The Sean McDowell Show - William Lane Craig Responds to Alex O'Connor's Criticism of Wes Huff

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Wesley Huff was recently on the Joe Rogan Experience, one of the largest podcasts in the world. A number of skeptics, atheists, and others have responded to his appearance. Because Alex O'Connor has one of the biggest channels, and he raises some of the best objections, William Lane Craig and I decided to focus our response to ten clips in this video: "How Wes Huff Got The Bible Wrong on Joe Rogan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0qzvDSmKi4). We focus our response on some of the clips that relate to the identity of Jesus, and don't address some other issues such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.WATCH: Reacting to Wesley Huff on Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC-qf90_iQ4&t=206s*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://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Apologist Wes Huff shares and defends Christianity on the Joe Rogan podcast. Understandably, and yet not surprisingly, some atheists and critics have responded to some of Wes's claims. For the first time he's weighed into this drama, William Lane Craig is here with me to address 10 of these challenges. While many other challenges have been raised as well, we're going to focus on 10 claims made by Alex O'Connor, the Cosmic Skeptic, in his response video, how Wes Huff got the Bible wrong on Joe Rogan. Alex seems to have the most views for his response video and as always raises some good questions and objections. Let's take a look at the first clip. Wes says that Jesus was audaciously going around

claiming to be God himself. I don't think that's true. Nowhere in Mark, Matthew, or Luke does Jesus actually claim to be God in his own words. At best, it's just in John's gospel that divine claims begin to appear. I and the father are one, whoever has seen me has seen the father, before Abraham was, ego Amy.

I actually still don't think even these count, and we'll me has seen the father, before Abraham was, ego Amy. I actually still don't think even these count and we'll explain why in another video, but let's just say that they do. Even if this was Jesus explicitly claiming to be God, don't you think it's a bit suspicious that these claims only show up in our latest Gospel? If Jesus was known to be walking around, claiming explicitly to be God himself. Did the other three gospel authors just not think this was relevant? A minor unimportant detail not worth including? Essentially here's the key question I'd love for you to weigh in on, Bill. To confidently believe that Jesus is God, do we need explicit first-person claims? And did Jesus adequately claim to be God in Matthew,

Mark, and Luke, which came before John? In my published work I've tried to show that historically Jesus of Nazareth made highly significant Christological claims about himself, whereby he put himself in the place of God himself. For example, he claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He claimed to be the Son of God in a unique sense. He claimed to be the divine human Son of man prophesied by the prophet Daniel. And all of these offices or titles come together at the trial scene in Mark's Gospel. The high priest, the leader of the Sanhedrin, charges Jesus under oath, are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?

And Jesus responds, I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. A virtual quotation from Daniel seven. So here you see claims that assert the divinity of Jesus here you see claims that assert the divinity of Jesus by use of these significant Christological titles, and immediately the high priest and the Sanhedrin recognized the blasphemy of what he had said and condemned him to death. Now in addition to these explicit claims, there are also implicit Christological claims that Jesus made, whereby he put himself in God's place. For example, his claim to be able to forgive sins.

In Mark chapter 2, we have the story of the healing of the paralytic, and Jesus says to the man, paralytic, and Jesus says to the man, My son, your sins are forgiven. And Mark records that those standing about murmured and said, Who does this man think he is? No one can forgive sins but God alone. And Jesus, knowing what they're saying, says, Which do you think is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or rise, get up, and take your bed and go home? And he says that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He says to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, get up, and go home. And the man is miraculously healed. Clearly in Mark's Gospel, this is a claim to divinity, exercising authority to forgive sins, an authority and prerogative

that belong to God alone. I would just add this really quickly before I move to the second one that I think Mark has a very high Christology. So some of the implicit claims, like even in Mark 1, healing the leper. It's interesting in 2 Kings chapter 5, the king of Israel receives a request to heal name of leprosy and he says, "'Am I God?' There was a sense that only God could heal leprosy.

