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Speaker 1: Why would a skeptical Jew become a follower of Jesus

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Speaker 1: after examining the resurrection? What experience and evidence convinced him

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Speaker 1: that Jesus is the risen Lord? And how did this

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Speaker 1: change his life? Our guest today is theology professor Dr.

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Morrow, who describes himself as a Jewish convert, written

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Speaker 1: a fascinating book called Jesus' Resurrection, A Jewish Convert Examines Jesus.

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Speaker 1: the evidence.

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Speaker 2: I knew that Jesus was, you know, the leader of Christianity,

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Speaker 2: the founder of Christianity, you know, had a beard. That's

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Speaker 2: all I knew. I thought, gosh, I agree with the atheists' conclusions,

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Speaker 2: not the Christians. But the arguments were weak and the Christians'

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Speaker 2: arguments were stronger. I didn't know what to do with this.

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Speaker 2: And December 5th, that December 5th, I accepted Jesus as

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Speaker 2: my Lord and Savior.

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Speaker 1: Dr. Murrow, thanks for coming on the show.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: So I want to jump in because right at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the book, you describe and kind of qualify

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Speaker 1: what you mean by Jewish and say you grew up

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Speaker 1: nominally Jewish. Explain, please.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of hard. So nominally is, you know, in

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Speaker 2: name only. But so technically I'm not Jewish, right? My

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Speaker 2: mother's not Jewish. And so according to Jewish ritual law,

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Speaker 2: you are Jewish if your mother is. So after my

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Speaker 2: parents split when I was very young and I lived

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Speaker 2: with my father, I would go to Hebrew school after

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Speaker 2: my day school. And I was, you know, bar mitzvahed.

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Speaker 2: But I didn't really believe in the Jewish tradition or

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Speaker 2: the Jewish faith. I enjoyed the celebrations of my bar

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Speaker 2: mitzvah and Passover, et cetera. But I really was more

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Speaker 2: of an agnostic leaning towards atheism than anything else. So

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Speaker 2: that's sort of what I mean by that.

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Speaker 1: That's helpful. Tell me why you're agnostic. Where does that

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Speaker 1: experience and worldview come from?

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Speaker 2: Oh, sure. So the first time the God question came up,

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Speaker 2: I was about 10 years old. And I remember talking

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Speaker 2: to my grandfather once. who was one of the most

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Speaker 2: intellectual people I knew and influences on my life. And

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Speaker 2: I said to him, Grandpa, you know, does God exist?

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Speaker 2: Some of my friends believe in God. And he said, well, Jeffrey, does,

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Speaker 2: you know, can you taste God? Can you see God?

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Speaker 2: Can you smell God, hear God, feel God? Well, no.

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Speaker 2: And he said, well, there's your answer. And so I

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Speaker 2: didn't have the tools at the time to recognize the

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Speaker 2: problems and logical flaws there. So I just thought that

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Speaker 2: sounds like a pretty good answer.

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Speaker 1: My 10-year-old self, if I love my grandpa and I

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Speaker 1: think about my level of intellectual acuity, would have been

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Speaker 1: totally persuaded by that. But of course, I'm sure you

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Speaker 1: look back at that differently now, knowing that God is spirit.

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Speaker 1: We shouldn't expect to taste and see him in that way.

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Speaker 1: But that makes sense. That was your worldview. Like, did

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Speaker 1: you know any Christians at this time? Who did you

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Speaker 1: think Jesus was? Did you think about these questions?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not a whole lot. I didn't know that many Christians.

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Speaker 2: The people that claimed to be Christians would bully me

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Speaker 2: because I was Jewish from their perspective. So I didn't

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Speaker 2: really know. I didn't know anything about Jesus. I knew

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Speaker 2: about Christmas having to do with his birth. But I

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Speaker 2: didn't know that Easter had anything to do with Jesus

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Speaker 2: or that he rose again from the dead until my

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Speaker 2: freshman year of college. I was 18, almost 19 when

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Speaker 2: I first learned that. So I knew almost nothing about

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Speaker 2: Jesus or Christianity.

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Speaker 1: So I want to go back and just smack those

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Speaker 1: kids who said they were Christians and treated, or a

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Speaker 1: better explanation, is mistreated you that way because you're Jewish.

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Speaker 1: It's just so inexcusable to me on so many levels.

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Speaker 1: So sorry you went through that. Anybody else watching, like,

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Speaker 1: just knock it off. Christians, that's ridiculous. But as we

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Speaker 1: step back, what was your childhood like? You mentioned that 18,

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Speaker 1: 19-year-old moment. But what did you do? What was it like?

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Speaker 1: Who was high school or junior high? Jeff. Jeff.

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Speaker 2: Well, high school or junior high, Jeff was very involved

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Speaker 2: when I wasn't at school in the martial arts. I

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Speaker 2: had to learn how to defend myself early on in

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Speaker 2: middle school. And so I fell in love with the

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Speaker 2: martial arts. And also I was reading. I was an

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Speaker 2: avid reader. I loved nature. And so I read a lot,

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Speaker 2: mostly about evolutionary theory. And so I was reading a

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Speaker 2: tremendous amount about human evolution, biological evolution.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Now, why? I mean, I don't know a lot

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Speaker 1: of junior hires who are like, give me Darwin's Descent

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Speaker 1: of Man of the Origin of Species. Like, what was

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Speaker 1: it that motivated you? And why was that so meaningful

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Speaker 1: to you at that season in your life?

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess actually, you know, he was an important

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Speaker 2: influence in my grandfather as well. And so he had

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Speaker 2: those books on his shelf. So actually, I was in

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Speaker 2: the fifth grade. I was about 11 years old when

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Speaker 2: I began reading Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, the Origin

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Speaker 2: of Species, Descent of Man. And I would just keep

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Speaker 2: reading them. When I was done, I'd reread them. So

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Speaker 2: I read them about three times before I graduated high school.

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Speaker 2: And I just fell in love with evolutionary theory. I mean,

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Speaker 2: as a secular worldview, I thought, this is where we

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Speaker 2: come from. And so I actually entered Miami University, Oxford, Ohio,

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Speaker 2: with the intent of becoming a primatologist and study chimpanzees.

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Speaker 2: I thought if I understood chimpanzee behavior better, I might

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Speaker 2: get some insight into human evolution.

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Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. So Like this makes this is so

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Speaker 1: interesting to me. You had already figured out at 18

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Speaker 1: years old the direction you were going. It was motivated

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Speaker 1: largely by this agnostic evolutionary worldview. And you wanted to

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Speaker 1: make some contribution to the world about understanding ourselves better.

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Speaker 1: So you went to college pretty ambitious, pretty optimistic. You

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Speaker 1: had a drive and a goal where you were heading towards.

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Speaker 1: Is this kind of sum up? What else would you

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Speaker 1: add to that about kind of your 18 year old self?

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Speaker 2: No, that's very true. I mean, I actually chose part

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Speaker 2: of the, one of the reasons I chose Miami was

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Speaker 2: because Bill McGrew was teaching there. He eventually retired from Cambridge.

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Speaker 2: So I went to work with him. I was part

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Speaker 2: of the primatology club, and that was very involved and

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Speaker 2: interested in that. That was a bit of a bookworm,

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Speaker 2: you might say.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm guessing you still are a bookworm now, and

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Speaker 1: I am just for the record, by the way. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure you can be a professor and not be

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Speaker 1: a bookworm. But with that said, so you're 18 years old.

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Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? If you went to University

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Speaker 1: in Ohio, where was home for you?

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Speaker 2: Well, for high school, it was in the Cleveland area

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Speaker 2: in Solon, Ohio. And before that, I was in the

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Speaker 2: Maryland area in Annapolis for two years and Gettysburg, Maryland

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Speaker 2: for about 12 years. So, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So not too far from home. And this is what,

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Speaker 1: late 90s, you're going into college?

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Speaker 2: Is that fair? 1997.

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Speaker 1: 97. Okay. So I started in 94. I won't do

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Speaker 1: the math, but we're roughly the same contemporary, somewhat to

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Speaker 1: a degree. All right, so what happened? You mentioned earlier

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Speaker 1: being 18 or 19 years old, you start to investigate

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Speaker 1: the resurrection of Jesus. Did you have some life crisis?

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Speaker 1: Did you meet somebody? Like what happened to radically shift

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Speaker 1: the trajectory you were on and start investigating this?

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Speaker 2: Well, I started really unexpectedly. So my freshman year RA,

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Speaker 2: Jason Shanks, was an evangelical leader within the movement that

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Speaker 2: was then called Campus Crusade for Christ. Now it's called CRU.

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Speaker 2: And he was leading a Bible study, a freshman Bible

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Speaker 2: study in my dorm. And so the first week of school,

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Speaker 2: he held this debate in the dorm about, you know,

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Speaker 2: is there truth? Does God exist? So I showed up

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Speaker 2: because it's free pizza. And we had a great discussion.

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Speaker 2: And afterwards, he says, Jeff, why don't you come to

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Speaker 2: my Bible study? And I said, well, I don't believe

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Speaker 2: in any of this stuff. He said, that's okay. Just

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Speaker 2: join us anyways. And so I did. And I remember

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Speaker 2: they quoted from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in

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Speaker 2: chapter 15, where he says, if Christ has not been raised,

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Speaker 2: your faith is in vain. Your preaching is in vain.

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Speaker 2: I thought, wait a second, you Christians believe Jesus rose

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Speaker 2: from the dead? You know, what's this about? So I

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Speaker 2: thought I would investigate this to just show them why

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Speaker 2: they're wrong. You know, I just assumed that if you

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Speaker 2: were a Christian, you were a blind faith Bible quoting idiot.

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Speaker 2: And so I thought this will, you know, they obviously

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Speaker 2: would like it if I became a Christian. Well, I'll

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Speaker 2: just show them this is probably not true. God may

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Speaker 2: or may not exist. Probably not. Bible's a bunch of mythology,

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Speaker 2: fairy tales. And Jesus almost certainly did not rise again

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Speaker 2: from the dead.

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Speaker 1: So if I heard you correctly, the first time you

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Speaker 1: realized that Christians believed Jesus lived and died and rose

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Speaker 1: from the grave is when you're a freshman in college.

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Speaker 1: Did I hear that correctly?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just about to turn 19.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you'd obviously heard this story before.

