Did The Church BAN These Gospels from the Bible?! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

If the real Jesus can really change your life, how do we know who the real Jesus is and what sources and what books tell us? Well, hey, Lifry Nation, before we jump into today's episode, I want to let you know that today's episode is going to be a little bit different. We're going to be reacting to a particular video and address the topic of the Gnostic Gospels. And it might feel a little bit more like a deep dive Bible study. So if you're watching or listening, this is one of those episodes where you may want to grab a pen, grab a notebook and really lean in. Maybe you've heard people talk about the lost gospel, sort of the forbidden books or the books that the church didn't want you to read. And maybe you've seen clips online claiming that the Bible we have today is missing the real story of Jesus. And if you've ever wondered, is that true? Did the church hide certain books? Can I actually trust Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This episode is for you. Chad Jipalci and I are going to walk through the claims, slow things down, explain what the Gnostic Gospels actually are. Why they are rejected and why Christians can have confidence that the Jesus we meet in the New Testament is the real Jesus of history. This episode may stretch you a little bit and it's a little bit more theological. It's historical and we believe it is important. So let us know if you like this format because if it's helpful, we might do more theological, deeper dives. So get ready, lean in and let's jump into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome to a bonus episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arrazo and I'm here with the one and only Chad Jipalci, the Epistle Missile Pastor Paul Cunningham. What's going on, man?

I have not heard the Epistle Missile in a while. I always like the Epistle Missile. It started strong and I felt like it was winning and then it's just kind of faded over time. We should have to make a little bit of a comeback. I'm going to bring it back once in a while. Hey, today's episode, we're going to be asking, did the Bible ban books called the Gnostic Gospels? Is that true? First of all, what are those and where did those books even come from? The way we're going to be answering those questions is, we're going to be reacting to this viral clip of Joel Rogan interviewing John Esterhas, who is an author and a screenwriter for movies like Flashnet and Basic Instinct, which, honestly, Paul, I had never heard of these movies. You, these are your movies. Oh, no, they are not, they are not. You're not even in your generation's movies. If you have not, googled Basic Instinct, please don't, and please do not watch it. Don't you think I'm trying to get the bio of this gentleman over here? Wow, I'm turning red. I feel it. Wow, okay. It's really underbust. What I meant to say is that you're more familiar because I'm too young for this, boy. Anyone got a shovel here? He just keeps digging because he's gone. Oh goodness. And we're off right now, everybody. This is great. So basically, we're going to be reacting to this video. In particular, it went viral because it had a headline which read like this.

It says, "Joe Rogan was left completely stunned." That's your point. Hold on. Here's what the headline said, "Joe Rogan was left completely stunned after devout Christian Joe Esterhass exposed to what Jesus Christ really was." So, ultimately, we're going to be answering the question, "Can we really trust?" You're too funny. You just keep laughing over here, trying to keep a straight face. We're going to be asking, "Can we really trust the New Testament gospel to tell us what Jesus really is?" That's right. Obviously, this is kind of great that this has happened, even though we did not plan this whatsoever, just the humor because a few things before we jump in. Number one, there are going to be some points where we have to do some correction where we have to say, "Hey, what one or both of these guys says is wrong or off," but we don't want the tone to be, "Oh, these guys are idiots," because one of the things that we also want to say in this video is, man, we love that they're talking about Jesus and they're interested in the things of Jesus. And so, I'm kind of glad that we started off laughing because we've talked about before that we really want to try that and it's going to be happy warriors. We want to be people who will contend for the truth, but also not be jerks as we do it. So, if anything, maybe this has had a good tone for us to get laughing as we go. And so, yeah. So, I think this is a really important topic. We get asked about this all the time, specifically not about basic instinct, but about the Gnostic gospel, some people call them the lost or the band's gospel. We get asked about it all the time, so I think it'd be good for us to address this so that people can dive into it. There's a little bit of a hot topic with the Da Vinci Code back in the day. Big time.

Big time Da Vinci Code. And then something we'll jump into in a little bit. There's something that happened in the 80s and 90s, the quest for the historical Jesus that culminated with something called the Jesus Seminar. And what's happened is so much of that has been debunked, almost all of it. But people held on to it and now just quoted as if it's fact, and most people don't know it has been debunked. So, we'll get there in a bit. Good for us to hit it because we get asked this all the time, but I think another reason why it's important to talk about this is, you know, one of the things these guys are going to kind of elude to is that Jesus can change your life, that the real But then the key question is, how do we, you just can't recover right now, can you? I'm trying to be serious right now. You just can't recover. This is awesome. Is, hey, like, if the real Jesus can really change your life, how do we know who the real Jesus is and what sources and what books tell us? Now, what we believe, I've got here called something called the synopsis of the four gospels. And what this is, is it lays out the four gospels side by side and it shows things that they have in common, things that, one, supplies it, there doesn't and so on and so forth. And so, we really just had to ask us, hey, when I read these four gospels, am I getting the real Jesus or are there other books, sometimes called the Gnostic Gospels, that give us a Jesus who is more historical?

So that's why it is really matters, 'cause we wanna know who the real Jesus is, 'cause if we get it wrong, it has huge consequences. But again, just so people know, like, sometimes when we're answering stuff in response to Joe Rogan, especially about Christianity or his guests, I think there's two ditches people can fall in. Some immediately canonize everything they say, meaning everything they say is true and right and immediately swallow it and so that's one ditch. The other group or the other ditches, they immediately criticize everything. It's like, no, everything they said has to be wrong. And I just wanna say, it's actually like, again, it's awesome these guys are talking about Jesus. Some of the things they say are in here, great. Some are maybe a little confused, some are outright wrong. Let's learn how to distinguish which from rich and take the good and leave the bad. - That's right, yeah. And that's what we're gonna do right now, we're literally gonna react to the whole video. That's like a four minute clip. And so, before we play anything else on your end. - No, that was the big stuff I wanted to say at the beginning. - Okay, let's go ahead and start playing. - And I feel like sometimes like religion goes in like peaks and waves. And I think there was a wave of atheism back then

and Hollywood was very non-Christian to put it mildly. - Yes. - The Christian themes in films were never promoted. - Yeah, it was absolutely right. The, it's not as bad now in that sense as it was, it was in those days. - Let's pause, let's stop right here. So like Carlos, the Joe's, I'm just gonna call him the Joe's by the way, 'cause they're-- - Two Joe's? - Yeah, it's just easier to do that than to try to say Esther House's last name. And it's to me just really hard to pronounce for some reason. - Where's that last name from? - I think he's Hungarian. - Okay. - He's Hungarian. At least he has a Hungarian background. And so, yeah, but they're here, they're talking about how there seems to have been a shift, even just recently from people, it felt like for a while, there was a resistance to Christianity. And now there seems to be an increase, openness to it, but a lot of it has kind of gone in peaks and valleys and ebbs and flows for the last 30 to 40 years. Maybe just helpful for context, if you could give people kind of a little bit of like, some of that ebb and flow and what that's looked like. - Yeah, so Aaron Ren, he has a framework that basically explains that there's been three different

ways in which Christianity has been perceived by culture here in the US, at least in the last 40 to 50 years. And he calls them the positive world, neutral world and negative world. So real quick, again, according to Ren, positive world is pre-1994. This is basically a time where, generally speaking, in our American culture, culture had a positive view of Christianity. So if you're a Christian, hey, that's actually socially advantageous towards you. It is good for society, for Christians to kind of be around, good for you to go to church, that's a good thing. So that's positive world pre-1994. After that, 1994 to 2014, we transitioned to a neutral world. And what Ren would say is a neutral world is basically a culture where Christianity is no longer the dominant world view, but it is one amongst many equal world views. So this is like the classic old school, I don't know if you ever saw these, Paul, Larry King Live shows where like, you'd have like a John MacArthur Bible teacher sit down with Deepak Chopra, spiritual guru, with a Catholic priest and an atheist scholar, and they're having conversations about life and Larry King would say something like, so John, explain what happened in 9/11. Who's fault is it? - And it's usually wasn't contentious.

