The Sean McDowell Show - Is it Time to Rethink Biblical Inerrancy? A Much-Needed Debate

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Is there room in the church for a "flexible inerrancy," in which the Gospel writers adapted and invented sayings of Jesus according to their theological interests? For example, is it within the bounds of inerrancy to conclude that Jesus never said the words, "I thirst," although that sentiment captures his goals? These questions are at the root of a big debate within the evangelical church. And today, we have Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. John West to discuss these issues and more. Without insulting one side or the other, please let us know what you think about the ISSUES and why. READ: Jesus, Contradicted, by Michael Licona (https://amzn.to/42HN2Nz) READ: Stockholm Syndrome, by John West (https://amzn.to/4odz9Pu) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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One saying he cried out doesn't tell you exactly what he cried out. Now that is a radically reworking of Jeremiah and Zechariah. If the gospel authors are willing to do that with Scripture, then are we going to say that they couldn't do something like reshape Jesus' statement about, into your hands I commit my spirit to, it is finished? He doesn't believe that there were saints raised that Jesus' death. believes that that was kind of special effects as I do. You can say that, well, that is just apocalyptic special effects, but it's embedded in the historical narrative. Then this idea that Matthew was using apocalyptic imagery that he knew that people would know, well, that's not true.

So at best, if Matthew did it, he did it deceptively. So essentially, John, your concern is cleaning the house internally for the church. Mission creep, you might say. Mike, you're looking at a standard apologetic challenge about how we understand differences in the Gospels, and yet they intersect when we get to questions of what we mean the Bible is the Word of God, what we mean by inerrancy, how we handle the text. I think that's some of the overlap. I want to know from each one before we get into some of the details, like what's at stake with the differences here? John, you included, Mike, a smaller section. I appreciate the clarification that you don't put him in the same category as others, but you put them in your book. So clearly you have to.

concern. What's at stake with this issue in terms of how we handle the text? I think three things. One is the truth of the content of Christianity itself. If most of what we know, I mean, not everything, but a lot of what we know about God, about Christ, about the plan of redemption comes from the Bible. And so if the Bible is somehow inaccurate or unreliable or the gospel authors felt free to invent new situations, new sayings of Jesus that he didn't say in history or even new chronologies, and felt in service of a larger spiritual point that they thought were true, I think that that does raise questions about what we actually know is true about the content of Christianity. I think, too, it raises a question about the very concept of truth. And I would say

that some of these ideas, not the ideas that the gospel always used compositional devices or use things like ordinary paraphrase or ordinary compression or, I mean, that was actually talked about even at the time of Augustine. So, I mean, that's not new. It is, I do think that Mike has given a deeper, richer appreciation for that. But when you get into the area of, again, gospel writers feeling free to invent new sayings of Jesus, new situations, new events that didn't occur, I think that really dovetails with a very postmodern view of truth that I think is ultimately destructive. And then finally, at a personal level, I think depending on how far you take it, I don't think it's really sustainable. And this, you mentioned the time I spend at Seattle Pacific.

And I do admit, this colors me. So I was there for 12 years, had tenure. And then I've watched what has happened since I went there. And I'll be honest, when I got there, the theology and Bible faculty, none of them accepted historic inerrancy. But they all said, you know, it didn't matter because we do think that the Bible is authoritative. to teach that. And so they, but you know, because it was in service of higher spiritual truths, even though the exact things that the Bible said, you might not be accurate or they invented things, but it was still authoritative. And that's what they said. But then I saw how this impacted

students, how often destroyed or really wrecked some of their face. And then I saw on the faculty who said this, that over time, any new wind of doctrine that came, they were, because once they place themselves in judge over scripture. Well, is this really authentic? Or we need to go behind it to really understand it. Then rather than being a student or being bound by scripture, they got further and further afield. And then they hired people who got further and further filled. And then after I left, you can see where this really went, is when just a couple of years ago, and this was part of the impetus while I was writing the book, where actually had a vote of the faculty, where over 70% basically rejected the biblical idea of marriage between one man and one woman,

over 70%. And so, and I saw this sort of in real time. Now, I want to be clear, I think Mike is a historic biblical Christian in his major doctors as he's explained himself in his book. But my concern is that the methodology that he's adopting actually, that's not sustainable. You know, Mike grew up in a more conservative Christian environment and he embraces that. That's great. But I think once you start placing yourself in judgment on the authenticity of certain things, you know, did Jesus really say, my God, my God, why you're forsaking me? Or did they rewrite it as I thirst? And maybe he didn't say either. I think that approach, once it's taught more widely to people who don't maybe have the upbringing that Mike had or that I had, that's hard to sustain because that approach, and I think it only has, and I think it

owes a lot to the higher criticism approach of the Bible that came out of the, I mean, it started before the 19th century, but certainly flowered in the 19th century. So that's, those are my concerns. Gotcha. Those three, that's really clear. I want your response, Mike. We're going to come to some of the specifics in a little bit, like I thirst, but either respond to those three points or explain what you think is at stake for this. I think in response to what John thinks about me, I would say that what is at stake is this is what you see. when you have someone who is operating outside of his own field of expertise, John's field would be government and ethics.

And now he's dealing with biblical criticism in text like this. Had he been reading what other evangelical scholars have been saying about these kinds of things for a long time, he would have recognized that this isn't just Mike Lacona saying a lot of these things. especially if he would focus on what Johanine specialists. These are scholars who have spent years, even decades, some their entire career, living in John's gospel,

reading their commentaries. John's comments and just focusing on me shows that he's not reading these people. If he were to read people like D.A. Carson in his commentary on John, Carson says that John has rewritten the whole, whole. Now, nobody is going to accuse D.A. Carson of going down a road of being influenced by secular scholars. Daryl Bach of Dallas Theological Seminary says that John has taken a lot of what Jesus implied and recast it as explicit statements. F.F. Bruce talking about John, how as Shakespeare took Plutarch's accounts of the assassination

of Julius Caesar in his life of Antony and recast it in a more dynamic manner. John has taken the traditions about Jesus and recast them as an expanded paraphrase, a translation of the freest kind, a transposition into another key, and so much more the Holy Spirit has done through our author. So I could go on with others, like what Blomberg and Anderson have said about these things. So, but I don't see John appealing to them because, well, he's probably not read their stuff on it. A lot of people who have criticized me on this just aren't familiar

with where evangelical New Testament scholarship has been for a long time. And I just think that when you have spent, when these guys like Craig Keener and Blomberg and others, Bruce, have just spent years, if not decades, living in the text of John, there's some things we can learn from them. And so, yeah, my basic point there is I think John has just, he's dealing with stuff that he's not equipped to do because he's just over his head. He's in over his head because he's not been reading the literature. So it seems new to him in my writings, but a lot of it is not new at all.

So I think I really need a chance to respond to. on to that. And I mean, if we want to go down this path, I guess we can, just a few points. Number one, I just point out that you're right. I'm my, I am a generalist and so I'm not a biblical New Testament scholar. But the reason why I'm appearing on here is Mike abjectly refused to actually come on this show with either Lydia McGrew, who's written two lengthy books expertly critiquing books that were endorsed by Craig Bongberg, critiquing Mike's view. He wasn't willing even to appear with Bill Roach, who was a theologist. professor who's done extensive things. So the reason I'm here, just to be clear to the people

listening, is because Mike chose, refused. When he made the suggestion that I come on, I actually suggested these other people, and he refused publicly. So that was his choice. But beyond that, it shows that Mike doesn't even, I've done the courtesy. I have both of his books. I've read, you know, what I wrote was actually based on my reading of him and his critics and going back and forth. And I've also responded in public, and it's clear that he hasn't read what I've written on him because when he says that I don't read these other people. Well, actually, one of my favorite authors, the problem is I actually have read some of these people. And on the issues that I bring up, they don't agree with Mike. So take Craig Blomberg. One of my favorite authors, one of the first

books I got on the Robile of the New Testament back in the 1980s was this book. This is actually the second copy I have because the other one was so dogged. I have his historical reliability of the Gospels. I have his historical reliability of John. And just to be clear, on the specific things I raise in my book, like, did Jesus say, I thirst? Craig Blomberg treats that as historical. He does not accept Mike Drew. Similarly on, it is finished.