And of course, Jesus does it by his own power immediately without the ritual of Elijah. Go to Mark 2 like you explained the healing of the paralytic clearly shows. I mean Michael Byrd wrote he said Jesus claimed for himself he claims for himself an unmediated divine authority that to those steeped in Jewish monotheism looks like absolute blasphemous. You move to Mark chapter 4. Jesus rebukes the winds and the waves and they immediately become calm. Well the theme in Psalms is that Yahweh alone controls the sea and other waters, hence at

the crossing of the Red Sea we see that portrayed. The Gospels report the disciples saying, who then is this that even the wind and sea obey him? This is reminiscent of the Psalms, who is mighty as you are, O Lord. Two more quick examples just to make this and these are only a few of them as you know. The demon now the demonoic demoniac bows down to Jesus. Now what's interesting context is he wasn't he was not showing respect but fear on behalf of the large number of demons possessing him in the thousands. This army of two thousand or more demons was deathly afraid of Jesus and he falls prostrate in an act of worship of a supernatural power even greater than a legion of demons. And then finally like you said these implicit claims come to be explicit in Mark 14 where

Jesus claims to be the divine figure, the son of man. And I think just to buttress this case, he comes on the clouds, divine status, served by all nations, and will have an everlasting universal kingdom. So I think the earliest Christology is a high Christology. Let's go to the second clip. Anyway, Wes also mentioned how it was amazing that the early church grew from 11 scared disciples to overhauling the Roman world. On this, the sociologist Rodney Stark estimates that in its first 300 years, Christianity

grew at a rate of 40% per decade from a small group in the first century to 3 million in the fourth century. That sounds pretty impressive, until you learn that this is the same growth rate experienced by Mormonism since its foundation in the 19th century. So if the rate of Christianity's growth is good evidence of its truth, Mormonism just became a whole lot more plausible. Here's the root of the question I'm curious for you to weigh in on. Is the amazing growth of Christianity a good argument for Christianity? If so, what about the growth of Mormonism?

Here my sympathies are with Alex. I do not think that you can simply point to the growth in the size of a movement as a good argument for the truth of the founding principles of that movement. Islam would be another counter example. Islam grew tremendously after Muhammad and took over much of the world, even threatened the Christian West. And so it's simply not true that the success of a movement is indicative of the truth of that, of what the movement stands for. Rather, in my published work, I've tried to recast this consideration in terms of explaining the very origin of the Christian

movement itself. What I mean is this, we know that Christianity sprang into being sometime about mid-first century. Where did it come from? What caused this movement to arise? Well, all scholars agree that the movement arose because these earliest disciples had suddenly and sincerely come to believe that Jesus had been raised by God from the dead. And that raises then the further question, well where in the world did they come up with that belief? And I think that the best explanation for the origin of that belief and the transformation in these first disciples is that they were right that God had raised Jesus from the dead. I think in fairness, Wes would agree with you.

I don't think he was necessarily saying that this amazing growth proves Christianity is true. I think he's saying this requires an explanation from 11 scared disciples to overhauling the Roman world. So I really think it would line up with your point. Now obviously numbers alone are not, you know, they don't prove that something is true or not. I mean if stats are right by 2070 Islam could be larger than Christianity. Does that prove it's true?

Of course not. But I think we don't have to do this here, but we could look at some of the differences between even the growth of Christianity, completely unexpected in Christianity, versus the opportunities to grow in the 19th century with kind of a Christian framework in the burned over district which Mormonism came from. We could splice some of those differences, but I don't think it's really relevant. The big question is what explains this grove? And they consistently pointed to the claim that Jesus had died, risen from the grave, and appeared to them. I think that's the heart of it.

Really well said. All right, let's move to the third clip. We actually have 11 eyewitnesses to the Mormon golden plates, whose names and written testimonies we still have today. Three of those witnesses say that they saw the angel Moroni give Joseph Smith the plates with their own eyes. And even when they fell out with Joseph Smith and left the church, they still continue to assert that they had witnessed these events. We don't have anything like this kind of extant written testimony for the resurrection of Jesus? Kevin Harris and I did a reasonable faith podcast on this question recently, and I think the very

simple answer is that Joseph Smith and these early witnesses were charlatans. I'm sure that Alex would agree with that assessment, that these men were not sincerely mistaken that they had seen the golden plates, rather they were just lying about what they saw. I think that is the correct and plausible explanation of this circumstance. But notice, that explanation, when you try to carry it over to the first disciples of Jesus, it becomes completely untenable. No scholar today would support the old deistic theory that the earliest disciples stole the body of Jesus and then lied about the resurrection appearances. So while this alternative or explanation rather is plausible for these Mormon witnesses, I think it would be

completely untenable with regard to the earliest disciples of Christ. There's two excellent articles and podcasts on this in the Mormon Research Ministry that Bill McKeever's put together. And he basically really summed this up well. He said, Mormons believed the 11 witnesses saw the golden plates with their natural eyes. But a careful reading of Mormon documents themselves actually reveals a different account.

