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Kirk and Sheldon discuss Kirk's recent video Alex O'Connor Repeats Bart Ehrman's False ...
They'll probably also touch on what's going on with that Wes Huff person.
They'll probably also touch on what's going on with that Wes Huff person.
Creators and Guests
What is Quest with Kirk Durston?
Kirk is a philosopher, scientist, husband, and a legit Christian. His podcast is mostly about exploring assumptions and questions pertaining to God, philosophy, science and life that he ponders about, hence the name Quest with Kirk Durston.
Kirk wants you to join him on that Quest or perhaps you're on your own quest about such matters and you can explore together.
Good afternoon.
Hi, Sheldon.
Yeah, it's good afternoon.
Afternoons are always good.
I think so.
After you got, what, five coffees in you?
Yeah,
but I find I don't really get up and
running until about,
I'd say around nine o'clock at night.
That's when I really start
getting alert and ready to roll.
Unfortunately, it's time to quit then.
Yeah.
Um,
I always do my best work between like
one and two AM.
And, uh,
it seems I do my best thinking
between about two and four
AM while laying in bed,
trying to get to sleep.
Yeah.
If you need to get to sleep,
that's when you're thinking really,
really exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
But when you actually comes
time to sit down and put something on,
on the screen,
that's when I find I can sleep best.
Exhausting.
Exhausting.
I've got a daughter at the dental office.
She's getting some wisdom teeth taken out.
Ouch.
Yeah, not fun.
So I'm sitting there, computer on my lap,
trying to get some work done.
I was working on that
YouTube thumbnail today.
And I'm falling asleep as it's happening.
And one of the people beside me was like,
yeah,
I was thinking I should grab your
computer.
If anybody wants to know why
the YouTube thumbnail isn't great,
it's because I was sleeping
while I was doing it.
Yeah,
I've got a lot of complaints about that,
Sheldon,
just in the last half hour or so.
Good.
Yeah,
just put him in that box beside my desk.
It's labeled recycling.
Yeah, that round bin.
So before we get into the
responses to the...
your response to the
response to Wes's response to the
Why don't we talk a little
bit about what happened
with the whole Wes Huff
thing that blew up just before Christmas.
There might be the odd
person that really doesn't
know who Wes is, what happened,
any of that.
But I think it's fascinating,
absolutely fascinating what all happened.
And so why don't we just
give a little background.
Who is Wes?
You've worked with him.
Yeah.
Now Wes is a former
colleague of mine and I
really like the guy.
He is a sharp follower.
He's doing a PhD in mostly
focusing on New Testament manuscripts.
And up until about two months ago,
he was a relatively unknown
person in the online world.
And in the past two months,
he's become maybe one of
the most well-known
Christian apologists in the world,
among a handful.
But it all started with a
kind of an informal
discussion slash debate he
had with Billy Carson that
was actually put on by another fellow.
And it didn't go so well for Billy Carson.
And he wanted to stop it
from going online.
And that, of course,
just ramped up the curiosity.
And then there was all sorts
of unfortunate things being
said behind the scenes.
You know, slamming Wes, you know,
lying and all this kind of stuff.
So finally,
Wes had no choice really but to
actually upload it and put it online.
And it just exploded.
And I think, I don't know what,
it's got way over a million views now.
I'm not sure what it is.
I'm being very conservative
by saying over a million.
And then, next thing you know,
he got invited on Joe Rogan.
And who's got, I don't know,
more than thirteen million subscribers,
I think.
And from then on, it just exploded.
But, on Joe Rogan, of course,
whenever you stick your
neck out and you're talking
for three hours straight,
I know from the perspective
of having spoken on many
university campuses over
the last forty years,
and always having a Q&A at the end,
Thank goodness there's a Q&A at the end.
I highly recommend Q&As at
the end because what that
does is it allows all the
maybe nonsense things that
might have slipped out.
It allows the crowd to call
you on that and ask you to
clarify and stuff, which you can do.
Now, in the case of Wes on Joe Rogan,
of course,
there's no opportunity to
really do that in the moment.
But after that, it exploded a number of,
well...
A number of large online or
YouTube influencers began
to either really praise
that or speak highly of that interview,
but some were actually critiquing it.
And of course,
Alex O'Connor is one of those.
And Alex O'Connor himself
has well over a million subscribers.
And in the course of his critique,
he mentioned a number of things,
but I would say it appeared to me,
and I know of course not
everybody would agree,
but it appeared to me that
Alex O'Connor himself made
a massive mistake in
getting the Bible wrong on a particular,
the idea that Jesus never
claimed to be God in the
Synoptic Gospels.
so then I produced a little
video just post that last
uh... yesterday but twenty
four hours ago of course
I'm not famous uh... but
uh... the there have been
uh... at least let's see
right now one thousand
point seven k views in the
last twenty four hours
mostly today so uh... has
sparked some really
interest and some
criticisms in the comments
section if you look at the
comments section
And so I thought, hey,
we should actually address
these criticisms, just talk about it.
So while we're doing this,
continue to load up the
comment section with your comments.
We will try and get to as
many of them as we can.
both on this video and if
you want to go back to the
old one and comment there, feel free.
There's a bunch that we'll address.
We'll get into some pretty detailed stuff.
But before we get into
specifically around whether
it's dealing with specific wording,
I just want to get into a
little bit of a broader topic,
because it's really easy to say, okay,
Jesus never claimed that he was God.
Did he walk around going, I'm God,
I'm God?
Oh.
That's a quick way to get people to go, oh,
stay away from that guy.
Yeah.
Like, I've been around...
some people that obviously
were struggling with mental
illness on the streets of
Vancouver who claimed to be God.
Yeah, I've run into a few myself.
Yeah,
so I think there's a reason Jesus
didn't just walk around going, I'm God,
I'm God, I'm God, and starting with that,
right?
Yeah, he had a plan,
although the hints were
there right from the beginning.
But if you actually look at
when does he actually start
coming right out and saying
and using the name of God as who he is,
that's most of those, not all of them,
but most of them are in the
final few weeks of his ministry.
So it's just leading up to the climax,
which I argue occurred in
front of the entire Jewish council.
But
yeah um but if I'm an nhl
hockey player or an nfl
football player I'm not
leading with when I'm early
in my career I'm an nfl
football player you're
proving that you can be an
nfl football player
And when I look at the story
that's written in the Bible
from Genesis all the way through,
there's themes and stories
and prophecies and all
sorts of stuff going on.
We're going to get into some
detail on some specific verses.
But if it wasn't for all the
prophecies that were being
fulfilled and all the other
stuff that's happening,
whether it's Daniel seven or other stuff,
You could say this person is nuts.
Yeah.
But because all that other stuff happened,
all you really need for him
to do is prove that he's good.
And he's the one that the
prophets have been talking
about for thousands of years.
So that's the context.
Whereas the guys that I meet,
and some of them are well-dressed,
well-behaved university students,
not very often,
but two actually claimed they were God.
And I'm not entirely sure
they were just joking.
Well, Billy Carson thinks he's God.
In his own way of God, yeah.
In a specific type of God.
In his own, yeah.
Yeah, so this didn't happen.