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Speaker 2: No, I never heard it.

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Speaker 1: Oh, you hadn't even heard it and put it in

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Speaker 1: the category of myth. You just said never heard it?

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Speaker 2: I knew that Jesus was the leader of Christianity, the

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Speaker 2: founder of Christianity. That's all I knew. I had a beard.

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Speaker 2: This Jewish guy, that's all I knew.

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Speaker 1: Was that kind of your sense of most religions? Like

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't important to you? Didn't have those conversations?

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Speaker 1: We're living a different life?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, probably. That's probably accurate. I mean, I knew a

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Speaker 2: little bit more about Judaism just because I went to

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Speaker 2: Hebrew school. But no, yeah, that's probably accurate, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so my parents are still on crew. And my

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Speaker 1: dad's been on crew over six decades. My mom, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how long it's been. She's younger. And so

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Speaker 1: I grew up. going to all these crew events and

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Speaker 1: people in my life, influential were from crew. Like I know,

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Speaker 1: and I get the world of crew. Well, in fact,

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Speaker 1: I just spoke a couple of weeks ago at a

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Speaker 1: crew event in Wisconsin. So I'm super familiar and I

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Speaker 1: understand exactly what that freshman was doing, going, Hey, let's

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Speaker 1: introduce people, get them thinking about Jesus. Like he was

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Speaker 1: doing what he's supposed to do from his evangelical perspective. Let's,

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Speaker 1: What was the next step? So you show up at

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Speaker 1: this Bible study, and you realize, wait a minute, they

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Speaker 1: think this guy Jesus actually rose from the grave. They

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Speaker 1: don't think it's like mythology, like Osiris or something like that.

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Speaker 1: They think this happened 2,000 years ago. What were those

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Speaker 1: steps you started taking in your journey? Sure.

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Speaker 2: Well, so he was a senior graduating, and he handed me,

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Speaker 2: after we discussed this after the Bible study, he actually

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Speaker 2: handed me your father's book, More Than a Carpenter. And

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Speaker 2: that was my first entry. Yeah, it was. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I read that. I read that in one sitting. And

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Speaker 2: then I read Resurrection Factor, Ready Defense, both volumes of

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Speaker 2: evidence that demands a verdict. And I just thought, at

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Speaker 2: first I thought this is going to be really easy

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Speaker 2: to shoot down and show this is all wrong. And

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Speaker 2: I started to realize from your father's works that I

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Speaker 2: got my work cut out for you. Actually, there's arguments here. Now,

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Speaker 2: they may not be accurate, but I had to do

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Speaker 2: my research to look into this. And so one of

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Speaker 2: the most helpful things for me actually about those works

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Speaker 2: is was he was quoting all of these non-Christians and

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Speaker 2: these skeptics. And so it gave me a sense at

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Speaker 2: least of, you know, who are the big opponents of Christianity?

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Speaker 2: What are the lines of evidence? Who do I need

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Speaker 2: to read to see if Josh McDowell is getting them

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Speaker 2: right or not? And how do I evaluate these arguments?

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Speaker 2: So it started pointing me in this direction. So that

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Speaker 2: may just consumed my consumed my time.

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Speaker 1: So it makes perfect sense that he would cite non-Christians

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Speaker 1: in this book because he first wrote it– evidence was 72,

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Speaker 1: more than Carpenter, 77. And when he started his skeptical research,

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Speaker 1: I think in the 50s, there was no apologetic movement.

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Speaker 1: I mean you know this, Jeff. It was like C.S. Lewis,

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Speaker 1: Francis Schaeffer. That was it. So he had to go

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Speaker 1: out and kind of spearhead some of this movement, figure

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Speaker 1: it out for himself. How long was this investigation? What

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Speaker 1: was it like? You strike me as somebody who gets

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Speaker 1: an idea in his mind and just goes all in

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Speaker 1: until you settle it.

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Speaker 2: That was about right, at least for this. And so

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Speaker 2: that's what I did. It was very intense. It was

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Speaker 2: a very compact journey. I think it was the first

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Speaker 2: week of September. And December 5th, that December 5th, I

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Speaker 2: accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So it was

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Speaker 2: very compact. but I was, first of all, I was

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Speaker 2: a very rapid reader. I had taken speed reading in

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Speaker 2: high school. And so I was, I was reading very,

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Speaker 2: very quickly. Um, I mean, there were some days where

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Speaker 2: I actually devoured three books in the day plus articles.

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Speaker 2: I was reading, you know, I was reading William Lane Craig's,

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Speaker 2: you know, massive volume by Edwin Mellon press assessing the

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Speaker 2: new Testament evidence for Jesus resurrection. That was actually really

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Speaker 2: important for me. That was a very important book for me. Um,

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Speaker 2: I couldn't read the German or understand the Hebrew at

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Speaker 2: the time or the Greek, but, um, But it was

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Speaker 2: really important. So I was just reading. I was just

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Speaker 2: devouring books. I was talking to professors on campus, going

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Speaker 2: to their office hours, debating with them. There was a

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Speaker 2: local rabbi I spoke with. And so I was spending

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Speaker 2: all of my time. I was skipping classes. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's not good, but I was skipping classes. I was consumed.

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Speaker 2: At first, it was like, this would be really easy.

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Speaker 2: I read your dad's works. I was like, ooh, it's

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Speaker 2: not so easy. This is pretty persuasive stuff. So then

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Speaker 2: I just kept looking into it. And I remember actually

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Speaker 2: reading I think it was J.P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, maybe,

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Speaker 2: or it might have been William Lane Craig and Anthony Flew.

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Speaker 2: I was reading all of those. But at one point

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Speaker 2: I was reading and I thought, gosh, I agree with

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Speaker 2: the atheists' conclusions, not the Christians. But the arguments were

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Speaker 2: weak and the Christians' arguments were stronger. I didn't know

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Speaker 2: what to do with this. I thought this was really frustrating.

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Speaker 2: And so it became very quickly I was obsessed. I

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Speaker 2: had to find the smoking gun to shoot Christianity down.

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Speaker 1: People need to realize in the 90s, there was not

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Speaker 1: near as many books as we have today. So that book,

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Speaker 1: Assessing the Evidence for the New Testament, was rooted in Dr.

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Speaker 1: Craig's doctoral work, and it's typed out. He probably typed

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Speaker 1: it himself, and it's a super expensive book. I read that.

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Speaker 1: And I think his doctoral work was maybe in the 80s,

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Speaker 1: but that was one of the few books. You had

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Speaker 1: a debate between Kai Nielsen and J.P. Moreland on the

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Speaker 1: existence of God. And then it was Gary Habermas who

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Speaker 1: debated Antony Flew on the resurrection.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that might have been, yeah.

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Speaker 1: At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. And then a book

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Speaker 1: came out of that. So these are the kind of resource.

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Speaker 1: There's no internet like that you could really get. It

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Speaker 1: was just kind of starting the secular web at that time.

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Speaker 1: And so very, very different world. Do you remember any

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Speaker 1: first moment or first argument that kind of gave you pause?

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Speaker 1: What were some of the first points that made you go, okay,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute?

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Speaker 2: There's a lot. I mean, one was Lord Liar Lunatic,

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Speaker 2: the way that your father popularized C.S. Lewis's trilemma. I

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Speaker 2: remember reading C.S. Lewis. This is hard, but the way

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Speaker 2: that you did the Lord Liar Lunatic, it's not just

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Speaker 2: a cute phrase. These are the options. And that was like,

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Speaker 2: wait a second, is this guy nuts? You know, is

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Speaker 2: he just deceiving people? I just never confronted those issues.

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Speaker 2: That was powerful. And the empty tomb, to this day,

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Speaker 2: I think the empty tomb is the most powerful lines

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Speaker 2: of evidence. In fact, I ended up working with Ed

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Speaker 2: Yamauchi at Miami, and this book came out of a

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Speaker 2: paper I did for him in a senior capsule. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: I was a Christian at that point. I was convinced.

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Speaker 2: But it was about the burial. Did Jesus, was he buried?

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Speaker 2: Was there an empty tomb? And wrestling with that, I realized,

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Speaker 2: you know, the tomb was empty. How do we explain this?

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Speaker 2: None of the arguments make any sense apart from his resurrection.

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Speaker 2: So I was just, that was the empty tomb was

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Speaker 2: huge for me. I'll give you another one. Actually. I

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Speaker 2: remember reading the suffering servant that your dad does this.

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Speaker 2: I think it's in ready defense. I don't remember, but he,

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Speaker 2: you know, he reads it, you know, you know, where

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Speaker 2: is this is from Isaiah from the old Testament. Well,

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Speaker 2: somebody did that to me. They must've been influenced by

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Speaker 2: it before I read it. They read it to me.

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Speaker 2: I said, Oh, this must be from the new Testament.

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Speaker 2: They said, no, this is from the Hebrew Bible. It's

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Speaker 2: the book of Isaiah, the suffering servant. Now, I wasn't

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Speaker 2: aware of all the various Jewish interpretations of that, and

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Speaker 2: I got to learn more even after accepting Jesus and

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Speaker 2: becoming a Christian. I got to understand more of the

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Speaker 2: diversity of Jewish interpretations. I actually remember debating with my rabbi.

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Speaker 2: I had just become a new 19-year-old, accepted Jesus. A

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Speaker 2: couple weeks later, talking to my rabbi at my synagogue

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Speaker 2: at home, and he was rereading and re-narrating some of

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Speaker 2: the prophecies of And I said, okay, I don't know

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Speaker 2: Rashi's interpretation, and I can't read the Hebrew the way

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Speaker 2: that you can. But what happened to the body? What

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Speaker 2: happened to Jesus' body? And here I was, 19-year-old, I

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Speaker 2: knew nothing, nothing. And here's this seasoned rabbi, he reads

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Speaker 2: the Talmud in Aramaic, the Bible in Hebrew, and he

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Speaker 2: couldn't respond. He didn't have a response. He couldn't answer

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Speaker 2: the questions.

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Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Now, there's a lot of different arguments

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Speaker 1: for the empty tomb, and Gary Habermas' new four-volume On

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Speaker 1: the Resurrection Defense, the first volume, I think he gives

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Speaker 1: 21 different arguments for the empty tomb, and he says

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Speaker 1: some are stronger than others. Which ones did or do

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Speaker 1: you find most compelling?