According to Doctrine and Covenants, the only way these so-called witnesses could be allowed to see the plates was with faith. Faith was a prerequisite to seeing them, which is interesting. There's deep contradictory evidence whether it was with their natural or, quote, spiritual eyes, meaning it seems to be the claims were more of a vision than empirically, so to speak. So David Wintner himself said, we did not touch nor handle the plates. So Bill McKeever concludes,

and he has a very careful article, he cites all the early sources themselves. We can link to this. I'd invite viewers to go watch it. His conclusion is, while they all, the 11 witnesses, claimed to have handled what they were told were ancient plates, they did so while the plates

were covered up and not visible. If Mormons want to insist that a person can't be considered an eyewitness to the authenticity of the golden plates, unless they actually saw them, then there were no eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith's gold plates. I think that really captures it. Let's jump to clip number four. But the Gospels are written in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses and they're written in this period of time where you have

groups of individuals who could have fact-checked those things. Okay, it gets a bit speculative here. Scholarly consensus is that the earliest gospel, Mark, was written around 70 AD. This is some 40 years after Jesus died, and likely after the death of most of the eyewitnesses, given life expectancy in the ancient world. But even if it were written earlier, even if it were written by Mark himself, we're talking about the resurrection here. And notice that the earliest version of Mark's gospel does not contain any descriptions of post-resurrection appearances. It ends with the empty tomb and a disappeared Jesus and suggests that he will appear to people, but it doesn't record those appearances.

So even if it's written by an eyewitness, it doesn't report anything about the resurrected Jesus. The most numerous and detailed post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are in the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John. Scholarly consensus dates this to somewhere between 90 and 100 AD. And there's a decent amount of back and forth here, Bill, and a lot of things we could unpack and discuss, but here's kind of the key question I'd love for you to weigh in on. What do we make of the lack of the resurrection appearances in Mark, and then the numerous and detailed appearances in John, and then if you'd like we can come back to it, but are the Gospels written in the lifetime of eyewitnesses who could have actually fact

checked them? Mark clearly knows of resurrection appearances of Jesus in Galilee, for he has the angel say to the women at the empty tomb, Go and tell Peter and his disciples that he is going before you into Galilee, there you will see him." So if Mark's gospel does end at chapter 16 verse 8, Mark doesn't care to tell us the story of that appearance, but he knows of such a Galilean appearance. Now in Matthew's gospel, Matthew does provide such a story of the appearance to the disciples in Galilee. So I'm not really sure what Alex's point here is supposed to be. Mark's Gospel provides very early testimony to the facts of Jesus' empty tomb, to an appearance of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee and to the origin of the disciples' belief in Jesus'

resurrection. So what's the problem? I don't think that Alex appreciates how incredibly narrow the window of opportunity is for legend to arise. Considered by contrast, the earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch some 400 years after Alexander's death, and yet classical historians still regard these as largely reliable accounts of the life and doings of Alexander. By contrast in the Gospels, here we have narratives of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection within the first generation after his death. This is far too narrow a window of opportunity for significant accrual of legend in this regard while eyewitnesses were still alive and the

Apostles were in control of the testimony of Jesus. Bill, I'm curious if you have a theory or an opinion about why Mark doesn't explicitly include these appearances. And in part for me, it's clear Mark 8, 9, and 10, he predicts his death. He has predictions of his resurrection. And my best guess is that Mark is kind of setting this up, saying, now what are you going to do about it? We've made it clear who Jesus is.

Now anticipating his appearance, which by the time Mark was written, everybody would have known the story itself. It's almost like a challenge to the readers. What are you gonna do with this pending appearance claim that's coming? Do you have an opinion on that at all? I don't have a strong opinion because it is so perplexing that the story just breaks off after verse 8, but I think what you've suggested is not implausible, and it does leave the reader confronted with the question of how he's going to respond to this. But the key point I think is the

one that you just made, namely for Mark's readership and audience, they know what he's talking about. This is written ex post facto, so it shows that Mark knows there was at least one Galilean appearance of Jesus, such as Matthew relates. And so you have evidence in the Gospel of Mark for the honorable burial, the discovery of the empty tomb, a resurrection appearance to the disciples, and the origin of the disciples' faith. That's the heart of the case for the resurrection of Jesus. Last question for you on this is how significant is the dating of the Gospels for your case for the resurrection? Is it important that we get

like Mark in the 40s or 50s as some may try to argue? If it was in the 70s would it really not affect kind of the core case that you're making for the resurrection? No it doesn't. Do you notice as the way I stated it just now, I said that these narratives go back to within the first generation after the events, which is extraordinary for ancient history. So we can accept that Mark was written around AD 70, Luke Acts around 70 to 80, Matthew around AD 80, that still is within that narrow time frame that I described. Now personally though, Sean, I find the arguments that the book of Acts was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 to be almost compelling. It seems to me that the conspiration of independent lines of evidence all pointing to Acts having been written before AD 70 is very powerful. And since Luke was written prior to