Jesus didn't appear in a vacuum,
like just suddenly dropped
into human history with no warning,
no context, and start, well,
start actually inform the
religious leaders that God
is standing right there in
the room in front of them,
which I would argue that's
exactly what happened on
the night of the trial.
Although a lot of people
dispute that and I'm well aware of that.
So that's part of what we
need to talk about.
But yeah,
there was a context that led up
for centuries before he appeared.
So, well,
let's get into the claim that was made.
the agreement that was made
on that claim and why even just,
it's so important that,
because I think even in the
interview with Wes Hoff,
it had come up that, okay,
the book of John might not
actually be that old.
And so I think there's a lot of hope
On the one side,
that the book of John is really old,
because that's the only one that really,
really claimed where Jesus
claimed to be God.
The other ones, because they didn't,
it's pretty clear that it came about.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the theory.
So, which, again,
if you ignore the rest of the Bible,
would be a really good argument.
Yeah.
Yeah,
the idea that the Messiah would also
be God himself did not originate,
let's say,
many decades or even a century
or so later after the time of Christ.
That was already there,
and we're actually going to
look at one or two examples
of that in the Old Testament.
But just as a side issue,
anybody who is really
interested in the question
of who wrote the Gospels
and were the eyewitnesses,
I highly recommend this book right here,
and specifically the second edition.
In the second edition,
he actually addresses some
criticisms that were raised
against his arguments in
the first edition.
just as an aside with regard
to who wrote the Gospels,
were they eyewitnesses,
and what's all this about
developing a Christological, mythical,
whatever,
in the century or so that
followed Christ.
And if anybody's interested, like,
if you haven't watched the
Westhoff one talk with Billy Carson, like,
I didn't know who Billy
Carson was before that debate.
I don't follow conspiracy theories.
So I had no idea who this guy was.
But he's famous.
He's got a million plus followers.
And I would say,
now that I know a little
bit more about him,
he's close to a cult leader.
Like,
there are people that follow this guy
religiously.
And so...
It's been amazing seeing
some of the comment sections going,
I used to be a follower of Billy Carson.
Yeah.
Okay.
And so seeing them go, hey, wow,
Wes Huff really opened my
eyes to what was going on here.
And I think Billy Carson is
an illustration or perhaps
an example of why Jesus
didn't just suddenly show
up on the scene and announce he's God,
apart from whatever his plan was.
It's simply this,
as I have come to believe
over the course of my life,
that people will believe anything.
There's always a subset of
people who will believe
anything for all the wrong
reasons or for no reason at all,
for some emotional appeal or whatever.
And that is important to avoid.
Jesus actually had some
pretty stiff criteria,
if you want to follow him,
that needed to be satisfied
with regard to
denying your own,
everything you think gives you self-worth,
significance and so forth.
But yeah, Billy Carson,
I did know about him ahead of time.
But I never really watched
any of his stuff.
It was just so wild,
so wildly out there that I
just don't have time to
waste watching that kind of thing.
But then I found out Wes
Hough was on the show and I thought,
oh goodness,
like Billy Carson is in deep trouble.
The moment I heard before I
even watched anything.
And it was pretty clear that
Billy Carson didn't even have,
like in chess you make your
initial move and then
there's the next move and
then the one after that.
Billy Carson didn't even
have the very next move.
There was no move.
He just said stuff with not
even the ability to follow
through with the first move in defense.
Yeah,
now he would claim that he was
deathly ill and all of
these different things,
but as many people said,
if you really know your stuff,
you don't even really have to be aware.
Exactly.
And Joe Rogan made that point,
you can wake me up at four in the morning,
and if it's something that
I'm an expert in,
just give me a few seconds
to regain consciousness,
and I will tell you that.
And I would have to say,
There is no such thing as an
ambush if you really know your stuff.
You should welcome an ambush.
Especially when you claim to
be one of the
world-renowned experts on it.
And he did do that.
Like,
I just about fell off my chair once
again when I saw him say that.
But, you know,
Westhoff really got attacked for a major,
what he said about Isaiah
and scroll and the Masoretic text.
But I want to let the
viewers know that he then published,
how's it called,
a Westhoff response to Westhoff video.
A response to Westhoff.
And he just totally owned that, you know,
he had,
he responded to that in a way that
I think gives street creds to Westhoff.
And people can see, hey, this guy,
you know, if he overstates something,
he's going to own that.
He's willing to say, yep,
that was overstated.
But at the same time, he also gives some,
it wasn't just out of the blue,
he gave some reasons why he
stated what he did.
Well, he was quoting people.
Yeah, literally.
He quoted people saying that
it was a word for word.
Yeah, he was quoting,
there was a couple of
scholars he referenced who,
but... And he also claimed
that he wasn't an expert in those...
Yeah,
that's more the Hebrew manuscripts
and Wes's specialty is in
the ancient Greek manuscripts, mostly,
although not just Greek.
And if you're interested in
seeing Wes Huff's response,
where Wes Huff responds to Wes Huff,
I have put a link to that in the video,
in my video that we're
following up on with this live stream.
Awesome.
Well, again,
if you are watching and you're
interested in hearing an
answer to any questions you
might have that Kirk can answer,
put it in the chat.
But let's get into this.
Where do we start here?
What's the question that's
in context here?
Yeah, well,
I think... We're talking when
Jesus is talking to the
Council of Religious Authorities,
at least.
Yeah, well,
the comments in the comments
section are really objecting to,
me objecting to,
Ehrman and O'Connor flat
out asserting that nowhere
in the Synoptic Gospels
does Jesus claim to say
that he is God or claim to be God.
Nowhere.
Now, in philosophy,
we would call that a strong
claim or a strong premise.
And one of the things in
philosophy you probably
want to avoid as much as
you can is making strong claims.
It's better to make a weak
claim and then come up with
your rational justification
for that and then the observer says, hey,
that's not as weak a claim
as he initially made it out to be.
So, both Ehrman and O'Connor,
I think O'Connor just is in
good faith repeating what Ehrman said.
I don't think O'Connor,
he has just enough
knowledge of the Bible to
be conversant in it,
and he does a good job of that,
but there is this
old phrase he knows just
enough to be dangerous and
I would adopt that here he
knows just enough about the
Bible to get into trouble
if he's up against someone
like Herman cuz Herman
knows what what it's saying
and he is making statements
that are, in my view, hyperbolic as well,
that are overstating things,
as if everybody agrees
there's no dissension here.
And I should acknowledge,
because one of the commentators says,
this is not just a fringe
view that Ehrman has.
No, it isn't, and I agree.
It's not just a fringe view.
And there's a whole history
behind this view that goes
back to the eighteen hundreds.
And it's partially,
or a major part of that is
something called form criticism.
And I don't have the time to
go dive into that right now.
But there were some
assumptions made about how
the New Testament Gospels came together.
And within the context of
those assumptions,
then all sorts of
speculation could arise and
premises put forward.
And that contradict, let's say,
contradict or compete with a
straightforward
understanding of what those
Gospels actually say.
So that's the question that
I am addressing here.
Did Jesus inform the whole council?
Because that's in my video.
I stated that Jesus
didn't... I don't like to
say he just merely claimed to be God.
