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See you there guys My

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name is Eddie

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I was in a call Planet Earth

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about to be recycled your

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only chance to survive

0:53

or evacuate Is to leave

0:56

with us Started as an effort by

0:58

a charismatic creature to build a new society

1:01

But it ended of course with the tragic deaths

1:03

of more than 900 people Please

1:05

for God's sake let's get on with it. We've lived

1:08

we've lived as no other people have lived and loved

1:10

We've had as much of this world as you're

1:12

gonna get let's just be done with it.

1:14

Let's be done with the agony of it It's the

1:17

revolutionary suicide. This is not

1:19

a self-destructive suicide. So

1:21

they'll pay for this. They brought this upon us

1:28

You're in a cult I love you and

1:30

I want you out of it

1:31

and with Christ but you

1:39

All right, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to

1:42

cultish entering the kingdom of the cults My name

1:44

is Jeremiah Roberts one of the co-hosts here

1:46

I am joined once again by Andrew the super

1:48

sleuth of the show. Good to have you back as

1:51

we are Following a very interesting

1:53

linear Indiana Jones timeline

1:55

with a little red line going across from Egypt

1:58

the Roman Empire

1:59

and all that we got papyrus, we got

2:02

Roman empires, we got a little bit of everything

2:04

going on this episode. What have you

2:06

enjoyed this episode so far, Andrew?

2:08

Oh man, I'm loving it. Just right after we finished the

2:11

first episode, I told Wes before a little break,

2:13

I was like, dude, I'm gonna go back and listen

2:15

to that episode like four or five times for

2:17

myself and just try to memorize a

2:19

bunch of stuff. There's so many gold

2:21

nuggets in there and I'm just very

2:23

thankful for Wes and his time to help us out, to help

2:25

us think through some of these issues that are very important

2:28

for us to be well versed on. Awesome,

2:30

well Wes, appreciate you joining us again, man.

2:32

It's good to have you back on. Yeah, I

2:34

appreciate that. I wish that academia

2:37

and archeology was actually like Indiana Jones.

2:39

It's a lot more boring and

2:41

staring at dead languages than

2:44

it is running through ancient caves with giant

2:47

boulders chasing you. At

2:49

least hopefully like the first three movies, not the last

2:51

two.

2:52

Because there's only three in canon. Speaking

2:55

of canon, there's only three Indiana Jones

2:57

movies, let's be particular about that. That

3:00

being said, and just probably

3:02

laughing here because it's always my movie, something comes up.

3:04

But yeah, let's jump in. So

3:07

we were kind of talking about Constantine and

3:10

talking about the political thing. We were kind of really talking

3:12

about Diocletius Constantine,

3:15

his conversion, like becoming

3:17

a Christian, take us into that. Like what's the

3:19

story behind that? Because according

3:22

to the narrative that gets pushed, he

3:24

was a Christian by the time he

3:27

made this political decision. What's the real,

3:30

what do we know from sources and everything?

3:32

What's the real story of Constantine's conversion to

3:34

Christianity?

3:36

Yeah, you know what's interesting? Here in my office I

3:38

have, and if you're just listening to this on audio, you

3:41

might not be able to see it, but I have an actual

3:43

coin from 307 to 337 AD that

3:48

has Constantine on it. And

3:51

it's a Constantine Roman coin, which

3:53

was gifted to me by a mentor of mine,

3:56

Jim Parker, who taught at

3:59

Southern Evangelical. for a long time. And

4:03

it has the son God's

4:05

soul on the back. So

4:07

this is clearly before his conversion

4:10

because the coinage changes. It

4:12

has Constantine's face on one

4:14

side and then it has Sol Invictus,

4:18

the conquering son on the other side. So

4:20

there obviously was a time when

4:22

Constantine was not a Christian,

4:25

when he was a son worshipper.

4:28

And there's evidence that up

4:30

until about 323, Constantine

4:33

did appear to have a level of allegiance

4:35

to the son God. And Eusebius

4:38

is writing, the

4:40

life of Constantine appears to make it clear

4:42

that there does come a dramatic

4:44

shift in Constantine's thinking away

4:47

from paganism and exclusively to

4:49

Christianity in around 323

4:53

AD. So

4:56

you have, it's here at

4:59

the famous Battle of Milvian Bridge, that

5:01

the narrative Constantine's conversion takes place.

5:03

So the story goes that Constantine prayed for

5:05

divine intervention and

5:08

had seen some sort of vision

5:10

in the sky, which

5:12

he

5:14

or

5:16

he or his advisors

5:18

had interpreted as coming from the Christian

5:21

God. So Constantine's victory

5:23

appears to have been positively favoured

5:26

towards him in the direction

5:28

of Christianity. So some stories

5:30

say that he saw the vision

5:32

of the Cairo, those

5:34

first two letters of the word Christos, Christ

5:37

in Greek, what looks like a P X.

5:40

And then he heard

5:42

the words in this conquer.

5:44

Others have him

5:47

just having a

5:50

vision of Christ and being

5:52

moved by that. But either way,

5:54

it's at this point that

5:56

you have some sort of shift in Constantine's

5:59

perspective. Whether that story is actually historical

6:02

or not is a separate situation,

6:05

but either way, Constantine has

6:07

this kind of

6:08

shift in his orientation

6:11

away from

6:12

kind of sun worship, which

6:14

is sun as in S-O-N

6:17

in the sky, and

6:20

towards Christianity. Now,

6:22

prior to Constantine's conversion, Christianity

6:24

had been an illegal religion, which we talked about last

6:26

time. And Christians weren't

6:29

allowed legal rights or rights to

6:31

assembly and were pretty heavily

6:33

persecuted, particularly as we mentioned under

6:35

Diocletian. And so in this time period,

6:38

the Constantine, as I mentioned

6:40

last time, meets with Licinius, who

6:42

is running things in the East, and they meet

6:44

at Milan, which

6:46

is in Italy, and they issue the

6:48

Edict of Milan, which decriminalizes Christianity

6:50

in 313. And

6:53

it did significantly affect Christians

6:55

as it decriminalized Christianity and allowed them

6:58

to worship in public and

7:00

also declared that any property or

7:02

possessions that had been confiscated

7:05

from Christians leading up to that time

7:07

would be returned. So there's

7:09

a huge shift within

7:11

his perspective towards

7:14

being very, very,

7:19

you know, what's the word I'm looking for? He's

7:24

not anti-Christian, but very pro-Christian,

7:27

but not in a way that sets Christianity up. Constantine

7:31

sometimes is referred to as the emperor

7:33

who made Christianity the official

7:35

religion of Rome. He didn't actually do

7:37

that. That's under an emperor later.

7:40

But he did decriminalize Christianity

7:43

and appears to, at some degree,

7:45

whether you want to argue that he had a conversion,

7:47

he at least

7:50

verbalizes some sort of

7:52

conversion.

7:54

Yeah, so why form a council then

7:56

in 325 AD? What

8:00

was the impetus behind that? Was

8:02

he the one that formalized the council? How

8:04

exactly did that work? Yeah. Sorry

8:07

to add in, but because

8:09

Nicaea and Constantine,

8:12

those two things kind of go hand in hand

8:14

in the argumentation of this is how

8:17

they decide what would be in the canon,

8:20

what would not be according to how people would

8:22

articulate that narrative.

8:24

Yeah, yeah. So the Council of Nicaea is

8:26

kind of this easy, let's

8:28

put a pin in a geographical area

8:31

and on the time frame of history

8:33

as to when the books of the Bible were established. The

8:36

problem with that narrative is that there's no

8:38

historical evidence for it. I

8:41

mean, we actually have the documents

8:43

that come from the Council of Nicaea. We

8:45

have the Nicene

8:48

Creed,

8:48

which has been, you know, set at the center

8:50

of historical Christianity for the last, however

8:53

many thousand plus years.

8:56

And then we have some writings that come out from

8:58

that. But this Council

9:01

had nothing to do with any

9:03

books of the Bible, not to mention,

9:05

you know, the Gnostic books that are sometimes

9:08

ascribed to it. The Bible, because

9:11

at this point in history, Gnosticism

9:14

that we sort of alluded to last

9:17

time, we talked a little bit more about Gnosticism, but Gnosticism

9:19

in general, this idea of secret knowledge, you

9:22

know, the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, Gnostic gospel

9:24

of Philip, those types of

9:26

things. It had almost completely died out

9:29

by this time in the fourth century.

9:32

Gnosticism had its heyday between the middle of the second

9:34

and middle of the third centuries. And

9:37

by the fourth century, it had almost completely

9:39

lost traction. So it wasn't

9:42

like Constantine was

9:45

kind of vying

9:47

for the Matthew, Mark,

9:49

Luke and John over and above Peter, Thomas,

9:51

Philip and Mary. The Gnostic

9:54

gospels were really, if

9:56

not out of favor,

9:58

they were completely out of favor. completely ignored

10:01

because they weren't even on the table. In fact,

10:03

if you read anything that comes out of the Gospel

10:05

or the Council of Nicaea, what you

10:08

find is that they're quoting the New Testament

10:11

documents as if they have authority already.