Acts, that would mean that Luke was written then prior to AD70, and if Luke used Mark, then Mark was written even earlier. And so I think this does push the dates back even further to narrow that window of opportunity for legendary development to an even more impossible narrowness. One quick point in this. I think Wes Huff's general point is that these are not events that were done just kind of out of the public eye, but these are public events that people could engage and know. And especially if you're right on the dating of Acts. Peter says in Acts 2 22,

men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know. through him in your midst as you yourselves know. That is such an interesting claim that Peter preaches this to his audience. They know it because this wasn't done in private but done in public. I think that's the root of what Wes is getting at, which in many ways sets Christianity apart from other faiths. Let's move to our fifth clip. There are dozens of non-canonical

gospels, gospels that were written but didn't make it into the New Testament for all kinds of different reasons. Listen to what Wes Huff has to say about these gospels. And so these books that were not included, are any of them interesting? I mean are they all interesting? But does any of it seem like it belongs in the New Testament? Well, so part of the problem with some of these other books is they appear to be almost completely reliant on the other books. So you do have, and some of them have an agenda to them. Like what?

I'm just going to underline that. He just said off the non-canonical gospels. Part of the problem with some of these other books is they appear to be almost completely reliant on the other books. The problem here is with basically the first thing that anybody learns about the New Testament. Scholars think that Mark was written first, then Matthew and Luke were written later.

Why? Because Matthew and Luke are reliant on Mark. And not just a little bit, more than 90% of Mark's gospel is also in Matthew's gospel. Mark has 660 verses in total. Over 600 of them are also in Matthew, often copied verbatim. It is undisputed that there is a literary dependence

between Matthew and Luke and Mark. Again, there's a lot here, Bill, but here's the question I'd love for you to weigh in on. Is Wes right that we can dismiss the Gnostic Gospels for having an agenda and for being reliant upon earlier Gospels? What should we make of the Gnostic Gospels? Here, I think that Alex is needlessly unsympathetic to what Wes Huth was saying. The apocryphal Gospels, things like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Philip,

and so on, do not appear until the second half of the second century after Christ, and they are shaped by the pagan philosophy of Gnosticism. They do not evince a genuine historical interest in Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, Jesus simply serves as a kind of sock puppet, a mouthpiece for spouting Gnostic doctrine. What historical nuggets the Apocryphal Gospels do contain all come from the New Testament, which they know. So the Apocryphal Gospels are not useful as sources for the life and teachings of Jesus. Now again I want to ask what is Alex's point supposed to be? Surely he doesn't think that the apocryphal

Gospels are reliable sources, rather he must think that Wes Huff's critique is correct, but that it would also invalidate the New Testament Gospels. But that inference I think is far too quick. Of course the New Testament Gospels have an agenda, and of course there are relations of dependency between them. Nevertheless, they do provide early, multiple, independent attestation to many aspects of the life of Jesus, and therefore are generally regarded as valuable historical sources for the life of Christ. To give just one illustration, take the burial narrative of Jesus, such an important event, the burial in the tomb. This is attested in the pre-Markan passion story that Mark used in writing

his gospel. It is also to be found in Matthew's special source material, that is to say, material that Matthew had that he did not derive from Mark, and it's also found in Luke's special material, that is, material unique to Luke, which he did not derive from Mark or from Matthew. And then the story is also found in the Gospel of John, which is generally regarded as independent of the three synoptics. Go over to the Apostle Paul and you find the burial mentioned in the very old tradition handed down by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 5. And on top of all that, the burial account is mentioned in the apostolic sermons in the Acts of the Apostles. So look what we've got here. You've got five or six independent sources for the burial account, some of which are among the most ancient earliest

materials in the New Testament. And so these are incomparably better sources than the second century apocryphal gospel. That's really helpful. One of the difficulties of analyzing this conversation is that West Huff was on with Joe Rogan three hours, and Joe is admittedly not an expert in these things, and West is trying to popularize certain points and wasn't able to expand. So it sounded like Wes was just saying I dismissed the Gospels because they have an agenda and they're reliant upon earlier texts and if that's what he was saying then Alex Fairley said wait a minute the Gospels also have an agenda and Matthew and

