature and it is not illogical.
00:10:07.320 Therefore, we have no rational or scientific reason to disbelieve it.
00:10:12.760 But, of course, that's not enough.
00:10:14.080 To say that there isn't necessarily any reason to disbelieve it, that's not enough.
00:10:18.080 That's not the same thing as saying that there are positive reasons to believe it.
00:10:22.660 But I do think there are positive reasons to believe it.
00:10:25.840 And I'll give you two.
00:10:29.400 First, history.
00:10:34.080 What's so incredible about Christianity is that it makes historical claims, even, I would say, in the grand scheme of things, you might even say recent historical claims, recent in comparison to the whole history of the world.
00:10:51.260 It says that a historical event occurred 2,000 years ago.
00:10:55.160 And it's very specific about what that historical event entailed.
00:11:00.860 Now, if it made that historical claim and provided no evidence to support it, then I think we'd have every reason to dismiss it.
00:11:09.340 If a religion is going to claim that God himself entered into human history at a particular point, did a bunch of stuff, and then died and was raised and appeared to people after his resurrection, we should be able to provide documentation to prove it.
00:11:23.240 I mean, you can't very well go and expect someone to believe it, because this is supposed to be a historical event.
00:11:34.720 Something that actually physically happened and that people witnessed and documented, so then we can say, well, where is the proof?
00:11:43.320 And we have, indeed, I think, quite a bit of historical proof.
00:11:48.760 What is the historical proof?
00:11:51.460 Well, we have the epistles of Paul, first of all.
00:11:55.880 And I say the epistles first of all because they were, even though the Gospels come before the epistles in the Bible, chronologically the epistles were written first.
00:12:05.080 They were written before the Gospels.
00:12:06.440 And though Paul was not one of the original twelve apostles, he does testify to what the twelve reported.
00:12:15.640 And he also gives us, you know, Paul, I think, gives us maybe the best evidence in the entire New Testament.
00:12:23.820 If you look specifically at 1 Corinthians 15, and this letter was written probably in A.D. 54 or 55, so only 20 years or so after Christ.
00:12:33.560 And this letter is also among the seven of the epistles of Paul that nobody, no scholar, disputes was authentically written by him.
00:12:45.680 And that's important because there are secular and atheist scholars who attempt to argue that certain of Paul's epistles were not written by him.
00:12:52.800 The pastoral epistles, especially, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, they'll say, many secular and atheist scholars will say,
00:13:04.360 well, those probably weren't written by Paul because it's a different style of writing and he appears to have, you know, changed his perspective on certain things.
00:13:13.060 Now, I think that's a bad argument.
00:13:15.740 Those letters were clearly written by Paul as well.
00:13:18.140 Well, so the secular scholars are wrong on that point.
00:13:21.380 But the point is that 1 Corinthians, with 1 Corinthians, you have a text that even the most skeptical will admit was written by Paul himself,
00:13:30.260 which I think is pretty compelling.
00:13:32.600 And what does it say?
00:13:34.060 Well, you go to chapter 15.
00:13:36.240 It says,
00:13:36.720 So here we have,
00:14:06.120 The significance of this is, you know, most scholars that have looked at this text say that this is not just Paul freestyling here.
00:14:18.840 This is a very early creed.
00:14:22.300 This is a statement of faith that he says was given to him and which he is passing on.
00:14:29.140 Which means that by the time of this writing, in fact, by the time of his first visit to Corinth, so a few years earlier than that, this creed had already taken shape.
00:14:40.200 It had taken shape very quickly, remarkably fast, actually.
00:14:46.840 And it tells us some basic facts about Jesus, including that he was crucified, that he died, he was buried, he rose from the dead, and he appeared to 500 witnesses and then to the apostles.
00:14:59.700 So I think that this, along with Paul's other letters, where he speaks about Jesus' death and resurrection frequently, they all offer, I think, very good evidence for the resurrection.
00:15:13.960 But I think even more than that, Paul himself, his story, what he did, his own biography is even more compelling evidence.