He stood in front of the
ruling religious leaders,
and the word there is whole council.
The Greek word is...
from which we get our
English word Sanhedrin,
he stood up before the
whole religious council of
Jewish leaders in Israel
And he informed them,
I don't say just claimed,
he informed them that he is
none other than I am,
the most high God who will
appear in history as a son of man.
And they just lost it.
They just tore their robes.
And I point to that as an
indication of how we should interpret.
But then the comments say
not necessarily so.
And so here we are in this
live stream here.
So I'll pull these up as I
go through here.
This is the first one that
really challenged you and
it gave him a whole one
comment after you posted something.
So let's get into Mark is dead.
I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it.
And yeah,
you did comment back in this
thread that just in case
people don't drill in.
Let's talk about this.
Yeah,
and Mark Is Dead raised some very
good criticisms,
and I say they're very good
because they're not just
Mark's criticisms.
They are, in general,
criticisms that would be
raised against what I said
by many New Testament scholars,
but there's also another
stream of New Testament
scholars that would agree with me.
William Craig,
I just saw him speak on this
very thing yesterday.
Was that the one with Sean McDowell?
Yes, that interview there.
He actually... About halfway
through that one, it was... Yeah,
I didn't watch the whole thing.
I skimmed it, you know.
Sometimes two acts is not fast enough.
But it's good stuff, by the way.
That discussion,
anytime William Craig is
addressing the New
Testament controversies of any way, shape,
or form,
I like to hear what William Craig
has to say.
He got his Ph.D.
while focusing on the
historical evidence of the Resurrection.
And I think, if I recall correctly,
his supervisor at the University of,
was it Munich?
The German University was
Wolfhard Pannenberg.
No, don't jump on me if I'm wrong.
I'm just going from my memory.
which looking back decades
now when I first looked into that.
So let's get to Marcus Dead here.
And he is arguing
essentially that the fact
that the chief priest and
the Sanhedrin in general just lost it.
The chief priest tears his clothes.
He says, you have heard his blasphemy.
He's arguing that the word
blasphemy doesn't
necessarily mean that Jesus
claimed to be God.
Because the word blasphemy
can be used in a variety of ways.
And he's right.
In first century Koine Greek, if you,
for example,
look up that word blasphemous in BDAG,
it's four guys' names,
and everybody just calls it BDAG,
B-D-A-G.
You will see that there's two major,
I think it's two major
different meanings for the
word blasphemy and each of
those has sub nuances of the meaning.
And so the first thing we
have to do is try and figure out, well,
how is the chief priest,
what sort of blasphemy is
the chief priest claiming
has just happened here?
First of all, he's assigning it to Jesus.
And so the question, I think,
that the chief priest asked
Jesus sets the context
within which we can figure
out what sort of blasphemy
is being committed here.
Because, for example,
you could commit blasphemy
by saying bad things about deity,
for example.
For example, Jesus...
suggested that the Pharisees
were committing blasphemy
or very close to it by
claiming that the works that he did,
which was by the Holy Spirit,
were done by Beelzebub.
So they're kind of claiming
that the Holy Spirit is not
really the Holy Spirit.
He is Satan, so to speak.
So there they're saying derogatory things,
but they didn't really know, I think.
I think Jesus was just
implying they're coming very close here.
Not actually doing it.
So it's to say things about
God or a deity in general.
Now the blasphemy could be
applied to other things more broadly,
but in the New Testament
it's primarily to say things about maybe,
let's go broader still,
a supernatural being.
It could even be Satan.
I think there's one instance
where I'll have to look that one up.
But anyways, so that's one kind of thing.
So the chief priest asks this question.
Jesus responds.
And chief priest says he's
going to blast me.
And the question is,
did Jesus say bad things
about God or deity?
And I don't think so.
That doesn't match the question here.
The question really boils
down to who are you?
Who are you?
And Jesus responds by
telling them who he is.
And so that's another form of blasphemy.
Another form of blasphemy is to say,
you are God.
And we know that that's a
form of blasphemy because
we read about that in the Bible.
In fact,
I think there's even another case in Mark,
chapter two, verse seven,
where Jesus isn't actually
explicitly claiming to be God,
but he's claiming to have
the authority to forgive sins.
and I want to do another
little video on that
because alex connor and
herman had a discussion on
that that I think needs to
be responded to but jesus
and and the think guys are
thinking this is blasphemy
they use that word so he in
this case in mark and this
I choose mark because uh in
herman's mind the gospel of
mark is perhaps the most is
the er maybe the earliest
and perhaps the most
reliable although I would
hesitate to say herman
would use the word reliable
but at least it's not as
bad as the gospel of john
he would and again I'm
paraphrasing he wouldn't
put it that way so um so
the question is is jesus
who's jesus he asked who
are you the chief priest
says who are you and jesus
tells them who he is and
then they say you've
committed blasphemy and
what we can infer from that
it's about something about
who Jesus said he is.
So what is that thing about
who he said he is?
So that narrows down the
meaning of the word blasphemy here.
It's Jesus' claim or
statement about who he is.
Now, if we back up just a minute and say,
what if he just said yes?
Because the question was,
are you the Christ,
the son of the blessed?
Now, if he just said, being the Christ,
which is the Jewish word Mashiach,
and Mashiach doesn't necessarily,
it's not, in that first century,
you weren't committing
blasphemy by claiming to be the Messiah.
If you were just talking
about a human Messiah,
and there were a number of
examples of Messiah in the
first century of people
either claimed to be the
Messiah or that people
viewed as a Messiah.
They weren't the real Messiahs, of course.
They always, most of them,
almost all of them met a very,
unfortunate end shall we say
but in this case he he just
doesn't say the christ but
he says the son of the
blessed one and that jesus
had just said yes to that
question because that's the
question they're trying to
frame him he's not saying a
word he's not answering
their questions and so the
chief peace crafts a
question that will put jesus in checkmate
Is he the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed One?
And it's the Son of the
Blessed One that is the key factor here.
And if all Jesus had said was yes,
then they would have still, I am sure,
from the context,
they just wanted to kill him,
they believed he was committing blasphemy,
and this was the way to set him up,
put him in checkmate,
command him to answer the question,
and if all he said was yes,
he would have still been
accused of committing blasphemy.
Why?
Well, there's actually a passage, a psalm,
in the Old Testament where
you see both the Messiah, God,
and the Son of God all in the same psalm.
they would have known about
that so there were
different possibilities of
the Messiah there was just
your normal human Messiah
who is amazing and led
Israel into freedom and so
forth that would be a human
Messiah but this Messiah
that spoken of in Psalm
chapter two is a little
more impressive than that and perhaps
Perhaps I should just work
through that on a few phrases here.
So I'll read it to you, and I quote, Now,
the Hebrew word Lord there is Yahuwah.
That's the name of God,
the same name he gives
Moses in the burning bush.
So that particular usage
right there in that line is against,
in English it's often
referred as Yahweh or Jehovah,
against the Lord and
against his anointed.
Now the Hebrew word there is Mashiach,
and normally in English Messiah.
So here you have the word Messiah,
and this Messiah has been
anointed by the Most High God saying,
and the people are saying,
let us burst their bonds apart.