- That's right. - It's like, I think if people would go back and watch it, people actually might be bored because they usually weren't contentious. - Christianity had a seat at the table and it's one world view and they're all equally valid. And let's have a conversation about it. So that's neutral world view. Neutral world, 1994 to 2014. Now, Ren changes that in 2014. He says we transition to a negative world. And 2014 was when Obergefell happened. So gay marriage gets legalized. And now something that the Bible explicitly calls sin became legislated by law or as law. And so what that means is if you are here and you are a Christian and you believe the Bible, you no longer have a different equal perspective. Now you have a wrong and morally evil perspective and now I have a moral obligation to oppose US culture. And so that's after 2014. Now, it's interesting because we've been kind of in a negative world. transitioning or shifting into another place that I don't know if anybody has put a name on it." And basically, there's been a fatigue and a disillusionment with secularism and people are now realizing, "Hey, we actually have lost something that actually matters here and we need to figure out how to get it back." And so that's kind of what we're seeing right now. And this is why we're, you know, today when you look at the news, people, there's a renewed interest in God, church, spirituality, the Bible, Bible sales are up. People like Joe Rogan, obviously, Nicki Minaj, Sean Ryan, people in high-profile government positions are having conversation

that are explicit about faith and the Bible and church attendance. And so, again, this is an ebb and flow of seasons that we're in. And honestly, this is why we have an opportunity right now as Christians to, "Hey, let's have these conversations." And this is why, as you said, Paul, we are applauding the fact that he are two men having this conversation about Jesus. That's right. It's a prime time for us to press in and to have these conversations. And I would even say, like, it's honestly refreshing to hear these guys, like, say, "Hey, it was maybe a mistake to go after Christian principles and Christian people. We need to course correct on that." And so, to me, it's like, while the tone is the way it is, as Christians, let's dive in and not mock guys who may end up saying some things that we disagree with and that we think are just outright wrong. But I said, "Let's engage him and let's engage him with kindness." You want to keep going? That's right. The Christian themes and films were never promoted. Yeah. It was absolutely right. It's not as bad now in that sense as it was. It was in those days. And I think that part of it, it would frustrate me, is that there would be an openness to that and the Christian films if they were real, if they weren't full of incense and piety. Right. Let's go ahead and actually stop again because the point of the main thing that we're hitting today is the nausic gospels. But I think it's still good to comment on some of this and just the tone and the tenor. What I appreciate about what they were saying was that, "Hey, culture had gotten too negative towards Christianity." But now, it seems like what Joe S.R. House is saying is, "Hey, we may have brought some of this on ourselves by presenting a Jesus in a faith that didn't have many rough edges or have tough things to say." And he seems here to be really focusing on Christian films, but I would honestly also add Christian music for a long time. And I don't want to name names and go too seriously. I'm tempted to. But it did seem like it presented a Jesus, these films and music that really wasn't compelling to culture. And I'll just be honest, especially to mint. It was kind of hokey and these films were cheesy and cliche. And so it seems like what's appealing, not just to these two guys, but to increasingly more men and more people in culture, is the rawness of faith and the rough edges that we see in people, frankly, like the disciples in the New Testament, that these were not perfect people. They were rougher on the edges. This and again, this isn't the main thing we're hitting, but Carlos, you're a cultured guy. You know, social media and media in general really well. You watch a ton of movies. I know a lot about music and pop culture. Would you agree with what these guys are saying? Again, I know it's stereotypical and

there's exceptions. Would you agree with what they're saying? I mean, obviously, you know, when you look back at Christian art in music and movies, you know, there's obviously a lot that you can, we can learn from and you can criticize a lot of things. Here's what I would say. This is a framework from Andy Crouch. I read this book a while back. And he would say, "When Christians look at culture, you want to do four things." Or you have four options to do with culture. You can consume culture. So basically, this is like the Christians are just passively consuming culture without thinking about it. We don't want to do that. We don't just want to be cultural consumers. That's the first option of consumed culture. Or you can also, number two, copy culture. This is when Christians would just do the Christian version of whatever secular thing was out there. Consume culture, copy culture, you can critique culture. These are the Christians that just, you know, their movie critics, they just tell us what they like, what they don't like. But that's literally all they do. Or so consume culture, copy culture, critique culture, or you can create culture. At the end of the day, we are called as Christians to create. And so I think when we look back at some of the Christian art forms in the past that we don't like, man, honestly, like, yeah, let's point it out and let's get better. And so that's kind of what I would say if somebody's kind of like into only pointing out the bad things. Man, we have an opportunity right now. That's great. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good going. You know, what we've done to Jesus over the years is making my kind of red Rogers figure. You know, he wasn't that. You know, the, I'm not even sure that Jesus really said do not resist violence. You know, Jesus also said, if you have a cloak, but not a sword, sell the cloak and buy a sword. He also said, be I come not to make peace. I come and, and, and, So there's been a lot of church stuff, especially I think Catholics are more in the guilty of this. They're romanticized and sort of cosmeticized the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Well, there's always a problem when human beings add their own interpretation to an ancient story. Absolutely. And do it to fit their own narrative. Let's stop it there.

Yeah. So again, here's what we would say. One, man, we want to affirm, again, any time two grown men sit down and have a conversation about Jesus, in this case, the two jokes. Man, we applaud that. That's a good thing. Second, in many ways, I've got to say, Paul, some of the things that they're saying, they're right. Oftentimes, Jesus has been portrayed mostly as a, quote unquote, nice guy. And that is a problem. Because the Bible doesn't describe Jesus as being a nice guy. If you read the Bible, the Bible says Jesus was tender. He was compassionate. He was merciful with some people. That's true. And it also says that he was tough, firm, bold, confrontative with another group of people. And that group of people probably wouldn't have said that Jesus was a kind guy or a nice guy. And so people often miss this, but Jesus is a man of humility is what the Bible says, but he is also a man of glory. Jesus is like a lion, but he's also portrayed as a lion. He, Jesus, you will see him crying. And you will also see him with righteous anger. And so, and to his point, Jesus tells Peter a warm point, hey, put down the sword. But then also before that, they were

going to go on a missionary trip. And Jesus says, hey, if you don't have a sword, go get one. And then Peter said, hey, we got two swords, Jesus. And Jesus is like, great, that'll do. That's enough. So again, Jesus is both compassionate and merciful. And he is also confrontative and righteous. And so when somebody talks about Jesus and I know you're about to speak more on this, but basically you want to make sure you have the full character of Jesus. That's right. Not a caricature of Jesus, but the full character of Jesus. So the full character of Jesus would be, hey, what does the Bible say about Jesus as a whole person? Now, a caricature of Jesus is when you just grab one particular aspect of his character and make it significantly bigger than what it already is, to the point that it obscures everything else about who Jesus is. And so Paul, I want to ask you about this. When he specifically said about the thing, Jesus never said to resist violence, what say you? Yeah, well, first, I love that play on words, actually, that you said, the character versus caricature, because if people don't even know what a caricature is, if you go like a theme park or a carnival or a fair, you'll see people doing drawings of people. And usually, exactly, they'll take one aspect of you and heavily overemphasize that to the neglect of the other features of you.