10:14

So it's not like they're

10:16

voting on anything or they're

10:18

making some kind of list.

10:20

The argument of Nicaea

10:23

was concerning the place

10:26

of the deity of Christ, not even that Jesus

10:29

was God or not. Everybody at the Council

10:31

of Nicaea believed Jesus was God. The

10:33

argument was whether this bishop

10:36

from North Africa named Arius,

10:38

who argued that there was a time when the

10:40

Son was not, who believed

10:42

that Jesus was God, just believed that

10:45

he was a lesser positioned God

10:47

in the Godhead because he

10:49

was created by the Father, everyone

10:52

at the Council of Nicaea believed Jesus was God. So

10:55

in that sense,

10:57

the argument was

10:59

about how do we understand

11:01

the position of Christ within the Godhead.

11:04

Does

11:05

that make sense so far? Yeah. Maybe

11:08

in contrast to that, I'm going to read another segment

11:11

from Medium just so you can kind

11:13

of get an idea of where the narrative

11:16

would differ in contrast to what you're

11:18

saying. So this is from the article from Medium.com.

11:21

He's talking about the first ecumenical

11:24

council of Nicaea and he talks

11:26

about all the different people that converged

11:28

together what you talked about. But

11:30

he says, quote, Constantine was given

11:33

absolute power to wield a state faith,

11:36

carefully selecting Christian thinkers who

11:39

represented a particular point of

11:41

view. Constantine along with

11:43

Hoshes of Corduba,

11:45

a confident

11:48

who had planned to support the state

11:51

religion along with

11:53

the Bishop Alexander of Alexandria,

11:56

who was driving force in incorporating

11:58

many texts from ancient Egypt. Egyptian scripts

12:01

which have been translated into Greek for the

12:03

Roman Empire, sealing the basic tenets of

12:05

Christian ideology. Constantine

12:07

became solely responsible for the content

12:10

of the newly formed Nicene canon

12:12

of Christianity with this

12:15

new Christian Bible, its contents were

12:17

to be used for further political agendas

12:19

that had little to do with religion.

12:22

So his argument is that this is

12:24

a huge political thing and that Constantine

12:26

would have had a lot of power

12:29

or political motivation with

12:32

making this movement Nicaea. So that's

12:34

what he articulates. You kind of see this

12:36

brings back so many memories of Dan

12:39

Brown and Da Vinci Code a little bit, but

12:41

that's what he's saying. So in contrast to

12:43

that, how does, how would you bounce

12:45

back off of that or push back on that?

12:48

Yeah, it's interesting. I remember when

12:50

Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code came out and how

12:52

much it affected the church. And I think

12:55

later on when I started studying church history,

12:57

I realized that if even Christians knew

12:59

a little bit about church history, the

13:01

Da Vinci Code would never have made the splash that it

13:03

made because the the

13:07

testimony of church history is so

13:09

different than what's communicated in

13:11

the Da Vinci Code that the red

13:13

flags would have gone up immediately.

13:15

And this is one of those,

13:18

right? We have no surviving minutes

13:21

or recordings from the Council of

13:23

Nicaea while it was happening. There are,

13:25

however, some primary sources.

13:27

So we have the creed

13:29

and the list of church leaders who signed

13:32

it. We have 20 canon rules.

13:34

So not nothing to do with the canon of

13:36

the New Testament, but an official list of

13:39

rules that were passed, none

13:41

of which, by the way, have anything remotely to

13:43

do with the contents of the books of the Bible or

13:46

which books of scripture are in or not.

13:48

We also have a synodal letter that

13:50

was released by telling churches

13:53

that the council was going to be held. And

13:56

we have a letter, a later

13:59

letter.

13:59

letter

14:01

written by Eusebius, who is the Bishop of Caesarea,

14:04

and Athanasius, who was at the time

14:06

just a secretary who was present.

14:08

He later becomes a bishop

14:11

in North Africa. But

14:14

we have those documents. So

14:16

we actually have primary source

14:19

documents written in the original

14:21

languages of which I've looked at

14:24

that we can look at, that

14:26

we can translate, that we can say, okay, what was going

14:28

on here? And none of that has

14:30

any hint or indication that it had anything to

14:32

do with the canon of Scripture.

14:35

What books are in Scripture? What

14:37

books are considered inspired? So

14:39

who was there? Well, this is where actually

14:42

the article that

14:44

you just read, Jeremiah,

14:46

actually gets some facts right,

14:48

or at least

14:50

in terms of the quote unquote official facts.

14:53

We're not actually sure who is there, but

14:55

numbers range from 200 to 318. Now,

14:59

what we can say is it's somewhere in the

15:01

range of that.

15:03

Now, we get the official

15:05

number that

15:06

that was the number that he

15:08

used in the in that article, I think was 318, wasn't

15:12

it? I believe he said, I think so.

15:14

I had to pull it back up to because

15:16

I think that that's what Athanasius. Yeah,

15:19

that's the number of the individuals

15:21

who he says were there. Now, it's

15:24

probably somewhere in the range of 250 to 300. Now,

15:26

Constantine's involvement, as far

15:29

as we can tell,

15:31

was in an opening statement he gave

15:33

where he pleaded with the church leaders to establish

15:35

peace and truth among themselves. But

15:37

the extent of Constantine's participation

15:40

within the council is completely unknown. Anyone

15:43

ascribing sort of a central or pivotal

15:45

role is basically making

15:47

an argument from silence. We have no

15:49

evidence that Constantine played

15:51

any pivotal role. We just know

15:53

that he pleaded with them to establish

15:56

peace. Yeah, because he was sick of

15:58

them arguing, right?

15:59

want the Christians arguing because if there's

16:02

Christians on one end of the empire and the other end of the empire,

16:05

you want them to be peaceable. And

16:08

Eusebius in a later writing seems to put

16:11

some emphasis on Constantine's oversight,

16:13

but Constantine himself doesn't

16:15

seem to do that at all,

16:17

which is if you're an emperor and

16:19

you actually did have a lot of power

16:21

at

16:22

this thing, you'd think you would emphasize

16:24

that in some sort of later writing, but he

16:27

doesn't do any of that.

16:28

No, that's good.

16:30

I mean, just

16:33

to think about that, and that's where political,

16:37

where Constantine is at, him just wanting to seek

16:39

the peace, and even like his direct involvement, you think

16:41

about, right

16:44

now in the United States here, obviously we have the Biden

16:46

administration, and you go to every other

16:49

week, there's probably some highlight footage of

16:51

somebody on some sort of committee, you

16:53

know, Ted Cruz is interrogating some lady

16:56

about something, and she's given some

16:58

sort of wishy-washy, like how much could a woodchuck chuck

17:00

if a woodcut chuck could chuck wood answer,

17:03

but it's like, yeah, Biden's the

17:05

president, but he's probably not in that room

17:08

when whatever that hearing is going on. Like

17:10

when you look at C-SPAN, there's always some sort of meeting

17:12

going on with something of all these different government agencies,

17:15

and just because you have one person who's the president, doesn't

17:17

mean he's intimately involved in all of them. But

17:20

that's really interesting because usually what's articulated

17:23

is that Constantine is just

17:25

like sitting there, like in the middle of this, kind of like George

17:27

Montgomery Burns, like yes, it's all coming

17:29

to plan, but according to

17:31

primary sources, there's

17:34

no really record of him just being there. He wanted it

17:36

to happen to have this peace

17:39

happen, but he wasn't, there's no evidence

17:41

that he was actually even directly there, like Atmosia?

17:44

Well, we know he was there

17:46

at least at the beginning, and I mean

17:49

if we could say one thing about politicians is they

17:51

want to take credit for things, right? Yep.

17:54

You know, whether we're talking about Biden,

17:56

where you guys are, or Trudeau, where

17:59

I am. Politicians love

18:01

to take credit, and yet we have

18:03

no evidence of any sort

18:05

of direct influence

18:07

or coercive

18:10

involvement of Constantine

18:14

at Nicaea whatsoever. And so I think that

18:16

does speak volumes, because if

18:18

this was a power grab, if this was a power

18:21

move, why not situate yourself

18:23

advantageously? I mean, when I was

18:25

in Egypt, one of the things that stood out to me

18:27

is that there are lots of inscriptions

18:30

that we know of pharaohs

18:33

who say that they won certain

18:35

battles, where we know they did not win battles,

18:38

but they were draws. But they portray themselves

18:40

as if they did win the battles, because nobody

18:43

likes to make a giant megalithic structure

18:45

that says it was a draw. You

18:48

know, that's not great. And

18:50

so what you do is you say, well, I actually

18:53

won, and I established peace.