00:15:28.200 Because we know that he was a very strict Jew who originally considered the Christians to be heretics.
00:15:35.880 He helped to round them up and execute them, but something happened.
00:15:39.920 Something quite sudden occurred, and then he changed.
00:15:42.660 There was a change in him, and he went from a persecutor of the followers of Christ to persecuted in the name of Christ.
00:15:52.480 Now, how do we account for that as a skeptic?
00:15:57.180 If you're a skeptic, how do you account for that?
00:15:59.960 I haven't really heard an even halfway convincing argument.
00:16:04.100 The best you can do to try to explain, you've got this guy, persecutor of Christians, strict, observant Jew, who comes to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, 0.98
00:16:18.640 and then goes and travels around the region preaching this, putting his life in jeopardy, writing these letters.
00:16:23.440 How do you explain that if the resurrection never occurred?
00:16:28.920 The best you can do, I think, your only recourse, really, is to claim that Paul was just a madman, that he was a lunatic.
00:16:35.700 That he had a hallucination on the road to Damascus, and then he went insane, and he decided to travel all around the region preaching gibberish. 0.83
00:16:45.400 Now, the problem with that is that we have the epistles.
00:16:55.140 We have what he preached.
00:16:57.900 We know what he preached.
00:16:59.560 We can see it for ourselves.
00:17:00.940 We're not getting it secondhand.
00:17:01.900 We're getting it from him.
00:17:03.200 And it's not gibberish.
00:17:04.840 It's not the ravings of a madman.
00:17:06.600 It's very dense, very beautiful theology and philosophy.
00:17:10.780 This is obviously a deep thinker.
00:17:13.060 This is a very intelligent, lucid human being.
00:17:16.280 You can tell that if you simply read his letters.
00:17:20.440 So that explanation doesn't work.
00:17:24.600 You know, you've probably heard the trilemma argument, the three L's popularized by C.S. Lewis,
00:17:32.080 is liar, lunatic, or lord. 0.87
00:17:36.820 And the way that that argument goes, what C.S. Lewis said is, well, when it comes to Jesus,
00:17:43.740 although a lot of modern people like to say that, well, you know, he was just a great moral,
00:17:49.840 he wasn't the son of God, he was just a great moral teacher who said a bunch of great stuff,
00:17:53.840 and then he died, and that was it.
00:17:55.160 But C.S. Lewis's point, famously, is that, well, you can't really do that.
00:18:03.640 You have to either accept him as the Lord or condemn him as a liar or a lunatic.
00:18:09.440 Because a great moral teacher, who is merely mortal, wouldn't go around claiming that he
00:18:16.020 was the son of God.
00:18:17.200 So either he was the son of God, or he was an evil person, or he was crazy.
00:18:21.900 Now, I used to like that argument.
00:18:26.220 I used to think it was a very good argument.
00:18:28.280 And with all due respect to C.S. Lewis, who is one of my favorite humans to ever walk the
00:18:31.880 earth, I think that actually I've come to realize that that argument is not very good, in fact.
00:18:38.140 It's not a great argument because it's kind of a straw man in that it leaves out the L word
00:18:46.120 that almost every skeptic will actually choose, which is legend.
00:18:49.940 So actually, it's liar, lunatic, lord, or legend.
00:18:55.780 Most skeptics, most atheists, most non-Christians, even those who are theists but are non-Christians, 0.63
00:19:02.780 most of them, what they'll say is, yeah, well, Jesus was, you know, he wasn't liar, lunatic, or lord.
00:19:08.340 He was a legend.
00:19:09.660 Either he didn't exist at all, or he did exist, but he never said the things that were attributed to him.
00:19:14.640 They'll try to say, you know, for instance, well, most of his claims of divinity happen in the Gospel of John,
00:19:23.560 which is the last one written, so John made that up, and blah, blah, blah.
00:19:26.520 You know, these are the arguments they try to make.