And I think this is what is happening here. And so I'm just, at times, as we're doing this, by the way, I'm gonna almost pretend like if Joe were here, if we were to have a conversation, 'cause again, I love that he's seeking after Jesus, and he seems to love Jesus. And I say, man, Joe, like, yes, he did say those things, but he also did say in the Sermon on the Mount, to turn the other cheek if someone strikes you on the cheek. And he also, even though he said, did say, go, yeah, go grab two swords, when Peter took a sword and tried to kill someone who's trying to arrest Jesus, he rebuked Peter. And so he'd be like, oh, he didn't kill him, he tried to cut off his ear. Peter was probably not at the depth where he could literally just swipe it like that, and he was trying to kill the guy, exactly. He was going for the kill shot, and because Peter was a fisherman and not a soldier, he missed his head and hit his ear. And so, yeah, you do have times where Jesus does lean into maybe a justified form of violence, and we don't have the time to get into that today of, hey, when is it just, for example, like in matters of war and self-defense? That's another podcast for another time. But yeah, there are places where Jesus is not just a nice guy, but you also do see places where he advocates for nonviolent resistance,

like turning the other cheek, and he did not come to take over through violent means. And so I'd say, hey, to your point, when we're thinking about the character of Jesus, we have to take all of the data from all the gospels and all the New Testament, the entire Bible, 'cause we have to remember, if we believe that Jesus is God incarnate, this is the same God as the Old Testament as well. And we have to put them together to get a complete picture of him. And there's a visual I've used for a while to kind of help me understand that sometimes people have a lopsided view of who Jesus is. Before we put this picture up on the screen, I want to clarify for people, I am not making fun of this individual. It's actually kind of a cool thing. There's this arm wrestler who has this genetic defect, which basically makes one side of his body hyper-grow and the other side say the same, which this is even just a cool illustration that could be used one day, where he used something that some people would call a defect, and he actually used it as a superpower. That's the sermon illustration of what need to happen. But we've actually got a picture of this guy Matthias Schlicht. He is a champion arm wrestler. And so if you're just listening to this, this would be a great time or later to go watch YouTube.

Or just Google this guy's name, Matthias Schlicht. And so to me, this is a picture of sometimes what people would do with Jesus. They overemphasize one aspect of who he is and underemphasize the other. So I would say to Joe, like, yeah, for sure. Man, Jesus did so they say things. But then he also said these other things. We got to remember when it's appropriate to resist and when it's violence and when it is appropriate, not to. And when you have to turn the other cheek. So we could go on and get more further and set. That's all safe for now. That's great. Okay. So what we're about to do right now, as we keep watching this video, we're about the transition to the main part of the video where Joe Esterhas will say some things that honestly, respectfully, we will strongly disagree with. Yes. And I don't want to say disagree. He's wrong. Like, he's just right. That's right. That's right. And we'll explain why. Yeah. Because he's about to infer that the Jesus of the New Testament is not necessarily the real Jesus of history. Yeah. And then what he'll do is he'll bring up the nasty gospels and he'll say some things about those books that are just not true. Yeah.

And so, but before we keep going, Paul, because this will be helpful, what are the nasty gospels for those people that don't know? And why are they called that way? That's good. And this is really where we're getting in a sense to the meat of the video. And we're going to slow down a lot. We've been going pretty fast and short of clips. We're going to slow down and kind of like in the react video I did on the apocrypha, I'll go ahead and give a warning now that we're going to have to give a lot of detail and a lot of nuance because there's a lot of stuff here, but it'll be worth it if you stick with us because it will bolster your confidence. Because part of why we want to do this video is we don't want people to be led astray by this. And so if any, any Christian watches this, we hope that this bolsters are confidence that the real Jesus can be found in the four gospels we have in the New Testament, but also if you hear other people who espouse these kinds of things, I want to give you the ability to help gently correct them and help them know that we can know their own Jesus through the Bible. So we're going to give a good amount of detail, but a few things to set up the stage before we move on the video. So yeah, the idea of Gnostic gospels, Gnostic comes from the word gnosis, which simply is the Greek word for knowledge. Gnosticism wasn't any specific organized religion, but was really an overall philosophical concept and movement from about the second to fourth century as a D. So from 100 to about the 300s, it came from the east. And, and really the idea of it is this, is that there is this secret knowledge that is true of you, Carlos, that if you would come to find out about it by learning and by absorbing the secret knowledge, you can figure out what is already true of you. And that is that you are divine, or at least in substance divine, you've got a

spark of divinity. But the only way you can come to realize that and see that is if I give you the secret knowledge that you don't have yet. So this was basically true of all these different systems. They had some differences between them, but at the Harvard was, hey, there is the secret knowledge that if you can unlock, you will realize that you are in some sense divine. Another unifying factor would be that they saw the material, physical world is evil, but the spiritual as good that really gave us even like one story where people retold the story of Genesis, where it was actually a lesser God who created the physical world because he was bitter and he was actually a lesser God. And so their whole thing was, hey, physical matter doesn't matter if anything. It's evil and we're trapped in it and we have to escape. And here's why this matters. Salvation for these people would not have been Jesus coming and dying for your sins and rising from the grave. Salvation would be, you need to get knowledge that is already true about you that I have to give you. And then you need to escape the physical world. Whereas Jesus came to redeem us and to redeem the physical world. The story at the end of the book of Revelation is that not that we go up to heaven and we leave earth behind, but actually heaven comes down to earth and recreates the physical world. Okay. But so here's a very helpful thing to know is we're about to jump into the actual gospels and see more in this video. What happened is as this philosophical concept would come into new areas, they wouldn't just simply try to replace the religion or beliefs that were there. Instead, they would attach themselves to it and recreate it, but using the