We don't have anything to do
with God and his Messiah, so to speak.
Then the Lord goes and then
there goes on and I'll skip
down here a little bit Then
the Lord said to me
Now, some people will say, oh,
he's talking about the
writer of the Psalm here,
but the stuff he's saying
about the writer of the
Psalm and the context of
what has to happen to
qualify for this position of Messiah here,
that's a whole,
that disqualifies the
writer of the Psalm.
But the Lord said to me, you are my son.
Today I have begotten you.
Now, interestingly enough,
in the New Testament in the
book of Hebrews,
this is quoted with
reference to Jesus Christ.
In other words,
this isn't just me making stuff up here.
This in the first century
was seen to refer to the
Father and the Son by the Christians,
by the followers of Christ.
But the Pharisees or the
rulers of the council would
have known about this.
He says, you are my son,
today I begotten you.
Ask of me and I will make
the nations your heritage
and the ends of the earth
your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron,
dash them in pieces like a
potter's vessel.
Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned,
O rulers of the earth,
serve the Lord with fear,
rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun.
Now that phrase, kiss the sun,
in a lot of translations,
what it really means is pay
homage to the sun.
Acknowledge that he is the king,
not just the king,
but the king of kings or
the king of nations.
So it says,
Pay homage to the Son or kiss the Son,
lest he be angry and you
perish on the way.
For his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
So he's saying here,
God is saying that the
whole earth will be his son's possession.
this messiah that he
personally anoints and he
will rule them all the
nations all and the rulers
of the earth are to pay
homage to this person so
the pharisees in the
council would have known
about that and both messiah
and son of the blessed or
are stated in here or
inferred in here when God says,
you are my son, today I begotten you.
So when they ask that question, tell us,
are you this kind of
Messiah that everybody knew
in the council was
described in Psalm chapter two?
Because if you're going to
say you're this kind of Messiah,
then we have a major problem with that.
You are claiming to be this
begotten of God, the son of God.
But he goes further than that.
He goes a lot further than that.
And then he makes two statements.
And this is where more
comments in the comments
section really take issue
with what Jesus then says
to the high priest and to
the whole council.
So we'll get into that.
But I want to throw this one in there.
So
I've been around the church
since I was a little kid.
I've watched a lot of
YouTube videos about
Christianity from a
perspective where they
don't agree with the fact
that Jesus existed,
much less claim to be God.
I find this comment,
you must fall out of your
chair with regularity if
the suggestion that Jesus
did not claim to be God and
Mark is all it takes.
I didn't realize this at all
until you had brought up a
video like six months ago.
so this I think is somebody
that's really been
following that group of
people because it may be
common around that group of
people that are looking for
very specific reasons to
just discount christianity
but I don't think it's
common for a lot of people
to actually make the claim
would that be a
You mean a lot of people to
make what claim?
That Jesus is God?
That Jesus never claimed to be God.
Oh, never claimed to be God.
Oh,
I've heard it all the time for decades.
Like it just seems to be the
norm when you're talking to people.
But the reason that I was
surprised to hear Ehrman
just make a statement like that,
a very strong statement like that,
with complete confidence in the style of,
as I say in the video, Billy Carson,
because Billy Carson would
say stuff with complete confidence.
The difference is, though,
that Billy Carson,
as we saw in his debate with Westhoff,
didn't really know what
he's talking about.
But I think Ehrman does.
And when Ehrman knows,
in the academic world, and I'm speaking,
let's say, as a philosopher,
When I write a paper and
submit it to a journal,
it's not good enough just to say, here,
here's what I think.
You also must raise the
objections or respond to
other people who are objecting to you.
So you want to be a little more careful.
It's usually bad form in the
academic world to just come
out and make a strong
statement when you know
there are objections out
there and you know there
are other scholars who would disagree.
So let's say if I'm going to
dig into something,
if I'm going to say something,
I'm going to speak in public,
I not only want to know what
supports what I'm going to have to say,
but I also, in fact,
I spend even more time
reading what the opposition has to say.
This is what Alex, I don't think,
this shows no sign of having done.
So this is where I don't
think Alex did conduct his due diligence.
I think he's become an
acolyte of Bart Ehrman.
And the reason that I say
that is I went to Ehrman's
website and there I see
Alex O'Connor's endorsement
right there on the homepage.
I think it's a home page.
Alex O'Connor's endorsing.
Wow,
I am very hesitant to endorse anything
and anybody because I know
that sooner or later that
person's gonna mess up and
if my name's on that person,
I'm gonna pay the price.
So Alex O'Connor has enough
confidence in Ehrman, I think,
to just accept what O'Connor says.
I think Alex sees Bart
Ehrman as the expert that
he can consult with and he
doesn't need to fact check.
But what Alex really does
need to do is he really
needs to go back and read
some people who might
disagree with what Ehrman says.
Now, to Alex's credit,
he has had an interview
with William Lane Craig.
And I commend him for that.
So Alex doesn't just live in
an echo chamber just
listening to the stuff that
supports what he thinks.
But Alex does have people
that say the contrary.
But in this case, and I do say in my video,
I think Alex just, in good faith,
believed Ehrman because
Ehrman is an expert in his mind,
and away he goes.
But it's Ehrman that
surprised me by making such a,
how would you call it,
tone-deaf statement,
tone-deaf to the other
scholars out there who say, hold it,
wait a sec,
like William Lane Craig argues.
Okay,
the claim that Ehrman made is the
academic consensus.
So it's a little silly for
you to say you almost fell
out of your chair hearing it.
But believing Christians,
this can be a difficult
thing to accept because
literal centuries of
post-biblical negotiation
have taken place so that the majority of,
though not all,
Christians believe that Jesus was God.
But as this creator shows in his video,
he's having to read the God
claim into the text.
Jesus does not simply say, I am God.
There are scenes in each of
the Gospels in which
Christians have read that claim.
But it isn't really supported by the data.
It would be fun if this
creator made a video saying,
I think these folks are wrong.
But he's trying to say
they're factually wrong.
They ain't.
It's important to remember
that a large number of
early Christians who lived
far closer to the time of
Jesus' preaching
specifically did not see Jesus as God.
This view was held in
Marcionism and Arianism,
both of which were viable
early sects of Christianity.
Without the stamp of
approval given to Trinitarianism,
by the Roman Empire,
it's not at all clear this
view would have become the
mainstream view of modern religion.
Okay, well, first of all,
let me just quickly dispel
that urban myth that it was
Trinitarianism or the idea
that God as a Trinity was
promoted by the Roman Empire.
No.
You see that in the Old Testament.
I'd love to do an article sometime,
and I've
documented for years,
various passages in the Old
Testament that speak of God
as a divine being who is more than one,
but yet one.
That's a thing.
And I know that people would say, well,
what kind of a God is that?
That's crazy.
But my response is this.
If you're going to make up a religion,
you're jolly well going to
make up one where you can
explain the god.
Nobody,
when I look at all the other
religions in the world that
have originated in human thinking,
they always come up with
gods they can explain.
And isn't that just a little
bit suspicious?
that the creator of the universe,
the one who designed the
laws of quantum mechanics,
the one who set all of this
thing in motion,
thinks the same way we do,
and it's so simple that a little
tiny little thing on this
planet here should be able to explain God,
and if I can't,
then that God doesn't exist.