00:19:29.200 Obviously, I think that argument is absurd, but if you aren't going to accept Christ as Lord,
00:19:38.560 then legend is really the only option you have to go with, and so that is the option that most atheists and so forth will go with,
00:19:46.440 which is why the trilemma thing just kind of breaks down.
00:19:48.760 But, I think a version of this trilemma argument works much better for Paul than it does for Jesus.
00:19:58.480 Because with Paul, you have to believe that either he was telling the truth about Jesus,
00:20:06.180 or he was a pathological liar, or he was a lunatic. 0.85
00:20:10.020 There really isn't a fourth option.
00:20:11.840 There is no tenable fourth option for Paul.
00:20:14.140 Because we have his writings.
00:20:18.840 Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote anything.
00:20:22.000 At least we have no writings of Jesus, aside from what he wrote in the sand,
00:20:27.740 when the adulterous woman was going to be stoned to death. 1.00
00:20:31.760 But with Paul, you know, we do have his writings.
00:20:36.740 And so, even the most radical skeptics, you know, they can't deny his existence,
00:20:41.600 and they can't claim that he didn't say the things that we claim he said,
00:20:48.080 because we have his own words.
00:20:50.300 So, then what's it going to be?
00:20:52.800 We know Paul's not a legend.
00:20:54.940 So, read through the epistles.
00:20:57.600 What's it going to be?
00:20:59.420 Is this a lunatic speaking?
00:21:00.980 When you read the epistles, do you think this is a crazy man?
00:21:03.480 No, I think clearly not.
00:21:04.620 Is it a liar?
00:21:06.240 Well, he certainly appears to be a man of great integrity and sound ethics.
00:21:09.660 What's more, he's given his life over to preaching this news around the world.
00:21:15.060 He's risking his life in the process.
00:21:16.660 Why would he do that for a lie?
00:21:18.700 So, that seems to leave only the first option, that he's telling the truth.
00:21:24.400 He's telling the truth not only about what was reported to him,
00:21:28.340 but also about his own conversion experience and his own encounter with the risen Lord.
00:21:34.740 So, I think that's, you know, Paul gives us great evidence.
00:21:37.980 What other evidence do we have?
00:21:40.820 Well, obviously, we have the Gospels.
00:21:42.760 We have four canonical Gospels.
00:21:45.100 We don't know exactly for sure when they were written.
00:21:47.840 We don't know for sure which order they were written in.
00:21:53.340 Atheists will try to say that we don't even know who wrote them, that they were anonymous writings.
00:21:57.140 But I think that's completely ridiculous.
00:21:58.860 It's ridiculous because we do know who wrote them.
00:22:00.860 Their names are on the documents.
00:22:03.160 And their names have always been on the documents.
00:22:05.500 You go back and look at the ancient manuscripts, and their names have always been attached to them.
00:22:09.480 So, these are not anonymous writings.
00:22:13.260 And, you know, these days, in terms of when they were written, these days, Markan priority is popular.
00:22:21.260 That is that many scholars, especially secular ones, say that Mark was written first, and then Matthew and Luke, and then John last of all.
00:22:27.780 There does seem to be unanimous consensus across the centuries, starting very early on, that John went last, and that he wrote his Gospel when he was an old man.
00:22:37.480 So, everyone seems to agree on that.
00:22:39.660 But for a long time, it was thought that Matthew wrote his Gospel first.
00:22:44.700 The Church Fathers thought that.
00:22:46.040 And, you know, it doesn't really matter that much, although you can see why secular scholars want Mark to have gone first.
00:22:54.680 So, they are going to try to work the evidence in such a way so that Mark can go first.
00:22:59.100 And why do they want Mark to go first?
00:23:00.720 Well, because Mark was not an eyewitness.
00:23:03.200 Neither was Luke.
00:23:03.880 So, it's convenient for Mark to go first, in the mind of a skeptic, because the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called synoptics because they're so very similar.
00:23:14.840 And it's clear that somebody went first, and then the others used that first one as a source, though not their only source.