18:56

And that's far better than saying, you

18:58

know, I, there were

19:00

an equal amount of people destroyed and

19:03

killed on my side as there was on the other side, and we just

19:05

we just stopped the battle there. And

19:08

so we have a situation where Constantine

19:11

has an opportunity to

19:15

communicate a direct involvement at this

19:17

thing, and he doesn't. And

19:19

so was Constantine involved

19:22

in Nicaea? So we're not actually

19:24

sure what the level he was involved.

19:26

He was involved. But everything we know

19:29

about Nicaea or Constantine's

19:31

involvement, it has nothing

19:33

to do with the books of the Bible. And

19:36

the council was called to establish

19:39

what was the majority view of Jesus

19:42

and the way that Scripture was used points

19:44

unanimously to the recognition of

19:47

books that had already been recognized

19:50

and established as Scripture. So Nicaea

19:52

quotes the Scripture. It doesn't argue

19:54

what is and isn't Scripture.

19:57

What's up, everybody? the

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20:44

That's good. Let's flesh that out just a little bit too.

20:46

So thinking as someone goes, okay

20:49

I concede Wes that they

20:51

did not formalize the canon at Nicaea but

20:53

what they did do is they actually as people

20:55

were the ones who chose what Christian doctrine

20:58

was. It's them. They created the

21:00

Christian doctrine. There was no agreement of Christian

21:02

doctrine before then. They even had

21:04

varying forms of scripture let's say in

21:07

their interpretations but it was here men

21:10

determined what the doctrine was and it

21:12

has pagan influences. How would we respond

21:15

or think theologically about that?

21:17

Well I think that what that does

21:19

is it ignores the previous

21:22

you know 300 years of church history where

21:24

Christians who are showing up at Nicaea,

21:27

some of them very well may

21:29

have had a few

21:32

less limbs

21:33

due to persecution because

21:36

of the faith that they held on to.

21:39

You know one of the the issues immediately

21:41

before the Council of Nicaea was

21:44

an issue related to the persecution

21:47

that we've been talking about over these last two episodes

21:50

where Christians were asked

21:53

to call

21:56

Caesar Lord and those who

21:58

wouldn't do that were either thrown in

22:00

prison or were faced

22:03

physical harm to do so. And

22:06

so you had what was called

22:09

the Donatist controversy, where

22:12

there was when Christianity was decriminalized

22:14

and Christians were let out of prison

22:17

and were coming into the woodwork

22:20

of the church, there was a big discussion

22:22

as to, do we allow

22:24

within the context of church discipline, these Christians

22:27

to be part of our church community, those

22:29

who literally said that

22:31

Caesar was Lord, over

22:35

and above Jesus being Lord, are

22:38

they allowed to be within the church? And

22:41

there was a legitimate question as to, if

22:43

you were baptized by someone

22:46

who gave

22:49

the pinch of incense on the altar of Caesar,

22:52

is your baptism legitimate? These were questions

22:54

that the early church had, because this

22:56

was a big issue. And so the Donatist

22:59

controversy was a big

23:01

issue within the early church. And

23:03

this is leading up into the context of the Council

23:05

of Nicaea. So there's been

23:07

persecution for their profession

23:10

of

23:11

the Father, the Son, and the Holy

23:14

Spirit being co-equally and co-eternally

23:16

God. Now that language comes

23:18

out of Nicaea, so they wouldn't have necessarily

23:21

used the Trinitarian formulaic language

23:24

that we use today, but they would have believed

23:26

it in some form or another because it's scriptural,

23:29

it's biblical, it comes from the pages of

23:31

scripture.

23:32

And so they're

23:35

leading up to Nicaea, they already

23:37

understand who they believe Jesus is, they

23:40

already understand how

23:42

they understand that fitting within

23:44

the context of the Godhead and

23:46

within the understanding of

23:49

the revelation of God. And

23:51

so

23:52

to then

23:53

say that, okay, well, Constantine

23:56

calls this committee, he calls

23:58

this council, and he's going to...

23:59

to tell them what to believe, well there are

24:02

people showing up at the Council of Nicaea who

24:05

had family members who had died in prison,

24:08

who maybe had lost limbs because

24:11

of persecution. Are

24:13

you really telling me that

24:15

Constantine's just going to say, actually you

24:17

believe this now and they're going to be like, well, I guess

24:19

if Constantine said it, we're going

24:21

to believe it. Is that really

24:24

truly realistic to

24:26

what we see happening in history? I don't think

24:28

it is. I think the Christians were

24:31

willing to go to their deaths for their

24:33

profession of faith. And

24:35

so if we hypothesize

24:38

the Da Vinci Godesque argument that then

24:40

Constantine, the Roman Emperor who

24:43

Christians have already been willing to die

24:45

under, is going to say, these

24:47

are the books and this is

24:49

the doctrine that they're just going

24:51

to roll over. And

24:54

I think that's a pretty silly

24:56

narrative given the previous 200 years

24:59

of church history.

25:01

The question I

25:03

have then, and just continuing

25:05

off of what you're just saying here, is that

25:08

in this article he talks about, he makes

25:10

some emphasis on some things post-Nicaea.

25:14

And this is what some things that he says. So

25:17

some roughly 760 books,

25:20

many of which were first-hand gospels

25:22

of the life of Jesus, did not make it into the first

25:24

Nicene Creed, which is the foundation

25:27

of every Christian church to this day, all

25:29

decided by one man, Emperor Constantine, an absolute

25:31

ruler of the world's greatest empire and

25:33

the world's largest faith. He

25:35

goes on to say, although the Nicene Creed

25:38

did not officially decide upon the

25:40

content of the Christian Bible, Constantine made it

25:42

very clear which gospels he considered

25:45

acceptable. He commissioned

25:47

a creation of 50 copies of the first Christian

25:49

Bible, which contained only the gospels of

25:52

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So what happened

25:54

to the other gospels? Of the other seven

25:56

councils recognized in whole or in

25:59

part by Beaufort? the Roman Catholic and

26:01

the Eastern Orthodox churches at Comenical

26:03

all were called by the Roman Emperor who

26:06

gave them legal status across the entire Roman

26:08

Empire. And then it continues

26:10

and says that there were additional councils

26:13

and one in 382 AD a

26:15

church council banned all other gospels

26:17

from being read anywhere. All of the

26:19

books, many which were cherished by

26:22

true Christians for generations, these

26:24

scriptures have been relinquished for fear of persecution

26:27

and imminent death. And then he basically

26:30

goes on to say back we talked at the very beginning of the

26:32

episode this was the case up

26:34

until these gospels were

26:36

rediscovered in the 1800s. So

26:39

maybe my question would be how would you respond

26:41

to that but also one thing I maybe

26:44

we only kind of touched on a little bit the relationship

26:46

of actual like Gnostics and the

26:48

Gnostic gospel because there is a narrative

26:50

sometimes that is perpetuated that

26:53

it's actually the Gnostics

26:55

who were under immense persecution

26:58

because of their belief in these Gnostic

27:00

gospels that seems to be what he's implying

27:03

so what's your what's your take on all

27:05

that?

27:06

I would love to see his primary

27:09

sources because

27:11

they're non-existent.

27:16

I think

27:18

you know I don't fault people

27:20

who espouse these types of narratives

27:23

because I think they're just going on

27:25

what they are told. I think

27:28

this is a lot of parroting

27:30

of I've heard these things said over

27:33

and over and over they're in the Da Vinci code,

27:35

they're in TikTok and YouTube videos,

27:38

Joe Rogan is espousing them,

27:40

this person is communicating them and

27:42

that person is repeating them.

27:45

And so I think it's unfortunately

27:47

a product of our time of

27:49

the internet age where we

27:52

don't have people who are questioning

27:55

things enough to go to the primary

27:57

first-hand sources. So Now,

28:01

this person, I believe,

28:03

has a PhD, right? So

28:06

they have doctor on the front of their name, at least.

28:09

So they should know better,

28:12

I guess. I don't know what their PhD

28:14

is in. If it's in, I don't know, mathematics,

28:16

then that's

28:18

irrelevant to the topic. But

28:23

I mean, this is a combination

28:25

of me feeling a little

28:28

bit of empathy and having

28:30

a little bit

28:33

of a headache. Because

28:35

you hear these things so often, but like

28:38

I said at the beginning, the fact is there are just no

28:40

primary sources for it. And

28:43

it's often portrayed as if the early

28:45

Christians are just given a pile of

28:48

books and they have to choose. Like

28:51

I said before, it's not a matter

28:53

of choosing. The early church

28:56

recognized the books that had

28:58

been given to them by the apostles, right?