Luke for example are reliant upon an earlier text. So I think Alec Fairley said, I'm not totally sure if I'm capturing what Wes communicates here. So I just, I literally texted Wes to make sure I was understanding what his point was, and he clarified to me that he means the Gnostic Gospels are reliant upon established canonical gospels, but rather than bringing the same message as, for example, Matthew and Luke do with Mark, they have a gnostic agenda of incorporating their own pagan beliefs onto the earlier texts. So the agenda of the gospels is to proclaim who Jesus is, and the agenda of the Gnostic Gospels is to appropriate Jesus for their own theological, philosophical perspective, which was foreign to the first

century, second temple Judaism, and early Christianity. So I think that clarification really helps. And Wes's argument, if he's able to expand it, still stands. Let's take a look at a sixth clip. So- How do you fact check someone coming back from the dead? Well, if you- How many people saw his body, right?

Well, Paul says that 400 people saw him all at once. 400 people saw the crucifixion? No, saw the resurrected Jesus. Yeah, 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that Jesus appeared to the disciples and then he appeared to 400 people all at once. Wes gets this slightly wrong as Paul actually says that Jesus appeared to 500, not 400 people at one time, but this only makes it all the more amazing. 500 people witnessing the

physically resurrected Jesus would be an amazing proof of his resurrection. Unfortunately, 1st Corinthians chapter 15 is the only mention we have of this event anywhere. It's not in the gospels, nor in Acts, nor in any other historical source. So, what do we learn about this event from 1st Corinthians? Nothing. Nothing at all. Paul does write that quote, he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, but that's it. We're not told who these people are or why they were gathered or when this occurred or how Paul learned about it or how he knows the number of people involved. Paul himself wasn't there. Is this just something that he heard about? From whom? When? We're not told anything about this extraordinary event. There's a lot here again, Bill, but the heart of the question is, I'm really curious your

take on how valuable, central, and reliable is the appearance of the 500 as cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 Creed. Certainly, it would be very nice to have multiple attestation of this appearance. But it would be a misuse of the criteria of authenticity to say that because the appearance is not multiply attested, therefore it is unhistorical. The criteria of authenticity, like multiple attestation, dissimilarity, and so forth, can only be used positively to increase the probability of some event. But obviously being singly attested does not imply that the event therefore did not occur. In fact, I think that we have really good grounds for thinking that the appearance to the 500 brethren did occur because Paul goes on to say

of the 500 brethren, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. That shows that this appearance was not just a meaningless cipher for Paul. Rather, he knew the people involved, and he was aware that some of them had passed away in the interim. Paul's mentioning that some of them are still alive can only mean the witnesses are there to be questioned. Now why don't we have then an appearance or a story of this appearance? Well think about it with me. An appearance to 500 people at one time would have to take place out of doors. For example, perhaps on a Galilean hillside where thousands of people had gathered to hear Jesus preach during his lifetime. The Gospels tend to focus their attention on the

resurrection appearances in Jerusalem as opposed to Galilee. But a provocative suggestion is that the mountaintop appearance in Galilee narrated by Matthew could be the appearance to the 500 brethren. One of the interesting things about Matthew's appearance story is that unlike all the other appearances which were unexpected and caught people by surprise, is that this one was by appointment. Matthew says the disciples went to the mountain which Jesus had appointed them to go to, and there he appeared to them. And it was of course in Galilee that thousands of people had thronged to hear Jesus. I think it's not at all

improbable that 500 people might have gathered with the disciples on that mountaintop to wait for Jesus and to experience this appearance. And so it could be that we do actually have a mention of this appearance story in the Galilean appearance story at Matthew. As a whole, my take is there's multiple appearance accounts. We have different accounts to the women. We have accounts to the two disciples in Luke 24, the Emmaus disciples. We have multiple accounts to the disciples with Thomas without Thomas James Paul Etc and we have the 500 so it's a piece of a cumulative case and we can make I

Think Alex goes too far and saying what do we learn from this event? Nothing? Nothing at all. I think that's too skeptical. I don't think Wes, I think he was just simply citing this as, Hey, do we have appearances of Jesus? Here's one example, would have given others so we can be too critical, but we can also be too confident in it. To me, it's a piece of a larger case that just strengthens the appearances of Jesus.

Let's take a look at another clip. And even if the 500 people did all believe it was Jesus, how many of them were already predisposed to think this? Remember, sometimes groups do claim to see visions, such as various apparitions of Mary or the Roman Emperor Constantine's vision of a cross of light in the sky, which may have been seen by his whole army as well. The source isn't clear. Look at this image. This is a picture of a crowd in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. This crowd, many more than 500 in number, were witness to the so-called Miracle of the Sun. A prophecy by three shepherd children said that the Virgin Mary would perform a miracle on the 13th of October, causing this large crowd to gather on that day.