00:23:22.780 So, if Matthew used Mark as a source, though Matthew was an eyewitness and Mark wasn't,
00:23:28.420 then the atheist thinks he can argue, well, Matthew must not have been an eyewitness, because what kind of eyewitness would use a non-eyewitness as a source?
00:23:36.780 Well, this isn't really a problem at all.
00:23:39.280 First of all, there's a very good chance that Matthew did go first, you know, that he was the first Gospel.
00:23:44.380 The earliest traditions say so, which is a pretty strong reason to believe it.
00:23:48.580 These are the people that were, you know, around within a century or so of the Gospels being written.
00:23:54.120 They all believe that Matthew went first.
00:23:55.460 But anyway, Mark was a companion of Peter.
00:24:00.600 Peter was in a privileged position as an apostle.
00:24:03.860 And we know that he saw things, and he was likely told things that the others weren't.
00:24:07.700 He was closer to Jesus than Matthew was.
00:24:11.740 So, if Mark did go first, and he got his information from Peter,
00:24:15.200 it makes sense that Matthew, though he was a disciple of Jesus as well, would refer back to Peter through Mark.
00:24:20.000 In any case, whatever the order, we have, within a few decades of Christ's death,
00:24:25.160 four Gospels that attest to Christ's life and work and death and resurrection.
00:24:32.240 These Gospels are written clearly.
00:24:34.500 They are written in biographical fashion, according to how biographies were written back in those days.
00:24:39.080 They weren't written like modern biographies, but they are written like ancient biographies.
00:24:44.580 And they also lack the kind of dramatic detail and embellishment that you would expect if these were made-up stories.
00:24:51.480 In fact, we do also have very ancient, made-up stories about Jesus, so we know what those look like.
00:25:00.480 If you go to the Apocryphal Gospels, the so-called Gospels of Peter, Judas, Thomas, Mary,
00:25:06.000 which were made-up, fabricated forgeries,
00:25:11.200 and these do contain wild and obviously fabricated stories.
00:25:15.100 I think the Gospel of Thomas has a story about, for instance, about the child Jesus murdering another child in the village when he was a boy.
00:25:24.320 I'm not sure why you would want to have Jesus doing that, but that's in the, I believe it's the Gospel of Thomas has that.
00:25:31.140 But the church uniformly rejected the Apocryphal Gospels, and that's important.
00:25:37.440 The church did not just accept any Jesus material it could get its hands on.
00:25:42.060 It's not like it had no discerning process.
00:25:45.700 It subjected these writings to rigorous analysis and would only accept the ones that were authentic,
00:25:51.400 even if the authentic ones were, frankly, a bit more boring than the fake ones.
00:25:58.360 So the Gospels are very compelling evidence,
00:26:02.500 and we should also note here that, although we don't have the originals of any of these documents,
00:26:07.800 we do have a ton of early manuscripts,
00:26:11.360 thousands of them.
00:26:13.100 And what's really incredible, I think,
00:26:14.900 is that these early manuscripts,
00:26:17.000 written over the course of many years by many scribes,
00:26:20.140 match up extremely, extraordinarily well.
00:26:23.920 Now, you'll sometimes hear from atheists,
00:26:26.580 you'll sometimes hear them say that,
00:26:29.900 well, there are hundreds of thousands of variants
00:26:32.400 in the biblical manuscripts,
00:26:34.840 differences, in other words,
00:26:35.820 between the manuscripts.
00:26:37.820 And then they'll say that,
00:26:38.720 well, it's like the game of telephone.
00:26:41.340 You know, the story of Jesus started
00:26:42.940 in the,
00:26:45.660 you know, around the year 30 AD,
00:26:47.440 and then it was passed down,
00:26:48.500 and it's like the game of telephone,
00:26:49.560 and it was morphed and changed,
00:26:50.740 and so on and so forth.
00:26:52.040 But that's actually not what you see
00:26:54.140 when you look at the manuscripts,
00:26:55.640 that the vast majority of the differences in the manuscripts
00:26:58.940 are irrelevant.
00:27:00.240 They're just typos, basically.
00:27:02.460 They're, you know, ancient typos.