29:00

The church was a product of Scripture. Scripture

29:03

was not a product of the church. And I get a lot

29:05

of pushback on that from both

29:08

my conspiratorial

29:10

friends and my Roman Catholic friends because

29:13

they want to also see the

29:15

Scripture as being established by

29:17

the Roman Catholic church. But I

29:19

don't think that history bears that out. I think that

29:22

what the unanimous

29:24

communication of the early church is that they

29:27

knew the books that had been handed down

29:29

to them. And the conversation of canon

29:32

was one of clarifying

29:35

what are the books that come from either

29:37

an apostle or someone who knew an apostle,

29:40

someone who knew Jesus or someone who knew someone who

29:42

knew Jesus. So are

29:44

there questions about some of the books that end up in our

29:47

Bibles? But it's books

29:49

like 2nd and 3rd John and 2nd Peter

29:52

because there are a lot of

29:54

letters that are

29:59

being purported to be written by

30:01

Peter and a lot of letters that are being written purported

30:05

to be written by John, we got to make sure we're doing

30:07

our homework on this. And so any

30:09

of the question of the books is

30:12

one of the church doing due diligence

30:14

to let the dust settle on the canon,

30:16

but by the time you get to Nicaea in the fourth

30:19

century, that conversation, as far as

30:21

I'm concerned, is over. And so

30:23

even the canons after that are saying, here's

30:25

what scripture is, they're not

30:27

putting a pronouncement on that. They're

30:29

just establishing what was already held

30:33

at that point. Nicaea

30:35

understands what is scripture. And

30:38

we know that because

30:40

we have conversations

30:42

leading up to that. We have canon lists

30:45

that are leading up to that. Do canon lists differ?

30:47

Yes, they do. But by

30:50

the time you get to Nicaea, you have

30:52

the established, you know, 66 books

30:56

of the Protestant canon. And there's a

30:58

conversation about what we refer to as the Apocrypha,

31:01

or the Judo-Okinacal books that are in the Catholic

31:03

Bible. I think that's almost a separate

31:05

conversation. But I think

31:07

if we're retrieving the earliest

31:10

books that get us the time from Jesus, we're talking

31:12

about the 27 books of the New Testament. And

31:15

if we're talking about the Jewish canon, we're talking about

31:17

the 39 books of the Old

31:19

Testament, Tanakh, the Torah, the Naveem, and the Ketavim.

31:22

And so the

31:25

Gnostic gospels, these other

31:28

writings, do they exist? Yes.

31:30

But like I said, they've almost completely

31:33

fell out of fashion and

31:35

belief by the time the fourth century happens.

31:38

The Gnostics were a dying group.

31:41

They were a dying group by the time that

31:43

the Council of Nicaea is called. They're

31:46

fragmented. Even calling the Gnostics

31:49

the Gnostics, I think, does a disservice because

31:51

the Gnostics aren't one group.

31:54

It's kind of like, I don't know, have either of you guys

31:56

been to India? No,

31:59

I've no. Considered at one

32:01

time potentially on a mission trip, but that was eons

32:03

ago.

32:04

Yeah, because Hinduism

32:07

is a very confusing

32:09

religion because I've

32:11

been to India. In fact, this

32:13

is an entirely different conversation. I actually had a

32:16

short-lived Bollywood career.

32:19

But I went to India

32:22

in 2012

32:23

to

32:26

be a special skilled extra in a Bollywood

32:28

movie. And you talk

32:30

to Hindus, and one

32:32

Hindu is telling you that Hinduism

32:35

is polytheistic. And you walk

32:37

down the street and you talk to another Hindu, and they're saying, no, no,

32:39

Hinduism is monotheistic. They're

32:42

just all different representations of the same God. And

32:44

then you walk further and you talk to another

32:46

Hindu, and they're telling you

32:48

that actually no, Hinduism is non-theistic.

32:50

There is no God. The universe

32:53

just has different, they

32:55

have different avatars and representations

32:58

of the universe who is an impersonal force itself.

33:01

And so that's kind of what you're dealing with within

33:03

Gnosticism. And we

33:05

have this overarching concept of Gnosticism,

33:07

but realistically, Gnosticism

33:10

is not one thing as much as it's

33:12

an umbrella term. And

33:15

so the Gnostics were not unified themselves.

33:18

And so you have differentiations

33:20

throughout the Gnostic Gospels of

33:23

what they're even communicating, the

33:25

single thread being that

33:27

Gnosticism is communicating what

33:31

is the antithesis of biblical Christianity.

33:34

Because the Gnostics, the

33:36

Greek word Gnosis means knowledge. And

33:39

the Gnostics believe

33:41

that you

33:44

gained

33:46

salvation through understanding

33:49

secret knowledge. So how

33:53

about I put it this way, historical

33:55

grounded biblical Christianity, salvation is

33:57

something that's outside of your soul.

34:00

done on behalf

34:02

by the finished work

34:04

of Christ's work on the cross. So

34:06

along the lines of 2 Corinthians 5, 21, and

34:08

Hebrews 10, 10, that for our

34:10

sake the Father made Him to be sin

34:13

who knew no sin, so that in

34:15

Christ we might become the righteousness of God,

34:18

and by that will of the

34:20

Father we have

34:22

been made holy through the sacrifice

34:24

of the body of Jesus Christ once for

34:26

all. However, in the range

34:28

of diagnostic belief, salvation was

34:31

something inside of you that you

34:34

realize that you unlock via secret

34:36

knowledge. So it's not just

34:38

that Jesus is divine,

34:41

Jeremiah and Andrew are

34:43

divine, and you actually

34:45

have

34:46

aspects of that divinity that

34:48

upon realization through understanding of secret

34:50

knowledge, you're able to attain salvation

34:53

and overcome the material world.

34:56

So that goes back to the the the

34:58

docketic, the docetic thing that I was

35:00

talking about. The material world is evil,

35:02

the spiritual world is good, you unlock

35:04

that by secret knowledge. That's completely

35:06

passé by the Council of Nicea. So

35:09

any type of discussion about the Gospel

35:11

of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Mary, Gospel

35:13

of Judas being contention, that wouldn't

35:16

have even been on the table because the

35:18

Gnostics were a dying group

35:20

by that time. Hmm.

35:22

Yeah, Andrew, do you have any questions real quick? Because

35:24

I want to get a kind of a breakdown of some

35:26

of those Gospels. Just go ahead,

35:29

what's on your mind, Andrew?

35:30

Yeah, what are some of those early

35:33

primary sources we have of people

35:36

speaking of certain

35:38

books in the New Testament, like affirming sections,

35:41

not really affirming, but recognizing

35:44

books that we have today in the New Testament.

35:46

What are some of the earliest primary sources for that? And

35:49

I just want to comment real quick, it makes sense to that

35:51

people like Joe Rogan or some of those

35:54

other popular figures like to try to make

35:56

arguments in favor of Gnosticism because

35:58

they themselves are for... knowledge and

36:00

secret knowledge through drug use

36:03

and means of other things. So of

36:05

course you have to deny and try to reinvent

36:07

what happens historically, especially

36:09

with biblical Christianity, because if biblical Christianity

36:12

is true, then what you're doing is false and it's also

36:14

sinful. So there's got to be some way to try to justify

36:16

the actions that you're making. And one way to do it

36:18

is you have to deny who God is,

36:20

and you got to deny His word in order to

36:23

feel justified or even righteous

36:25

in sinful decisions, which makes sense to me

36:27

why they would look to attack it. But historically,

36:30

as Wes has been showing, those arguments just do not

36:33

stand up. They don't stand up.

36:35

Yeah, you can understand why

36:36

it's palatable to the modern

36:39

audience who, you know, is kind

36:42

of sympathetic to these new age ideas that

36:44

the divinity is unlocked in you. And

36:46

then you find, you know, these

36:49

ancient Gnostic Gospels, and that's what they're communicating.

36:52

I mean, there's other things that you probably don't

36:54

realize that are problematic within them. I mean,

36:56

the last line of the Gospel of Thomas communicates

36:59

that women are not worthy of salvation

37:02

and that every female

37:04

who makes himself herself male will enter

37:06

the kingdom of heaven. That's the last line of the Gospel of

37:08

Thomas. So, you know,

37:10

transgenderism aside, that's

37:13

kind of the message. And

37:17

that leads into, you know, a whole other conversation.

37:20

But you're exactly right. These ideas

37:23

are far more palatable. And I think we

37:26

want conspiracy. We like conspiracy.

37:31

The history of the canon of Scripture

37:33

in some ways is more complicated than we can

37:35

imagine, but in other ways is far more

37:37

simple. And we don't like simple. We

37:40

want there to be suppression. We

37:42

want there to be conspiracy. And

37:44

so to simply say, well, OK,

37:47

but what are the earliest books that get us the time

37:49

for Jesus? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Oh, that's

37:51

boring.

37:52

What about these other ones that are more

37:54

exciting that portray Jesus as

37:57

a as a pagan

37:59

mystic?