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Speaker 2: Well, I do remember that just the– I mean the

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Speaker 2: first would be the women being the ones at the tomb.

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Speaker 2: That struck me. You have Geza Vermesh and Jesus the Jew. Never,

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Speaker 2: you know, never came back to his any kind of

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Speaker 2: faith in Jesus. If he, you know, I don't, I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure he had faith when he talks about his

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Speaker 2: own autobiography, but he, you know, he mentions the women

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Speaker 2: of the empty tomb. Many scholars mentioned the women of

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Speaker 2: the empty tomb. This just doesn't make any sense at all.

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Speaker 2: They are the last people. If this is fiction, these

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Speaker 2: are the last people that the disciples would invent, right?

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Speaker 2: Seeing the empty tomb and the risen Lord, because they're, they're,

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Speaker 2: Testimony was banned from Jewish and Roman courtrooms. They wouldn't

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Speaker 2: have been allowed. Why would you use the least credible

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Speaker 2: people in their day? To me, that's still one of

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Speaker 2: the most powerful lines of evidence.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you on that. So I teach a

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Speaker 1: full class at Talbot School of Theology where I'm at

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Speaker 1: in Southern California on the resurrection. And when we get

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Speaker 1: towards the end of the semester, I always ask the students, again,

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Speaker 1: graduate students, what do you find the most compelling evidence of?

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Speaker 1: and the women witnesses is consistently one of the top

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Speaker 1: ones because especially in the culture at that time, it

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Speaker 1: would have been counterproductive and encouraged people not to trust

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Speaker 1: the account. Why did they include it? Well, at least minimally,

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Speaker 1: they thought that it was true. They're not making this up,

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Speaker 1: and we have multiple accounts of the women discovering it.

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Speaker 1: So that's one good piece of evidence amongst others that

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Speaker 1: the tomb, in fact– was empty. Were there any, like

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Speaker 1: in that really three to four month period of just investigation,

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Speaker 1: devouring every free moment and non-free moments, it sounds like,

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Speaker 1: were there any experiences, kind of pivotal moments in that

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Speaker 1: investigation that were kind of like aha moments that you recall?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so that was one big one. You know,

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Speaker 2: the other one along those lines, actually, this comes, at

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Speaker 2: least I was I encountered it in Craig's work, is

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Speaker 2: the kind of implied apologetic, the polemic that's going on

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Speaker 2: between the Jews and the Christians in the empty tomb

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Speaker 2: narrative about, you know, Christ is raised. No, he's not.

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Speaker 2: Tomb is empty, right? Disciples stole the body. How could they?

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Speaker 2: There was a guard. Guard fell asleep. It implies a lot.

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Speaker 2: You know, that to me was actually pretty powerful because

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Speaker 2: you have this question of, you know, why would Christians

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Speaker 2: invent what would prove to be one of the most

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Speaker 2: One of the most used arguments against the empty tomb

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Speaker 2: that the disciples stole the body. Why would they give that?

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Speaker 2: Why would they invent that if people weren't actually claiming that?

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Speaker 2: And so as you start to realize this is a

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Speaker 2: real dialogue going on, what's implied in the narrative is real.

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Speaker 2: This is really historical. Then the question becomes, well, why?

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Speaker 2: Look how much they agree on. They agree of the death.

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Speaker 2: They agree in the burial. They agree in the empty tomb.

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Speaker 2: They even agree in the guard. They just disagree in

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Speaker 2: what happened to the body. That's pretty persuasive. I found

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Speaker 2: that pretty persuasive. The other aha moment was, gosh, you know,

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Speaker 2: and again, this is more than a carpenter was my

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Speaker 2: first introduction to this. And even if I would tweak

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Speaker 2: some of the rhetoric in, you know, the discussion of

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Speaker 2: the manuscript tradition, if I might temper it a little

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Speaker 2: bit differently. He's right. Your dad is right that fundamentally

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Speaker 2: this is the most historically reliable collection of documents from antiquity.

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Speaker 2: that just blew me away that there was all sorts

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Speaker 2: of lines of evidence. And I would just say since converting,

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Speaker 2: even more so now than then, there's so much more

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Speaker 2: evidence now than there was when I was looking into this.

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Speaker 2: So the fact that you had so much history supporting

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Speaker 2: what's there in the New Testament as well as the Old,

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Speaker 2: that just kind of blew me away. I didn't know

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Speaker 2: what to do with that.

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Speaker 1: I completely agree with that. Like the fact that my

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Speaker 1: dad was persuaded back in the 50s at the evidence

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Speaker 1: that he had, I think there's so much more evidence

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Speaker 1: we have today. Now, of course, everybody has a platform,

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Speaker 1: Muslims and Mormons and Hindus and Buddhists, whoever it is,

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Speaker 1: to make their case for their books. So it can

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Speaker 1: make it sometimes harder to decipher truth. But, you know,

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Speaker 1: Warren Carpenter first written in 77. We updated it recently,

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Speaker 1: which is cool. And by the way, in 2027 is

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Speaker 1: the 50-year anniversary of that book. So we're trying to

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Speaker 1: just kind of relaunch it in different ways. But 50 years?

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Speaker 1: What do you consider some of the evidence that has

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Speaker 1: come out over the past few decades that also just

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Speaker 1: convinces you Christianity is true?

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Speaker 2: Well, the one for the historical reliability of the New

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Speaker 2: Testament is the work of Peter Williams at Tyndale House.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with this work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, what he did, so Tal Elan and others came up,

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Speaker 2: Mor Zivak published these multiple volumes of names, just raw data, right,

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Speaker 2: of names of Jewish men and women in all these

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Speaker 2: regions in Egypt and Palestine and for all these time periods.

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Speaker 2: And Richard Baucom in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses kind of

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Speaker 2: goes through this and how helpful this is. But what

427
00:20:54,430 --> 00:20:56,739
Speaker 2: Peter Williams did, and it was first it was in

428
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:59,480
Speaker 2: a video he did, I stopped him at a conference

429
00:20:59,500 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 2: and said, you've got to put this in a book form.

430
00:21:00,780 --> 00:21:02,440
Speaker 2: And eventually, I don't think it was because of me,

431
00:21:02,500 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 2: but he did eventually put that in that small volume.

432
00:21:05,609 --> 00:21:07,090
Speaker 2: what is it called? Is it Can We Trust the Gospels?

433
00:21:07,130 --> 00:21:07,590
Speaker 2: I think it's called.

434
00:21:07,609 --> 00:21:08,190
Speaker 1: I think that's right, yeah.

435
00:21:08,510 --> 00:21:10,510
Speaker 2: It's a great book. You know, it's great. And so

436
00:21:10,710 --> 00:21:12,730
Speaker 2: the evidence for, and I use this in all my

437
00:21:12,770 --> 00:21:15,190
Speaker 2: classes that I teach, both when I taught at the seminary,

438
00:21:15,250 --> 00:21:18,330
Speaker 2: but then here as well at Franciscan University, I tell them,

439
00:21:18,910 --> 00:21:21,890
Speaker 2: you know, let's look at the little things, the things

440
00:21:21,910 --> 00:21:25,910
Speaker 2: that are impossible to remember, that you always get wrong, right?

441
00:21:25,930 --> 00:21:28,389
Speaker 2: That they wouldn't have had data for. And it's the

442
00:21:28,540 --> 00:21:31,919
Speaker 2: use of names that to me are geographical regions. You know,

443
00:21:31,940 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 2: if we want to know what people were called a

444
00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 2: hundred years ago in the United States, We can go

445
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:38,879
Speaker 2: online to the Social Security Administration and we can find out.

446
00:21:39,420 --> 00:21:41,459
Speaker 2: I've done it. It's helpful. And so I use this

447
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:44,939
Speaker 2: when I compare and contrast this. And they didn't have

448
00:21:44,980 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 2: any access to that. The gospel writers would have no

449
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:50,160
Speaker 2: access to that, nor would they have needed to, because

450
00:21:50,340 --> 00:21:53,100
Speaker 2: nobody would have known that they got it completely wrong

451
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 2: for thousands of years. And I always tell them, following

452
00:21:56,660 --> 00:21:59,100
Speaker 2: Williams as well, I always tell my students and my

453
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,220
Speaker 2: audiences that we have a test case. the Gnostic Gospels.

454
00:22:03,900 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 2: So we know exactly what it's like if you're making

455
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:09,920
Speaker 2: this stuff up hundreds of years later from different parts

456
00:22:09,940 --> 00:22:11,820
Speaker 2: of the world with no access to the tradition. You

457
00:22:11,859 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 2: get the names wrong the further away you are. And

458
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:19,060
Speaker 2: I think that's actually really helpful. So to me, the

459
00:22:19,140 --> 00:22:21,139
Speaker 2: fact that they got the names right, they know how

460
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 2: to disambiguate. If you look at the list of the

461
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:27,940
Speaker 2: apostles in Matthew chapter 10, for example, where it's a

462
00:22:28,020 --> 00:22:32,290
Speaker 2: really popular Jewish name, they tell you which one, which Simon,

463
00:22:32,850 --> 00:22:37,169
Speaker 2: which Matthew, et cetera. And when it's not very popular

464
00:22:37,230 --> 00:22:39,860
Speaker 2: like Bartholomew, they don't tell you. You don't need to

465
00:22:39,930 --> 00:22:42,140
Speaker 2: because you're not going to know a lot of Bartholomews,

466
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 2: but you're going to probably know a lot of Simons,

467
00:22:44,300 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 2: a lot of Judases, et cetera. So that's a really

468
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 2: powerful one now, I think.

469
00:22:48,820 --> 00:22:50,379
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. In fact, we included a

470
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: small section on that in the updated More Than a

471
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 1: Carpenter from both Williams and from Bauckham's work. And for

472
00:22:56,460 --> 00:22:59,930
Speaker 1: people listening, the key is, We have records of names

473
00:23:00,050 --> 00:23:05,290
Speaker 1: in tombs. We have inscriptions. We have written documents. And

474
00:23:05,330 --> 00:23:09,730
Speaker 1: there are certain levels of popularity and let's say unpopularity

475
00:23:09,850 --> 00:23:14,129
Speaker 1: of names that we can ascertain statistically from the culture

476
00:23:14,150 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: at that time. And as a whole, the gospels map

477
00:23:19,220 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: onto that. Like there's– Philip is a less popular name.