00:27:06.980 When it comes to the substance,
00:27:08.340 when it comes to the significant information,
00:27:10.200 they're identical.
00:27:13.060 There is no evidence at all
00:27:14.940 that anything was added or taken out
00:27:16.940 that would change the fundamental meaning of the Gospels.
00:27:19.860 So that's very significant.
00:27:22.000 Now, some people demand that we, you know,
00:27:25.700 have evidence outside the Bible,
00:27:27.700 and I think that's kind of silly, personally.
00:27:31.800 The best eyewitness accounts of Jesus
00:27:34.200 were included in the Bible
00:27:35.840 because they were the best accounts.
00:27:37.920 So what you're saying is,
00:27:38.740 oh, I want another eyewitness account.
00:27:41.460 Well, if there were other eyewitness accounts
00:27:43.300 of that same veracity,
00:27:45.920 they would have been in the Bible.
00:27:46.900 The ones that are really good
00:27:48.640 are in the Bible for a reason.
00:27:50.480 So to ask for other accounts,
00:27:51.880 I think, is kind of disingenuous.
00:27:54.120 Or, in other words,
00:27:54.680 what I'm saying is to discount
00:27:57.060 all of the eyewitness accounts
00:27:59.380 that are in the Bible
00:28:00.520 because they're in the Bible
00:28:02.340 is extremely disingenuous.
00:28:04.620 But we do have other accounts as it happens.
00:28:07.740 We do have other mentions of Jesus.
00:28:10.540 There are some Roman historians
00:28:11.780 who lived in the apostolic age
00:28:13.220 who provide independent, non-biblical,
00:28:16.140 non-Christian, even anti-Christian
00:28:18.200 attestation of Christ's life and death.
00:28:21.720 Josephus is one.
00:28:22.740 I'm sure you've heard of Josephus.
00:28:23.900 Josephus, a Jewish Roman historian.
00:28:28.080 Now, his reference to Jesus is disputed.
00:28:32.580 It's clear that there was some embellishment
00:28:34.100 later on, some Christians added to it.
00:28:36.820 But it's also clear
00:28:38.320 that he did at least mention Jesus.
00:28:40.260 And then, even more interesting,
00:28:41.900 Tacitus, another historian,
00:28:45.120 around the same time as Josephus,
00:28:48.420 first century.
00:28:49.740 And this is a guy who didn't like Christians.
00:28:51.640 He had, this is what he says
00:28:54.140 in one of his writings.
00:28:54.900 He says,
00:28:55.180 Christ, the founder of the name,
00:28:58.160 had undergone the death penalty
00:28:59.440 in the reign of Tiberius
00:29:00.600 by sentence of Pontius Pilate.
00:29:02.880 And a pernicious superstition
00:29:04.600 was checked for the moment
00:29:05.600 only to break out once more,
00:29:07.480 not merely in Judea,
00:29:08.840 the home of the disease,
00:29:09.900 but in the capital itself,
00:29:11.120 where all things horrible and shameful
00:29:12.600 in the world collect and find a vogue.
00:29:14.860 So this is extremely significant
00:29:16.800 because it attests not just
00:29:18.540 to Christ's existence,
00:29:19.700 but to his death under Pontius Pilate
00:29:21.080 and to the belief,
00:29:23.120 the superstition he calls it,
00:29:24.620 that Jesus rose from the dead.
00:29:26.520 And this is obviously someone
00:29:27.940 who hates Christians
00:29:28.840 and is very insulting towards them.
00:29:30.860 So he has no reason
00:29:32.020 to make this up at all.
00:29:35.080 But even he attests to this.
00:29:38.260 So you'll notice,
00:29:39.280 you don't have,
00:29:40.240 there are plenty early critics
00:29:41.660 of Christianity.
00:29:42.320 None of them claim
00:29:44.040 that Jesus didn't exist,
00:29:46.260 that the Christians,
00:29:47.380 you know,
00:29:47.600 are making all this up,
00:29:49.040 that he's a mythical figure.