Similarly on where Mike says that Jesus may have made it, or that John made up, where he says that Jesus breathed on them and said, accept the Holy Spirit, receive the Holy Spirit. Mike suggests, well, maybe that was just prefiguring what was happening since John wasn't writing about the Pentecost that John just made that up. Craig Blomberg doesn't agree. In fact, Craig Blomberg has endorsed two of Lydia McGrew's books that specifically critiqued Mike's views. So this idea that anyone who critiques Mike doesn't know anything, I mean, that's an easy talking point. But I frankly find that offensive, especially when Mike refuses to debate the people who actually. have delved in deeply into his thing. But let me, one other thing. He mentions D.A. Carson, who I also, I do have his commentary in the Gospel of John. It is, you know, Mike does quote

him correctly, but if you actually read the full paragraph of where that quote comes from, where he says that John has rewritten the whole, he's talking about the style of writing subordinating expressions, laying out clauses beside each other without connecting them to particles or conjunctions. I'm sorry. Even D.A. Carson there is not talking about the sorts of things that Mike is talking about that say, you know, some of the gospel say Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then John rewrote that as I thirst. That's a radical difference.

That's more than a standard paraphrase. So, and I guess it's just final note. I guess, you know, he can pull rank. He is an expert. He's not the only one making it, but he is one of the most popularizers of it, which is why he's in the book, because he's sort of crusading on this sort of new view that is not the historic evangelical position, but he's right. A lot of evangelical scholars have adopted it.

Not all of them, like I said, Craig Blomberg, but I will say I'm ultimately concerned about what's true, not the majority. And I'll just say, this is where my experience at Discovery Institute and I involve intelligent design. I'm not, let's just say, when I get, say, well, the consensus of evangelicals are the consensus of scholars who do this. So therefore, no one else can raise questions. and therefore we don't actually have to deal with the evidence brought by our critics. I got that for more than two decades in the area of the intelligent design debate, and I'll tell you what that showed me is that people who rely on those arguments, rather than meeting their most serious critics, like in this case Lydia McGrew or Bill Roach or others,

is that, in fact, usually there's less there than meets the eye. And so these arguments from sort of general consensus don't really wash over well with me, because I experienced that in area. I'm not a scientist either, but I've actually, but I know a lot of people who are, and I saw how that played out. And so, but again, I think it's really insulting to what he just said.

He's free to say it, but I also think that, again, I do read Craig Blomberg. That's part of the problem for Mike is because Craig Blomberg, on the issues I raise in my book, I agree with Craig Blomberg. Okay, let me jump in here.

I'm guessing you have some thoughts to come back, Mike, but I'm going to take us a couple steps back. Part of this conversation admittedly was, Mike, your new test of scholar. John, you're like, I'm not. That's not my lane, but I'm willing to come on and have this conversation because it's important to you. Let's focus on the issues. We can't cover it all here. But I think if we do so, we can make some progress, my whole goal in this conversation is to bring clarity of what's at stake. and then people can look at it and decide what they think is true.

So let me step back about three steps here. And I want to see if we can find some agreement on this question. John, Sean, I do want to be able to respond to some of the things that he just accused me of and what he claimed. Can I do that? I'll try to be brief. I mean, you can. I would say, yes, you can. You kind of opened the door a little bit in terms of critiquing him and making it personal.

and I don't want to spend a lot of time. Because he's critiquing me in the book. Yeah, but there's a difference between critiquing ideas and going after the person. Okay, let me just go after some of the things he said with the ideas then. He said about what? Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture.

Plus, you'll enjoy Daily Bible Tribia and Humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. I refuse to interact with Lydia. I have interacted with Lydia quite often. And in fact, I spent three months going through. her book, The Mirror of the Mask, and responding at length to it.

Somebody, if they're interested, they can go to my YouTube channel, go to the playlist and look for answering Liddy McGrew. I have eight videos, total length of all of them together, about three and a half hours in which I responded to her. And I said, at the end, I'm done with this. We could go on ad infinitum, just the two of us, she and I. And I'm just not going to spend my time with that. So I did respond to her criticisms. In terms of Craig Blomberg, Blomberg isn't going to agree with a lot of what Lydia says or a lot with what John is thinking here. And by the way, Lydia is not an expert in this. So what John is doing, John is not an expert, admittedly. And so he's relying on someone else who is not an expert on this for his information. Blomberg, when it comes to things like the I.M. statements in John, which I'm sure John West isn't going to like what Blomberg says there.

Blomberg thinks that you have statements in like Luke's gospel where you've got the shepherd who will leave 99 sheep to go follow one and that Jesus came for the sheep. Two things in Luke. Well, Lomburg is fine in his book, Jesus the Purifier from 2023, when he says that John could simply have recast this as I am the good shepherd. Rather than telling the parables and having statements like we find in Luke, and Jesus spoke a whole lot in parables, Matthew said that he didn't teach unless he taught in parables, which is actually a hyperbolic statement because you have the sermon on the mount in Matthew where there's no parables. In John, there are no parables. And so when rather than just giving these parables about the lost sheep, he just has Jesus explicitly say very shortly, very succinctly, I am the good shepherd.

And he says that John would have been completely within his right in doing that. He would have done nothing wrong in doing that. With every one of those I am statements in John, there is a parable. of thought in the synoptics. One other thing I'd say here. Blomberg uses the rating of the Jesus seminar. Now he's not a member of the Jesus seminar. He doesn't agree with the Jesus seminar, but as an analogy, way of illustrating, he talks about how John reports the traditions of Jesus and then he's going to use the ratings of the Jesus seminar. If Jesus actually uttered the words or something very much like it, it is a red. If he said something like these, then it's a pink.

If Jesus did not say these words, but he communicated the thought behind them, it's gray. And if Jesus didn't even communicate the thought, it's black. With that in mind, Blomberg says, and he said this in 2001, I believe it was, that when you come to John's Gospel, I think this is in his book about the historical reliability of the Gospels. I'd have to check, though. He says that little is red, much is pink, some is gray, but nothing is demonstrably black. So the I am statements in a lot of this stuff could be in the gray, that he's communicating of thought, but not at all using the words that Jesus used here. So again, this is stuff that Blomberg's view. in many ways would be very similar to my own.

Okay, I mean, I really, so just a couple things, very briefly on that. So I don't deny that, in fact, in my book, I point out that you and Lydia McGrew have gone at it. My point was, and please correct me if I'm wrong on this, I don't think you've ever actually appeared with her in person or one-on-one face-to-face, even online, for an interaction like this. And my point that I was simply making here is when you're saying that I don't know what I'm talking about, you were not willing to appear with her or Bill Roach, who's a theology professor. Now you're saying, well, they're not really experts either, but you weren't willing to appear with them on Sean's show. That was my point, and you didn't really refute that. With regard to, I don't agree with everything.