No, it's quite the opposite.
I argue that it's a mark of
authenticity that even in
the Old Testament,
even right from Genesis chapter one,
when God refers to himself as Elohim,
In fact,
there's an interesting passage
there when he says, Behold,
the man has become like one of us.
In Hebrew,
if it's a group of people speaking,
the conjugations will be plural as well.
But in this case,
you see something very interesting.
You see Elohim is plural,
but the conjugations are all in singular.
And this continues on.
You see,
there's something different about this.
But anyways, I digress.
Isn't that just a mistake
that was added in later, Kirk?
Well, okay, people can say that, okay?
There's such a thing in
logic called the cavalier dismissal,
where you just simply
dismiss it out of hand or
make up some response.
But the response,
you need to support that
with an argument.
And so people can just say, oh,
they made it up later.
Wait a sec here, I need an argument.
I need some sort of rational
justification for taking
your suggestion seriously.
So we just got a comment
about this kind of thing.
Do you think that if Jesus spelled out,
I am God,
modern skeptics would simply
argue that that statement
must have been added at a later time?
Oh, well, they already do.
Because what I show,
what I've argued for years,
is that if Jesus just said, I am God,
the first century well
there's a number of a
problem here there are the
Greek gods the Roman gods
there's the pagan gods you
need to be a little more
specific than that so in
Western society who might
say always saying he's the
creator of the universe but
in that society you have to
be more specific so Jesus
does one better than just
saying I am God he says
before Abraham was born I am
in Greek, and we'll get into that,
but that is translated from
whatever he said in Hebrew or Aramaic.
And in Hebrew, it's Yahya.
the president, that's his name, I am,
that he said to Moses.
But back to this question that Erman made,
his academic consensus.
So I'm not falling out of my
chair because it's the
first time I ever heard this,
as I already said.
I have heard it for decades, literally,
and I'm aware of this and
I've read the arguments.
What I'm falling out of my chair about,
as I already stated,
is that we would have an academic
who, in my mind, academically,
stoops when he starts just
making hyperbolic statements,
strong claims,
without acknowledging that
there are other scholars
who would disagree with him,
without putting it on the table.
He just says, now maybe to Ehrman's credit,
if I recall correctly,
in the initial video when
he's telling Alex O'Connor this,
I think he uses the phrase,
I am convinced.
Okay, that's a little bit better.
But as an academic, I would say, well,
I am convinced, but here's why.
And in my video, I say,
I am convinced that Jesus
officially informed the
religious leaders of the Jews
on the night before his
crucifixion that he is none
other than the most high
God who would appear in
history as an appearance as a son of man.
That's what I'm convinced of
but of course I then have
to back that up.
I can say here's my reasons
which is a little bit are
given in the video but in a
seven and a half minute
video you can't really dive
into this but fortunately
we have this live stream here.
So another thing about consensus.
Okay, I have done,
I've got graduate degrees in philosophy,
in science, and that doesn't,
the word consensus no
longer impresses me.
That's something that, say,
a layperson will use, I think,
or somebody with a weak
argument will use if they
notice that the consensus
is such and such or such and such.
Now, throughout history,
the history of science and philosophy,
say, archaeology,
and even the academic
discipline of history itself,
there have been reigning
paradigms that were
embraced by the vast
majority of scholars at the time,
Thank you.
And then those paradigms fell.
They were falsified.
And it would be naive to just appeal, well,
the current reigning paradigm,
and I would say that paradigm is eroding,
and I say that on the basis
of my personal discussions with scholars,
mostly in the UK,
that that consensus is eroding.
At least it's getting harder
to defend that he never
claimed to be God.
That's getting harder to
defend because of some excellent...
academic work done by the
dissenting scholars and
publishing them in
peer-reviewed journals or books.
Let's say if you want to
read about his treatment of,
or his refutation of forum criticism,
and he actually references that he,
in his view,
he thinks the consensus of
scholars today have,
they realize that forum
criticism has been rebutted,
but they still continue
to publish and work and do
their research as if it's
not been refuted,
as if the consequences are still there.
But it supports their worldview.
That's an important point.
I think that's probably the biggest thing,
is the reason that there's
an academic consensus is
the same as there's an
academic consensus around
scientists and evolution
and scientists and this.
It supports the worldview
that they believe.
So if they don't have that consensus,
they go against what they
want to believe.
Yep.
That's a very important point, Sheldon,
that we're not talking
about a topic here that no
one really cares about and
everybody are just
approaching the research
completely objectively.
Nothing's at stake here.
There are no philosophical implications.
It could be like,
what kind of bacteria live
on that bur oak tree out there?
Like nobody really has any
emotional ties to any particular theory.
We're not talking about that here.
we're talking about politics
and religion and politics
and religion it's pretty
much everybody has a bias
here and in fact the biases
sometimes are extremely
strong so of course you
know my bias but my bias
has not been my starting point
My bias started, well, bias.
You know, sooner or later you're gonna,
there's a number of really
interesting things to discuss here.
One is,
is that when you have two competing views,
it's almost never the case
that both views have equal merit.
Almost never this,
at least in the academic
world when you're really
diving into stuff.
Usually one has a much
stronger case than the other,
but for the layperson,
and I see this all the time,
they will say well even if
they do admit that their
maybe the consensus is this
but here's another fairly
significant group that
would disagree so I see
this all the time somebody
will say well a is the case
and somebody else will say
well but some people uh
don't agree with that they
say that not hey is the
case and what happens in
the mind of often of the listener is that
Somehow they assume that the
weight for either case now
is suddenly equal, or equal weight here.
That is most of the time a
false assumption.
They're not equally weighted.
And that's why when Wes
Huffman and Billy Carson
had their conversation,
Wes,
going back to what is your methodology
to determine what is real and what isn't?
Is it just somebody said something?
Or is there a lot of things
that you have done to validate it?
And if it's not validated,
don't believe it yet.
Yeah,
I'd say about back in the nineteen
eighties when I first
started diving into this and reading what,
you know, the different views,
I was shocked at how weak
many of these arguments
that the consensus of
scholars put forward.
how weak and I think hey
here's one just check out
chat GPT and what it says
about form criticism and
what its problems are now
you'll realize you can't
trust chat GPT for
everything in fact the
other night I caught it
red-handed making stuff up
and I confronted chat GPT I
says hey the probability of
this is extremely low
you're making stuff up and it admitted it
And apologized.
And I thought, man,
this is lame that
Chachibi's making stuff up.
But back to this,
is that you will see that there are,
it's the historical basis,
the historical evidence for
this idea that the four gospels,
when they were written down,
only emerged after a long
period of time through of
oral tradition in many
different Christian communities.
the historical evidence for
that is really pretty much
non-existent it's very weak
I won't say non-existent
that would be a strong
claim but I say it's very
weak compared to the
evidence that somebody was
taking notes when jesus was
traveling around making his
for three and a half years
speaking to thousands it's
recorded sometimes there
was somebody actually
taking some notes scattered
notes here and there
and then later on putting
them together in the same way that,
for example,
Richard Bauckham mentions
Flavius Josephus.