38:00

Well,

38:01

those are more interesting. Well, okay,

38:03

they might be more interesting, but

38:06

Jesus was a first century Jew. So what's more

38:08

likely? That Jesus was

38:11

a pagan mystic who

38:13

is more palatable to the pagan

38:16

audience?

38:17

Or that

38:18

Jesus was a Jewish

38:21

Messiah

38:22

who made audacious claims, claims to begot

38:25

himself, predicted his own death and resurrection,

38:27

and then did it.

38:29

And I don't know about you guys, but people who rise from

38:31

the dead have more credibility and authority than people

38:33

who

38:34

don't rise from the dead. And so

38:37

that's not palatable for an ancient pagan audience.

38:41

And so I think it's far more realistic

38:43

to say that the pagan mystic

38:45

Jesus comes later

38:48

and is appropriated

38:51

and written back onto the lips

38:53

of Jesus than the actual first century

38:55

Jewish Jesus who was a Jew, who

38:58

did live in the first century, and is communicated

39:00

as such within Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

39:04

So a lot of times, Wes, when I'm going

39:06

through the grocery store, I will see

39:09

some book by Time Life. You

39:12

know, it's every six months, there's always

39:14

some book with some

39:17

hidden books of Jesus and secret things

39:19

of Jesus. You always see it's like every six months to a

39:21

year. There's something on Time Magazine,

39:25

Time Life, Life Magazine,

39:27

maybe I'll mix them all up together. But

39:29

there's always something on mentioning about particular

39:31

gospels. So I'll mention maybe a few

39:34

and kind of maybe summarize what they are

39:36

and what would be the main reasons why Christians

39:38

wouldn't accept them. So you mentioned before, the

39:41

first one is the Gospel of Thomas. If

39:43

you just reiterate where does

39:45

that come from, what's the dating of that? Why

39:48

wasn't that included within the canon? Like,

39:51

was it a vast grand conspiracy

39:53

to suppress that?

39:56

What's it all about? And why wasn't that

39:58

chosen? Christians

40:00

back then say, this is a no-go? Yeah,

40:03

this is a great one because when I went to

40:05

Egypt I actually got to go look at the

40:07

actual Gospel of Thomas. It's in the

40:10

Coptic library in Cairo and

40:12

it was a really unique experience because

40:15

the the travel guide who

40:17

I was with, I didn't know very much

40:19

about it and so I was actually translating

40:21

in front of him the Gospel of Thomas in

40:24

Coptic, which is ancient Egyptian,

40:26

for him and you know giving

40:29

a lesson to some bystanders that's what

40:31

the Gospel of Thomas was. So that was a very unique

40:33

experience and then we headed out into the Nag

40:35

Hammadi desert where it was discovered by these

40:39

Egyptian farmers in 1945 and

40:41

brought back to this little village

40:43

called Al Qasr, which we also traveled to,

40:46

told that story in the 45 degree

40:48

heat where a sandstorm hit. It's

40:51

quite the narrative. You're gonna have to stay

40:53

tuned to apologeticscanada.com

40:55

for the drop of all that story. But the Gospel

40:58

of Thomas exists in four manuscripts.

41:01

The earliest are three Greek fragments,

41:03

P1 which contains verses 26

41:06

to 31 and verses 77 and then P oxy 654 which contains verses

41:13

1 to 7 and then P oxy 655 which contains verses 36

41:15

to 40 and then there's

41:21

the famous 4th century copy

41:23

written in Coptic which was part

41:25

of the Nag Hammadi Codex 2 which is the one that I

41:27

had the unique opportunity to go see

41:30

and actually view myself

41:32

and translate through.

41:34

And

41:35

I think what we see there within

41:37

the Gospel of Thomas is you

41:40

know it can be dated to the 2nd century. I

41:42

think it's probably the earliest of these Gnostic

41:44

Gospels. Some argue that

41:47

it's proto-gnostic, that it actually

41:49

predates what we call Christian Gnosticism

41:52

and there are hints of the Gnostic flavor

41:54

to it coming onto the scene but

41:56

that is not full bread

41:59

Gnosticism. them quite yet. And you

42:01

could argue that. But either way, there's

42:03

a Gnostic flavor to it. And

42:06

so it's popping up in

42:09

the second century, which is still, mind

42:11

you, Thomas is dead, because

42:14

the second century is long after the

42:16

disciple would have been living. But

42:19

it's not a gospel as we think of it.

42:21

So let me throw it out to you guys. When you think of when

42:23

I say, Okay, what does a gospel look like?

42:25

What do you think of? What

42:29

Jesus did on the cross, the good news, the

42:31

news of the eternal God

42:33

taking on flesh and dying on the cross for my sins.

42:35

That's the gospel.

42:37

Yeah, but also like for me, I remember

42:39

there's some books I had like

42:42

in my assembly of just books in my house

42:44

growing up as a kid, where like

42:47

I kind of loved the historical part

42:50

of the Bible.

42:52

Like when you think of like the gospels that it

42:54

correlates to like real things

42:56

going on in the culture. So like, remember one thing

42:59

that blew my mind as a kid is the story

43:01

of when Jesus goes out and

43:04

he says when he's about to do the Last Supper. And

43:06

I think he says like, look for a man

43:09

like carrying a pot on his head. You

43:11

know, and I guess what was very interesting,

43:13

if I remember is that the reason

43:16

that would have stuck out like a sore thumb, because usually

43:18

it was like the women who did that. So

43:20

it's kind of like one of those like cultural nods,

43:22

you know, there's mentions of coins, you

43:24

know, like Jesus mentioned the coin and when you're holding

43:27

up the coin, I think, oh, Peter Caesar what

43:29

is Caesar's, you know, that's actually something that

43:31

was done. So you kind of see, there's

43:33

things in the gospel that coincide with

43:36

real physical places,

43:40

they're holding, they're mentioning items

43:42

that are real and tangible.

43:45

They're just incongruent and in

43:47

proximity that would have been taking

43:49

place in the first century. So there's like a real gritty

43:52

historical tangibility when you read through

43:54

the Gospels that also coincides

43:56

with the theology as well too.

43:58

Yeah, amen. Yeah, I think. what you're both

44:00

communicating, Andrew and Jeremiah, is that there's

44:03

this narrative,

44:04

right? There's this narrative which communicates

44:07

something that's tangible, which you can

44:09

place on a timeline and actually represents

44:11

people and places and times that exist

44:14

in history. That's not

44:16

what you get in the Gospel of Thomas. So unlike

44:19

the, say, the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

44:21

which have the beginning,

44:23

middle, and end of the story, you know, the life

44:26

that, or arguably the birth, life, death,

44:28

and resurrection of Jesus,

44:29

the Gospel of Thomas is just a list of sayings.

44:32

It's a hundred and fourteen sayings of

44:35

Jesus between his disciples and

44:38

Jesus. So Peter says this,

44:40

Jesus responds. Mary says this, Jesus

44:42

responds. It's back and forth like

44:44

that, and that's where you have, I mentioned

44:47

the last line of the Gospel of Thomas, where,

44:49

you know, they say, let Mary

44:51

leave us for women are not worthy of

44:53

life. You know, something that is always

44:55

very good to say in front

44:57

of a group of people. And Jesus says,

44:59

don't

45:01

worry

45:02

because I'm going to make

45:04

her to resemble you, and then like

45:06

I said before, every female who makes

45:08

herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven. But

45:11

it's that back and forth. It's just that

45:14

someone says this, someone else says this, someone

45:16

else says this, someone else says this. That's all 114 verses,

45:18

and that's what

45:21

we have fragmented in those early Gospel

45:23

fragments. But

45:27

collated in its entirety within

45:29

the fourth century Gospel of Thomas found

45:31

in the Nag Hammadi library. And

45:34

I think what you see there is

45:36

a development within the text. So

45:38

you see, and one of the things we can point

45:41

to, and I have an article on my website on WesleyHuff.com

45:44

about why I did the Gospel of Thomas late. One

45:46

of the reasons for that is I think we see a clear

45:48

development between our earliest Greek manuscripts

45:51

and our later Coptic manuscripts. Coptic

45:54

being the language, like I said before, of ancient

45:56

Egyptian. And what

45:58

they do is they portray Jesus once again.

45:59

again as a Greek pagan

46:02

mystic. And so I think

46:04

it's representing a later

46:06

development that's making Jesus more palatable

46:09

to that audience. But fundamentally,

46:11

what we're dealing with is

46:14

a writing which is coming later, which

46:16

is ascribed to an early follower

46:18

of Jesus, but realistically

46:21

has no connection to the historical

46:23

Jesus who walked the dusty streets of 1st century

46:25

Galilee and Judea and died

46:28

and bros again. What's up everybody?

46:30

It's The Super Sloop here letting you know that

46:32

you can go to ShopKultish.com and get all

46:35

of our exclusive cultish merch.