478
00:23:22,859 --> 00:23:25,580
Speaker 1: So I believe there's two Philips that are mentioned in

479
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,660
Speaker 1: the New Testament, which is way less than James. which

480
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:31,490
Speaker 1: is a more popular name, Mary. It's like, why are

481
00:23:31,530 --> 00:23:33,209
Speaker 1: there so many Marys in the story? Well, it was

482
00:23:33,250 --> 00:23:37,850
Speaker 1: an incredibly popular name. And so to invent that, knowing

483
00:23:37,970 --> 00:23:42,990
Speaker 1: somebody would test it 2000 years later is just beyond

484
00:23:43,030 --> 00:23:46,429
Speaker 1: the stretch of imagination. It's not a home run. It's

485
00:23:46,450 --> 00:23:48,189
Speaker 1: just like a base hit that goes, wait a minute,

486
00:23:48,210 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: if this is true, this is what we would expect.

487
00:23:50,980 --> 00:23:53,669
Speaker 1: And it's true. That's one good example. So if I

488
00:23:53,710 --> 00:23:56,020
Speaker 1: could step back, it sounds like your research was not, okay,

489
00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:00,220
Speaker 1: I'm convinced God exists. Okay, I'm convinced maybe the Bible

490
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,180
Speaker 1: is true. Like what was that process like for you?

491
00:24:04,790 --> 00:24:06,590
Speaker 2: So I was going through it all at the same time.

492
00:24:06,609 --> 00:24:09,859
Speaker 2: I was reading these philosophical arguments. I don't know if you're–

493
00:24:10,010 --> 00:24:11,810
Speaker 2: you must be, obviously. You teach this stuff. You're probably

494
00:24:11,830 --> 00:24:15,020
Speaker 2: familiar with Peter Crave to Ramos. Of course. Amazing. Of course.

495
00:24:15,510 --> 00:24:17,510
Speaker 2: So again, arguments, some of them are strong, some of

496
00:24:17,530 --> 00:24:20,270
Speaker 2: them are not so strong. You know, Anselm's ontological argument

497
00:24:20,290 --> 00:24:22,710
Speaker 2: didn't do a whole lot for me. But I'm reading this.

498
00:24:22,770 --> 00:24:25,190
Speaker 2: I'm reading about Aquinas and the first mover. I'm reading

499
00:24:25,230 --> 00:24:27,090
Speaker 2: these things, and I'm starting to realize, you know what?

500
00:24:28,510 --> 00:24:33,109
Speaker 2: The idea that God at least started everything off makes

501
00:24:33,170 --> 00:24:37,629
Speaker 2: a lot more sense than the atheistic assumptions. So that

502
00:24:37,670 --> 00:24:40,590
Speaker 2: was challenging for me. So as I'm doing this, and

503
00:24:40,650 --> 00:24:44,389
Speaker 2: I'm finding that both Old and New Testaments are incredibly

504
00:24:44,430 --> 00:24:46,609
Speaker 2: historically reliable, which is a real shocker for me. I

505
00:24:46,609 --> 00:24:52,810
Speaker 2: was absolutely stunned. And then I couldn't get out of

506
00:24:53,050 --> 00:24:59,619
Speaker 2: the resurrection. I realized that this and aliens, maybe aliens

507
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:04,100
Speaker 2: would fit. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. I'm like, disciples

508
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 2: steal a body that doesn't fit. I just went through

509
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,250
Speaker 2: all the arguments. They didn't fit. It took too much faith.

510
00:25:09,070 --> 00:25:11,939
Speaker 2: And I remember at one point in November, Jason and

511
00:25:12,170 --> 00:25:13,929
Speaker 2: Biff Rocha, who was the other co-leader, he was on

512
00:25:13,970 --> 00:25:15,889
Speaker 2: staff with Crusade at the time. He was co-leading the

513
00:25:15,930 --> 00:25:18,790
Speaker 2: Bible study. They said, you know, we want you to

514
00:25:18,830 --> 00:25:21,369
Speaker 2: lead an open forum defense of Christianity. I was like, well,

515
00:25:21,390 --> 00:25:23,730
Speaker 2: I don't believe this. They got approval from the staff members.

516
00:25:23,770 --> 00:25:26,820
Speaker 2: They said, Jeff knows these arguments. Just let him play

517
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 2: the game. You know, give the Christian view, share the

518
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 2: gospel and defend it. And so, and the way they

519
00:25:31,820 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 2: convinced me was they said, look, we're going to have masters,

520
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,100
Speaker 2: students in philosophy. We're going to have professors. We'll have

521
00:25:37,140 --> 00:25:40,290
Speaker 2: people here. Maybe somebody will give you the argument you've

522
00:25:40,310 --> 00:25:42,909
Speaker 2: been looking for. And so I did, this is the

523
00:25:43,010 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 2: end of, it's right before Thanksgiving. I gave this open

524
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 2: forum and I, and I just gave, you know, the

525
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: basic Christian position and I defended it as best as

526
00:25:51,100 --> 00:25:53,740
Speaker 2: I could, as if, as if it's true. And I

527
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,050
Speaker 2: remember at one point, this philosophy master student, also an

528
00:25:57,140 --> 00:25:59,610
Speaker 2: atheist said, you're only saying this because you're a Christian

529
00:25:59,670 --> 00:26:02,990
Speaker 2: and you believe it. And I said something probably inappropriate.

530
00:26:03,050 --> 00:26:05,830
Speaker 2: And I said, no, I don't believe any of this.

531
00:26:05,930 --> 00:26:08,470
Speaker 2: I'm a Jewish skeptic, but I was hoping you guys

532
00:26:08,490 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 2: could help me shoot this down. And your arguments are

533
00:26:10,740 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 2: worse than mine. I was really angry. I was livid

534
00:26:14,820 --> 00:26:17,700
Speaker 2: and Jason was pretty happy, but I was livid.

535
00:26:18,330 --> 00:26:22,070
Speaker 1: That is so interesting. So that, so you start this investigation,

536
00:26:22,090 --> 00:26:25,910
Speaker 1: I think you said like early September, September, two months

537
00:26:25,990 --> 00:26:29,340
Speaker 1: later in November, you're angry. And it seems like you're

538
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 1: at the point going, there's not the rebuttal to this

539
00:26:32,420 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: that I expected. What was next to get you to December?

540
00:26:37,350 --> 00:26:39,369
Speaker 2: That was hard because I had to really confront myself.

541
00:26:39,430 --> 00:26:41,689
Speaker 2: I mean, Jason, they had a really honest conversation with me.

542
00:26:41,770 --> 00:26:43,369
Speaker 2: They said, you know, what more do you need? You

543
00:26:43,390 --> 00:26:46,310
Speaker 2: can argue this better than anybody on campus. You know,

544
00:26:46,350 --> 00:26:48,290
Speaker 2: what more evidence do you need? And it made me

545
00:26:48,350 --> 00:26:53,470
Speaker 2: realize I got the evidence. That's not enough. That's not enough.

546
00:26:54,010 --> 00:26:56,010
Speaker 2: I was wrestling with this. And I really realized, you know,

547
00:26:56,050 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 2: I had an anti-supernatural bias. I had an anti-Christian bias.

548
00:26:59,859 --> 00:27:02,360
Speaker 2: You know, if you had said God, I would have thought, well,

549
00:27:02,380 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 2: that's kind of, you know, you're weird. There's something wrong

550
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,830
Speaker 2: with your thinkings. But when you say Jesus, it's like, ooh,

551
00:27:08,210 --> 00:27:11,370
Speaker 2: there's an emotional edge there because of my own upbringing

552
00:27:11,390 --> 00:27:14,929
Speaker 2: and my own interaction with people representing Christianity. So I

553
00:27:14,970 --> 00:27:18,170
Speaker 2: had to get beyond that somehow. I had to. And

554
00:27:19,050 --> 00:27:22,270
Speaker 2: it was hard. Actually, you know, the last kind of

555
00:27:22,390 --> 00:27:25,470
Speaker 2: chink in the armor, the last moment was I just

556
00:27:25,530 --> 00:27:28,210
Speaker 2: couldn't go to bed. I just couldn't sleep. I just

557
00:27:28,250 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: knew I just had to make a decision. This is

558
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,420
Speaker 2: like if this is true, it's true. And I need

559
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,379
Speaker 2: to be all in because it has profound implications, not

560
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:38,350
Speaker 2: just for heaven. But how I live now, if this

561
00:27:38,390 --> 00:27:40,129
Speaker 2: is true, I want to give thanks to God. I

562
00:27:40,170 --> 00:27:42,750
Speaker 2: want a relationship with God if this is true. It's

563
00:27:42,770 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 2: not just getting to heaven, which is important. Obviously, it's

564
00:27:44,820 --> 00:27:47,700
Speaker 2: the most important thing. But it means I need to

565
00:27:47,740 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 2: do something now. And so I just couldn't go to bed.

566
00:27:50,140 --> 00:27:52,780
Speaker 2: And I'm walking the hallway after midnight. And one of

567
00:27:52,820 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 2: my buddies, he's since kind of abandoned the faith. I'm

568
00:27:56,180 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 2: not going to name him now. But he just encouraged me.

569
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 2: He was one of the Christians that I was getting

570
00:28:02,550 --> 00:28:06,550
Speaker 2: to know. And he encouraged me to, you know, the

571
00:28:06,670 --> 00:28:10,130
Speaker 2: things that are most important in life aren't two plus

572
00:28:10,190 --> 00:28:14,010
Speaker 2: two equals four mathematics, you know, relationships, what you're going

573
00:28:14,030 --> 00:28:16,630
Speaker 2: to do for a career. All the things we think

574
00:28:16,670 --> 00:28:20,070
Speaker 2: about that are really weighty in life. They involve trust.