Josephus says that in the
wars against the Jews,
in the year of the collapse of Jerusalem,
Josephus took notes.
He was recording lots of bits and pieces,
and then he said later on,
when he retired to Rome,
then he produced his book, The Annals.
And the evidence,
all the evidence supports
this when you start
actually critically
examining the consistency
between all these New
Testament manuscripts and
manuscript fragments that
we're finding that are in Greek, Syriac,
Latin.
There's a consistency here
that could only occur if
there was a very early
record that people could
refer to that would keep
things on track rather than
just a whole pile of
different communities
passing things on through
oral tradition anyways we
could talk more about the
oral tradition because even
form criticism and again Richard Bauckham
talks in more detail about that,
there's different kinds of
oral traditions and
different ways they are passed on,
and some are much more
rigorous and stringent than others.
But I digress.
I digress.
Are we done with this comment?
Yeah, that's, you know,
I really do need to say
something about his actual
claim before the Sanhedrin,
because I got a lot of criticism on that.
Let's say Egoimi.
So when Jesus responds to
the... I think there's a
comment specifically on that here.
Yeah, there's a few of them.
Mark, as dead, raises some.
There's a number of people
who raise the Ego Emi objection.
So... Yeah,
so Jesus responds to the question,
and I quote, he said, I am,
and you shall see the Son
of Man sitting at the
right... Let me get this right here.
I...
I am,
I'm quoting from the English Standard
Version,
and you will see the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of
power and coming with the
clouds of heaven.
That's his statement.
So I argue that he's making
two claims to deity here.
And the reason that one is very obvious,
the Son of Man coming in
the clouds of heaven.
And I would argue, I have to argue,
I have to say why I think it's obvious.
And the second one is, I am.
That's his statement, I am,
without saying I am this or I am that.
So the objection to that,
the criticism of that, is that, well,
in the Greek,
what he's saying there is egoimi.
And egoimi is a common phrase in Greek,
and normally it has no
special significance at all,
as a claim to deity or whatever.
And that's true, that's right.
So you see lots of places
where Jesus will use that phrase.
Jesus and others use the
phrase egoimi in Greek to say, like, say,
I am the way, the truth, the life,
or in English at least.
But when you look at some of
those instances,
you will see a very unusual reaction.
And that tells you that he
said something in Hebrew or Aramaic
that when you translate it to ego,
that is translated as ego in me.
So somehow what you really
have to look at is when you see ego in me,
or I am in Greek,
you have to ask the question, well,
what was this translated from?
What was said in the Hebrew
or the Aramaic?
And in order to answer that question,
you have to look at the
context and the response of
the people in the situation
when he said that.
And when you look at the
vast majority of usages of
Ego Emi in the New Testament,
you will see that in the
vast majority of cases,
it doesn't mean anything special.
It's just part of what you say,
the present tense of the verb to be,
and you're saying something in Greek.
But those times when it does
mean something special,
that's very different.
They often accuse him of blasphemy,
as in this case.
They pick up stones to stone him.
Another very interesting case occurs,
I think it's in Luke, where he says,
they come to arrest him in
the garden and he says,
who are you looking for?
And they say, you know,
they tell him that they're
looking for Jesus.
And he says, I am.
In Greek, it's just Ego Ami.
And what you notice there is this cohort,
and the cohort was around
six hundred soldiers.
They immediately fall back
into the ground.
What in the world's going on here?
In Greek, all he's doing is saying, well,
I'm the guy you're looking for.
That's basically what you
would think he's saying.
But when you see the reaction,
then you say, oh, wait a sec, this phrase,
Ego Ami, or I am,
He must be making a
different kind of statement
there for a moment for a
flash of a nanosecond He
isn't revealing his that he
is the most high the
creator of the universe and
for a flash there They just
they just fall back and hit
the ground and then they
all climb back up to their
feet He says basically
let's get on with this so
he gives them permission to
arrest him and then what
goes on after that so
We have to acknowledge that, yes,
but the context tells you
what he's saying in Aramaic or Hebrew.
And in this case, you see the results.
You see what the chief
priest understood him to be
saying when he's basically asking,
who are you?
Are you this person over here,
the son of the blessed one?
So in this comment, I found it in, I think,
Squillify, it says, Kirk,
like all apologists,
will try and use context.
How dare you, Kirk?
Use context.
That BS about sophistry came
off as hypocritical.
Wow.
To hand wave away the fact that,
as Ehrman and O'Connor correctly stated,
Jesus never claims to be
God in the first place.
words in this one sentence
from ermine ermine and
o'connor like they know
they know well let me say
something about this though
um this actually with all
due respect is funny um and
here's why because ermine
and o'connor and myself and
all scholars we're working
from the same data set what
the new testament greek new
testament gospels say
that's the data we're looking at
And I just marvel at this
because when I am doing an
exegetical analysis of a
passage of scripture,
most words actually have
more than one meaning.
Most words in Greek and
Hebrew have more than one,
especially Greek, more than one meaning.
And so you always have to
look at context to figure
out which meaning is the
one that fits within this context.
So when Squilsify says, try to use context,
that's, wow, I mean,
it's what the scholars use
to determine this.
Now, he might respond by saying, well,
and so Ehrman has done his homework,
and in the context he
thinks Jesus is not claiming to be God,
and I respond by, wait a sec here,
look at the chief priest.
Look at his response here.
He's saying Jesus just committed blasphemy,
not because he's saying
negative things about God,
But he's saying,
he's making a claim about who he is.
And that's the blasphemous portion.
It reminds me of a couple of
other passages where Jesus is,
he says one time they're
going to stone him.
This is in the Gospel of John.
And he says,
which one of my miracles do
you want to stone me for?
And they say,
not for anything that you have done,
but because you, being a man,
make yourself out to be God.
So the consistent belief
accusations of blasphemy
made about Jesus Christ in Mark,
in the Gospel of Mark,
which Urban would say was
the earliest one, and in the latest one,
the Gospel of John,
which we have a very good
historical case to say was
written by the eyewitness,
the disciple that Jesus loved.
uh so they're sandwiched in
between the two the
earliest the latest both of
them jesus when he uses
that phrase I am in some
circumstances there's an
immediate reaction of
blasphemy and it's not
because he said something
nasty about god it's about
what he's saying about
himself that he is god
And so it's very difficult,
very difficult.
In fact,
the arguments that he's not
actually saying this really
amount to hand waving and sophistry.
And I mentioned sophistry.
Most people aren't actually
aware of what sophistry is.
And that's very unfortunate
because we're up to our
eyeballs in it in today's culture.
Everywhere we look is sophistry.
I know you want to get into
Daniel seven a little bit.
So why don't we end with this comment,
at least to
one next week we'll we'll
see um yeah we can continue
uh I I don't read this
whole thing but he
basically says that daniel
seven uh he's not talking
about god yeah so uh do you
let's bring up the daniel seven
Yeah, so, I mean,
they can say he's not talking about God.
So, again,
we all are working from the same
data set.
And the data is not my arguments.
My arguments do not constitute data.
Nor does Ehrman's or Conner's,
though they give no arguments.