Well, that's your opinion. And I accept what you're saying. I know what he's saying about I am, but I think it's interesting that what I highlight in my book and what I just gave three examples of here and we can go down. more deeply into them later, but the I thirst, it is finished and receive the Holy Spirit. Craig Blomberg, I have the same view as Craig Blomberg in those. And it's against your view. And the reason Craig Blomberg endorsed Lydia McGrews, at least his first book, I forget whether he endorsed your second one, but one that focused on you is, yes, he doesn't agree

with everything on her, but he is concerned about what he calls, what Lydia calls, fictionalizing devices. And so I think that, you know, does Blomberg agree with everything that Lady McGrew or everything I believe in? No. But the issues that I most raise in my book that I highlight, I'm on the same page. So you could say I'm ignorant in raising those issues, but then you're in essence saying that Craig Blomberg is ignorant too. I don't think he's ignorant, John, but I do think he's I think he's entitled to a different opinion on this, just as I'm entitled to one. And when it comes to Jesus' last sayings on the cross, you know, when I was doing my first book on gospel differences, why are there differences in the gospels, and I came to the crucifixion,

I understand that a lot of pastors like to use and say, these are Jesus' seven last sayings on the cross. But then when you get to them and you start to look a little more carefully, a lot more carefully what's going on. So harmonization doesn't work so well. So it's like in Mark, Jesus' final statement, he just yells out and then breathes last. When you look at Luke, he says, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit, and then he breathes his last. When you come to John, he says, it is finished. And then he bows his head and breathes his last. Well, which one was it? that's a little difficult to harmonize there when, I mean, you could do it. I suppose you could say that Mark would be compatible with either Luke or John,

but you don't get both there. And what Dan Wallace at Dallas Theological Seminary, well, he just retired from there recently, he suggested in a paper, I think probably 20 or some years ago that what you have with it, given that John is doing something different, he's a theologian, paraphrase as Paul Anderson and others would Johannine specialist would say like Effort Bruce and some of these others, Craig Keener, that you have John that is putting some theological truths into those. So Wallace points out that the term thirst is used four times

in John's gospel. So aside from this final statement on the cross, the other three, in all three instances, it's referring to the theology behind it. You can see it as there's a void of God's spirit. And so when you come to the cross and he says, I thirst, that that would have the theological meaning of void in God's spirit. He's sensing. Well, that's very similar to my God. My God, why have you forsaken me? He's feeling a void of God's spirit there. And then the final statement, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Okay, my life is over. I'm handing myself over to you. John has, it is finished. Well, what's finished? Jesus is a mission and coming to earth in dying as an atonement, giving himself as an atoning sacrifice for others so that we

can have eternal life. That mission is finished. It is accomplished. And so it seems to me that the meaning is there, although the words are different. John has changed the words, but the message is the same with a little bit of additional theology behind it. Okay, so rather than, or go ahead, John. Well, I think this is now very helpful because we're actually getting to a concrete case, and I think Mike just gave a very good explanation of his view of those passages. I would say a few things about that. First of all, idea of the traditional seven last words of Christ on the cross that Christians have accepted for most, you know, if you're talking about the modern consensus, opposed higher criticism, which

is largely influenced by people who reject the supernatural Bible, that's one thing. I'm actually more concerned about the consensus of Christians going back to the early church fathers. And yes, there's origin. Although on this particular question, I don't think origin actually helps, but he's sort of an outlier on some of the other things that he says. But on this, just note, we're not dealing with contradictions. We're talking about a few things that Jesus said on the cross that actually, I think, fit together very well. And, you know, one saying he cried out doesn't tell you exactly what he cried out. So he could have cried out, you know, father, my hands, I, you know, commanding a spirit. Or he could have cried, it is finished. And then before that said, father,

you know, you know, I commit my spirit. And my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I thirst, these are things he's on the cross for multiple hours. So the idea that the gospel writers couldn't focus on different things that Jesus actually said. My point here is there's no contradiction. This is sort of like a solution in search of a problem. And I think that's why people like Craig Blomberg and others have not glommed on into this. And maybe even why Daniel Wallace, I don't think he ever published that paper. Mike can correct me if I'm wrong. But Mike has helped popularize that because it's so weak and thin. Now, does I Thirst also have a spiritual meaning? Sure, it does. But again, the logic here escapes me. The fact that

meanings may have a double meaning doesn't mean that they rewrote something else into something completely different. If we got a thousand people into a room and ask them to paraphrase or write the meaning of to communicate to others, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I doubt that one, I'm not a betting man, but I would probably bet on this, assuming they hadn't read Mike LaCona's work, would come up with, I thirst. These are just two completely different statements. Now, post hoc, you can make things, I mean, C.S. Lewis was great on this, and the personal heresy and stuff. We can import all sorts of subjective readings about, well, what was behind it to help find that actually, you know, they rewrote it. But the larger point, so I think the

underlying logic here, I just reject. I don't think it's strained at all to say that Jesus said all these things on the cross, which most Christians have accepted for 2,000 years. This is not, I do agree with Mike. There are some things he mentioned with regard to Peter's denials. There are examples that I would agree with them, a very strained attempts at harmonization. I don't think this is it. Scholars like Craig Blomberg, I just don't think it's it. But here's the larger point. If you really think that gospel writers, and maybe we can dig down more deeply on this, felt free with the words of Jesus, not to just paraphrase what he actually said, but to radically reshape into something that if you saw both of them, you would not think that they were the same things.

and you apply that approach to someone else. Mike teaches that to someone else. Maybe someone without his theologically conservative background, I don't see the limiting principle to that. That is why I have referred in public to Mike's approach as Jesus Seminar Light, which is he's much more theological conservative,

but that approach, it's the same thing of placing our judgment on Scripture by saying, well, no, we know better than that. And that the convention of the time, I mean, where this goes back is Mike says, well, this was allowed in Greco-Roman biography. And I would like to us to get there because I think that is, you know, that's part of the underlying justification for all this. And I think that's arguable. Okay, we can come back to that, Mike. I know you have thoughts on how you respond here.

But let me, let me narrate for everybody what's going on here. So we have this tension in what are or seem to be. the last words of Jesus in different gospel accounts, and there's different ways to approach it. John says one way is harmonization. There doesn't have to be, there's not a direct contradiction. There's a way of making sense of this, even though he said, John, there's some other passages like the denial of Peter that are more tricky to do so and far more strained. You look at this, Mike, and say, you're open to what these kind of fictionalizing devices, correct

me if I'm not characterizing it correct, that the gospel writers felt free to invent words of Jesus that were in line with the spirit of Jesus, but things he didn't really say that fit their larger theology. And so, John, your concern is when we start inventing things as fictional devices, how do we trust it? What's the limit here? And that would contradict how you see the gospel trying to report truth directly rather than invent things. Now, before we go and respond, is that a fair summary? No, well, mostly, but there's one just one clarification. I actually, when it comes to the last words of Jesus on the cross,

I do not believe there is any tension whatsoever. In fact, I think they fit together. And just one little example of that. So when Jesus says, I thirst, one reason why John, who wrote his gospel later, might well have wanted to add that is in the other gospels, it does talk about people who basically give wine to Jesus. And in those gospels, they talk about, they think when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

They think he's calling for Elijah. And then you have this thing as well, then they go give him some wine to drink. And it doesn't say that they're doing that. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy Daily Bible Tribia and Humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android.

Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Directly because of that, but it happens sequentially, and so it doesn't really fill in. If I'm John and I've seen, well, no, actually there's an additional fact there. Jesus also said, I thirst. It actually fits together beautifully. So, you know, Mike can disagree with it, but I just, my position is I don't think there's any tension whatsoever. It's not only that they're not necessarily contradicting.