575
00:28:20,730 --> 00:28:24,050
Speaker 2: They're not irrational, but they involve some sense of I'm

576
00:28:24,070 --> 00:28:25,790
Speaker 2: going to take a step. I'm going to, you know,

577
00:28:26,390 --> 00:28:28,689
Speaker 2: and I wrestled. So he left. I just wrestled with

578
00:28:28,730 --> 00:28:31,369
Speaker 2: that for hours. I stayed up all night. It was

579
00:28:31,410 --> 00:28:33,550
Speaker 2: between something between five and five 30 in the morning

580
00:28:33,570 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 2: that I just said, you know what, you know, this

581
00:28:36,220 --> 00:28:38,900
Speaker 2: is true. This is true. And that means God that

582
00:28:38,980 --> 00:28:40,860
Speaker 2: you are true. And so I asked Jesus to come

583
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 2: into my life and I thanked him for dying for

584
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:44,100
Speaker 2: my sins. And I said, I want to be in

585
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,500
Speaker 2: a relationship with you. I didn't have a four spiritual laws,

586
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 2: but I knew the gist. I knew that. And I

587
00:28:50,180 --> 00:28:51,890
Speaker 2: just used my own words. And I said, Lord, I

588
00:28:52,510 --> 00:28:55,330
Speaker 2: want to be in a relationship with you. And everything changed.

589
00:28:55,470 --> 00:28:58,310
Speaker 2: It was everything changed. I mean, I didn't even, I

590
00:28:58,310 --> 00:29:00,590
Speaker 2: remember the next day I told Jason and Biff, I said,

591
00:29:01,410 --> 00:29:04,490
Speaker 2: I'm a Christian. I accepted Jesus. So how do I pray? Yeah.

592
00:29:05,370 --> 00:29:06,730
Speaker 2: How do I pray? I didn't know how to talk

593
00:29:06,770 --> 00:29:08,750
Speaker 2: to God in my own words. I could do my baruchas,

594
00:29:08,790 --> 00:29:09,870
Speaker 2: you know, but I didn't know how to pray in

595
00:29:09,890 --> 00:29:12,710
Speaker 2: my own words. And so, you know, and I just,

596
00:29:13,090 --> 00:29:14,890
Speaker 2: I knew nothing. And I just started from there. And

597
00:29:14,910 --> 00:29:18,820
Speaker 2: then I began reading the Bible. It was just, and

598
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:22,500
Speaker 2: then that day, actually, within hours, that friend who helped me,

599
00:29:23,220 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 2: he almost died in a car accident, lost 75% of

600
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: his blood into his belly. Renal vein was ripped off

601
00:29:28,620 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 2: his kidney. So we all gathered together. So this is

602
00:29:30,380 --> 00:29:34,630
Speaker 2: not 24 hours. were gathering together to pray for his life.

603
00:29:34,690 --> 00:29:39,350
Speaker 2: His body rejected the blood transfusion and he ended up surviving.

604
00:29:39,420 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: It was really miraculous. The doctors thought it was a miracle.

605
00:29:41,620 --> 00:29:44,740
Speaker 2: And we were all gathered to pray. And he survived.

606
00:29:44,820 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 2: So it's painful that he's at the moment abandoned our Lord. But,

607
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:51,870
Speaker 2: you know, I have hope. But it's hard. Yeah, but

608
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,110
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful moving experience for me then to

609
00:29:54,170 --> 00:29:55,870
Speaker 2: see the answer to prayer so quickly.

610
00:29:55,890 --> 00:29:58,710
Speaker 1: You said everything changed. So you learned how to pray.

611
00:29:59,260 --> 00:30:03,050
Speaker 1: You saw an answer to prayer. What else changed for you?

612
00:30:03,710 --> 00:30:07,270
Speaker 2: Everything. Everything changed. I mean eventually I ended up switching majors.

613
00:30:07,310 --> 00:30:10,210
Speaker 2: Not that this is necessarily– but I ended up– I

614
00:30:10,230 --> 00:30:12,990
Speaker 2: just decided that this needs to be the path I'm going.

615
00:30:13,310 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 2: Zoology and psychology, anthropology, chuck that. I eventually became– we

616
00:30:18,100 --> 00:30:21,780
Speaker 2: had comparative world religions major, studied classical Greek, became a

617
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,650
Speaker 2: classical Greek major as well, minor in Jewish studies. I

618
00:30:24,670 --> 00:30:27,490
Speaker 2: wanted to go off to theology. So my career changed.

619
00:30:27,530 --> 00:30:31,070
Speaker 2: My life changed. I recognized that, you know, I need

620
00:30:31,090 --> 00:30:34,150
Speaker 2: to follow God, right? So I need to try to

621
00:30:34,350 --> 00:30:36,730
Speaker 2: live a holy life. I need to try to live

622
00:30:36,820 --> 00:30:41,340
Speaker 2: more like God. My whole view of reality changed. Initially,

623
00:30:41,660 --> 00:30:45,700
Speaker 2: this is wrongheaded, but initially I thought, so the temporal

624
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:47,900
Speaker 2: things don't matter because, you know, heaven's the only thing

625
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,180
Speaker 2: that matters. And so I kind of neglected some temporal things.

626
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: It was later changed. As I'm growing in my walk

627
00:30:52,460 --> 00:30:54,530
Speaker 2: with the Lord, as I'm growing in my relationship with Jesus,

628
00:30:54,660 --> 00:30:58,070
Speaker 2: I realized, no, it's true. Heaven's the most important thing. Therefore,

629
00:30:58,210 --> 00:31:01,050
Speaker 2: these things matter. These things matter because I can do

630
00:31:01,090 --> 00:31:02,890
Speaker 2: them for love of God. And I want to be

631
00:31:02,910 --> 00:31:05,050
Speaker 2: the face of Christ to the others. They matter. They

632
00:31:05,090 --> 00:31:09,020
Speaker 2: have a whole new importance. But everything changed. Now, you know,

633
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 2: Christianity is not an idea. It's not just true. It's

634
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 2: not just something to study. Really, it's relational. You know,

635
00:31:16,980 --> 00:31:20,510
Speaker 2: God is. is real. And he, he loved me into

636
00:31:20,570 --> 00:31:23,110
Speaker 2: existence and he has a plan for me. And so

637
00:31:23,190 --> 00:31:25,350
Speaker 2: I had to do things with that in mind that

638
00:31:25,370 --> 00:31:27,250
Speaker 2: I wanted to, and I wanted to.

639
00:31:28,290 --> 00:31:30,790
Speaker 1: What happened when you told your grandpa, if he was

640
00:31:30,850 --> 00:31:33,370
Speaker 1: still alive or your parents or your family, how did

641
00:31:33,410 --> 00:31:34,130
Speaker 1: that go down?

642
00:31:34,690 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 2: My grandfather just died. So my grandfather, yeah, he died

643
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:40,750
Speaker 2: during this process. I never got to talk to him.

644
00:31:40,780 --> 00:31:42,780
Speaker 2: And I was very quiet about the process because it

645
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:45,630
Speaker 2: was so fast. I didn't know the, where the end

646
00:31:45,670 --> 00:31:46,980
Speaker 2: was going to be. I didn't think at all.

647
00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:47,930
Speaker 1: Of course. Yeah.

648
00:31:48,370 --> 00:31:49,830
Speaker 2: So I didn't tell anybody cause I, you know, I

649
00:31:49,850 --> 00:31:52,150
Speaker 2: just thought this would be some easy thing. I ended

650
00:31:52,190 --> 00:31:55,740
Speaker 2: up writing about a hundred and plus page note to

651
00:31:55,780 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 2: my father, um, summarizing the research I had done handwritten,

652
00:32:01,020 --> 00:32:03,780
Speaker 2: you know, but I, I basically, I told my mom

653
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 2: on the phone that my stepfather was dying of cancer

654
00:32:05,820 --> 00:32:07,700
Speaker 2: at the time as well. So I didn't get to

655
00:32:07,740 --> 00:32:09,350
Speaker 2: talk to him much about it. He knew about the journey,

656
00:32:09,390 --> 00:32:11,170
Speaker 2: but he wasn't, he was an intellectual. He was a

657
00:32:11,190 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 2: psychology professor, but he wouldn't have been in a place

658
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: to talk, um, because of this, he had been a

659
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 2: skeptic as well, but I told my mom and she

660
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,140
Speaker 2: just thought I had been brainwashed some cult, you know, and, uh,

661
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:24,820
Speaker 2: and then I waited to tell my father till I

662
00:32:24,860 --> 00:32:27,700
Speaker 2: was home and he was, uh, understandably upset and it

663
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,740
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere for him. He was pretty upset. Um,

664
00:32:31,270 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: that's why I wrote the letter to him. I wrote a,

665
00:32:34,090 --> 00:32:36,950
Speaker 2: so then he realized, um, after Christmas break, he realized

666
00:32:36,970 --> 00:32:39,050
Speaker 2: I at least didn't just jump into this. I thought

667
00:32:39,090 --> 00:32:42,650
Speaker 2: about this, but that was pretty rocky. Um, In some

668
00:32:42,670 --> 00:32:46,030
Speaker 2: of my Jewish family, it was pretty rocky. And that

669
00:32:46,110 --> 00:32:49,850
Speaker 2: changed a lot after my dad's parents died. So my

670
00:32:49,870 --> 00:32:54,430
Speaker 2: other grandfather and grandmother died. We sat shiva. We participated

671
00:32:54,450 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 2: in the mourning ritual. I got to share with them.

672
00:32:57,380 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 2: And they saw that I wasn't just chopping at the

673
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:07,020
Speaker 2: bit to make converts, but that I was loving and

674
00:33:07,780 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 2: didn't hate them. In a Jewish background in the United States,

675
00:33:10,900 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 2: there's a lot of baggage. And, you know, what do

676
00:33:13,650 --> 00:33:16,460
Speaker 2: you make of Christians? And I think that was very hard.

677
00:33:16,700 --> 00:33:19,060
Speaker 2: And they recognized that we could still have normal conversations.

678
00:33:19,820 --> 00:33:25,300
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just rejecting Judaism. It was embracing Christianity.

679
00:33:25,340 --> 00:33:27,620
Speaker 1: So it was like a double wound, so to speak.

680
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: Is that fair?

681
00:33:29,260 --> 00:33:32,310
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think that's accurate.

682
00:33:32,330 --> 00:33:34,230
Speaker 2: You know, most of my family was more on the

683
00:33:34,290 --> 00:33:38,190
Speaker 2: secular side, not all. And they changed. They moved. Different,

684
00:33:38,350 --> 00:33:41,470
Speaker 2: you know, individuals moved, became more into the Jewish tradition

685
00:33:41,490 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 2: later in life. Um, it's all very complicated, but, um, yeah.