Both of them just simply assert.
that Jesus never claimed to be God.
But the data we all work
from is what does the Bible actually say.
You don't have to believe it's true,
by the way.
You don't have to believe
the Gospel of Mark was written by,
you can believe it was
written by a chimpanzee if you wish.
You can believe that Jesus never existed,
if you wish.
You can believe it's a total
work of fiction, if you wish.
But just remember this.
Ehrman states that in that writing,
Jesus never claims to be God.
Whether it's true or not is
a different matter.
And that's what we have to remember.
Pure objective... You can be
a total... Never heard of
Mark or Jesus or God before in your life.
And if you ask that person,
what is Jesus saying here
in front of the Sanhedrin?
Uh...
I'm pretty sure in fact I
have the twelve-year-old
test that I've always
talked about Just give the
passage to a
twelve-year-old and ask them.
What does it say here?
Chances are the
twelve-year-old will give
you kind of an Occam's
razor type of what they
what it seems to be saying
at face value They're not
always right mind you there
may be other factors at play and
so let me get to daniel
chapter uh seven here so
here's the situation daniel
who lived centuries before
christ sees this vision and
I'm just going to quote
here part of it you see it
on your screen here I saw
the night visions behold
with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son
of man and he came to the
ancient of days and was
presented before him and to him
I'm referring to the Son of Man,
was given dominion and
glory and a kingdom that all peoples,
nations, and languages should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion.
Now note that.
It's an eternal,
it's an everlasting dominion.
It'll never end.
It says here,
will not pass away in his kingdom,
one that shall not be destroyed.
So that's the initial vision
that Daniel sees here.
And the question is, well,
and this is what Jesus quotes from
when the high priest asks
him essentially who are you
this are you the christ the
son of the blessed one so
jesus literally quotes from
this so now the discussion
shifts to well who is this
one like a son of man and
if you read the comments
below my video uh you will
see that um you know
they're arguing that the
son of man here is uh not
the same person as what the
angel explains he means so
we need to look at
there are actually and this
is unusual there are
actually two explanations
for that vision given in
that same chapter after
daniel sees it so he's
wondering what in the world
what's what's going on here
what's this and the angel
the first is a very short
one and I'm just uh looking
at verse here it says but
the saints of the most high
shall receive the kingdom
and possess this kingdom forever
forever and ever.
So I just want you to know
this is the explanation of
this kingdom that the Son
of Man will receive.
And some people say, well,
the fact that he receives
it from someone called the
Ancient of Days shows that
this is not God.
But that is a bit of a
circular fallacy in the
sense that they're
presupposing that God is not a triune God,
that this is not the same thing.
And you can presuppose that,
but from other passages,
that'll be difficult to defend.
All I'm saying here is you
don't have to assume the Trinity.
You don't have to assume it's not true.
All you have to say is what
is it saying here?
This one like a son of man.
But what's important to
notice here is that this
kingdom belongs to the Most
High and the saints.
In the vision,
it belongs to the Son of Man
and the people and the
nations who will come under
the Son of Man.
The Son of Man is the focus in the vision.
In the explanation,
the short one that the angel gives,
he's saying it's the Most
High who will rule forever
and ever and his saints.
And then you get a little
more longer explanation in
verse twenty-one.
As I looked,
this horn made war with the
saints and prevailed over them.
He's talking about the Antichrist here.
Some people would argue.
irrelevant for my purposes
until the ancient of days
came so you see the ancient
of days being referred to
again and judgment was
given for the saints of the
most high and the time came
when the saints possessed
this kingdom so again he's
talking about this eternal
kingdom that belongs
In the vision,
it was one like a son of man
who rules over this kingdom
forever and ever.
Now in the explanations,
we're being told it is the
Most High who rules forever and ever.
And then finally, the last one,
the kingdom and the
dominion and the greatness
of the kingdoms under the
whole heaven shall be given
to the people of the saints
of the Most High.
His kingdom shall be an
everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions will
serve and obey him.
Which is his final explanation,
slightly expanded,
of what Daniel sees when he
sees the Son of Man who
rules forever and ever.
So, you have two choices.
Either the Son of Man and the Most High,
who's continually referred
to in the explanation.
So the explanation describes
this ruler who rules
forever as the Most High.
Either they're one and the same,
or they're not one and the same.
And so you then have to say, well,
which makes more sense here
in the context of the passage?
Now, if they're not both the same,
then suddenly this Son of
Man becomes totally
disconnected from the rest
of the explanation,
who is supposed to rule forever and ever.
It's actually the Most High
who rules forever and ever,
not the Son of Man.
Or is it the Son of Man?
So you have a problem.
You find that unless you
accept the explanation at
face value from what the angel says here,
if you say they're not one and the same,
the Son of Man, the Most High,
then you have made for
yourself an additional problem.
In other words,
one of the things we do in
the analysis of a text is
to see if your theory helps
explain the text or
creates more problems.
And in this case,
denying that they're one
and the same actually
creates more problems and
makes the Son of Man
totally redundant and of no
use for the remainder of the explanation.
It's just like suddenly he
just disappears and now the
explanation is at the most
high rules forever and ever.
Now there is one thing that
they argue the response in
the comments is, is that
Well,
the fact that it's the Ancient of
Days who gives the Most High,
or the Son of Man, this kingdom,
that then there's a hierarchy here.
But that's no surprise at all.
In fact,
if you read the New Testament and
study through the
relationship of the Father
is the head of the Son,
that's very clear.
Jesus is subject to the
Father before the Incarnation.
during the incarnation
incarnation is just while
he was here on earth and as
a son of man and after the
incursion forever and ever
you see that there are
passages that clearly
spell that out,
clearly explain or describe
Jesus as being the subject to.
So within the Trinity, you have the Father,
Son, and the Holy Spirit,
but the Son says,
he doesn't say anything but
what the Father says,
and he describes the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit will not say anything,
so you see that the Father
is head of the Son, but at the same time,
Jesus says he who has seen
the Son has seen the Father.
In other words,
you want to see the Father
in physical form, you're looking at him.
In fact,
Paul goes on in his letter to the
Colossians to say that all
the fullness of deity
dwells in Jesus Christ in bodily form.
So the Father represents
himself in the physical world,
and we call that
representation or that person the Son.
There's clearly,
but yet the sun does
nothing on his own initiative.
So again,
that has to do with how the
Trinity works.
And it also has implications
for humans who are created
as tripart beings too, the spirit, soul,
and body, how they ought to work.
But that's a whole other discussion.
Okay, so is there anything,
this was a long commented,
I cut it in two here,
but is there anything in
here you wanted to address
from Verticus Maximus?
He was talking a little bit
about the ancient days and stuff,
so that's why I brought this one up.
But he makes a, he says,
nowhere in Daniel seven is
the most high related to
the holy ones or the son of man.
Well, that's just an assertion, eh?
And it's what I said.
If you're going to make that assertion,
if you're going to say
they're not one and the same,
then you have a problem.
What in the world is the Son
of Man doing here?
Like he's just a fifth wheel,
a redundant thing in the vision.
And why is it that the
explanation of that vision
talks about everything
except the Son of Man and
substitutes the Son of Man
out for bringing the Most High in?