I don't think there's any tension whatsoever when it comes to the last words of Jesus. Okay, one more question. I'm coming to Mike, but there are passages where you think there is tension. Yeah. And you're open to where there could be, where there could be. So you're open to their being minor errors. Like, mention that really briefly, and then I'll come back to Mike. No, I mean, I accept the traditional view of anerrancy that there aren't errors.

If I were persuaded that there really was an error that couldn't be explained in the way of traditional inerrancy, I would say the most natural next thing that would likely be true would be that there were minor errors. What I wouldn't do is then say, well, the gospel writers felt free to invent things. So I do think that that is a less destructive view. But I, myself, don't actually, I'm not persuaded that there are actual. errors, even when it comes to the, yeah, so. Okay, got it. So we come across these difficult say, and you would say either we harmonize it or in

some cases there's mystery. You don't think there's contradiction, but you would be open to a few minor ones as possibilities, but that's not the position that you take. Mike. Yeah, that's fair. Okay, got it. So, Mike, tell us at least clarify where you're coming from and what you mean by these fictionalizing devices.

Okay, well, I don't think that fictionalizing devices is a good term for this. In fact, Lydia McGrew has even moved away from it as what I've heard, because it doesn't really communicate what's going on. So I think she has changed it to fact changing out. But I don't think that that communicates it well either because it's unquestionable that the gospel authors on occasion do change facts. So, for example, on Mark chapter one, verse 5, Mark says that all of the region of Judea and every Jerusalemite, that is everyone living in Jerusalem, went out to John the Baptist and were baptized by them. Well, if you take that in a literal sense, of course, that would mean the high priest and all the members of the Sanhedron

went out and saw John to Baptist and were baptized. Well, we understand what Mark is saying there, though. He is speaking hyperbolicly. Sure. But he changes the facts. He changes the facts because not everyone went out there. Now, of course, that is a small thing and it is a device that is easily recognized because we still do it today. John said that he even acknowledges that compression is taking place and things like that. That's another thing, a fact-changing that you could say that is actually going on. But to say fact-changing really gives the wrong impression here. I think something like dynamic reporting. or literary adaptation is a better term for it.

The question here isn't whether they're actually changing the details. The question is to what extent they went to. Now, John said that you wouldn't have, he doesn't believe that the gospel authors would change the word, like, what do you say, radically reshaping the words of Jesus. Let me give an example of something. Let's go to Matthew chapter 27, verses 9 and 10. And here we see Judas.

He takes the 30 pieces of silver, and he throws them back into the temple. And then Matthew says, this was to fulfill what Jeremiah the prophet said. And then he quotes, and then he gives this long quote from scripture. Well, if you look for that in Jeremiah, you're not gonna find it.

And the reason being is it's in Zechariah. And, but it's in an entirely different context. And what happens, happens is you have Zechariah who is the prophet and God tells them look they're not respecting you anymore stop working with them and so after a while Zechariah goes to the Jewish leaders in the temple and he says look just pay out to me what I'm going to stop acting as your prophet just pay out to me what you think I'm worth and so they measure out to him 30 pieces of silver 30 shekels well that's actually an insult because that was the price of buying a slave

back then. And so God tells him, take those 30 pieces of silver and throw them to the potter. Now, the word that is used there for throw actually would be like to give, to give to the potter. And in that case, the treasurer of the temple was a potter serving in that capacity. So God is telling them, just give it over to the treasury, those 30 pieces of silver, and the treasurer is a potter. Well, then you've got one word in Jeremiah, the word field. That comes from a different context where Jeremiah purchases a field from one of his relatives for 17 shekels, 17 pieces of silver. Well, then what Matthew has done is taking one word from Jeremiah field, put it in that lengthy text by Zechariah and reshaped it and given it a very, loose paraphrase to fit with Judas actually throwing 30 pieces of silver into the temple

so that they could take that and buy a field from a potter. And then Matthew says this was to fulfill scripture. Now that is a radically reworking of both Jeremiah and Zechariah. And I would say that if the gospel authors are willing to do that with scripture, then a reason, going to say that they couldn't do something like reshape Jesus statement about into your hands I commit my spirit to it is finished i've got a question for you do you want to jump in here john but yeah i would just say so he was making two things so with regard to the the things he was saying at last about the the citations of fulfillment and how how old testament scripture is used in the new testament how that's reshaped that's a much broader broader topic than that i mean he's not an old

Tuthment scholar, neither am I. And so I really don't have much to say on that. I would simply say that is really, it's interesting to me that he goes to that rather than provide a better defense of I-Thirst, which is largely rejected by people like Craig Baumberg, and my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But on the issue that he said, these other devices, like hyperbole, just to be clear, Mike's major critics, and I wouldn't point myself as a major critic, because for the reasons that Mike says, but say Lydia McGrew, Bill wrote, other people. They don't deny that normal literary devices like hyperbole. No one has ever understands that as if you're making a hyperbole. That is not actually a factual claim. And so to

call that, well, they change the facts, I think is, okay, you can say that. But compression, organizing things topically that you're not actually purporting to give chronology. There's nothing wrong with that. These are things that from the time of Augustine, and actually before, that Christians always recognize. What they did not recognize are the things that Mike is talking about about fabricating events like the resurrection of the other saints in Matthew, that at various points. I don't know what Mike's current view on that is.

He initially said he thought that was theatrical special effects, so it was a pious fabrication. That's in Matthew. And then later he said, well, maybe it's either a pious fabrication or factual. And then in his more recent podcast, he said he had his original view. So I'm not sure it's great view on that, but he certainly has proposed that that was made up. Or have we given other examples? I think those are the things that historically Christians who have accepted that that is different.

And I'd say that the radical changes of the words of Jesus is not something that prior to the higher criticism was generally accepted among Christians. And so just this is a new. Now, Mike later was saying, well, maybe there's a, you know, Does that mean that since they did this with the Old Testament, then maybe, you know, why didn't they necessarily do it with it? Well, okay, that's speculation. That's not evidence that they did that with the words of Jesus. And so again, some of this comes back to the view of history. And Mike has some interesting things to say about Greco-Roman bios or biography that he thinks justifies what the biblical writers did.

And I hope that we'll get to that. Okay, we can get to that, Mike. would you agree that the idea of, again, whatever I'm calling them, fictionalizing devices, fact-changing methodology is a recent thing? I mean, did it start with Gundry that we hear about as commentary in the 80s? Or is there precedent in the church for this outside of origin one way that people were interpreting this? Or is this really a modern concept that arose and you developed? No, it's been a while, long time. As you mentioned, Origin did this, probably between the year 235 and 250.

But even Augustine himself acknowledged these kinds of things. So let me read you something real quickly, less than a paragraph from Augustine. He says this, there is no falsehood, not even if they, that is the gospel authors, say that the subject of a narrative said something, which that person did not say, as long as they expressed the same thought as the one of them who does record the actual words. From this we learned, the sound lesson that we ought to seek nothing other than what the person speaking meant. Augustine on another occasion talks about the Okay, hang on, hang on before you go to the other occasion. I don't have the context of that quote. is the point that you're saying it's not what somebody says, but the meaning behind it where we could ascertain if there's a contradiction or not.

Is that the point, I think, of what you're saying, Guston is saying. So he's moving understanding. I guess I don't see how that's a fictional device. I think that just says maybe I'm missing something, but that seems to be saying that truth, we have to ascertain intentions. So if we go to the Raisin of the Saints, and we'll come back to the specific of this, it would seem like Augustine would be supporting the idea in principle that if Matthew intended to communicate that this is apocalyptic language and is not historical.