And the miracle happened. Testimonies from the members in the crowd were published in the newspaper. They claimed to have seen the sun dancing in the sky, zigzagging around, and even advancing towards the Earth, all for 10 minutes. So a large crowd witnessing a prophesied miracle, and we actually know who saw it and precisely what they saw.

We even have their direct testimony. Does Wes Huff believe in this Catholic miracle? Do you? And if not, why not? So I'm really curious, your take, how do we respond to group visions of the Virgin Mary? I think here Alex is drawing our attention to a very important point, namely the antecedent beliefs of persons which would dispose those persons towards certain experiences. Like Alex, I am skeptical of the Marian mass appearances. The person who experiences Marian visions are typically Roman Catholics predisposed toward belief in the Virgin Mary. And so for exactly the same reason I

wouldn't lay too much emphasis on the appearance to the 500 Brethren, who were probably all Christians. It's interesting that Paul refers to them as brethren, 500 brethren. So these people were probably already Christian believers and therefore predisposed to believe in Jesus' resurrection. And so I wouldn't lay too much emphasis on this. As you said, Sean, it's a piece in the puzzle. It's part of the cumulative case. I think the really important appearances are the appearances to Peter and to the Twelve. These early appearances were completely contrary to antecedent Jewish beliefs,

completely contrary to antecedent Jewish beliefs, which predisposed them not to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead. One of the most remarkable things about the belief in the resurrection of Jesus is that the earliest disciples who suddenly and sincerely came to this belief were predisposed by their first century typical Jewish thought forms completely against it. And so this is one of the major factors crying out for explanation with respect to the resurrection of Jesus. What N.T. Wright has called these mutations in Jewish belief about the resurrection that were necessitated by believing in Jesus rising from the dead. This is not a natural evolution of antecedent Judaism. Now if I understand Alex's reasoning correctly, he's saying, you know, if we

have this appearance of the 500, then we would need to adopt these Catholic visions of Mary. And since many people don't accept those, we should question the 500. I would say, well, alright, if we accept the 500 and be consistent in his eyes and accept the Marian apparitions, then you and I, Bill, would just need to maybe consider becoming Catholic, but he would need to completely shift his worldview and open it up to the supernatural, which would be far more jarring to him than it would be to you and me. But nonetheless, I think you're absolutely right. The predisposition changes everything.

I think it's fascinating when we look at the accounts of the disciples. Like Mary sees Jesus, doesn't really understand. Like what is going on when they view him? The disciples on Emmaus, even when Jesus is there, they don't understand. So they're predisposed to the opposite. And you and I have to explain the apologetic question. If that really was Jesus, why didn't they believe? And so I think that predisposition when you're told ahead of time, there will be this supernatural

event, every bit of shows up in a group. I think we have an adequate explanation for this that doesn't apply to the apostles. Let's look at clip number eight. So first is Peter. There are two epistles in the New Testament attributed to this apostle, first and second Peter. Importantly, most scholars do not think that Peter actually wrote both of these texts, especially second Peter, which is one of the most disputed texts in the New Testament.

They're still early texts, but probably not both written by Peter. At least one of them is likely a forgery. There are scholars who defend the Petrine authorship of both epistles, of course, but the consensus is against them. So really the key question is, and I'm really interested in how you're going to answer this one, Bills, we've talked about the appearances, the 500, we can talk about the appearances to disciples, but what confidence do we have in particular for an appearance of Jesus to Peter? The fact of a post-mortem appearance of Jesus to Peter is guaranteed by the list in the very old tradition handed on by Paul

in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 to 5. It is vouchsafed by Paul's personal acquaintance with Peter, and then also in Luke 24, 34 we have independent verification or attestation of this appearance. So no scholar today doubts that Peter had such an experience. Part of the question is, do we just trust certain witnesses who we have a writing in their own words saying they've seen the risen Jesus? So Joe Rogan asks about people who witnessed the resurrection or it is attributed to them as witnessing the resurrection. That was a piece of the discussion. So in 1 Corinthians 15, this is not Peter's own words,

but it's Paul in an early creed referencing Peter. But we could also add there's multiple attestation of this in the different gospels and of course in Acts. But what's interesting, and this would take us us aside here is that if Mark really does report some of the eyewitness account of Peter as some of the early church fathers indicate, then in Mark 16, 7 it says tell his disciples and Peter would be an interesting at least indication in that direction that Mark and Peter is just firmly aware and proclaiming that Jesus did appear to him. So I think that was some of the debate