same names. Okay. So in the case of Jesus, Jesus goes from being a person who had to die for your sins and rise again to he's now of like the sage philosopher. And he's the one who's going to give you the secret knowledge. So that's why when you read these books that they then produce that sometimes people would call the Gnostic gospels, he's more giving them the secret knowledge. In fact, the gospel of Thomas, which is probably the most famous of them, is literally a collection of over a hundred simply sayings of Jesus. It's not focused on his actions. It's focused on his teaching and his philosophical concepts before we continue. And we actually get into the meat of some of what Joe Esherhouse has to say. Let me clarify this. These so-called gospels are often called the lost gospels as if like, oh, we didn't have these forever. And then they were discovered, and this is by the way, true, these, these, these gospels were discovered in 1945. But people are like, oh, before that, no one had any idea what these were and the church was trying to hide them. That's simply not true. We literally have church history from the 100s where they talked about these things. And they talked about how insane and crazy they were, which by the way, I think we're gonna read a selection of some of them 'cause don't just take our word for it, you're gonna get to hear from them. So we've known about these forever, but then in 1945, we did find them. And they simply confirmed what all the church,

it was a very big deal. People didn't hear about it at first because there was a little thing going on in 1945 called World War II, so it took a while for it to get out. But anyway, so we found these things when we began reading them and it's like, oh yeah. Well, this is why so many of these early church fathers and leaders were saying, yeah, these are crazy things 'cause we could actually read them. But I just wanna clear up, these are not things that were lost or suppressed. We knew about them for a long time. We just didn't have any manuscripts until about 1945. - Okay, so the church didn't intentionally hide them. And then for years, like, oh, no, no, these don't serve as well, so we're just gonna put them away and then somebody just got, okay, that's not true. - We'll get back to this in a bit. If anything, it should tell you that for most of these Gnostic gospels, which is, again, it was basically, hey, let's take Jesus, let's take this philosophy that we're bringing in and attach it to him, we only have between one and four copies of each of them. Whereas we have thousands of manuscripts for the New Testament, so it actually should tell you something that these were not widely accepted in their time as legit. - There you go. - Yeah, okay.

- All right, you wanna actually go into the video and get into some of these claims? - Yeah, one more thing. I will say, so people, 'cause you mentioned Gnosticism and there's a couple of things that goes with, I believe. Some people might say, oh, that's a belief back then, right? - Oh, no. - But people don't know this, but Gnosticism is alive and well in many different ways today. Let me just give you two examples, especially in secular modern gender ideology, especially with transgenderism and homosexuality. And very brief, we'd have time for this, but super quick for transgenderism, it goes like this. So Gnosticism will say, hey, body is bad. The inner you is good. Transgenderism says, hey, your body is the wrong one. Therefore, it's bad. It's a prison and the quote unquote true you or the real self inside of you needs to come out or needs to be freed. And so if you wanna experience that freedom, you just need to figure out what to do with your body to kind of get out of the situation that you're in. Again, transgenderism, homosexuality for this, it would go like this. Gnosticism says, because your body is bad, you should deny the body that you have or you should indulge in it because it doesn't even matter. There would be a very Gnostic idea.

Homosexuality says, even though your body is designed as a counterpart to the opposite sex and the level of biology, physiology and anatomy, you can and you should deny that reality of your body and embrace your quote unquote, your inner self or your real self. And now you can indulge in that same sex relationships because the telos or the purpose of the body doesn't even matter that much. Again, new age, same heresies, keep going. - That's good, that's good. Let's keep going with the video and we'll get into some of the specific claims that we are gonna have to lovingly debunk. Let's keep going. - Absolutely, it's a great problem. But in this case, there is historical evidence on the other side and they simply ignore that and pretend it doesn't happen. The Gnostic Gospels, the full of so-called revolutionary things and the truth is that the Gnostic Gospels were written 40 years, 30, 40 years after the death of Jesus. Whereas the Gnostic Gospels were the ones that the churches have accepted were written 89 years after the death of Jesus. - Okay, let's stop it here. - Thank you Paul. - Thank you Paul. - So Joe Lester has said right now that this is what he said that the Gnostic Gospels were written 30 to 40 years after the time of Jesus

and then he said that the New Testament Gospels were written 80 to 90 years after the time of Jesus. Sounds like he's saying the Gnostic Gospels were written first and then New Testament Gospels, is that true? - And if they were written first, therefore they're more reliable about who Jesus really was. If you show her with me, like Joe, I love you. I don't know who has taught you this but you have been severely misled because you literally just flipped the truth. You literally flipped it. That the Sonata Gospels, when we say that, we mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were literally have written as early as 30 years after the death of Jesus. That you have Mark, which people would say was the first gospel that was written, which was probably written in the early to mid 60s and then you have the Gospel of John, which was the latest one written and that's between 75 to 95 AD. And by the way, not just conservative, even Joe Coles would say that. Like just regular modern now critical scholars who don't even accept the things that are written in the Gospels would say that exact same thing. Whereas the Gnostic Gospels, the earliest one, the Gospel of Thomas that people would say was written, was written between 130 and 150. So a full almost 100 years after Jesus' death.

So he literally flips it. - Sure. - Because Carlos, when I'm asked about the Gnostic Gospels and people are intrigued, you're like, "Ooh," and I'm like, "How do you actually read them?" And you know what people almost always say? - Why not? - And you know, oh, you'd like, afraid I'm gonna go read it? I'm like, "No, I actually do want you to go read it "because there's a reason "if you actually will go read them out, you'll know "why this stuff is rejected." 'Cause it contains, he said revolutionary. I would say it contains some crazy out there stuff. - We're gonna help you out. 'Cause we're about to read it in just a second. - I think you actually have some things. - No, I love you now, I actually read some selections, so people are not trying to hide what these things say. Let's actually say some things they say and show people this is why they were rejected because you had had the Synoptic Gospels that had already been around for, let's say this, by the time these came around, they Synoptic Gospels had been around for almost 90 years in the book of Mark, and then 60 years maybe with the book of John. And then that's why when they read the things you read here, they're like, "What are these people talking about?"

- So Joe described them as the so-called revolutionary things, here they are. The first one, I got a couple lines here from the Gospel of Thomas. Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "See, I shall lead her so that I will make her "male, that she too may become a living spirit "resembling you males, for every woman who makes herself "male will enter the kingdom of heaven." By the way, that's not affirming the trans movement. It is literally saying that you have to become a man to become worthy of the kingdom. - Yeah, it's basically saying, "Women aren't gonna make "it into heaven, so I have to make them a male." And by the way, Foe, it said a living spirit. Again, the emphasis is on, "Oh, I've got to do something "in the spirit." But by the way, that's literally how the Gospel of Thomas ends. - Here's another one, Gospel of Philip. The world came about through a mistake. - Hmm, mm, okay. - A little different. - Okay. - Another from the infancy Gospel of Thomas. - Oh, this is a good one. - This child Jesus, when five years old was playing at the Ford of a Brook, then the son of Anas, the scribe came by and stood near Joseph and took a willow branch and dispersed the waters

which Jesus had gathered together. Jesus became angry and said to him, "You insolent godless fool. "What harm did the pools and waters do to you see now? "You also shall wither like a tree "and immediately that boy withered away." - Well, real quick, so let's just hit the picture here. So what happened is Jesus is like flexing in front of some other kids. And he's gathered all the water together and already shown some miracles. Another kid takes like a stick and kind of disperses it. And the boy Jesus just gets mad at him and strikes him dead on the spot. - Not today, that's right. - Okay. - Here's another part. After this, again, he went through the village and a child ran and struck against his shoulder. Jesus was angered and said to him, "You shall not go further on your way." And immediately he fell down dead. - So, so right now we've had like kids camp going on at church and if you've ever, if you don't have something like that, maybe you can picture like early days of like growing up like a vacation Bible school or something and just imagine kids run into each other. And so Jesus just didn't like it and this kid ran into him.