46:38

There's the Bad Theology Hurts People shirt. Jerry

46:41

wears it all the time. I wear it all the time. Sometimes

46:43

we wear it at the same time without even trying

46:45

to have that happen on the show. And we're just like, whoa,

46:47

you're wearing the shirt? I'm wearing the shirt. You could wear

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the shirt too. Go to ShopKultish.com

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merch. Talk to you later

46:56

guys. And then also one thing

46:58

that's mentioned in the article is the

47:00

Gospel of Peter. You did mention earlier

47:02

how he mentioned things that are heretical. And again,

47:05

what he implied, and a lot of times

47:07

would be implied if you're walking down the shopping

47:09

mall from going to Whole Foods, there's

47:11

probably one right now. I'll leave and I'll probably go to Sprout's

47:13

going to grab the food on the way home. And

47:15

there's probably going to be a magazine. I'm pretty much putting my money on

47:18

that, right? And let's just say they bring up a Gospel

47:20

of Peter. It's probably going to be asserted in that magazine

47:22

or article. Well, this is something

47:25

that the same Peter who denied

47:27

Jesus, who was restored at the end

47:30

of the Gospel of John and was crucified

47:32

upside down. Like, oh, he actually kind of wrote.

47:35

He has his own firsthand account too. But somehow that

47:38

was lost. And that gives a different perspective. But that

47:40

was, again, that the constant

47:42

generative comes in that somehow this was

47:44

taken out. So all that being said,

47:47

Gospel of Peter, what do we know about

47:49

that? Why would this be? Why

47:52

would this be a no go? Why wasn't

47:54

this pick picked as far as it goes?

47:57

Yeah. Well, the simple answer would be that the

47:59

early.

47:59

you can date the Gospel of Peter as 150 AD,

48:03

which is long after

48:05

Peter is dead. So if that

48:07

comes up, if you only have a

48:09

couple of minutes, all you need to say is,

48:12

I'm interested in the actual historical sources

48:14

that get me to Jesus and the Gospel of Peter in

48:17

it.

48:17

The Gospel of Peter disqualifies itself

48:20

because we can date it no earlier

48:22

than 150, probably more between 150 and 250 AD.

48:28

So that's an outright disqualification.

48:31

Secondly, the Gospel of Peter not

48:33

only communicates this docetic heresy,

48:35

which denies the physicality of Jesus,

48:38

but it also communicates a complete lack

48:40

of understanding of Jewish

48:44

practice at the time. And

48:46

one of the reasons for that is that, you

48:48

know, you read the resurrection stories in the Gospels

48:51

and they're actually rather matter

48:53

a fact. You know, it would have been really

48:56

great if the Gospels

48:58

in the Bible told you

49:00

exactly what happened at the resurrection. Wouldn't that have

49:02

been great? You could know what it looked

49:04

like for Jesus to come out of the tomb. The

49:06

Gospels don't tell us that. They actually

49:09

record what happens after the fact.

49:11

The Roman guards

49:13

run away and then you have the women coming to the tomb

49:15

and the tomb is empty. What

49:18

we have in the Gospel of Peter is actually the camera

49:20

rolling on the resurrection event. And this

49:22

was, this stands out to me pretty starkly

49:25

because when I did one of

49:27

my language exams for my doctoral

49:31

requirements, I was given

49:33

a section of the Gospel of Peter,

49:35

this section of the resurrection event

49:38

to site translate. So it

49:40

stands out really stark to me because it

49:42

was kind of like I was put in the moment and

49:45

I had to site translate a section of the

49:47

Gospel of Peter on the spot. But

49:50

what we see in that section of the Gospel

49:52

of Peter is the camera rolling

49:54

on the resurrection. The tomb opens

49:57

and Jesus comes out and his heads are in the closet.

50:00

His head is in the clouds. He's like a giant

50:02

nine ninety foot tall Jesus. And

50:05

there are angels flanking him on either side.

50:07

And the cross comes out of the tomb

50:10

and the cross comes out of the tomb. And the cross is prophesying.

50:13

But not only that, the thing that sticks

50:16

out that actually identifies the gospel of

50:18

Peter as not being for a century is

50:20

that the gospel of Peter, what I

50:22

think is that it's actually an apologetic

50:25

against the bad testimony of

50:27

the women being the first eyewitnesses of the tomb.

50:30

So the women being the first eyewitnesses

50:32

of the tomb is actually quite embarrassing within a first

50:34

century context because women are not good

50:37

eyewitnesses. The gospel of Peter corrects

50:40

that by having the Jewish and Roman officials

50:42

camping out in front of the tomb. Which

50:45

is something that would never have happened. A

50:47

Jewish priest would never have camped out in front

50:49

of a tomb, a body which

50:51

would have made him virtually unclean over

50:54

a path over weekend. Right. It's just

50:56

it's not going to happen. And yet that's exactly

50:59

what is portrayed in the gospel of Peter.

51:01

So whoever is writing the gospel of Peter has

51:03

no understanding of Jewish

51:06

custom and cultural practice

51:09

of religious purification. It just would

51:11

not have happened. But they're trying to correct

51:14

the fact that the biblical gospels

51:17

say that the women were the first eyewitnesses.

51:19

And that's obviously bad eyewitness

51:22

testimony. So who do we want

51:24

there? We want everybody who's a good

51:26

eyewitness testimony. We want Romans and

51:28

we want Jewish priests.

51:30

OK, let's put them there. But this,

51:33

along with the dating, disqualifies

51:36

it by the content

51:38

that is included within the gospel. This

51:41

is just does not represent someone who

51:43

is in first century Judea. Never

51:46

mind Peter, who is a first century

51:48

Jew, who

51:51

understands the cultural practice

51:53

of the day. Yeah. Andrew,

51:55

what's on your mind? I was thinking, too, what's

51:58

interesting about. The

52:00

gospel the gospels and the epistles that we have

52:02

is the uniformity of even like the teaching

52:04

of doctrine like it's all very uniform

52:07

It's cohesive. It flows together the

52:09

thoughts make sense There's no contradictions

52:12

on who Christ is what the gospel

52:14

is what our salvation is But

52:17

in terms of these lost quote-unquote gospels

52:19

like the gospel of Mary or the gospel of Peter

52:21

gospel of Thomas Are they uniform

52:24

right? Are they actually cohesive in teaching

52:27

altogether the same thing or? Is

52:29

every single one of them contradicting to

52:32

the other one right because you would you'd think that

52:34

the gospel of Thomas? Unless a

52:36

woman makes herself a man right and then but

52:39

then we have the gospel of Mary Well,

52:41

she probably shouldn't have a gospel unless Mary became

52:43

a man or something and then had

52:46

some you know Something to

52:48

say about Jesus so in these lost

52:50

gospels is there uniformity between them

52:52

or are they all contradictory?

52:54

No, there's no uniformity between

52:57

them because the Gnostics were a very fragmented group

53:00

and so that they're not

53:03

Necessarily corroborating with one another

53:06

Which is something we don't see with the gospels

53:08

either. But um, yeah, one

53:11

of the things that have been highlighted by

53:13

individuals Like that

53:15

there have been some scholars recently

53:18

like Lydia McGrew who's done a good job of this

53:20

in her in her published

53:23

books on Undesigned

53:26

coincidences in the gospels which looks

53:29

at the The background

53:31

details to the gospels and how they actually

53:33

fit within one another to

53:36

to confirm the evidences of

53:40

what's going on

53:42

Because So let me back

53:44

up so an undesigned coincidence

53:47

is an instance when you have one or more

53:49

independent historical account and they

53:52

and

53:55

They interlock in such a way that

53:57

would be unexpected if the simply

53:59

were the

53:59

were simply fabricated wholesale.

54:02

So a good example of that is the feeding of the 5,000 because

54:05

the feeding of the 5,000 is in all four gospels. So

54:09

if you go to the feeding of the 5,000 story in John, John

54:13

says that a large crowd was

54:15

coming towards Jesus and so

54:18

Jesus turns to Philip and asks

54:20

where they might buy bread. And

54:22

this might be a question, Andrew, you've never

54:24

asked yourself, but why did Philip

54:27

or why did Jesus ask Philip where to buy bread? Yeah,

54:31

that was a great question, isn't it? Yes, it is, yes. Yeah,

54:35

so, but actually Philip is

54:37

not the character who would

54:39

actually make sense to buy bread because

54:42

Matthew was a tax collector. He would have

54:44

had an understanding of

54:46

the economic situation of the area.

54:49

Judas has said to have hold the money bag. So

54:51

he would have had the know-how

54:54

of what the group had so that when they went to

54:56

Starbucks, they would have been able to get

54:58

their chilates and spend the

55:01

absorbent amount of money that cost,

55:03

right?