00:29:50.680 The early critics of Christianity
00:29:52.420 who would have been
00:29:53.360 in a position to know
00:29:54.760 if this stuff was completely made up,
00:29:57.260 they don't claim that.
00:30:00.700 So, a ton of evidence,
00:30:03.620 very good evidence.
00:30:05.000 And then the final category
00:30:06.540 of evidence we have
00:30:07.400 is the church itself.
00:30:08.940 How it was formed,
00:30:10.160 under what circumstances.
00:30:12.320 You know,
00:30:12.800 we know that something happened.
00:30:14.440 Something happened
00:30:15.160 to cause the early Christians, 1.00
00:30:17.120 starting with the apostles,
00:30:18.540 to believe that Jesus
00:30:20.480 was the Son of God.
00:30:22.000 And then to give their whole lives
00:30:23.780 over to this belief.
00:30:24.980 And even to give their lives
00:30:26.420 up to this belief.
00:30:29.020 You know,
00:30:29.540 tradition tells us
00:30:30.280 that the apostles
00:30:31.280 were all martyred.
00:30:33.140 I believe that to be the case.
00:30:34.540 We don't have documented proof
00:30:36.640 for all of them.
00:30:38.380 But we do for some.
00:30:40.500 It's generally accepted
00:30:41.440 by pretty much everyone
00:30:42.240 that Peter was martyred.
00:30:44.040 We have very early writings
00:30:45.380 that attest to the fact
00:30:46.320 that Peter and Paul
00:30:47.220 were martyred.
00:30:48.980 Well, something happened
00:30:50.620 that made Peter decide
00:30:52.640 that he was willing to die
00:30:53.980 for this man Jesus,
00:30:55.380 who he knew.
00:30:56.960 And if the resurrection
00:30:57.900 of Jesus was a lie,
00:30:59.320 then Peter would have known it.
00:31:00.520 He would have participated
00:31:01.300 in the lie.
00:31:02.500 And he would be dying
00:31:03.220 for something
00:31:03.700 that he knew to be a lie.
00:31:04.980 And that's very difficult
00:31:05.920 to believe.
00:31:07.540 And we know that Christianity 0.99
00:31:08.800 spread somehow,
00:31:10.380 against all odds.
00:31:11.440 This obscure cult of Jews 1.00
00:31:13.860 running around claiming
00:31:15.480 that a criminal
00:31:16.160 who had been crucified
00:31:16.980 had actually come back
00:31:17.780 from the dead
00:31:18.320 and was the Son of God.
00:31:20.780 This strange collection
00:31:22.120 of illiterate peasants,
00:31:23.940 somehow they managed
00:31:25.040 to start a movement
00:31:25.800 that eventually,
00:31:26.640 and rather quickly,
00:31:27.960 took over the entire world.
00:31:29.140 You know, see,
00:31:31.480 skeptics will want
00:31:33.140 to compare Christianity
00:31:34.200 to other religions,
00:31:35.720 and they'll make this kind
00:31:36.540 of plurality
00:31:37.360 of religion argument
00:31:38.380 where they say,
00:31:40.120 well, there are so many
00:31:40.700 religions out there,
00:31:41.660 and they're all basically
00:31:42.280 the same.
00:31:42.820 I mean, how can you claim
00:31:43.760 that one is true
00:31:44.980 and the others aren't?
00:31:46.880 Well, except that Christianity 1.00
00:31:49.240 is not like the others.
00:31:51.580 That's just,
00:31:52.200 that's a frankly
00:31:53.680 stupid thing to say.
00:31:56.400 Even if you don't believe
00:31:57.460 in Christianity,
00:31:57.980 you have to admit
00:31:59.140 that it's different.
00:32:01.120 It is unique.
00:32:02.400 You can't deny that.
00:32:04.720 You can only try
00:32:05.920 and explain away
00:32:06.920 the uniqueness,
00:32:08.140 but you can't deny
00:32:09.960 its uniqueness.