So if it didn't happen historically, but his intention was to just say this is some kind of fictional device to point that something dramatic is happening here, then it's not falsified because that would have been Matthew's intention. It seems like that's the connection. Am I right on that? Yes. So like with the raised saints that John brought up. What I posited back in, in fact, I did it before my book came out in 2006, I posited in a debate with Aliati out in University of California, Davis. Nobody said anything then. Bill Craig posited the same thing back in the 1990s. If it's in the book, Will the real Jesus please stand up? It's a transcript of his debate. with John Dominic Croson that Matthews Ray Saints were not to be interpreted in a historical sense. Nobody said anything. Michael Byrd, Australian New Testament scholar, a member of ETS, said the same thing. Nobody said anything. It's only when Michael O'Connor said something that Norman Geisler objected to that and some others have. So I'm not the only one that holds that position and I've argued for it. I don't know that I need. I mean, if you want me to repeat my arguments, be happy to do it.

think that there's good reason to think that Matthew did not intend for us to understand the Ray Saints in a historical sense because there were others Josephus who said some similar stuff just narrating about what happened just before the temple was destroyed, a number of Greco-Roman authors saying portents that happened when Julius Caesar was assassinated or when Caesar went into Egypt on another occasion. Even today, I have a friend who's a physician. Her name is Cynthia, and she told me back in 2022 that she attended an Iranian celebration of the New Year Festival out in Colorado. And one of the announcers talked about one of their favorite musical artist, the singer, who was killed two years earlier in a car accident and said,

that happened the sun went dark and stars fell out of the sky and she sent me a message and she said mike they're doing the same kind of stuff today in the middle east of middle easterners are so what i contended is it's a lot like we say today 9-11 was an earth-shaking event we don't actually mean to say that there was a massive earthquake that shook the world when 9-11 occurred here in the united states it is a way of saying that something huge has happened. It was a way in antiquity to say these kinds of things when something huge, they considered huge of even divine significance happened. And that's what I think Matthew was doing here when he said these kinds of things happened. Hey, they've killed the son of God. And of course,

I can give more examples and reasons for this and more details. But that's the, that's the gist. Okay, so let me jump in here. John, don't forget your point. I just got to clarify something. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mike. I've heard Craig say a few things that he doesn't believe are true, but are ways of responding to objections like the Canaanites. He'll say, logically, maybe they just invented this, you know, to remove the sting to keep it focused on Jesus rising from the grave. So there seems to me there's maybe a difference between in a debate saying,

here's something that's possible. I mean, I've conceded certain things. Like, let's just say, let's just say evolution is true. I don't believe that, but it's a way of removing an objection and not focusing on that. And it's different when you write a book and you start to advance these ideas, which I think you've done, but Craig hasn't. Is that true? That's probably why he's criticizing you and others have that you've gone out more than just in an article saying, you know, this is one possibility. You're advancing these. I've talked to Bill.

You know, we're good friends. He doesn't believe that there were saints raised that Jesus' death. that that was kind of special effects as I do. Okay. Even J.I. Packer, I've heard him say this in a lecture. And he and I became friends within the last two years of his life. And he said in a lecture that, you know, he wasn't sure that there was a tree of trees of life and a tree of good and evil in the garden because trees were often used as poets,

by poets in antiquity. And he said, did Eve actually, was she actually tempted by a serpent? He says, I don't know. So need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead?

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It said it's possible that that is not what happened back then, and that Genesis, 1 through 11, is just a different kind of genre. In fact, as we know, William Lane Craig has argued that at length in his book about the historical atom that Genesis 1 through 11 are not to be taken in a historical sense. So I think we can debate over issues such as these things. Did Matthews erase saints? Did Matthew mean that as historical or not? Was there actually a Garden of Eden in which these things actually took place? you know, or was Job a historical person? These, how much of the Old Testament,

some of these things actually occurred as reported? I think to be honest with you, some of these things, we're just not going to know the answers to, and we're going to look at different possibilities. But the problem I think we have like with John is he is saying, And if you don't believe these things are historical, as he does, then you're really starting to go down the slippery slope. And there are problems with that. John, go ahead. Well, I would say you're already down the slippery slope once you're saying things that for 2,000 years were accepted by Christians as historical or not. I mean, really, I would just urge people to listen to the language here.

Now we're actually comparing something that was in the New Testament to things in the Old Testament that he doesn't think we're, historical or factual. And he's, so by adopting that very, you know, claim, you could pretty much make that same argument about everything supernatural in the New Testament. But let's talk about specifically the resurrection. But we don't, John. We don't. But there's no imprincipal reason not to. That's my, that's my point. But let me get to these. Yes, there is. You have to consider genre. So let's get to the specifics. Let me be able to respond if I might on the resurrection of the other saints in Matthew 27. Now, it's interesting to me that he cites, you know, portents that were seen at the time of

or purported to be seen at the time of, you know, Caesar's death and other things is that because part of what seems to be going around is that, well, people actually seeing things in nature and then making a theological interpretation of that, that means that they must have invented it, that those things didn't really take place in nature. And that's a very anti-supernatural bias that actually comes straight out. of the 19th century and before of the higher critics. And so this is actually a good example of why I raised what I do about Stockholm Syndrome Christianity of sincere Christians who are in fact getting some of their underlying assumptions from these basically non-Christian points of view.

But let's talk about, again, the resurrection of the saints. It's embedded in what I think even Mike would concede of is as a historical narrative. It actually makes not just, well, the stars are falling specific claims about both an earth earthquake, about the temple, you know, the curtain being rent, and then, and that there were actual, you know, people were raised, and then they went out and people saw them. So, you know, you can say, you can assert that, well, that is just apocalyptic special effects, but it's embedded in historical narrative that really, if you were reading it, I think, you know, the idea that Matthew would think that people didn't think this was true, well, that Matthew is pretty stupid. Because how do we

know this. Let's go back to the early church fathers. Let's go back to Ironaus, who lived from 120 to 200. He actually references this saying that the fact that when the holy soul of Christ descended, many souls ascended and were seen in their bodies, that is pretty clearly a reference to this. Turtoyan writes even more explicitly about how when the earth trembled and the veil of the temple was rent, the tombs were burst asunder, a Cyril of Jerusalem in the 300s, responding to someone that was saying that's impossible that the dead should rise, he then actually references Matthew's report that the bodies of the saints arose and they came out of their graves and went into the holy city and appeared under many.

He actually referenced that as proof that the dead can rise. And so Augustine was the same. So I would think you would be hard pressed prior to the advent of theological modernism to find any Christians who are arguing that that was simply literary special effects. And if I'm wrong, please Mike cite someone from the early church fathers that actually understood that. And if they didn't, if they understood it historically, then this idea that Matthew was using apocalyptic imagery that he knew that he knew that people would know, well, that's not true. So at best, if Matthew did it, he did it deceptively because it wasn't received that way.

And in fact, and just one other thing, since he mentions J.I. Packer, let's be clear, J.I. Packer is on record as rejecting Mike's approach. Let me quote, as a framer of the ICBI statement on biblical inerrancy who once studied Greco-Roman literature at advanced level, I judge Mike Lekona's view that because the gospels are semi-biographical, details of their narratives may be regarded as legendary and factually erroneous to be both academically and theologically unsound. So I'm glad that he was friends with J. I. Packer, but J. I. Packer did not accept his view. Where was that, John? Hold on. Where did he say that? Where's that quote from? And a letter, but it's been published on the web at defending an article. You've been a letter from May 8th, 2014. Mike, go ahead. And that is true. He did write that. Now let me give you the rest of the story. When he wrote that, I called him. And I said, Jim, he had told me to call him Jim. I called him. I called him. And I said, Jim, why did you write that? And he said, Mike, Norm pressured me to write it. And when I was with him in person, up in Canada, and you can check this out with Dan Wallace and Greg Minnet.