And that is very awkward, right?
requires more work because
they're denying basically
the explanation.
So the explanation is making
the Son of Man and the Most
High equivalent.
That's in the explanation.
And we saw that occurs three
times in there in different ways.
Saints of the Most High is a
key phrase here.
Saints of what?
Because this implies that
and the people the Saints
are basically we're not
talking about the people
who you see statues up here
Saints are just basically
meaning the Kaddish the Kodashim
They're the holy ones, and they're people.
The word people is used there,
so we're not talking about angels.
We're talking about people,
and the word people is used
in Daniel seven to describe these saints,
these people that belong to God.
Basically, if you belong to God,
you become holy or holy in
the sight of God,
and that's what he's saying here.
Okay,
so we'll end with this because I have
a bunch of stuff I need to do.
Also,
as you noted the I am answer is
certainly not the name of
Yahweh just because he did
not say something like I am
the bread of life formula I
am X That is not the
structure of the narrative,
but it is a result.
It is like this question
then answer What was the question?
It was are you the Christ son of the boys?
I?
What is the answer?
It was I am.
Now that is different
without a distinction with
the IMAX formula.
Thus, Jesus is saying I'm the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed.
And then he adds to it the
Son of Man reference in Daniel.
Thus taking upon himself the
roles of the Messiah and the Son of Man.
He's saying he never
actually claimed to be God.
He just claimed to be the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed.
Well, okay, that gets to the,
he's getting stuck on the Greek here,
ego emi, and as I've argued,
the Greek is actually being translated,
and we don't know the
Hebrew or the Aramaic term
that Jesus used.
So he's assuming that,
and other places like he
rightfully quotes, let's say,
I am the bread of life,
nobody accused him of blasphemy there.
But if you were to say, well then,
if nobody's accusing him of
blasphemy in that passage,
what did he say in Hebrew?
And then you will see if we had that,
which we don't,
but we can infer what he
said in Hebrew was nothing controversial,
nothing that's going to get people, well,
it might be maybe controversial,
but it's not going to get them stoned.
Whereas,
in other cases where he used Ego Emi,
and we ask the question,
what did he say in Hebrew,
and then we have to look at
what the response of the crowd is, we see,
oh, there is a very massive response here,
a very,
they're accusing him of blasphemy.
So then what you have to say, well,
what he said in Hebrew,
he's not saying Ego Emi in Hebrew.
he is probably saying well
not probably there's a very
good reason based on the
reaction of the people that
what he said in hebrew was
the hebrew word the hebrew
phrase for I am yeah uh
yeah yeah all right um good
video uh there were a few
comments here uh ciphers ignitus
He never once mentions Yahweh, Yahweh.
He always says the Father.
Yahweh's not even mentioned
in the New Testament.
Why would that be?
Well,
it's because he's not familiar enough
with the New Testament because, let's say,
for example, in Hebrews chapter one,
thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
The Lord said to my Lord.
So, basically, what you would look for,
now, in the New Testament,
I think you asked that as a,
maybe slightly facetiously.
New Testament,
what we have today is written in Greek.
So, you're not going to see Yahya in,
you're going to see I am,
or you're going to, yeah, I am normally.
But sometimes the New
Testament quotes from the
old and that's what you have to look at.
So the New Testament is
quoting from the old and the old,
so you go back to the old and it's, oh,
it's the name of God here.
Then, and this is what Jesus is,
so the big question is what
was Jesus saying in Hebrew?
that got him in such dire straits.
And especially when he made
this announcement before the religious,
what did he say in Hebrew?
And their reaction says it all.
And it doesn't matter how
Ego Emi is used all over
the place because what
we're really concerned is
what did he say in Hebrew
that's translated to Ego
Emi that other times when
he uses Ego Emi it doesn't
get him into trouble.
So it's everything stands on
what he said in Hebrew and
the only way we can tell
is the reaction of the people.
And the reaction of the
people in the Sanhedrin is clearly,
he said, well, he's committed blasphemy.
He has claimed... It's also clear,
and I'm going to use the bad word here,
context.
Jesus was planning to die.
And he was planning to die for a reason.
So he could have said...
I'm not claiming to be God.
Just this.
Yeah, he could have clarified.
He could have clarified.
But he knew.
He knew if he says that,
he's going to die for sure.
And he was the one who
decided when the time was.
And it was now time.
Yeah, and the disciples didn't get it.
Nobody got it.
And so when... Context...
the New Testament when you
put the Old Testament there
the whole Bible there's a
story and you can you can
take little pieces out of
the story and say oh well
he didn't mean this or it
doesn't mean this but the
overall story you can
believe it or you can say
it's fiction you can you
can say it's all made up
but the whole context of
the story is a redemption plan
And it required somebody who
is sinless to die for our sins.
Yeah.
Now, we can debate the Trinity,
we can debate all that,
but it doesn't make sense
that he would be claiming
just to be this little thing here.
Yeah.
Although...
although the people who many
of the people would argue
that he wasn't claiming to
be god would also reject
that he is the savior of
humanity that he is the one
prophesied and so forth so
uh yeah they will they will
say those things but
explanatory power is is very important
And if one denies that Jesus
was claiming to be God in the Gospels,
then they find they have
even more things to explain.
And Ehrman, I've noticed quite a few times,
he'll use the word, it's complicated.
As a philosopher who has
been involved in many formal debates,
probably around eighty
formal debates on university campuses,
trained in critical thinking,
when I hear someone preface
their explanation with,
it's going to be complicated here,
then my baloney alert
immediately goes off.
I know with a high degree of
probability what I'm about
to hear is sophistry.
Now that doesn't mean that
all answers are not complicated.
So what you have to do is
look at the simplest
explanation that explains all the data.
And the simplest one that
explains all the data is
that he was actually claiming to be God.
That totally explains the
high priest's reaction and
why everybody else reacted
and said he was claiming to
be God and so forth.
It also explains how this
meshes flawlessly with the
ancient prophecies.
A lot of stuff falls into place.
But...
If you deny that,
then you have a lot of
things that need explaining,
and it gets very complicated.
So using Occam's razor,
you want to go with the
least complicated explanation.
That's more likely to be true.
It doesn't mean it's true,
but it's more likely to be
true than a very
complicated explanation
that I would argue
does not explain the data as
well as the straightforward explanation.
In historiography, explanatory power,
same in science, is very important.
And the explanatory power
sits firmly on the side
that Jesus was actually
claiming that he is none
other than Yahuwah,
which is the Hebrew word
for we get Jehovah from.
And it makes sense.
Everything actually meshes.
There's a consistency there
and a coherence that is not
there if you want to deny
that he claimed to be God.
All right.
Well, good video.
We will talk again probably next week.
Welcome back.
How was your Christmas?
Yeah, our first.
Yeah, I had a good Christmas.
It's good to be back,
but I had a super time at Christmas too,
so...
Awesome, awesome.
Okay, well, we'll plan on next Thursday,
and we'll see you then.
Again, hit the bell, subscribe,
do all that stuff, comment,
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comments when we have a chance.
All right, talk to you later.
Bye for now.
Bye-bye.
How do I play this thing?
They changed everything on me.
All right, here we go.