00:32:11.100 No other religion 0.98
00:32:12.280 in history
00:32:13.240 has done
00:32:14.600 what Christianity did, 0.66
00:32:17.240 especially in that context,
00:32:19.760 under those conditions,
00:32:21.180 and so quickly.
00:32:24.660 That in and of itself
00:32:25.920 doesn't prove
00:32:26.580 that Christianity is true.
00:32:27.560 But it does mean
00:32:28.840 that you can't go around
00:32:29.680 saying, well,
00:32:30.180 it's just like
00:32:30.540 every other religion.
00:32:31.240 You do have to admit
00:32:32.040 that it's unique.
00:32:33.380 And once you've admitted
00:32:34.240 that,
00:32:35.020 and then you allow
00:32:36.020 for all the other evidence,
00:32:38.400 and you look at
00:32:38.780 all the other evidence,
00:32:40.580 I think it starts
00:32:41.420 to pile up
00:32:42.020 and it becomes
00:32:42.440 rather overwhelming.
00:32:43.640 So,
00:32:47.520 these are all
00:32:49.400 really good reasons
00:32:50.140 to believe in Christianity.
00:32:52.280 Rational reasons,
00:32:54.240 historical reasons,
00:32:56.520 scientifically
00:32:57.100 plausible reasons.
00:33:01.480 Are they sufficient, though?
00:33:03.060 Is this all you need?
00:33:05.660 Well, there is a strand
00:33:06.760 of Christian apologetics
00:33:07.840 that would say,
00:33:08.820 yes, this is enough.
00:33:09.680 This is all you need.
00:33:11.340 You can prove
00:33:12.220 Christianity historically,
00:33:13.720 you can prove
00:33:14.280 that it's true,
00:33:14.780 and then you can accept
00:33:15.520 it entirely
00:33:16.040 based on the evidence.
00:33:17.880 So, if you go,
00:33:18.720 you know,
00:33:18.880 you look up guys
00:33:19.540 like Mike Lacona,
00:33:21.140 Gary Habermas,
00:33:22.960 Lee Strobel
00:33:23.600 with The Case for Christ.
00:33:25.780 I never saw the movie.
00:33:27.000 I did read the book
00:33:27.700 finally,
00:33:28.720 recently, actually.
00:33:30.780 And that's the approach
00:33:32.760 that they take.
00:33:33.860 You know,
00:33:34.080 they'll say that,
00:33:34.980 well,
00:33:35.160 you believe in Christianity
00:33:37.520 purely because of the history.
00:33:39.040 You can prove it historically.
00:33:42.700 Habermas is fond of saying
00:33:44.060 that he believes Christianity
00:33:45.220 because of the data.
00:33:47.400 Well,
00:33:47.820 I do think the data is good.
00:33:50.180 I think the history is good.
00:33:52.780 I think the evidence
00:33:53.740 is very strong.
00:33:55.460 I think the evidence
00:33:56.120 is enough to make you stop
00:33:57.360 and take this seriously
00:33:58.620 and pay attention.
00:34:00.420 But,
00:34:01.020 if you're really intent
00:34:02.100 on disbelieving,
00:34:03.360 you can always explain
00:34:04.620 everything away.
00:34:05.860 So,
00:34:06.260 the evidence is good,
00:34:07.380 I would even say
00:34:07.980 it's overwhelming.
00:34:09.060 It is not sufficient
00:34:10.300 in and of itself.
00:34:12.560 You still need faith.
00:34:16.120 So,
00:34:16.700 that is the second reason
00:34:18.020 why I believe
00:34:20.760 in Christianity.
00:34:25.180 You have the evidence.
00:34:26.720 You can't
00:34:27.600 completely discard faith.
00:34:29.840 You can't get around it.
00:34:31.680 Nor should you try
00:34:32.660 because there's no shame in it.
00:34:34.020 it's not irrational.
00:34:37.080 I'm not embarrassed
00:34:38.120 to say that I have faith
00:34:39.440 in Christ
00:34:40.080 atoning death
00:34:42.060 and resurrection.