He's like, "You're dead on the spot, struck him dead." He's like, "Jesus, I want to give my life to you right here, man." - He said, "You shall not pass." (laughing) And they did not go well for the other child. - Yeah, they did not. - Here's another one from the Gospel of Peter. This one is from the resurrection scene. And unlike the Gospels, by the way, women were not the first witnesses in this book since at the time there would have been an embarrassment for that to happen. So here's what happens instead. Here's what happened. This is what he says. They saw three men coming out of the tomb, two of them supporting the other and a cross following them. - The cross is just walking out of the tomb on its own. - I don't know. - The heads of the two reached to heaven, but the head of the one being led by them surpassed the heavens. So seems like it's saying here, Jesus is emerging from the tomb and he's so big that his head extends beyond the heavens. And then the cross that somehow is walking out of the tomb with Jesus starts talking. And so, and I guess there's a voice that says, "Have you preached to those who sleep and a response was heard from the cross?" Yes, I mean that.

The super over the top and it reads more like mythology. - Exactly. And so even, 'cause sometimes people read this synoptic Gospels, the Gospels that are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that are in the New Testament. They think, man, this contains some crazy stuff. I'm like, yeah, and go read those now. And he was like, that is so far out there and just weird and they don't feel historical at all. They feel more like mythology. And so I just tell people like, they're actually going to read these things. They were crazy. And that's why we have the historical records of the early church leaders actually when they read these things like, no, this contains heresy. In fact, the first gnostic gospel that is mentioned, people don't think it was the first one that was written, but it was the first one that was mentioned was the gospel of Judas. And by the way, notice what they all do. They all try to take one of the apostles and claim they're written by them. And the gospel of Judas is the first one that's mentioned around 180 AD. And it's literally found in a book called Against Heresies. And so it's a whole book saying, hey, this is weird stuff, don't believe it. And you can see why after we read some of that stuff. Now, I think, just so you know,

you don't need to just take our word for it of, Hey, like, our books are that I've done this before. And I think it's a helpful thing. And even like when I'm in conversations with people about the Gnostic Gospels, and again, if I were with Joe right now, I would do this with him and says, "Hey, Joe, let me ask you just some objective questions over how do we establish the truth of two different sets of books that are competing in each other or two different accounts?" And almost always people come to the same criteria, and it's the criteria that the early church use for which Gospels, which books they were going to accept and which ones they reject. But let's do it like this, because I like to take it out of the New Testament world. Okay, Carlos, let's imagine you got 250th anniversary of the founding of America. It's going up, Independence. Come on, still praying for, I don't know when this will air, but still praying that we're facing then on July 4th for the World Cup, which would just be the best thing ever. But yeah, okay, so you have the founding fathers, George Washington, St. Thomas Jefferson. We have documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution a few years later, so on and so forth, so we have these, okay. But then imagine that we don't have digital technology, so it's all handwritten, but imagine then like we have other documents that were also claimed to have been written by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson that seem to contradict the things that are in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. So like Carlos, if this were just you and you had to come up with some criteria, and I would again would ask Joe the same thing, I guess, and he would say some of the same things that you're about to say, what are some criteria that you would personally use to say, okay, if we had to figure out which of these were actually by the founding fathers and which ones were not, what would be some criteria you would use? Yeah, do we know if they were written at the time that the founding fathers lived? Yeah, so like, where are the earliest ones? Because if we want to know if the founding fathers wrote these, if one document was likely written in the 1770s to 1790s, it's probably by them, but if another one was written in, let's say like 1830, George Washington couldn't have written that because he was dead. And so even this is an idea when we're talking about the New Testament, it's called apostolicity, we want to know was this document actually written in the time of an apostle, by an apostle or a close associate of one. So same criteria, can we get back as close as we can, in this case, to the historical Jesus, so right on, right on, in the other criteria you'd use? Does the, whatever it is, whatever is contained in these writings, does it align with things that actually happened at the time? Yeah, yeah, and like, and their general beliefs at the time, and so if you start reading things in them that reflect like later thoughts and developments from like the 1800s, you're like, hey, they weren't even thinking about this then, and they weren't talking this way, and like, if you found names in some of the documents, and like, one of the names was, I don't know, Claudio, and they're like, dude, no one had that name in the 1700s, you're like, hey, something seems a little off. How many they could have? I mean, they could have theoretically, he may have been the first one named Claudio, and maybe he was the paste setter for it, but so you kind of, and we're being asleep, but this is actually going to matter in a bit when we talk about the historicity of the New Testament gospels versus the Gnostic gospels. Another big criteria that most people would say was like, okay, if it seems like people everywhere accepted one group of writings, but only a few people accepted this other one, hey, we should probably prize the one that's more widespread. And I'm like, exactly, almost everyone I've asked this to always comes up with these same criteria, and this is the same criteria that the early church used, and that we use today, is we would say is that apostolic, did the actual apostles who were closest to Jesus write these things. Okay, number two would be the Catholicities, is the fancy word for it basically is how widespread are these books, did just a few random people accept it, or did everyone else accept these other books, and then finally in final category was Orthodoxy, which kind of went into when you said, hey, this is fit in with what was talked about and said and accepted in most places. And so when you use this criteria, you have to say that the gospels in our New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are reliable and that the Gnostic gospels were not. The Gnostic gospels literally fell each one of these criteria. Yeah, and it makes sense because, again, hence, some of the things that are included in these gospels are just completely far off from what the New Testament gospels say. So in the Gospel of Philip, Jesus supposedly kissed Mary Magdalene. This was written over a hundred years after Jesus. So again, it's just like, and the kiss is actually meant to be symbolic for knowledge and receiving spiritual truth. Again, so there's more there in the Gospel of Judas, Judas is the hero, and Jesus most trusted disciple. And the Gnostic gospels also, Jesus didn't really suffer and across. The Creator God is a lesser being, the physical world is a mistake. Humans contain a divine spark.

Like you said, salvation comes from awakening to who you really are, and a secret knowledge saves you. That's very different than the New Testament gospels that were written way before. It's way different. I think it'd be helpful, and again, I know we're going to the details right now, but I think it's really important for you to have confidence that when you read the New Testament, you're reading about the real Jesus who can really change your life, and you shouldn't be taken in by false Jesus's who can wreck your life. It's really important. And so I know if you're listening to this, maybe you're even still skeptical or even like, that these were earlier? Like, how do we come to that conclusion? And again, how do even non-Christian scholars come to the conclusion that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John written first? Let's break it into two categories. External evidence and internal evidence. I've actually got a slide on the screen that helps us with their external evidence. I think it'd be helpful to kind of give us some things. When we say external evidence, we mean, hey, getting out of the four gospels and getting out of the text of the Gnostic Gospels, can we just look at history and kind of get a sense? Is there evidence for which was written first? There is. So around 30 AD, Jesus dies and rises. You then have a 95-ID guy named Clement of Rome. There are other writers at this time, but early church leaders who are citing the gospels. They're citing stories from, again, the canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're talking about them a lot.