55:05

But

55:06

if we go from John to the

55:09

Gospel of Luke, it

55:12

says that on their return, the apostles

55:15

told Jesus all they had done and he took

55:17

them and withdrew to a part of a town called Bethsaida.

55:20

So Luke doesn't tell us

55:23

that Jesus asked Philip, but

55:26

he tells us that actually the location

55:28

of the event happens in Bethsaida.

55:31

He tells us the, not the who, but

55:33

the where of the situation.

55:36

Well, if we actually go back to the Gospel

55:38

of John and we go to

55:41

a little later after the story of

55:43

the feeding of the 5,000, it says

55:45

that a bunch of disciples came to Jesus,

55:48

or they came to Philip rather, who

55:50

is, and it says from

55:52

Bethsaida and Galilee, that's John 1221,

55:56

and asked them, sir, we wish to see Jesus.

55:58

So it's very interesting. When we ask

56:00

the question, in the story of the Feeding

56:02

of the Five Thousand, why would Jesus ask

56:06

Philip where to buy bread? Well,

56:08

if you read the Gospels in tandem,

56:11

you actually find out that

56:14

Philip was a local.

56:15

But you only find that out

56:18

when you put the pieces together and

56:20

figure out that

56:24

when you look at the details,

56:26

that the Gospels don't necessarily

56:28

tell you outright. So these

56:31

background details, what are called undesigned

56:33

coincidences, are something that say a

56:37

detective is looking in a case where they have multiple

56:39

eyewitnesses of a singular event. These

56:41

are found all throughout the Gospels, and

56:44

Acts actually as well, where you have

56:46

background details that fill

56:48

in the gaps. Why would Jesus ask Philip? Well,

56:50

it's a question that you might not ask yourself, but actually

56:53

another Gospel tells you that Philip was

56:55

a local. And then John tells you that

56:58

this event is happening in Bethsaida. So when you actually

57:00

read them in tandem, you find out Philip

57:02

is actually the most...

57:06

He's the character that Jesus should

57:09

be asking, because

57:11

he's from that. That's his hometown. So

57:14

when Jesus asked, where should we buy bread, Philip would

57:16

have actually known. Well, these are things you don't

57:18

find in the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Peter,

57:20

the Gospel of Mary, because they're

57:23

not worried about these kind of

57:25

ancillary details that fill

57:27

out the story. They're

57:30

worried about the very bare bones, and

57:32

sometimes they actually get these details wrong, because

57:35

like I said before, they're not being written in the places

57:37

that they're purporting

57:38

to write in. So you

57:40

don't find undesigned coincidences in

57:43

the apocryphal and Gnostic Gospels.

57:46

So, wow. I'm going

57:49

to have to listen to this after and post-production

57:51

a couple of times, just because that's a lot of information.

57:54

It's just informative, because like I said,

57:56

the average person, even Christian,

57:58

don't really truly... understand this

58:01

stuff sort of stuff and then when you don't understand

58:03

this and all of a sudden you get place of this objection It's

58:06

very easy to kind of go into fight-or-flight mode

58:08

and like oh no like what is I never heard these

58:10

extra gospels Like how do I deal with this? How do

58:12

I wrestle with this? But um Just

58:15

so like two other gospels this came

58:17

up in the article and what was the first one

58:19

was the gospel of Mary Magdalene There's

58:22

that but then there's another one too. It's called the gospel

58:24

of Judas and I've never read

58:26

the gospel of Judas Part means like well that

58:29

seems kind of dark that obviously that didn't

58:31

really have a happy ending So I wasn't really sure

58:33

well that that sort of account would be

58:35

but what do we know about those two gospels?

58:38

Yeah, you'll find

58:40

that

58:40

these other gospels They

58:44

they don't choose the characters that are associated

58:46

with the inner circle of Jesus And one of the reasons

58:48

for that is they're kind of working as the antithesis

58:51

to individuals like Matthew and John

58:54

and they're almost portraying

58:57

that the Orthodox community

59:00

is wrong and that they've kind

59:02

of Dispurged the actual

59:04

individuals within the early Jesus community

59:06

that you should center around like Judas,

59:09

right? Judas was the one who

59:11

betrayed Jesus. Well, what if actually

59:13

Judas wasn't the bad guy

59:15

in the story? What if he was actually one of the good guys?

59:18

So let's center around that

59:21

but the problem with that is once again

59:24

All these gospels are late

59:26

The gospel of Mary is coming around 400

59:28

AD

59:30

So,

59:31

you know the fifth century is a long time

59:33

after Mary ever

59:36

lived the gospel of Judas is

59:38

coming around no earlier than the late

59:40

second century Probably 180 to 350

59:42

AD so between

59:45

the late second century and the mid

59:47

fourth century So we're not dealing

59:49

with something that actually gets you to the

59:51

historical time frame of Jesus So I

59:54

routinely say when people bring these

59:56

things up first, you should ask them

59:58

if they've actually read them Because

1:00:02

one, I think, more

1:00:05

than a necessary way

1:00:07

to deal with these issues is to say, okay,

1:00:10

you read them and you come back to me and

1:00:12

tell me why they're not in the Bible. Because

1:00:16

they're so crazy and they make absolutely

1:00:18

no sense. People think that because

1:00:21

the gospels contain stories of miracles,

1:00:23

that, well, that's obviously fabricated. But

1:00:25

then you go and you read these and you're like, I can't make

1:00:27

heads or tails of these. Well, that's on

1:00:30

purpose because they're designed to be

1:00:32

full of secret knowledge. They're designed

1:00:34

to be incomprehensible and actually, if you're

1:00:36

enlightened, you understand them. And

1:00:39

that's kind of the crux of the

1:00:41

Gnostic gospels, is that they're confusing

1:00:44

on purpose. And so

1:00:47

anybody who's actually read these, who says they

1:00:49

understand them, is

1:00:50

probably a liar. But giving

1:00:53

them the benefit of the doubt,

1:00:55

if they've read them, which they probably haven't,

1:00:57

they probably realize, well, this isn't purporting

1:01:00

to communicate history to me. This

1:01:02

isn't like the gospel of Luke who's saying that

1:01:05

he's writing an orderly account

1:01:08

from eyewitnesses who came before

1:01:10

him. That preface

1:01:12

to the gospel of Luke is very clear

1:01:15

in his purpose and thesis statement, that

1:01:17

he was not an eyewitness, so he's going

1:01:19

to

1:01:20

interview and record

1:01:23

eyewitness accounts. But

1:01:25

that's not what we find in the gospel of Mary

1:01:27

or the gospel of Judas. What we're finding there

1:01:30

is secret knowledge

1:01:32

that's supposed to unlock your divinity,

1:01:35

but it's very, very confusing. The

1:01:37

gospel of Mary isn't actually purported to be written

1:01:39

by Mary. It's about Mary,

1:01:41

which is where it gets its name from. But

1:01:44

it's not actually claiming to

1:01:46

be written by Mary, which actually the gospel

1:01:48

of Judas and the gospel of Thomas are. But

1:01:52

even though it's divulged

1:01:55

that there's problems with it, because

1:01:58

the gospel of Thomas, the first

1:02:00

line of the Gospel of Thomas says that these

1:02:02

were written by Thomas

1:02:05

Didymus, and

1:02:08

it uses those two

1:02:10

words as its title.

1:02:13

Well, Thomas in Greek

1:02:15

means twin, and Didymus in

1:02:17

Coptic means

1:02:19

twin.

1:02:20

So whoever wrote the Gospel of Thomas

1:02:22

didn't realize that Thomas's name

1:02:24

already meant twin.

1:02:26

And

1:02:27

so he's saying it twice. It's

1:02:30

like saying, you know, I, Wesley Wesley

1:02:32

wrote this. It doesn't really make any

1:02:34

sense. Twin, twin. So

1:02:36

yeah, twin, twin. So it

1:02:39

already, it already red

1:02:41

flags itself as someone who

1:02:44

doesn't understand Greek, who doesn't

1:02:47

understand what that name means. And

1:02:49

Thomas,

1:02:50

the actual Thomas, as a twin,

1:02:53

would almost certainly have known

1:02:55

what his name meant.

1:02:58

And Andrew, do you have

1:03:00

any thoughts as well, too, as we're starting

1:03:02

to rev up here?