00:34:43.320 Now,
00:34:44.080 the evidence
00:34:45.500 can lead me down
00:34:46.760 a path
00:34:47.600 towards the truth
00:34:49.440 and get me
00:34:51.160 pretty darn close to it,
00:34:52.600 but eventually
00:34:53.560 I'm going to come
00:34:54.200 to a chasm
00:34:54.920 with the truth
00:34:56.200 on the other side
00:34:57.400 and I'm going to have
00:34:59.380 to make a leap,
00:35:00.540 a leap of faith.
00:35:01.280 You are going to have
00:35:03.040 to make that leap of faith,
00:35:04.220 but you have to take
00:35:05.100 a leap either way.
00:35:06.680 So,
00:35:06.900 either you make the leap
00:35:07.820 toward Christ
00:35:08.580 or you make it away
00:35:09.480 from Him.
00:35:11.380 Either way,
00:35:12.020 you're making a leap.
00:35:12.760 I make that leap
00:35:13.820 towards Him.
00:35:14.300 God gave us
00:35:16.420 a historical event
00:35:17.640 that we could learn about,
00:35:20.460 explore,
00:35:21.240 come to understand,
00:35:23.120 study,
00:35:23.760 and He also gives us faith
00:35:26.320 through the Holy Spirit,
00:35:27.460 which speaks to us
00:35:28.540 in our hearts
00:35:29.000 and convicts us.
00:35:31.920 But the point is,
00:35:33.380 and it's important,
00:35:35.160 it is faith,
00:35:36.880 yet it is a rational faith.
00:35:38.840 It's a reasonable faith,
00:35:39.960 as William Lane Craig
00:35:41.020 would say.
00:35:42.780 It's a faith
00:35:43.700 that does not ask you
00:35:45.120 to take leave
00:35:46.040 of your senses
00:35:46.720 or deny your reason
00:35:48.740 or put your rationality
00:35:50.740 on hold
00:35:51.340 or to never,
00:35:52.760 you know,
00:35:53.400 to never think
00:35:54.220 logically about things.
00:35:55.900 It is a faith
00:35:56.880 that is grounded
00:35:57.600 in an actual,
00:36:00.520 physical,
00:36:01.020 historical event.
00:36:03.860 It's a faith
00:36:04.660 that says,
00:36:05.180 yes,
00:36:05.380 this thing happened.
00:36:06.540 Go learn about it
00:36:07.480 for yourself.
00:36:08.120 Go look at the evidence.
00:36:08.880 You know,
00:36:12.220 this is not some,
00:36:14.800 like,
00:36:14.980 secret cult
00:36:15.680 where we're not going
00:36:17.180 to reveal the truth
00:36:18.080 to you
00:36:18.500 until you've been
00:36:19.020 fully indoctrinated.
00:36:20.200 You know,
00:36:20.400 that's not what this is.
00:36:22.540 This is,
00:36:23.060 here's the evidence.
00:36:23.840 Go look for it yourself.
00:36:26.440 So,
00:36:27.000 to be a Christian,
00:36:27.780 it may mean
00:36:28.520 appearing like a fool
00:36:29.440 to the world,
00:36:30.040 but it doesn't mean
00:36:31.460 actually being a fool. 0.60
00:36:33.840 We can keep our wits.
00:36:35.480 We can be intelligent,
00:36:36.600 realistic,
00:36:37.320 rational people,
00:36:38.320 and yet still have faith
00:36:39.700 because ours is a God
00:36:41.880 of light,
00:36:42.380 of truth,
00:36:42.820 who says,
00:36:43.520 here I am,
00:36:44.080 here's the truth.
00:36:45.100 Now enter into it
00:36:46.300 and learn.
00:36:47.720 And that,
00:36:48.520 I think,
00:36:49.020 is a really amazing thing.
00:36:53.460 Have a great weekend,
00:36:54.380 everybody.
00:36:55.740 Godspeed.
00:36:56.100 Godspeed.
00:36:56.140 Godspeed.
00:36:56.160 Godspeed.
00:36:56.180 Godspeed.