They're referencing them a lot. You have a guy named Papius, who is, I believe, a bishop in Turkey. He names Mark and Matthew as authors of two of the gospels. Between 1, 10, and 1, 30 is when this comes out. But here's the key thing to note, is that the way he talks in his writings that we have records of, and it was Lettergan and Musibius who actually references, one day, if we get to refine his original writings, would be amazing 'cause it would tell us a lot. He was an early church historian guy. Anyways, he talks as if he were still alive while John the apostle was alive, and he was born when the other gospels were being written. So while this didn't come out to 1, 10 to 1, 30, he talks about being alive and being conversant with people who either knew John, or maybe being potentially he talked to John, okay? Now, let's fast forward to 1, 50 to 1, 60, 80. We're now 120 to 130 years after Jesus dying and rising. That's the first time any Gnostic group is mentioned by a guy named Justin Martyr. - Okay. - So, like, already right here, if one group has already been talked about repeatedly, and we've already heard about Matthew, Mark, who can John repeatedly. But the other group is not first mentioned to over 100 years later.

It would seem like a logical person would say, "Hey, that the books that we have in the New Testament "are the earliest ones." The first mention of a Gnostic gospel isn't until 180 AD. We're now 150 years after Jesus. So, like, to put that kind of back into the founding father's time frame, imagine that if we didn't hear about something until 1920, but they were claiming to be all the way back to 1776. That gives you an idea of the kind of timeframe we're talking about. And then in 230 AD is the first mention of the gospel of Thomas, which is usually claimed to be one of the earliest Gnostic, if not the earliest Gnostic gospel. And you had some very liberal and non-believing scholars who in the 80s and 90s said, "Actually, it's earlier than the synoptics." But almost no credible person believes this anymore. 'Cause if it was the earliest, why did it take over 200 years for us to hear about? So, on the external evidence alone, we see a strong case for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But let's talk briefly about the internal evidence. A few things, that can mention a ton. This is, by the way, great book on this stuff in general is Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bockham. Mainly focusing on, hey, how do we know if these actual, actual first-hand accounts of Eyewitnesses?

Jesus and Eyewitnesses by Richard Bockham, maybe we could put a thing in the show notes whenever we release this. So, here's some internal evidence. Number one, the gospel of Thomas. Number one, the first thing in the earliest gospel, anoxic gospel, I should say, 50 to 65% of it is pulled from the canonical gospels. It overlaps with it. But the canonical gospels never pull anything from the gospel of Thomas. Here's why this matters. So, let's say you and I are sitting together by each other and we're taking a test, okay? And it's on modern movies and it's on basic instinct, which you've never seen and apparently I have. And by the way-- - Modern, you mean like post-2000s or like 80s, 90s? - Yeah, I'm making jokes about my age again. - Listen, I'm just playing with you. - Anyways, we're taking a test by each other. And hey, 50 to 65% of your answers seem based off of mine. They're either direct copied or they're very similar, but none of mine come from you. What's the teacher gonna conclude? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That you took it off me and if you took it off me, then who had to have written their answers first? - That's right.

- Me, so that's one of the big things. Another thing, and this is an interesting one, it is the names that are used. The names that are used in the Gnostic Gospels are not popular until the 100s and the 200s and the 300s and sometimes even the 400s and some of the ones that we have. Whereas there's actually been a study done, and again, this is nerdy, but to me it's really cool. There's been a study done on the names that are found in the New Testament. The names, again, it's great if you're just listening to this great thing for you to go watch and look at later. Maybe again, we can even have this in the show notes as well. The names that are used in the New Testament are also used around the same time by other outside sources, they in the New Testament, people like Josephus, Oshuaries, which is basically where dead people, those bones would be collected, and Dead Sea Scrolls. And so all the names that we have, Luke, and John match the names that are in that same time, whereas the Gnostic Gospels don't have names that commonly match the same time in the first century. So using this and just some other things, if you just look at the internal evidence that we actually have in the documents themselves, it's very clear that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by, or people close to eyewitnesses of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, whereas the Gnostic Gospels

came hundreds of years later. - That's great. And this should strengthen, by the way, if you're listening to this, and you're like, "Man, that's really geeky." Well, this should strengthen your view of the four Gospels that you have in your Bible. They are telling the truth. This stuff happened. There is historical evidence for you to be confident that when you read of all the things that Jesus did, and he said the things he said in the Bible, that actually happened. - Yes. - Anyways, yeah. - Let's keep going. We drilled down to Santa Fe like we made our point lovingly for a guy, Joe, let's keep going. So they had to have taken second hand from people who said they saw things, where with the previous, there's a shop that people directly saw them. The people in the Church Gospels were named by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We're not the people who were in the Gospel. Who's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Then nobody knows who write them. They took with those names, but they were not those people. - Really? - Yeah.

- Yeah, let's stop there. - Okay, honestly, I feel like Joe, right there. Joe Rogan, he's like, "Really?" - Yeah. - And I hope he was just doing that to be kind and not to contradict his guess, but there's part of me that's really afraid that he actually thinks this is legit. - So a couple of things, one, he said that we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't write the Gospels, and then nobody knows who wrote the Gospel. Paul, I want to ask you that in just a second here, but then he said, "Even the churches admit this at this point." - Yeah, yeah. - That's not true. - Yeah. I would ask Joe, "Man, what churches are you talking about?" - Yeah. - I'm like, "Which people are you talking to?" - Which churches? 'Cause he said he goes to Catholic Mass, so it can't be the Catholic Church, because I got this right here. Second Vatican Council in 1965. This is what the Catholic Church declared. It says, "The church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. For what the apostles preached and fulfillment

of the commission of Christ, afterwards, they themselves and the apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine spirit handed on to us in writing, the foundation of faith, namely the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then before that, at the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the early 1900s, the Catholic Church held that Matthew and John genuinely wrote the Gospels. Literally, almost every major Protestant denomination would say the same thing. - Yeah. - The only people, maybe, that would deny that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John typically come from more liberal backgrounds, maybe some liberal college professors that have had a couple of those, maybe a couple of liberal authors. I've read some of those books as well. That doesn't mean that their views officially represent the churches. - Exactly. I think this is a good example. And here's what I'd say about Joyce or House right now is that, 'cause again, the post that we originally saw this clip is like, "Oh, devout Christian says this." You can be sincere and be sincerely wrong. Or in this case, I'd probably say, probably, I want to give Joe the benefit of the doubt, sincerely misled.