as it goes to 1st Peter but nonetheless for the reasons that we mentioned although we don't have Peter in his own direct words saying this, given the early multiple accounts that we had, you're arguing that we are on solid ground confirming that there's early evidence for an appearance to Peter and Peter believes this. Is that fair? All right, but this is this is unanimous among New Testament scholarship. I remember the skeptical German New Testament critic Gert Ludemann saying that it is historically certain, now those are his terms, not mine. It is historically certain that Peter and the earliest

disciples had experience of Jesus after his death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ. So no New Testament historian denies the historicity of the appearance to Peter. Let's look at two more clips. Second is Paul. There are 13 epistles in the New Testament attributed to Paul, but many of these are also believed not to have actually been written by him. The consensus is that seven of them are undisputedly his, whereas the rest are contested. Some, like 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, are firmly believed to be pseudonymous, written by somebody else.

But even if Paul wrote all of these letters, remember what we're looking for here. Remember what Rogan asked. Some sort of a recollection or a writing or something that's a tribute to them of being witness to his resurrection. Paul never claims to have encountered the physically resurrected Jesus.

Even his conversion story in Acts just describes him seeing a flash of light and hearing the voice of Christ while on the road to Damascus. He never even claimed to meet the risen Jesus in the flesh, which I think is what Rogan is looking for here. Again, there's a decent amount here we could discuss and unpack, but rather than talking

about Peter, do we have reliable testimony that Paul saw Jesus in the flesh, not just as a vision or a spirit? Well now, in the Apostle Paul, we have the testimony of someone who claims to have actually been an eyewitness of the risen Jesus. His experience is recounted three times in the book of Acts and is confirmed by Paul's references to it in his own undisputed letters. Now I'm not really sure what Alex means by seeing Jesus in the flesh, since it's the testimony of the New Testament that a resurrection body is radically different than our present

mortal bodies. I think that the question is whether Paul saw simply a blinding light and heard the voice of Christ speaking to him, or whether he saw the bodily form of a person who spoke to him. And it's really hard to know exactly what Paul said. The evidence is not clear. But when Paul says elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, have I not seen Jesus our Lord? He uses exactly the same language that is used to describe the bodily appearances of Jesus to the other disciples. And so I think it's not at all unlikely. In fact, I'm kind of leaning in the direction of thinking that what Paul saw was the bodily image of a man in that blinding light that was the Lord Jesus.

Now just for clarification, I think Alex says Paul never claims to have encountered the physically resurrected Jesus. Those are the words that he used. The way I asked it to you is just in terms of seeing him in the flesh. But here's my take and tell me if you agree with this. Luke recounts Paul's conversion three times in Acts, like you said, and indicates there were sound and light, so this is not entirely a subjective internal experience. light so this is not entirely a subjective internal experience. First Corinthians 15, 8, Paul says,

last of all as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. So his appearance would have come after the ascension of Jesus and thus had some differences from the other appearances, but Paul believes it was sufficient to place it on the same level and seemingly kind as the other disciples, which leans me towards some kind of bodily appearance that was there, but maybe with not just as much confidence as some of the others. Is that a fair nuance to you? Yes, I think that would be a fair assessment, Sean.

It's very clear that Paul regarded this experience on the Damascus road not as a vision of Jesus. He had visions of Jesus at other times later in his ministry, but this was a unique one-time encounter with the risen Lord on the Damascus road. And therefore, as you say, he's able to include himself in the list of witnesses to the resurrection appearances with a good conscience. One last clip for you.

And there's a similar problem with the fourth name that Wes mentions, James, whose epistle in the New Testament, again with some dispute over the authorship, also simply does not recount his witness to the resurrection. Wes is wrong to bring him up as well. Here's the heart of the question, Bill, is we don't have the words of James in his epistle, even though there's debate about whether he wrote that or not, which is somewhat secondary. We don't have words of James himself saying, I've seen the risen Jesus like we do with Paul. So do we have reason to believe, which Wes Huff cites and believes, that James is a

reliable witness of the risen Jesus nonetheless? The appearance to James is attested in the old tradition handed on by Paul, and it is vouchsafed by Paul himself, who knew James personally. Moreover, I think the appearance is historically plausible as the best explanation for why James, who did not believe in his older brother during his lifetime, suddenly became an ardent follower of Jesus afterward, and was even martyred for his faith. So you do not need to have a person's own words describing his experience in order to be historically confident that that person did in fact witness such an event. So I have sympathy for Alex because he's responding to certain books in the New Testament