Both of them were eyewitnesses to this. We're in the green room at lunch during the first day of the conference up there. And I said, Jim, I'd like to ask you about the Ray Saints thing. And he said, Mike, I owe you an apology. And I said, for what? He said, I got pressured by Norm to do to put out that statement. I didn't want to do it, but he kept after me to do it. Mike, I didn't even read that portion in your book. I just went on what Norm told me about it. And then I just issued that statement in order to get them off my back.

Would you forgive me? And I said, absolutely. And so that's what happened in that story. So yeah, you can this is the by the way this is the first time i've said that publicly and dan and gregg and myself agreed that we would not say anything about it until after jim had passed on to to be with the lord because we didn't want him to be in any conversation uh he didn't want to be in any kind of debate with that kind of stuff so that that's what happened there origin took the raised saints differently he said when they uh rose they went to heaven and went to the holy city there. And then, I mean, I'd be happy. I don't want to get this clogged up. I know Sean wants to move on. I've already addressed this stuff in my large book or they can go to my website. Unfortunately, I have a

new website and we don't have my old articles on there, but I should have them there within a couple of weeks. And I have my response in a roundtable discussion on this in the Southeastern Theological Review, where I defend this and we get into it even further. Okay, let me, do you want to say something, John? So, I mean, that's, I guess, an interesting story. It's hard to publicly argue against something when someone makes a public statement on the record. And then someone says, well, the guy's dead and gone. And now I can tell you secretly what he actually said.

Ask Dan Wallace and Greg Manette. Okay, but that's still, who have the same views that you do. So did, did just that did, did, did, did, did, uh, J. I. Packer ever. publicly retract the other state? He did not, but what he did, what he did was he endorsed my book. You can go to Amazon and see it. When he endorsed my book, why are there differences in the Gospels? But he didn't retract his understanding of the, I mean, in your latest book, you come up with

a new view of flexible. He did not want, he did not want Norm coming after him. Okay. This is, I mean, I just say, and a lot of bashing of, Norm Geisler, who is also dead as, this seems to be a tendency to anyone who criticizes you gets, anyone who criticizes you gets attacked as somehow, you know, beneath contempt. You know, Norm Geisley, so they're all bullies because, I mean,

you put this stuff out publicly, and it's, you know, the, I cited a number of the early church fathers all the way up to later church fathers like St. Augustine. This is the standard view of the Christian church. So origin, who allegorized everything, and I would want to go and see the exact context of what he said on that. But yeah, origin had a different view of the Bible that most of the reformers rejected, had other views that actually the Catholic Church repudiated. So origin is an important figure, but he is a quite problematic figure to that origin is not speaking for the,

the majority, if you will, consensus view of the Christian church. This is a modern view, and most of the people that you're citing are on it. And as far as you getting attacked for, I think it is because you are so successful in popularizing these things. So you should take it as a badge of honor that people write about you because you're not just running in obscure places. You're actually out in the arena and trying to convince the next generation of students and others on that. And so that attracts attention. But I don't know why people should be faulted for responding publicly to things, a public case that you're making. I'm not faulting them for doing that. Good. Let me jump in here.

So your concern, John, I think this raising the saints is just an example that highlights the differences here. Your concern is really two things, that it's in a historical narrative. If we read it within its context, this is how it's meant to be taken. And there's no broader historical precedent for this until post-like enlightenment when higher criticism comes in. So it's really a response to kind of an anti-supernatural bias. Mike, I would love to hear from you if this was a device that Matthew's using in that culture, apart from origin, why wouldn't more people just know and comment, oh, I know what Matthew's doing? Like, why is it that it takes modern scholars to say, we know better what Matthew meant than what people who are close to the time and place meant? Fair question. The fact is a lot of them, most of them don't comment on it at all. So, you know, you have the silence. It doesn't mean that they agree or disagree with it. They just don't comment on it at all. So that's how I would address that. But there are, there are problems with interpreted Matthews Ray Saints as as literal, as it as historical. You know, one would be that what kind of body were they raised? Was it in the same mortal,

body or was it a resurrection body? Well, if it was a resurrection body, then they're contradicting Paul, because Paul says that Christ is the first fruits of those who sleep, the first to be raised with a resurrection body. And yet these folks would have been raised at Jesus' death. So maybe they're raised with the same kind of body that Lazarus in which he was raised. They're mortal bodies. Well, in that case, they haven't eaten anything or drank anything for at least 30 hours or more. So now what's going on? They come out of the tomb. They're hungry, they're thirsty, they're homeless.

They have nowhere to go. Hey, fellow, you know, where are you at? Well, hey, what's Solomon doing these days? Solomon, yeah, or what about any near-death experiences they would have had? We don't hear anything about these people anymore. So I think that there are some difficulties. And when you have at hand some plausible explanation

about looking at it as much, Matthew did not mean to look at this in a historical sense. It fits fairly well. You got Peter at Pentecost. He's quoting from Joel about what's happening. Obviously, he doesn't think from that passage that everything happened. The sun going dark and the stars falling out of the sky that day. Go ahead, John.

I have a question. With regard to the resurrection of saints and the problems, those are not contradictions. Let me just say, this is a, it's not. exactly bait and switch because I know Mike you're not intending that but the fact that we don't know everything about everything that's not a problem in my view I mean that that is and so that's there's a difference between things that seem absolute contradiction or seemed that couldn't have occurred or that were or that there's good grounding that they were poetical or something of course and and the sorts of things that you're bringing up and I would say I just urge people to listen

to the way Mike is talking about the scriptures it's really this is sort of post in the light of modernity and the anti-supernatural bias. It's placing us in judgment on what the scripture says, well, because we think for aesthetic reasons or for practical reason, because if you really think we can't really see how it fits together, then we are going to dismiss what the historic interpretation or how it was received. And I think that mentality, although with Mike, he still accepts the major doctrines of the faith, that mentality is hard to, that genie is hard to keep in the bottle once you start. And I think that owes far more to the rise of higher criticism than it does to the gospel

authors themselves or the early centuries of the church or the sort of tradition of the church up to sort of theological modernism. All right, Mike, I know you've got thoughts on that. But let me bring it back to a question John raised earlier that I think might clarify some of the differences here. Part of your concern, John, is it a sense that, well, too, you feel like, You think that we're moving away from a historical understanding of the Word of God, its authority, why it was written. And second, when we open up the door for these devices, there's no limiting factor for it.

So we allow the Saints, which was understood historically as being historical, even if we don't have all the details about it. Now we're changing that, you would argue. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning, plus reading plans, devotions, and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead? The Daily Bible app reads verses, reading plans and chapters aloud, handy for the headphones moment of your day.

Choose from versions like ESV, NIV, NIV, KJV, and more, and bookmark favorites to revisit later. Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play. and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. Words like, it is finished in John 1930, I think you would say, Mike, and some other scholars just said,

that could have been creative adaptation of other words that Jesus spoke. I Thirst is an example of this. So what's the limiting factor? Once we open up the door for this, how do we know what's fictional? How do we know what's not fictional? How can we practically figure this out? is one question. I have more, but maybe give us some parameters of how you would address that.