You can be devout and love Jesus, but you can still get some things wrong. I think this is just a case where he's just been told some things, and we'll share it in a minute. I think I know, again, some of the sources, and I even mentioned him earlier in the video where I think he got them from. We'll get to that in just a minute. But I just wanted to highlight that. - That's right. - Hey, like, we're not bashing Joe. We're not trying to shred him or anything. I just think he's been sincerely misled, and we're just trying to give some gentle corrections to kind of effort for this stuff. I think it's important though to say, hey, just because someone claims to be a Christian or is a part of a quote-unquote church, just because they're saying something doesn't automatically make it right. This hard to tell people, like, check your sources. Like, when we do theology classes for our staff and for our ministry residents here at Lake Point, when the first session we do is how to be a good theologian. I give him, I think, 12 words of how to do theology well, how to think about and talk about God well. One of the words is to do theology critically. - There you go. - And what I mean by that is don't have to be critical. And that's to be a person who's just a continual skeptic

and that you're mean and you're judgmental. But the idea of don't automatically swallow everything that everyone sets to just slow down and learn to take in the good from the bad. Or like, I heard one time the idea of, hey, eat the fish, leave the bones. - There you go. Some people would say eat the meat, spit the bones. And so, and just a way in briefly on this, 'cause you already hit some of the stuff. But we do, actually, I want to admit, the gospels do not self-identify who wrote them. It doesn't do that. And I think there, by the way, some good reasons why it doesn't do that. Or when they're not trying to draw attention to themselves, it's about Jesus. And this was also just a common thing in this day, that people didn't always self-subscribe. I am the author of this. So then we have to rely more on external evidence, and we have it. I mentioned another guy named Papius, who was born and lived around the time of when these things were being written. A live and again, we believe, conversant with the apostle John, or at least with some of John's representatives. And he said that Matthew and Mark wrote these Gospels. Then, within a few generations later, a few years later, we've got Theophilus and Uraneus writing around 180 AD, who they actually give it. I've got their quote right here. Matthew issued a Gospel written among the Hebrews. Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself, handed down to us the writings, things preached by Peter. Luke, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterward, John, the disciple of the Lord, published a Gospel while living at Ephesus. So we have a strong early church tradition of this. And here, if I was talking to John, I'd ask him this. I'd say, okay, even if that was written after us. I'd say, if they were making it up, why would they choose Mark and Luke? Like, because if you think about the Gnostic Gospels, they would say the Gospel of Peter. Sure. The Gospel of Judas, although it's kind of weird to choose Judas, but still,

they said the Gospel of Thomas. People who were actually possible. Making sure people know that Jesus was close his friend and he was actually the hero. Maybe he was just misunderstood. We've got the story wrong. We're getting the story from his perspective and everything. But the point is, if the church was just making stuff up, you would think they would like, oh, this is the Gospel written by Peter. And they're like, no, this was written by Mark. And it just said, and he got his stuff from Peter. So I was kind of like, and this is my point in general when people are like, oh, they made this up. I'm like, if they made this up, they did a crappy job of flying, whether it's about the names that were attributed to the Gospels, or as we talked about before, this is kind of your thing when you mentioned how in one Gnostic Gospel, the women were not the witnesses, because in that day, the witness of women was not admitted into court. The reason that that's found in the Gospels is because it's actually true. If I were making up something, I wouldn't have women be the first to have witnesses if they weren't. And so we'll get into this a little bit, because it's a good criteria for how do we know what to accept and what to reject. I just want to say like, hey, we can have confidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the authoritative writers of these Gospels. That's great. Let's keep going. No idea. Absolutely. No doubt. Even the churches in this point. 2,000 years is such a hard time for us to conceptualize, to put her into our heads, how much time has passed. To try to get an accurate understanding of what was going on back then, it's insanely difficult. That's not for a second, actually. He said it's insanely difficult and almost impossible. Would you agree? Not really. No. You said this, Paul, we know the New Testament Gospels were written within 35 to 65 years of Jesus' crucifixion, so they were written while eyewitnesses were still alive. Luke explicitly says he investigated eyewitnesses' account. There are over 24,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts or fragments, plus tens of thousands of quotes from early church fathers. By the way, that's significantly more than other ancient documents. Another reason historians like you mentioned believe the Gospels accounts are legit is because you have multiple independent sources. You've got the four Gospels, you've got Paul's letters, you've got more. You have other non-biblical and non-Christian historians talking about these events, Tacitus Josephus. Is it planning the younger? Yeah. These guys are writing these things 80 to 85 years within Jesus' crucifixion, so I'm not so sure that is insanely difficult. There's a hyper skepticism applied because it's related to Christianity in the Bible.

It's because of what's in there. It's like if it didn't talk about miracles in a resurrection, probably people would not be so slow to adopt it because people don't sit here and continuously doubt the records that we have of Roman history and Greek history because people are worried about miracles and those. They just accept the history as it is written, even though there's way more evidence and it's way closer to the events when it comes to the Gospels. Here's an analogy I like to use like with this. We actually have criteria because to your point, the Gospels are based on eyewitness testimony. You didn't mention this, but I think Pastor Josh has actually said this in another episode of one time. You have names of people that it doesn't make sense to put their name in because they're minor characters. People like Rufus, which I believe is like the child of Simon of Siren who carried Jesus' cross. You got a person named Cleopus, who's I believe in Luke, one of the disciples that walks with Jesus after his resurrection. One of my favorites is in the book of Mark. Almost everyone that is healed by Jesus is like, "Oh, that was the blind man. It and it was a paralytic, but it actually names his name. "Jesus, son of David, I've mercy on me." Well, here's an interesting tidbit is that unlike the other people who most of the time on their hill, they just go their way. It says after Bartimaeus is healed, he then followed the Lord along the way. He became a disciple of Jesus. He became a part of the community. So they actually know this guy's name. Why put the name in there? Why? Because he's an actual guy that like, "Hey, you can go and actually ask him about the story." So we have eyewitness accounts. So here's the thing, let's just talk about eyewitness accounts in terms of their validity. Usually there's a few big criteria.

In addition to the character of the eyewitness, and maybe do they have ulterior motives? And by the way, with the rioters of the New Testament, they were being killed for their faith. So if they were lying, why would you lie if you're gonna get killed for it? But that's another thing for another time. Here's the three big categories in terms of, we established, is this a credible eyewitness? And you said some of these. Number one, multiple attestations. Are multiple people saying the same thing? And so that's why it's amazing. We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who though they have different details and put different emphases and things. They're all telling the same basic story. You mentioned the apostle Paul. In first Corinthians, he quotes what now many people recognize as one of the first creeds of the church. And this is within just a couple of decades of Jesus' death when he said, "I passed on to us in first importance." That Jesus died according to the scriptures and that he rose according to the scripture. So you have multiple counts pointing to the same truth. Also, a huge thing is early testimony. Were these people actually there and did they see the event happen? And there's a final criteria. And that's a criteria of embarrassment.