specifically that Wes laid out in terms of Jude and 1 Peter and James. I think that's why he's bringing in the apostleship here. But really the key point that I think Wes was making, and maybe if he went back and had that conversation again, he might frame it and defend it a little bit differently, is that James is a reliable eyewitness of the risen Jesus, even if we don't have his own words saying that he's seen the risen Jesus. As best I can tell, there's actually three sources that are cited here. Of course, 1 Corinthians 15 that you cited, 7a, but John Dominic Croson also cites the Gospel of Thomas 12, which is interesting. Even Gary Habermas is not persuaded by that. And then the Gospel of Hebrews, which is

dated kind of the first half of the second century. Now, I don't put a lot of credence in those. I think the main source is 1 Corinthians 15. But would you say, like how, I guess I'm curious, how high would you rate our confidence in the appearance of James compared to Paul where we have his own testimony or Peter where we have multiple accounts of it, how much historical confidence would you put in the appearance to James? Well I think it's right up there near the top and of course Paul is indisputable because we have letters from this man in which he talks about the appearance. parents. But with respect to James, as I say, Paul knew James. He met with him during a

two-week period, just within three years after his own conversion on the Damascus Road. And James and Peter were telling him that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, and this was then mediated to Paul as well by this very old tradition that goes right back to the first few years of the Christian church in Jerusalem. So we're in contact here with someone, namely Paul, who spoke with James and tells us what he believed. And James then became the leader of the New Testament church and as I say was eventually martyred for his faith in Christ. Now that's remarkable enough in itself, but when you reflect on the fact that James wasn't a

follower of Jesus during his lifetime, you've got to have some kind of explanation for this transformation in James that took place. The crucifixion of his older and brought about his demise. What would produce so transformative a change in James that he would now be willing to die for his belief in Jesus Christ? And I can't think of any better explanation than Paul's words than he appeared to James. explanation than Paul's words, then he appeared to James. Well, when you start talking about the deaths of the martyrs, my ears perk up and I get excited about that one, Bill. Just finishing up a 10-year update on my research there and believe it or not, I'm actually more confident in James than I was before, but that's a story for another time.

This is really helpful. I want the audience to know that I sent you these clips, gave you the best context that I could of them, so you're kind of weighing in on a specific question and certain isolated clips here. So if there's certain nuances that maybe people watching this going, way, Wes or Alex meant this, just give some grace and understanding that I asked you

to weigh in on some specific issues here and give your expertise. Now we were going to do our, we had this interview set for today anyways, to talk about your new philosophical systematic theology. We're going to come back and do that soon. And you were kind enough to give me one of the early interviews. We're going to talk about this. I'm about halfway through.

It is fascinating. I have an MA in philosophy and there's a couple of sections I was reading through myself going, okay, wait a minute, I got to really think about this. It's a really novel contribution, but maybe just tell folks what's coming, why you're excited about this. So maybe they'll make sure to join us in our next conversation. Okay. In volume one, I lay the foundations for the entire series to follow. So it begins with an introduction or prolegomena that

describes what systematic theology is and how it relates to biblical theology, historical theology, and philosophical theology. And what makes this work unique is the blending of all three of those disciplines to produce a systematic philosophical theology. And then I move to the question of the doctrine of Scripture. What does Scripture teach about itself? Does Scripture teach that it is inspired by God and therefore absolutely authoritative in matters of faith and practice? And I defend the view that it does teach that, and then I ask whether or not we have any good reasons to believe that that

teaching is true. And then finally in the last chapters a very novel interesting chapter on faith, and there I asked the question whether or not faith involves belief in certain truths. I was surprised to discover that several Christian philosophers think that to be a Christian you don't really have to believe that God exists or that Jesus rose from the dead. You have to just sort of accept it or assume it, and that's enough for saving faith. And so I weigh that question, is that true or do we actually need to believe these things in order to have saving faith in Christ? I can't wait to discuss it with you. Really fascinating, very helpful. Folks, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got a lot of

conversations like this coming up soon. If you've thought about studying philosophy and or apologetics, we have some of the top programs here at Talbot School of Theology information below on campus and distance. We also have a certificate program. If you're not quite ready to get a master's, but you're interested in a little bit formal study, information is there as well.

Bill, always fun. Appreciate you weighing in and giving your thoughts on this. We'll do it again soon. Thank you, Sean. Good night.