I think we have to go on a case-by-case basis because we really just don't know. When we see Matthew, what he does with Scripture about the 30 pieces of silver, that's pretty radical. So if you look at what most Johanin specialists say about what John has done with the Jesus tradition, that can be pretty radical at times. So I think we just have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. When it comes to saying, I've got a anti-supernatural bias, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. I believe that he performed miracles. I believe miracles through Jesus Christ even happened today. I believe in the existence of demons. I don't have any anti-supernatural bias. What I'm trying to do is to treat the text with respect

and try to figure out what's going on here within their literary context. I'm trying to have a degree of literary sensitivity. Now, I might be wrong on some of these things. I'm sure I am. Not all of us when we get to heaven, we're gonna find out we're wrong on some things. I'm open to that.

I have put these things out there. I think I'm right on it. I think a number of scholars. I've gotten lots of comments from scholars. They think I'm right on this. So, I mean, us some things that we're just going to have to look at on a case-by-case basis and make our own determination here.

So in other words, there really is no limiting principle. Let me just, since we, I know we may be running out of time and there's something, a key piece of it that I think needs to be talked about because, again, Mike has emphasized literary genres, understanding the text, you know, as, you know, in its context, and how the early church received it. my whole point is I don't actually think as a matter of history that Mike has made his case, that there is, even if Greco-Roman biographers believed in the type of flexibility as good practice, now, of course, there were bad historians that did do things, but even if they agreed in good practice, then you have the fact that three of the four gospel authors were Jews.

And so you have to make a connection, well, that they accepted, you know, these conventions, even if those conventions were true. And I think that's arguable. But let's say we actually have very good evidence. We have, and I want to thank Lydia McGrew for raising this to my attention, a really good example of a Christian historian who actually was expert in both, you know, Latin and Greek, who lived from around 160 AD into the 200s. His name is Julius Africanus. And so if anyone was going to say that he thought that the gospel writers running in their milieu, you know, thought that they could change facts and things to make a larger good true theological point, it should be him, if anyone would recognize that. But we actually have a very explicit example where he makes clear that this is not an acceptable approach. There's a big debate over the two genealogies of Jesus, one given to Matthew, one given Luke. There are lots of different explanations of why that may the case and how they could

both be true. I don't really want to get into the details of that because I don't think we actually know. But Julius Africanus was dealing with that issue, and he had his proposal. But one of the things he addressed was, well, what about maybe they changed, Matthew and Luke, changed the names of the genealogy to make the true point that Jesus is both prophet and king. And his reaction to that was basically horror that was, and here's what he said in his letter. He said, you know, the evangelist then under that of changing the facts, but to make a true underlying point, would thus have spoken falsely affirming what? was not truth, but a fictitious commendation. Nor shall an assertion of this kind prevail on the

Church of Christ against the exact truth so as that a lie should be contrived for the praise and glory of Christ. Now, I will wager that Julius Africanus and actually Augustine a couple centuries later knew a lot more about Greco-Roman literary forms than either Mike or I do. I mean, we've both read. I've read Theon. I've read some people that Mike cites and may have a different interpretation. but here's an actual Christian historian who knows about Greek and Latin within a century or so of the Gospels. And he actually, the approach that Mike is saying that, well, that's what the gospel writers were doing, he basically rejects that. That's actual evidence. John, do you know what he posited instead?

Yeah, it was about liver at marriage in Lividicus. But that, you know, you can get into your arguments on that. My point is, though, you're posing a methodology or how what you think were accepted literary approaches of the gospel authors. Of course, they themselves don't say anything on that. So you don't actually have evidence that the gospel authors embraced Greco-Roman literary forms. That's speculation. But here we have an actual Christian historian from with 100 years of the gospel who is trained in Greco-Roman literature. And he is a adopting an approach that is night and day from what you're arguing. Well, I disagree with that. And when you look at like what you said about the leverant marriage, what Julius Africanus posited was that, you know, the story, if you have a wife and you die and you left her childish, childless, then your brother could take her as a wife and sire a child through him. So legally, it would be in your the dead brother's name, but it was physically your child. So what's really ironic about it is that Julius Africanus was saying you shouldn't with the, you shouldn't

interpret or try to reconcile or understand the differences between the genealogies by saying that Matthew is doing some things symbolically here. And then what does he do? He turns around and trying to explain it by giving a symbolic explanation with the leverate marriage. So he actually contradicts. He does the very thing that he's against. I think that's a bad example that you've just cited there. No, first of all, I think you're misusing the idea of symbolic. So leverant marriage is something well established in Old Testament law. And so if that's, you know, establishes something legal, that's not symbolic. I mean, you're really, but, but the key thing, So, I mean, we could debate whether that's the explanation.

It is symbolic because it's not really the dead brother's son. Okay, but from a legal fiction, from a legal standpoint, it is. I think that is different. Symbolically, yes, from a legal standpoint. Okay. I mean, I think actually your way of reading a text is actually in a way to manufacture contradictions or things that aren't there is so nearly. literalistic in some sense that is kind of preposterous.

But I don't, so people can just agree with our interpretation on it. But the, but the guard, which you haven't really responded to, is that he actually says that the proposal that they may have changed the names, not just that, you know, he's using lever at marriage, which is a legal concept, but they may have changed the names to emphasize that they're, you know, priest or king or prophet, and both priest and king, that that was out of doors to him. He didn't say, no, well, Greco-Roman bios allows you to do that, and we should just understand that they were speaking spiritually and metaphorically.

He says, no, that would be not affirming the truth, and that would be a lie. They would be deceptive. And he goes on to actually ground this in the scriptures. He cites Paul's talking in 1st Corinthians 15 about, well, what about if basically Christian Christians were saying that Jesus rose the dead, even if he didn't, because we're, I guess, you know, communicating the wonderful things Jesus did, even though maybe it's just spiritual. And he said, how should he be not be justly afraid who tries to establish the truth by a false statement? So I think that, again, here is one of the earliest Christian historians who's trained in Greco-Roman rhetoric and then move ahead a couple of centuries to- Oh, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. It's just going on, John. me respond to that. So I never said that Matthew changed the names. What I did say is he arranged things in groups of 14. So you have a total of three groups of 14 or 42 names. And then he says,

these are all the generations between Abraham and Jesus. And of course, Luke has more than 42. And he reuses the name Jechoniah, which is number 14 in the second set. He uses it as a the first one in the third set. So Matthew is not trying to be real careful here. I'm not saying that he has changed names. I'm saying that he has arranged them in three sets of 14, and he's not being real careful because he's using Gematria here, a rhetorical device that even Craig Blomberg

and many other evangelical scholars have granted that this is what Matthew is doing here in order to highlight the fact that Jesus is the son of David, the Messiah. That's a fair point. I don't actually disagree with what you just said. What I think you're missing my larger point, which is your overall approach, whether it be with the rise of the saints or in the case of John where suggesting that John invented where he says that Jesus says, receive the Holy Spirit and breathe on them.

I agree with Craig Keener on that. I think Keener's correct. Yes. Do you think that that was invented? So what I'm saying, but to do it's true spiritual point of prefiguring what's going to happen in Pentecost. So what I'm saying is I think that you don't have any evidence from the gospel writers themselves actually saying we accept, we even know about Greco-Roman biography forms. But I'm saying certainly their secretaries would have known it. Paul used the secretary.