Would a detail be embarrassing if this thing came out? It's interesting, Mark is the first gospel. And again, church history tells us that he wrote this in conjunction with Peter. Peter looks like an idiot in the gospel. He abandons Jesus. He fails at every turn. All the disciples do. Why would they commission something? And these are the leaders of the early church. Why would they commission something that makes them look weak and stupid? Unless these things were just actually true stories of what have power. And so here's my thing is imagine like we had a trial that happened right now, 2026. And all these criteria met with eyewitnesses and we believe that whatever story they were telling was true. Okay, now this have 2,000 years passed or in the year 4026. Has really anything changed to change the story? No. The only thing that could change the validity of the story is if we had new evidence came out that they didn't have before that contradicted it. And here's what I would tell people. In the last 2,000 years, there has been zero zilch, not a no evidence that has come out that has changed the testimony of those who walked

and lived with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. That's amazing. Yeah. That's gonna be fun. Yeah, becoming since my sort of conversion to Christianity and I would sound myself a devout Christian, but not a devout Catholic, even though I go to Mass and I love the Mass and believe in it. But since, since 2001, when this process really began, I've become a real student of the historical Jesus. Yeah. Actually, stop right there. I'll do this briefly 'cause I know we need to kind of, maybe just put a bow on this here in a few minutes. And I think we've made a lot of our big points, but this is the big clue I've mentioned a few times in this video, if I think maybe we're Joe, our friend, who loves Jesus and that's awesome, but maybe he's been misled. Whenever I usually hear, oh, like the quest for the historical Jesus, usually referencing, and he says, I think it was like 20 years ago, so early thousands, he is probably referring to something I mentioned earlier called the Jesus Seminar. So let me give brief context of what this is. So there's this idea that, hey, the Jesus that we have in the four gospels of the New Testament, that's not really the real historical Jesus, but that's who they wanted him to be

or that's who they presented him as or get power. That was their interpretation of Jesus. So we wanna find out who this real Jesus is using a historical method to find the Jesus behind this Jesus. Who is the actual real historical Jesus? So you had a guy in 1985, the name of Robert Funk and included other scholars such as John Dominic Carlson, Marcus Borg, all very liberal scholars did not believe in the miracles, did not believe that Jesus was divine. And so they basically got this group together and they used this voting method using beads and they went through basically the gospels, just a verse or a few verses at a time to say, okay, a red bead meant Jesus definitely said or did this. A pink would be, I probably said it, can't be sure, but he probably said it. Gray would be, he probably didn't and black would be, he definitely did not say or do this. And at the end, shockingly, they said, oh, he probably said or did nothing that anything that is in the gospel. There's only a few of these things. And this comes out and be like, oh my goodness, all the gospels are made up, here's what people need to know and this is what I would want Joe to know. This has been debunked not just by conservative scholars At least not most of them, because really three big reasons. Number one, the voting was kind of gimmicky. Like the idea that we're going to have this like scientific method using beads where we just drop in with our predisposed opinions is not really

actually doing good, credible, historic research. Number two, and I kind of already just said it, it began with questionable assumptions. So if I come in and I'm one of the guys voting and I believe that there's no way the miracles could happen, because miracles don't happen, then you know where I'm going to vote whenever a miracle is voted on. So if you come in with an assumption, then it's kind of a loaded vote already. And if most of the people in the seminar believe there is no way that the miracles happen, if there's no way the resurrection happened, that all the apocalyptic traditions that are in there, that Jesus was talking about the world, all that was made up. Well, then yeah, I'm going to believe most of it was made up. So that was a big thing. And then a third thing is their findings presented a really unusual Jesus who didn't fit the first century whatsoever. He wasn't a man of his times. So just know when people hear about this, this has been debunked. But we again very much believe that the Jesus we see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the real historical Jesus. Let me put it this way. Is it more likely that a group of people 2000 years removed from the person has the right interpretation of that person or the person who walked and lived with them did the person locked in with them. And in first John chapter one, John is talking about this Jesus, who they had touched with their hands and seen with their eyes and heard with their ears. They're with them, their testimonies reliable. That's great. Well, you want to wrap it up? You want to get it through the last segment? Let's wrap it up, man.

We got a little bit more. The, and I learned more and more and more and more astounded at what's been done to cause medicines. This man who is Jesus from Ezra. Well, it's also he had some of the most profound and insanely resonating teachings, like even today, the words that he spoke 2000 years ago. There's still today people, I mean, they, they resonate with people. And if you live your life by the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will be a better person. Yes, you will. It was a great framework to live your life. Yes. He is incredible. When you think about a person that lived so long ago. And I love that. Joe is saying, honestly, it seems like seems like he's seen it. Like he knows people. He's seen it. He's, he's wrestling with it. How can this man who was a Middle Eastern man born in a poor family 2000 years ago, raised as a construction worker who only lived to be 33 can change somebody's life today? Like, and so I love that he's wrestling with that. Here's how I would, uh, I would learn when you, when you think about the story of Jesus, um, the one, the, the same Jesus that we find in our Bibles. And we say, man, how is it possible that that man today, whether you believe in Christianity or not, you have to explain how no person has attracted more followers, more attention, more devotion across cultures, languages, and nations than Jesus. Every event in history is defined by whether it happened before Jesus or after

Jesus, no emperor, no philosopher, no military conqueror became the reference point for time. Jesus did. If you think about it again, uh, Jesus never wrote a book. Today, millions of books have been written about him. Jesus never wrote a song today. Millions and millions of songs are sung to him and are about him. Usually when the leader of a movement is killed, usually the movement dies. Uh, Jesus got the most humiliating and excruciating and brutal death in history. And today one out of three people in the world worship him as God. The best paintings, sculptures, cathedrals in the world. We're talking the last supper, the pieta, the sistine chapel, the Sarada familia in Barcelona, which took 144 years to build, which, by the way, I'm going there literally like in a couple of days, um, they're all about him. The most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, Oxford, Cambridge, all started as universities to train people in their devotion to Jesus, or were rooted in strongly in faith in Jesus today, today, this is crazy to today. Most Hindus are still Indian. Most Muslims are still South Asian slash Indonesian. Most Buddhists are still East and Southeast Asian Christianity started in Jerusalem. It spread across the Roman Empire, then the Mediterranean, then it went to Asia, then it moved to Europe, then to North America. And today the average Christian is a young woman of color, likely black or brown, living in Africa, Latin America or Asia. How is that possible? Here's how Jesus said in his gospel. his good news will be preached to all nations, all tribes, all people, all languages. Jesus had no servants, yet we call him Lord. He had no formal education, yet we call him teacher.

He practiced no medicine, yet we call him healer. He commanded no army, yet he has conquered the world. He never ran for political office, yet today he is still king of king and Lord of lords. How do you explain that? Here's how Philippians chapter two verse nine to 11. "Therefore God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." - Amen, that's how. - He is the real Jesus who can really change us. And that is because he wasn't just really a man, he was also really the God of all time. And so the reason he is timeless is because he is the guy who stepped out of time and into time to change people for all time. And it's amazing that we get to encounter this show of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's just awesome. - Come on, man. - Come on. - All right, pray for us. - I would love to. Yes, and Jesus we do, thank you for stepping out of heaven and into time and into this earth, Lord, to change the world and to change us individually. And God, we wanna know the real you. Jesus, we don't wanna know counterfeit versions of you or slightly altered versions of you.

We wanna know the real you. And so God, I pray that you would help us to be great students of your word. And what I wanna pray for the two Joe's on here, it just seems like they really are drawn in by you. And I pray that you continue to draw them in to know you more. I pray that for all of us, not just for the Joe's, but for all of us, so that we would be constantly looking out for lies or for half-truths that could potentially draw us away from you to a counterfeit version of you. And so Holy Spirit, would you lead us into your truth? And we can continue to help us capture everything that is not from you and, Lord, submit everything to you. What do we love you? Just name me, pray in your name. Amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free. (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