1:03:04

No, just talking about this, just I keep

1:03:06

thinking about, just because of the context

1:03:08

of where I live, I just keep thinking about Joseph Smith in

1:03:10

the book of Abraham. I know it's a little bit

1:03:12

different, but just

1:03:15

how there's red flags that

1:03:18

just stick out in terms of forgeries,

1:03:21

or when

1:03:23

there's something that's just blatantly untrue,

1:03:25

it usually will manifest in

1:03:27

some way in the writing itself

1:03:30

from supposedly translating

1:03:33

ancient papyri, but then finding out

1:03:35

that what was supposedly

1:03:37

translated

1:03:39

from an

1:03:40

account of Abraham was something totally

1:03:42

different. It just seems like this

1:03:44

is almost the same thing. It's not, of

1:03:47

course, a translation of a papyri,

1:03:49

but it's falsely ascribed

1:03:51

literature, in a sense, where it's just not,

1:03:54

it just doesn't make sense in

1:03:56

the, I don't know,

1:03:58

the long scheme of things. This is where my brain just keeps

1:04:01

thinking about it. It's very interesting how a

1:04:04

lot of these accounts that are untrue,

1:04:06

they just can't

1:04:08

really hold any water really. There are so many holes

1:04:11

in them. So that's just kind of what my brain is thinking

1:04:13

about. Yeah, I think as someone

1:04:16

who focuses on this area, time and time

1:04:18

again, the manuscript evidence,

1:04:20

the internal evidence, the external evidence is

1:04:23

constantly verifying for me

1:04:25

the reliability

1:04:27

and the verisimilitude,

1:04:29

that's a big word, but it just means the

1:04:31

appearance of truth, the verisimilitude

1:04:34

of the biblical gospels

1:04:36

and the outing of these others.

1:04:40

And this doesn't stop in the ancient

1:04:43

world. The gospel of Jesus' wife

1:04:45

is a 21st century forgery. The

1:04:47

secret gospel of Mark is a 20th century

1:04:49

forgery. The gospel of Barnabas is

1:04:52

a 15th century forgery. So

1:04:54

it's not like the ancient world

1:04:57

is the stopping point for people

1:04:59

trying to put words on

1:05:01

the lips of Jesus. This goes right up

1:05:04

to the 21st century, to

1:05:06

our own day, where

1:05:07

Harvard academics are

1:05:10

falling for this stuff. The

1:05:12

gospel of Jesus' wife was a

1:05:14

big embarrassment for

1:05:17

Karen King and Harvard University,

1:05:20

where she was fooled by this

1:05:22

fragment that was a legitimate

1:05:24

ancient fragment that someone had basically

1:05:27

forged a text on top of. And

1:05:30

so these things happen. But

1:05:33

the question that comes back in my mind

1:05:36

as a historian is, okay, I

1:05:38

want to know about Jesus. I'm

1:05:40

sticking my life on Jesus. What

1:05:43

are the sources that get me back to him?

1:05:46

And whether we're dealing

1:05:48

with the ancient world or the modern

1:05:50

world, or every time we put a shovel

1:05:52

in the sands of Egypt, I

1:05:55

go to Egypt and I suffer

1:05:59

through that heat. And all I'm reminded

1:06:01

of is the confidence I have

1:06:04

in the text of the Bible and the fact

1:06:06

that these books get me back to

1:06:09

the time frame of Jesus and

1:06:11

the words of our Messiah

1:06:14

who was the Word

1:06:16

made flesh to dwell among

1:06:18

us. And I can have confidence in that.

1:06:21

Now, thank you for saying that, man.

1:06:24

I was going to ask you this question, but you already answered it,

1:06:26

is that the person in

1:06:29

that article, you know, he mentioned how the

1:06:32

discovery of these papyrus

1:06:34

in Egypt that shook

1:06:36

the foundations of Christianity, the secret

1:06:38

political conspiracy that had been secretive

1:06:41

for centuries and all of a sudden has been exposed.

1:06:44

But in contrast to what he's, that

1:06:46

person was articulating as someone who

1:06:49

has actually been to Egypt

1:06:51

and is actually handled, like physically

1:06:54

handled like the original manuscript of the

1:06:56

Gospel of Thomas. Like you can say with confidence,

1:06:58

no, this actually just confirms

1:07:00

my faith all the more, which goes to show

1:07:03

that this is truly,

1:07:05

like I said, we deal with this stuff from a Christian perspective

1:07:07

mainly because in contrast to

1:07:09

cults where it's, hey, you

1:07:11

can't question that, this is a dogma that can't

1:07:13

be questioned. And it's like, no, actually

1:07:16

when you take those, these questions,

1:07:18

objections, and you do have

1:07:20

to wrestle through it sometimes, and even

1:07:22

sometimes it can be like a little scary. I

1:07:25

know like times where I was in college and I got my

1:07:27

world religions professor brought objections

1:07:29

to me and I was like, Oh no, like what's that? I got to figure

1:07:31

that out. But when you wrestle through it

1:07:34

and you come out the other end, there is this like

1:07:36

awesome confidence that comes out of it. And

1:07:39

so I'm hoping that's what people would take away that, you

1:07:41

know, these claims that get articulated

1:07:44

by people like Lex Friedman, like S&L Lex

1:07:46

Friedman podcast or Joe Rogan

1:07:48

or all the big

1:07:51

talkers and the digital area, I guess,

1:07:53

is a different podcast way larger

1:07:55

than ours. Like when you actually dig

1:07:57

through these claims, they don't. Add

1:08:00

up to the just the basic

1:08:03

Fundamental level like how do you figure out

1:08:05

what? Reliable history is in regards

1:08:08

to primary sources and all this. I mean this has been

1:08:10

such an encouragement. I really appreciate it

1:08:12

Yeah, I mean you don't need to go to

1:08:14

Nagamata You don't need to go to Armenia or

1:08:17

Cairo or ox or ink us or Jabbar al-tarif

1:08:19

to discover that when when

1:08:22

you look at the gospel of Thomas and

1:08:25

you read these are the secret sayings

1:08:27

with the living Jesus spoke and which

1:08:29

Didymus Thomas Judas wrote down

1:08:32

you don't need to

1:08:34

be there to see that actual

1:08:36

document and and Worry

1:08:39

about it because the

1:08:42

reality is the

1:08:44

biblical gospels are the words

1:08:46

of Christ

1:08:47

they are and

1:08:48

So it you don't need

1:08:50

to travel to Egypt although I was you know Is

1:08:53

it is an honor to do that and

1:08:55

stand in the places where these things were discovered?

1:08:58

But it doesn't it doesn't take that

1:09:00

kind of trip It doesn't take that kind

1:09:03

of even seminary education the words

1:09:05

of Scripture have been handed

1:09:07

down faithfully to us by

1:09:11

individuals whether they're Christian

1:09:13

or not who are have

1:09:16

taken the time to do

1:09:18

that faithfully and so

1:09:20

we can have confidence in that as Christians

1:09:23

standing 2,000 years down the road and

1:09:26

so whether it's the New Age person

1:09:28

claiming that the Gnostic gospels

1:09:30

are that which holds secret truth

1:09:33

or whether it's the Muslim claiming

1:09:35

that the gospel of Barnabas actually holds

1:09:38

a Secret knowledge

1:09:40

that Jesus was never crucified Whatever

1:09:43

it is. I think you

1:09:45

don't have to deep dive Although

1:09:47

I would encourage you to I would simply

1:09:50

say you know the the crux that all this comes

1:09:52

down to is the Earliest

1:09:54

source material that gets us to Jesus

1:09:57

or someone who knew Jesus are

1:09:59

the 27 books of the New Testament and

1:10:01

specifically the four-fold

1:10:04

gospel canon of biographical material

1:10:06

on Jesus. It is the on upstarts,

1:10:09

it is God-breathed, it is communicated

1:10:12

to the life of the believer and

1:10:14

has the message of truth

1:10:17

that can save you from your sin. Amen,

1:10:20

I appreciate that man and just real quickly

1:10:22

where can people go and again find you if they want

1:10:24

to find out more about you and all your adventures

1:10:27

and adventures to come regarding Egypt

1:10:30

and everywhere else where can they find you

1:10:35

all your whereabouts where you are and what's

1:10:37

in store?

1:10:39

Yeah I hope there are more adventures to come but

1:10:42

yeah WesleyHuff.com and ApologeticsCanada.com

1:10:46

that's where we'll be dropping

1:10:48

all the information and the three

1:10:53

series that we're going to be releasing on

1:10:55

Can I Trust the Bible where we show

1:10:58

that documentary of us heading out to Egypt of looking

1:11:00

at these places and and reading these

1:11:02

firsthand sources and telling those stories

1:11:05

and giving you confidence that you can

1:11:07

trust what you have when you hold

1:11:09

a modern English translation is a translation

1:11:12

of what was originally given by those authors and

1:11:15

so WesleyHuff.com I have

1:11:17

videos I have infographics and I

1:11:20

appreciate so much you guys being willing

1:11:22

to have me on and let me

1:11:25

platform that. Your guys's ministry

1:11:27

is also a big encouragement

1:11:29

to me as a regular podcast

1:11:31

listener. Awesome thank you so much man we appreciate

1:11:34

that we'd love to have you on again so all that being

1:11:36

said I appreciate you all listening

1:11:39

and supporting us all that being said we will

1:11:41

talk to you all next time on Cultist where we enter into

1:11:43

the kingdom of the cults talk to you guys soon. you