686
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: I mean, this is roughly 30 years ago. Have you

687
00:33:50,660 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: ever had a point? I mean, we're coming up on 2027, right?

688
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: You said 97, I think around that time. So if

689
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,510
Speaker 1: I'm doing the right math, uh, was there any point

690
00:34:02,590 --> 00:34:05,730
Speaker 1: since then where you're like, what did I get myself into?

691
00:34:05,810 --> 00:34:07,790
Speaker 1: You went through doubt. Did you ever go through that?

692
00:34:07,830 --> 00:34:08,370
Speaker 1: Why or why not?

693
00:34:09,830 --> 00:34:12,549
Speaker 2: No, I, I, there were, there were things that, um,

694
00:34:13,410 --> 00:34:15,190
Speaker 2: There were definitely things that I said, OK, you know,

695
00:34:15,210 --> 00:34:19,220
Speaker 2: you know, maybe Isaiah 714. Could this at a primary

696
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,419
Speaker 2: level have to do with Hezekiah and be more full

697
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 2: with Christ? Maybe, you know what I mean? Fine. There

698
00:34:23,860 --> 00:34:27,899
Speaker 2: were things that I would tweak of my understanding early on.

699
00:34:28,260 --> 00:34:31,300
Speaker 2: But no, you know, it's just more and more confirmation.

700
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:33,110
Speaker 2: You know, first of all, I have a relationship with

701
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,189
Speaker 2: God and he's been he's proven himself faithful. I mean,

702
00:34:36,250 --> 00:34:38,790
Speaker 2: I just tell you the first real proof. prayer, my

703
00:34:38,850 --> 00:34:40,969
Speaker 2: own words I ever did was as an agnostic. I

704
00:34:41,010 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 2: was a volunteer health worker in high school in Honduras

705
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 2: in the rural mountains. And I got Giardia and E.

706
00:34:46,219 --> 00:34:47,420
Speaker 2: coli and I thought I was going to die. I

707
00:34:47,420 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 2: was really sick. And my dad had given me some

708
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,219
Speaker 2: medicine as a physician just in case. And I said

709
00:34:52,260 --> 00:34:56,060
Speaker 2: to God, I was sick. I was really sick. And

710
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 2: I said, God, if there is a God, help me,

711
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 2: you know, and I got better with medicine and I

712
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 2: didn't attribute that to God. I kind of forgot about

713
00:35:04,340 --> 00:35:07,050
Speaker 2: that prayer till later in life. But God has proven

714
00:35:07,090 --> 00:35:09,810
Speaker 2: himself to me faithful again and again and again. I

715
00:35:10,250 --> 00:35:13,310
Speaker 2: know God now. So there's not been doubts in that sense.

716
00:35:14,130 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 2: I'm not always clear of what the next step is.

717
00:35:15,950 --> 00:35:19,180
Speaker 2: What does he want of me? And I ask for clarity.

718
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,620
Speaker 2: But there's been no doubts in the sense of, I mean,

719
00:35:21,900 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 2: I always come back to what I know. Jesus rose

720
00:35:24,380 --> 00:35:26,379
Speaker 2: from the dead. I mean, Jesus rose from the dead.

721
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,819
Speaker 2: And for me, that's rock solid. I can come back

722
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 2: to that. God exists. Some of those things You know,

723
00:35:32,900 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: if certain arguments I may have used in the past,

724
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 2: I would back away from now or I wouldn't have

725
00:35:37,739 --> 00:35:39,959
Speaker 2: been as firm or I understand it could be different

726
00:35:39,980 --> 00:35:42,980
Speaker 2: ways of reading it. The basics are more solid now

727
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:44,379
Speaker 2: in my mind than they've ever been.

728
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,089
Speaker 1: One of the exercises I give my students, I used

729
00:35:48,110 --> 00:35:49,490
Speaker 1: to do this in high school. I taught high school

730
00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:52,210
Speaker 1: Bible full time for a decade. But now this is

731
00:35:52,250 --> 00:35:54,270
Speaker 1: with my grad students at Talbot. As I'll say, I

732
00:35:54,330 --> 00:35:59,190
Speaker 1: want you to steel man the best naturalistic explanation for

733
00:35:59,230 --> 00:36:02,590
Speaker 1: the resurrection that you can. So if you were forced

734
00:36:02,650 --> 00:36:05,870
Speaker 1: to argue like what you did when you were in

735
00:36:05,890 --> 00:36:08,629
Speaker 1: college before you believed, what would you take? Why would

736
00:36:08,650 --> 00:36:10,509
Speaker 1: you take it? And then I want you to come

737
00:36:10,550 --> 00:36:13,910
Speaker 1: back to it and respond. If you are going to

738
00:36:14,010 --> 00:36:18,029
Speaker 1: now argue on the other side, what argument would you take?

739
00:36:18,110 --> 00:36:20,150
Speaker 1: Then I want to circle back to say ultimately why

740
00:36:20,190 --> 00:36:21,210
Speaker 1: you're not persuaded by it.

741
00:36:21,210 --> 00:36:23,469
Speaker 2: It's easy. That's easy, and it's the same it was

742
00:36:23,510 --> 00:36:27,670
Speaker 2: in 97. It's aliens. Really? It's got to be. I

743
00:36:28,390 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 2: just can't imagine any other– You can't, I just can't

744
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:35,140
Speaker 2: imagine any other explanation that explains there's just too much

745
00:36:35,219 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 2: historical stuff to have, you know, the death and burial are,

746
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,700
Speaker 2: are obvious. You know, we know Jews were given proper burial.

747
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,259
Speaker 2: We know now we have two, not one, but two

748
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:49,589
Speaker 2: crucifixion victims with their, the nail still stuck in the heel. Um, there's,

749
00:36:49,660 --> 00:36:51,930
Speaker 2: you know, it's gotta be something like, you know, it's

750
00:36:51,969 --> 00:36:55,290
Speaker 2: an alien except that we already have, right. All of

751
00:36:55,350 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 2: this evidence, you know, um, We already have an explanation.

752
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,420
Speaker 2: We don't need to jump to the naturalistic alien explanation.

753
00:37:03,219 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 2: And we have the Isaiah scroll from 200 years before

754
00:37:06,180 --> 00:37:07,940
Speaker 2: he was dead. You start to have to argue that

755
00:37:07,980 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 2: the alien is not just Jesus, but the aliens were

756
00:37:11,780 --> 00:37:14,540
Speaker 2: all through the Old Testament history. And it just doesn't

757
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: make sense. It strains credibility for me. But I think

758
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 2: that's the only aliens would fit. Some kind of alien

759
00:37:20,420 --> 00:37:22,180
Speaker 2: superpower would fit. I just don't even think that's very

760
00:37:22,219 --> 00:37:23,180
Speaker 2: good of an explanation.

761
00:37:23,620 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: For a lot of reasons but yeah i gotta admit

762
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 1: that is not what i expected you to say i

763
00:37:27,420 --> 00:37:29,760
Speaker 1: don't think i had a single student go the alien

764
00:37:29,780 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: route which is fine the only scholar i remember bringing

765
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:36,140
Speaker 1: up is dale allison's 2005 book resurrecting jesus like entertains

766
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,450
Speaker 1: maybe there's an earthquake the body fell through maybe aliens

767
00:37:39,489 --> 00:37:42,810
Speaker 1: like he's just trying to think of every conceivable escape

768
00:37:42,910 --> 00:37:46,310
Speaker 1: route which i appreciate about him he approaches these things

769
00:37:46,370 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: very very skeptically uh i've had I had a friendly

770
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: debate here actually in the studio I'm in maybe a

771
00:37:52,940 --> 00:37:59,859
Speaker 1: year ago with a young, really sharp Orthodox Jew. So

772
00:37:59,960 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: he was on campus, and he said it's the first

773
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,500
Speaker 1: time people asked him– they're like, are you a Messianic Jew?

774
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:06,739
Speaker 1: Because he's wearing the yarmulke, and he's like, no one

775
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,540
Speaker 1: ever asked me that. But you're on Calvary School of

776
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: Theology campus? People are going to ask you that. And

777
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: we had a great conversation back and forth. He went

778
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 1: to Harvard like just, again, super smart. And here's an

779
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,940
Speaker 1: argument that he made, and I'd be curious with your

780
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:24,819
Speaker 1: background how you might respond. His objections to Jesus being

781
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 1: the risen Lord, he actually said, even if Jesus is

782
00:38:27,340 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: risen from the grave, it doesn't matter to me. He goes,

783
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:31,739
Speaker 1: that is irrelevant, which I.

784
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 2: Thought— Pentecost Lapida.

785
00:38:34,260 --> 00:38:37,020
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly right. I didn't expect him to go

786
00:38:37,060 --> 00:38:40,700
Speaker 1: that direction. But his objections were that in traditional Jewish belief,

787
00:38:40,739 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: the Messiah must fulfill specific core national and global— like

788
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:49,450
Speaker 1: requirements such as rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, gathering the

789
00:38:49,510 --> 00:38:53,330
Speaker 1: Jewish exiles, and bringing about universal peace and the cessation

790
00:38:53,350 --> 00:38:57,509
Speaker 1: of war. So these are requirements laid out in the

791
00:38:57,590 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 1: Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, and so it doesn't matter

792
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,020
Speaker 1: who Jesus claimed to be if these aren't fulfilled. Now,

793
00:39:03,060 --> 00:39:05,540
Speaker 1: I gave my response in that discussion, but I'd be

794
00:39:05,580 --> 00:39:06,490
Speaker 1: curious what you would say.

795
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,350
Speaker 2: Probably be very similar. And again, that is exactly what

796
00:39:11,210 --> 00:39:14,790
Speaker 2: my rabbi gave me back in December of 1997. And

797
00:39:14,989 --> 00:39:19,569
Speaker 2: that's a very standard Jewish response to Christians. And my

798
00:39:19,610 --> 00:39:25,950
Speaker 2: response is that, you know, that clearly is what contemporary,

799
00:39:25,969 --> 00:39:31,180
Speaker 2: you know, post-rabbinic Judaism is expecting. And it will fulfill

800
00:39:31,219 --> 00:39:33,760
Speaker 2: those things. What's not so clear in the Old Testament,

801
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:35,860
Speaker 2: in the Hebrew Bible, right, is that there's going to

802
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,800
Speaker 2: be a second coming of Christ when that will happen.