Let me jump in here. The earliest Christian historian we do have actually seems to adopt a different approach in general. that's all I was doing we're getting back to some of the devices you suggest Mike just so people understand you've read some of the Greco-Roman literature and you see devices that some of these writers use to seemingly make sense of differences and we can apply those to the gospels John's challenge is how do we know they were aware of them and how do we know they used them your answer is their secretaries would have been aware of it now i'm going to let that one sit and let people decide for themselves which they find most compelling let me pull us back and

try to get some perspective i think some people might getting lost in the weeds about what this debate really is and why it matters and i just i have one question for you mike i just want to ask to get your take on this then i have you guys just kind of sum up your position if we adopt the position that some of these statements are I thirst, why have you forsaken me, etc., are not what Jesus said. And no one is saying he spoke him in English, but the best translations of what he said. So they're not changing it. They're changing it, not just translating it. Then how does this not, how do the words not lose their power?

And I'll give you an example of this that I've thought about Mike is when I discovered in chariots. fire that Eric Little apparently didn't say when I run, I feel his pleasure. I was like profoundly disappointed. I was like, no, I quoted him. That has like authority from Eric Little. And so it kind of gutted me. And of course, that's not the same kind of authority, but that means something. So how does it, how do we preach out of this? How does it mean something? Do you qualify and go, well, it was maybe made up, but it's still consistent with what Jesus said as opposed to the way I hear people preaching like, this is what Jesus said. Like, flesh out for me what that would look like. Yeah. I think when you're talking about the person in the pew, you don't have to get into all these

kinds of details. You know, you gave the example of Charity's a fire. Great movie. Apollo 13, one of my favorite. Gene Krant. who is played by Ed Harris makes the famous statement failure is not an option. That's right. But Gene Krantz never made that statement. I met what was this? I don't remember his first name. I mentioned him in the book Jesus Contradict.

His last name is Groobb, G.R.U.B. He was Gene's best friend and he died within, I think, a week after I met with him at his house. And he told me, he said, he asked Gene. And he said, I don't remember you even uttering that statement because he was there at the time during Apollo 13. And Gene, he said, did you at some point utter that statement? Failure is not an option? And Gene said, no.

Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Oh, but I wished I had. But what had happened was the screenwriters, they took, after interviewing the people there, they took the spirit that these guys had,

the attitude that they had. And they only had two hours to illustrate, to communicate what it was like with these guys. And the attitude, failure was not an option, was there. It was so crystal clear amongst all of these. And so they just had, they put it on the lips of Gene Krantz. So did Gene Krantz utter that? No. But was that attitude, the attitude that they all had at mission control at that point, or Houston control? Yes. So I think when you come to the Gospels, they do give us an essentially faithful representation of what occurred. Do they take some liberties in the way they report things? Yes, John more than the others. This is something that Mike Lekona did not come up with. This is something that has been around since origin and others where they called John a spiritual gospel. They recognized that there was differences. Johannine specialists recognized that there are differences.

I look at John and I say, yeah, he's teaching the same thing, but he sure sounds a lot different than he does in the other Gospels. So I'm trying to, how does the pastor communicate this? Again, I don't think that they have to get into details, but maybe if they're giving some kind of classes there for people who are really interested in getting deep into it, they can do it. Let me just conclude this. Yeah. There are two principles that I teach my students when we talk. about these things. Number one, our view of Scripture should be consistent with what we observe

in Scripture. And number two, if we truly want to have a high view of Scripture, then we will accept it as God has given it to us rather than attempting to force it to fit in a mold of how we think he should have. And if we neglect to do this, we may believe we have a high view of Scripture, but in reality all we have is a high view of our view, of scripture. And that's just misplaced piety. Okay. So in many ways, your view is what you call a bottom up view, starting with an analysis of the text. So you start with that passage in Mark chapter one. You start with a quote of Zach Ryan Jeremiah, come to the conclusion that the authors at times change things. Maybe they got

things that seem wrong on the surface, but they had some liberty to invent or change certain certain sains, largely faithful to who Jesus was and what he taught, and that could be understood within inerrancy if we understand what the intentions of the writers were. Is that a fair summary of your position? Okay. John, just give us, like, why can't that be a position within the church that you just say, you know what, I think Mike's wrong, but we agree to disagree, and I'm not going to call them out in the book specifically, like, why is so much at stake with this position and just clarify where you differ? Sure. Well, just so it is strange to say, well, not going to call someone out on a book who is campaigning for a certain view that I think is quite different, certainly from the

standard evangelical Christian view before the rise of modernism. And so I think that it's strange to say, well, someone should be able to argue for that and argue for that at ETS. and argue that for students and in videos, and then no one is allowed to challenge that. So I just reject, that is actually a form of trying to shut, and I know you're not trying to do it, but it's trying to shut down the discussion before it has. So I think that when you make these claims, anyone who makes public claims, that includes when I make public claims, you are, you know, subjecting yourself to sort of debate over that. Now, why do I think this matters?

Again, I think Mike is a brother in Christ. We're going to see each other in heaven. maybe we'll see each other before then in person. But I do think ideas matter, and I think that the standard, you know, origin to the side, and even origin, when he's treating the words of Jesus, I've read much of origin's commentary, albeit in English translation, on John. You know, when he treats the words of Jesus, he's treating them as if Jesus actually said them. I think that the standard, taking the gospel seriously, I would agree with what my

just said about, you know, we want to start with and try to honor that. And that doesn't necessarily mean our particular views. But I say the Gospels themselves are their own best defenders. And if the more we place ourselves in judgment on it and say, well, it's not what it actually has appeared to most Christians throughout most of Christian history and have read that or received it even from the earliest times. It's not what it even seems on the surface to us that we have to deconstruct everything and basically question, well, did Jesus really say that? Or maybe because, you know, that is a never-ending process, and it basically flips it so that we're, God is in the dock, if you will, or the Bible is in the dock.

And I think for a Christian, that that is a spiritually dangerous area to be in of always being in judgment on, well, the authenticity of this part of the Bible or that part of the Bible, and always questioning and almost getting, you know, the Bible has to, and God has to prove himself to us every day. I get reticent on that. But I think the bottom line here is exactly what you said is the power of the words of Jesus isn't from John his interpreter. It's from who Jesus actually was and what Jesus actually said. And so the further one argues that the gospel accounts go from that,

I think you are depriving of power and giving a view of the gospel. I don't think it's historically granted. Let me be clear here. I think that the underlying problem here is I don't think Mike has made his case. I don't think that the standard teaching of the church is wrong on this, and that this new view that arose from the higher criticism on is one that modern evangelicals should adopt, even though a lot of evangelical scholars, unfortunately, have adopted it. All right, Mike, I know right now there's so much more you want to say,

and I'm sure there's more you want to say, John. He said he hasn't made his case. So I'm going to invite are listeners. and viewers to do is to get each of your books and study them and think about them and examine it for yourself. Compare it with others. Ask who has made their case. See what is at stake. John's book, John West's book, is Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. And again, this discussion that you have with Mike, I think it's two or three pages. It's a smaller piece. You talk about a lot of other issues in the culture. So if even somebody's like, I don't agree with John on this one,

there's a lot more in this book that they should take seriously because you live this out at a school that you argue drifted and we're seeing that a lot today. Mike, your book is Jesus contradicted? Why the Gospels tell the same story differently? And I jokingly gave you a hard time when we talked about this. I was like, this is supposed to be a popular book. It's like 230 pages long. Now, with that said, it's readable.

You're not writing scholars. So if people are like, I have questions, I'm not sure I agree to this. Again, pick up a copy, read it carefully, and just ask yourself what you think is most reasonable and most true. And folks, before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. And this is the kind of topic we discuss a lot at Biola and our Masters of Apologetics program. We would love to have you think about studying with us at Talibu School of Theology. Gentlemen, I'm exhausted. That was a spirited and interesting.

and I hope for our listeners at least a clarifying conversation. I appreciate both of you taking the time. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Sean. Love you, John. Yeah, same here. Thank you.

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