803
00:39:38,820 --> 00:39:40,180
Speaker 2: And I think there's hints of it. Like, so when

804
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 2: Jesus reads from Isaiah in Luke chapter 4, he closes

805
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,380
Speaker 2: the scroll at a certain point. You know, this scripture

806
00:39:46,420 --> 00:39:49,089
Speaker 2: is fulfilled in your hearing. And so this is where

807
00:39:49,110 --> 00:39:50,549
Speaker 2: I think it's helpful when you read like the Dead

808
00:39:50,610 --> 00:39:53,989
Speaker 2: Sea Scrolls. You know, we often talk about the Old Testament,

809
00:39:54,010 --> 00:39:55,589
Speaker 2: and I don't want to get too far afield, but

810
00:39:55,670 --> 00:39:58,700
Speaker 2: we often talk about the Old Testament as Jewish religion.

811
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:03,500
Speaker 2: And it's not that that's not true. It's incomplete. Modern Judaism,

812
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 2: and this is not a critique, but modern Judaism is

813
00:40:05,739 --> 00:40:09,070
Speaker 2: rabbinic Judaism run through the centuries, which is not bad.

814
00:40:09,130 --> 00:40:11,009
Speaker 2: It's what it is. And that comes out of the

815
00:40:11,090 --> 00:40:13,870
Speaker 2: Pharisees who were kind of preaching the universal call to

816
00:40:13,930 --> 00:40:17,130
Speaker 2: holiness and And so the religion of Pharisaic Judaism is

817
00:40:17,170 --> 00:40:21,569
Speaker 2: very much memorize scripture, study scripture, pray. That's great. Old

818
00:40:21,610 --> 00:40:26,470
Speaker 2: Testament Israelite religion is very temple-focused, sacrifice-focused. And that's not

819
00:40:26,530 --> 00:40:29,219
Speaker 2: modern Judaism. And so if you look in the Second

820
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 2: Temple time period, like at the Dead Sea Scrolls, you

821
00:40:31,860 --> 00:40:35,500
Speaker 2: see with like 11Q Melchizedek and other things what this

822
00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 2: messianic figure would look like. And there seems to be

823
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 2: more diversity than those kind of pat modern Jewish explanations

824
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,110
Speaker 2: that some– seem to be envisioning possibly a priestly Messiah,

825
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,850
Speaker 2: a royal Messiah, two Messiahs. There's debate. It's not necessarily clear.

826
00:40:51,870 --> 00:40:55,650
Speaker 2: And my take is that what Jesus is doing is

827
00:40:55,790 --> 00:40:59,650
Speaker 2: he is showing for us the true meaning and the

828
00:40:59,710 --> 00:41:03,290
Speaker 2: fullest meaning of these passages. And this is an area

829
00:41:03,550 --> 00:41:06,140
Speaker 2: I've moved away from from that first year or two

830
00:41:06,219 --> 00:41:09,299
Speaker 2: as an early Christian. I would have said early on,

831
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 2: and we might disagree on this, and that's okay. Mine's

832
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:14,750
Speaker 2: a gentle, soft disagreement in that I'm not sure. I'm

833
00:41:14,770 --> 00:41:17,069
Speaker 2: not sure. But at the time, I would have said,

834
00:41:17,930 --> 00:41:20,050
Speaker 2: this is what the Messiah's got to look like. Anybody

835
00:41:20,070 --> 00:41:21,779
Speaker 2: would be walking around with like a book. Oh, do

836
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,660
Speaker 2: you fit this detail? I don't think that's so clear.

837
00:41:24,820 --> 00:41:26,879
Speaker 2: I think there was a much more diversity of what

838
00:41:26,980 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 2: expectations were in the Judaism of Jesus' day. And Jesus

839
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,860
Speaker 2: fulfills them and then some perfectly, showing the fullest meaning

840
00:41:34,900 --> 00:41:37,430
Speaker 2: of these and how we're to understand them. And I

841
00:41:37,530 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 2: think what post-Jesus rabbinic Judaism has done is kind of

842
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:46,170
Speaker 2: clarified narrow based in part in response to Christians. So

843
00:41:46,230 --> 00:41:48,569
Speaker 2: Jesus will fulfill those things, but at the end of

844
00:41:48,650 --> 00:41:49,669
Speaker 2: time in the second coming.

845
00:41:50,390 --> 00:41:53,870
Speaker 1: That's really an important point. And I didn't respond exactly

846
00:41:53,910 --> 00:41:56,430
Speaker 1: as you did, but brought out how, in fact, even

847
00:41:56,469 --> 00:41:59,500
Speaker 1: in this discussion, he said, you know, Orthodox Jews can't

848
00:41:59,540 --> 00:42:03,060
Speaker 1: agree on almost anything. And I'm like, yeah, that's true,

849
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:08,390
Speaker 1: including exactly what the Messiah has to do when he

850
00:42:08,450 --> 00:42:10,989
Speaker 1: comes or what takes before he comes. There's far more

851
00:42:11,050 --> 00:42:13,710
Speaker 1: debate about this. Now, some of the predictions I think

852
00:42:13,870 --> 00:42:15,469
Speaker 1: are pretty clear, and we don't have to go into

853
00:42:15,510 --> 00:42:17,950
Speaker 1: some of those details. But I think you're right that

854
00:42:18,030 --> 00:42:22,250
Speaker 1: some of the later literature reveals far more diversity and

855
00:42:22,370 --> 00:42:26,509
Speaker 1: room in who and what the Messiah could do than

856
00:42:26,590 --> 00:42:30,570
Speaker 1: is often laid out today. Have you had any Jewish

857
00:42:30,630 --> 00:42:33,190
Speaker 1: believers reach out to you since you've shared your story,

858
00:42:33,290 --> 00:42:35,690
Speaker 1: since you've written this book and had those conversations? And

859
00:42:35,730 --> 00:42:37,910
Speaker 1: if so, how did they go? Oh, yeah.

860
00:42:38,010 --> 00:42:40,830
Speaker 2: Actually, I have a most interesting one. It's probably– I'm

861
00:42:40,850 --> 00:42:42,090
Speaker 2: not going to name his name because he's in a

862
00:42:42,210 --> 00:42:44,170
Speaker 2: transition period. It's kind of difficult for him to make

863
00:42:44,190 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 2: the move, but he believes in Jesus. He is a

864
00:42:48,540 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: Hasidic Jew. He still wears everything. And we were at

865
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 2: a diner in New Jersey, and he orders– he orders,

866
00:42:56,700 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 2: it was either ham or bacon. I don't remember, but

867
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,340
Speaker 2: both the waiter and I are like, Whoa. And the

868
00:43:02,380 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 2: waiter says, you know, this has pork. He says, yep.

869
00:43:05,940 --> 00:43:07,610
Speaker 2: You know? So he, and I said, you have to

870
00:43:07,700 --> 00:43:10,450
Speaker 2: explain that to me. I don't, I'm also a little shocked.

871
00:43:10,510 --> 00:43:13,850
Speaker 2: He says, because the Talmud says that when the Messiah comes,

872
00:43:14,469 --> 00:43:16,589
Speaker 2: pig will no longer be an unclean animal. I believe

873
00:43:16,610 --> 00:43:20,230
Speaker 2: the Messiah has come. It's Jesus. So he's there, but

874
00:43:20,350 --> 00:43:22,700
Speaker 2: it's complicated with a family. And he's actually like in

875
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:24,500
Speaker 2: the movies. So he's a kind of a complicated, it's

876
00:43:24,540 --> 00:43:28,009
Speaker 2: kind of complicated thing. life situation, but that's a, and he,

877
00:43:28,110 --> 00:43:32,509
Speaker 2: his was, you know, he, he didn't know Christianity. This

878
00:43:32,610 --> 00:43:35,910
Speaker 2: guy didn't, he was born and raised in Brooklyn, didn't

879
00:43:35,950 --> 00:43:38,870
Speaker 2: learn English till he was in his thirties, all in Yiddish.

880
00:43:39,870 --> 00:43:41,910
Speaker 2: And so he knew the Talmud really well. And he

881
00:43:41,950 --> 00:43:46,090
Speaker 2: knows the Hebrew Bible really well. And when he encountered Christianity,

882
00:43:46,110 --> 00:43:49,870
Speaker 2: what Christians really believe, it made sense to him. It

883
00:43:49,969 --> 00:43:52,589
Speaker 2: all started to make sense to him. Kind of, kind

884
00:43:52,610 --> 00:43:53,070
Speaker 2: of amazing.

885
00:43:53,730 --> 00:43:55,469
Speaker 1: What would you say? I have a number, and I

886
00:43:55,530 --> 00:43:58,990
Speaker 1: really appreciate this. I have Latter-day Saints. I have Muslims,

887
00:43:59,070 --> 00:44:02,140
Speaker 1: progressive Christians. I have a lot of people who watch

888
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,339
Speaker 1: and follow this channel who just disagree with me. And

889
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: I'd like to think they do so because I'm respectful

890
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,540
Speaker 1: and charitable to people who see the world differently. I'd

891
00:44:10,580 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: like to think that's a piece of it. But for

892
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,650
Speaker 1: those people who are still watching this and engaging in

893
00:44:15,690 --> 00:44:20,910
Speaker 1: content but aren't convinced about Jesus, what's your encouragement to them?

894
00:44:22,570 --> 00:44:26,110
Speaker 2: Well, I would just say keep seeking and don't be afraid.

895
00:44:26,130 --> 00:44:29,569
Speaker 2: I think keep seeking, don't be afraid. And, you know,

896
00:44:29,630 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 2: if you believe in God, ask God, you know, pray.

897
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,259
Speaker 2: I think prayer is important. And that's the hidden part

898
00:44:34,300 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 2: of my own journey that I didn't share is that

899
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 2: the Bible study leaders, I discovered many years later, were

900
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: praying that summer for that future freshman Bible study. And

901
00:44:46,100 --> 00:44:47,950
Speaker 2: we didn't have six to nine people on campus. We

902
00:44:47,969 --> 00:44:50,250
Speaker 2: have 40 members of the Bible study. Nine of us

903
00:44:50,270 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 2: came to faith in Jesus. for the first time. And

904
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,259
Speaker 2: so I just think prayer, pray, don't be afraid, don't

905
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,660
Speaker 2: be afraid, but be careful what you read. If you

906
00:44:58,700 --> 00:45:04,210
Speaker 2: read really good stuff, um, it's dangerous. It can, it's persuasive. Dangerous.

907
00:45:04,270 --> 00:45:05,950
Speaker 1: I like that. Now your book is a little bit

908
00:45:05,969 --> 00:45:07,830
Speaker 1: like a more than a carpenter in the sense that

909
00:45:07,890 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: you deal with popular objections. You lay out people who

910
00:45:11,940 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: followed my content here would be really familiar with a

911
00:45:14,460 --> 00:45:16,940
Speaker 1: lot of what's in, in your book. It's not a

912
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,299
Speaker 1: scholarly treatise. It's a popular one. Now there's an angle

913
00:45:19,340 --> 00:45:20,819
Speaker 1: here we're not going to get into is that you're

914
00:45:20,860 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: Catholic and you talk about kind of what that means

915
00:45:22,940 --> 00:45:25,570
Speaker 1: to you and that transition in your life. That's a

916
00:45:25,620 --> 00:45:29,670
Speaker 1: conversation for another time. But maybe tell us just really briefly,

917
00:45:29,730 --> 00:45:31,549
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll have you back to talk about this

918
00:45:31,650 --> 00:45:34,350
Speaker 1: because I like you. You're energetic and you're smart and

919
00:45:34,370 --> 00:45:39,450
Speaker 1: you're interesting. You mentioned another huge topic that we'll just

920
00:45:39,750 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: get a couple comments on this is that some of

921
00:45:42,430 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: the critique about the Pentateuch, that you wrote a book

922
00:45:45,540 --> 00:45:50,660
Speaker 1: called Murmuring Against Moses. Just tell us a little bit

923
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 1: about what you argue for there and why it's so important.

924
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,980
Speaker 2: Oh, sure. Yeah. So now you're getting into more of

925
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 2: my trade, my wheelhouse. So the bulk of what I

926
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,469
Speaker 2: do actually is more scholarly work. on the history of

927
00:46:05,530 --> 00:46:09,620
Speaker 2: modern biblical scholarship. And for me, you brought up that

928
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,140
Speaker 2: I'm Catholic. I'll just bring up that Pope Benedict XVI,

929
00:46:12,180 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 2: before he was Pope, wrote this essay called Biblical Interpretation

930
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 2: in Crisis. And I saw that as my marching orders.

931
00:46:17,820 --> 00:46:20,140
Speaker 2: And the question became, why is it that if you

932
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,770
Speaker 2: go to a mainline Protestant school, most Catholic schools, Jewish, secular,

933
00:46:25,110 --> 00:46:27,189
Speaker 2: they teach the Bible from the same position of doubt

934
00:46:27,230 --> 00:46:29,689
Speaker 2: and skepticism? How did that happen? So that's the bulk

935
00:46:29,730 --> 00:46:32,310
Speaker 2: of what I write on, actually, from a scholarly perspective.

936
00:46:32,969 --> 00:46:35,710
Speaker 2: And so I latched on to the documentary hypothesis in

937
00:46:35,730 --> 00:46:38,950
Speaker 2: the Pentateuch because that in some ways is where everything

938
00:46:38,989 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 2: gets started in the tense sense of scholars. Before they

939
00:46:42,820 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 2: go to Jesus, they're going to Moses. And I realized that,

940
00:46:46,660 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 2: you know, this is like a common denominator that almost

941
00:46:48,980 --> 00:46:53,860
Speaker 2: everybody dates the Pentateuch to different sources very late. And

942
00:46:53,900 --> 00:46:57,070
Speaker 2: so I think it's important to understand that a lot

943
00:46:57,090 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 2: of those arguments are pretty weak, actually increasingly so. And

944
00:47:00,420 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 2: so what we do in this book, what John Bergman

945
00:47:02,020 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 2: and I do is we show, we showcase the first third,

946
00:47:05,860 --> 00:47:10,540
Speaker 2: about a century's worth of scholars, Jewish, Protestant, a few Catholic,

947
00:47:10,580 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 2: not many, that basically poke holes in the skepticism of

948
00:47:14,380 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 2: the Pentateuchal tradition and show that actually there's good reasons

949
00:47:17,460 --> 00:47:20,540
Speaker 2: from archaeological and linguistic grounds that this is one author,

950
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,060
Speaker 2: very early, coming out of Egypt in the second millennium,

951
00:47:24,140 --> 00:47:27,140
Speaker 2: like Moses. And then we give new arguments. And I'll

952
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:28,580
Speaker 2: just give you a couple of them right now. Yeah,

953
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 2: do it. You know, if this is all supporting David

954
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:34,660
Speaker 2: and Jerusalem or the bulk of this is like Jay,

955
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:37,240
Speaker 2: for example, why is there no mention, not a single

956
00:47:37,300 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 2: mention to Jerusalem in the Pentateuch in the first five books?

957
00:47:40,390 --> 00:47:42,989
Speaker 2: Why is there no Zion theology? We've got lots of

958
00:47:43,010 --> 00:47:46,549
Speaker 2: prophetic books in the prophets that are pro-Zion. We have

959
00:47:46,630 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 2: Second Temple Jewish books like Jubilees. That's not biblical. That's pro-Zion.

960
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 2: We have none of that in the Torah that's supposedly

961
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:57,700
Speaker 2: so pro-Zion. why does the Samaritan Pentateuch, these Northerners, these

962
00:47:57,780 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 2: Northern Israelites, descendants of Northern Israel, they have the same

963
00:48:00,739 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 2: Pentateuch with a couple differences. Why do they have all

964
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:08,660
Speaker 2: of those passages that were supposedly written after their split

965
00:48:08,820 --> 00:48:11,489
Speaker 2: with the South that support the South? That doesn't make

966
00:48:11,530 --> 00:48:13,370
Speaker 2: any sense. So there's a couple of these lines of

967
00:48:13,469 --> 00:48:17,509
Speaker 2: evidence that, although that last one's not so new, that

968
00:48:17,530 --> 00:48:20,890
Speaker 2: are really powerful now, actually. And so we include that

969
00:48:21,010 --> 00:48:25,010
Speaker 2: as well as The history of how this view developed

970
00:48:25,070 --> 00:48:30,779
Speaker 2: is not scientific and objective. As you might understand, it's biased.

971
00:48:30,950 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 2: It's theological, philosophical, and political in many ways.

972
00:48:34,700 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 1: I am so intrigued by your research on this because,

973
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: as you know, if you were in 1997, there were

974
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:41,820
Speaker 1: the two volumes of Evidence Demands Verdict, I think a

975
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:45,100
Speaker 1: blue volume and a red volume. You updated the big

976
00:48:45,140 --> 00:48:47,030
Speaker 1: gold cover in 1999, and then I helped my father

977
00:48:47,050 --> 00:48:52,670
Speaker 1: update it in 2017. We're talking about right now a

978
00:48:52,670 --> 00:48:55,509
Speaker 1: 2030 edition that'll come out. And so I'm going to

979
00:48:55,530 --> 00:48:56,989
Speaker 1: go back and get your book and take a look

980
00:48:57,070 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: at it. And I can't make any promises until I

981
00:48:59,219 --> 00:49:01,959
Speaker 1: read it, but it'd be cool full circle if that's

982
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: a book that helped lead you to follow Christ, if

983
00:49:05,100 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 1: some of that scholarship is then included. But folks, if

984
00:49:08,180 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 1: you're watching this, you're like, wait a minute, I want

985
00:49:09,820 --> 00:49:13,450
Speaker 1: to hear more from Dr. Jeffrey Morrow on the criticisms

986
00:49:14,570 --> 00:49:17,130
Speaker 1: tied to kind of just the putting together of the

987
00:49:17,170 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: Pentateuch and a lot of modern biblical scholarship, what his

988
00:49:20,180 --> 00:49:23,219
Speaker 1: response would be let us know below and we'll take

989
00:49:23,260 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: a look and maybe have that conversation if you'd have

990
00:49:25,500 --> 00:49:28,620
Speaker 1: the time and willingness to come back uh love it

991
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 1: this is so great did i miss anything anything else

992
00:49:30,820 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 1: you want to share about how people can follow you

993
00:49:32,910 --> 00:49:35,250
Speaker 1: or why you believe in jesus did i miss anything.

994
00:49:35,770 --> 00:49:37,790
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I'm at the St. Paul

995
00:49:37,870 --> 00:49:39,790
Speaker 2: Center for Biblical Theology. So if you go there, you

996
00:49:39,810 --> 00:49:41,370
Speaker 2: can find more of my work and what I do.

997
00:49:42,270 --> 00:49:44,740
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Well, folks, let us know what you think about

998
00:49:44,780 --> 00:49:47,979
Speaker 1: this conversation. And if you have other guests, I hear

999
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: about people like Dr. Morrow from, in this case, it

1000
00:49:50,620 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: was Gary Habermas. But sometimes people with remarkable stories like

1001
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: this are not always on my radar. So if there's

1002
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,219
Speaker 1: other people, please put them in comments here, email it

1003
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:01,820
Speaker 1: to you through my website. make sure you hit subscribe.

1004
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: We're going to keep coming back to the resurrection, of course,

1005
00:50:04,620 --> 00:50:07,490
Speaker 1: because that's the heart of our faith and defending it.

1006
00:50:07,900 --> 00:50:09,700
Speaker 1: You won't want to miss that, but we'd also love

1007
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:11,840
Speaker 1: to have you come study with us at Tabasco Theology

1008
00:50:11,930 --> 00:50:15,630
Speaker 1: in person or by distance. We have the top rated,

1009
00:50:15,710 --> 00:50:19,510
Speaker 1: one of the top rated apologetics programs really in the world.

1010
00:50:19,630 --> 00:50:21,910
Speaker 1: And I teach the class on the resurrection and go

1011
00:50:21,930 --> 00:50:25,050
Speaker 1: into depth on the very things that we talked about today.

1012
00:50:25,170 --> 00:50:26,630
Speaker 1: So make sure you hit subscribe.

1013
00:50:26,910 --> 00:50:27,149
Speaker 2: Dr.

1014
00:50:27,170 --> 00:50:29,129
Speaker 1: Morrow, thanks again for coming on. Really enjoyed this.

1015
00:50:29,870 --> 00:50:31,620
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here.