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- [00:00]
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- [01:17]
Bob
When it comes to the existence of Jesus, the arrest and arraignment of Jesus, trial of Jesus, his crucifixion and his burial in the tomb, and even the emptiness of the tomb, all of the parties involved agreed yes, that's true. So you know when people say, well I didn't know if Jesus really existed? Or do we really know he was crucified? Or do we really know he died because you know, like Romans weren't good at knowing when they had successfully crucified somebody. Those are just non questions for scholars. And I'm talking about skeptics who don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Jewish scholars, agnostic scholars, non believing scholars of different kinds. They all say, I mean up to the tomb was empty. Everybody agrees.
- [02:30]
Sola Media Announcer
Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Sin, a weekly roundtable discussion about theology and culture.
- [02:50]
Justin Brierly
The skeptics of Christianity are not all the same, and neither are their questions. There's a sharp, data driven skeptic who wants to know if any of the Bible is actually true. And there are the secular readers of history who find themselves almost against their will, unable to explain the world without Jesus. I'm Justin, the Bishop of the Diocese of Central Florida and professor of theology at Reform Theological Seminary. And I'm joined with the usual hosts of Whitehorse Inn Lutheran Pastor Bob Hiller, Baptist theology professor and Pastor Walter Strickland, and Reformed Professor Mike Horton. And together we're going to watch clips of Stephen Bartlett from the diary of a CEO and the historian Tom Holland. Two very different men circling the Christian faith from two very different directions and ask what a faithful and charitable response to each of them might look like.
- [03:43]
Wes Huff
Thinking of that is that this is like citing your sources. At one point when Jesus is carrying the cross to Golgotha, he kind of stumbles, and they get another person to carry his cross for a little bit. And that person is Joseph of Arimathea. Well, one of the Gospels names one of Joseph of Arimathea's son by name. And the thinking is that this is probably someone who's well known within the early Jesus community. And the purpose of naming that person randomly is to say, he's actually well known. Go ask him.
- [04:19]
Stephen Bartlett
I mean, logically, there's quite a risk of Chinese whispers to some degree. As you were speaking, I was trying to think about things that I experienced when I was younger, like with my grandmother before she passed away, and I was trying to accurately recount those memories. I was thinking of going to her house. And then I remember one day she gave me some money, but. But I can't remember what she gave it to me for, and I can't remember how much she gave me. I know she put it in a card. And this was only like, 20 years ago.
- [04:43]
Wes Huff
Yeah.
- [04:44]
Stephen Bartlett
And so if I was to write about that today, I would be filling in some gaps. Especially this is the other thing that I always struggled with is, like, especially in a world where we didn't understand science. Now, my grandmother put it in a card, and it was like I opened it. And the way she did it was often as a surprise. So in a world where I didn't understand physics or science, I might have concluded that my grandmother did something magical at a time when we didn't understand anything about really much about the nature of the universe and planets and the solar system and physics. So is that a risk that some of the things that have been transmuted via God into this book in front of me are prone to Chinese whispers and. Or just a lack of understanding about the nature of the world. Like the Resurrection, for example. Yeah.
- [05:29]
Wes Huff
So this is, in my field, referred to as mythological drift. So how do we factor in making sure that mythological drift doesn't happen? I think there are a couple things related to what you said. First off, I think I would be careful in trying to ascribe the ancient world as being pre scientific and therefore largely say, ignorant. I mean, even when the angel comes to Mary in the Gospel story and says, you're gonna be with child, Mary's objection to the angel is a scientific one. I haven't met the minimum requirements of how babies are made. Therefore I can't be pregnant. Right. So she's not dumb. Right. She's not just at face value accepting that, you know, well, I believe in angels, and so, you know, this kind of magic thing can happen. She's still objecting scientifically, even though she might not have the terminology to understand, like the complexities of childbirth and embryology and all of that. So I would say, you know, this is what the writer C.S. lewis calls chronological snobbery that he says we need to be careful of not to ascribe the ancient world as being more ignorant and stupid than just because we are a product of the Enlightenment and we understand scientific things.
- [06:41]
Stephen Bartlett
Now.
- [06:42]
Justin Brierly
What's interesting is the example he gave was an individual example of his grandmother giving him a card. And that works. If you use an individual example like that of something that's actually. It's a card. It's not that big of a deal. It's not terribly memorable. So it's an individual moment, that of a. Not terribly memorable but special and important versus comparing that to something like a public crucifixion of a person who claimed to be the Messiah and said that he might rise from the dead. It would have been better if you use an example of, like your wedding day. That was a big deal. And I was married. My wife and I were married in 2006. Me talking about who played what song, what the song was like. Yeah, I might miss out. What was the order of the people who were in the wedding party, and exactly what were all the hymns? I'm not really sure. But guess what? There were witnesses, eyewitnesses, about 500 eyewitnesses of the very thing of that wedding day that I could go to and ask about, and we could actually compile together what reality was that jumped out.
- [07:49]
Walter Strickland
Well, and the assumption that a tradition that was oral was incapable of passing down a narrative, they were actually more capable. Exactly. So we haven't used the muscle of passing down a narrative in that way. This is the one who is raising people from the dead. This is the one who is doing miracles. And, I mean, he created a lot of fuss. So when this one, this. This God man dies and then rises, I mean, I think there's. There's a lot of people chattering about this. I mean, we don't have to get us. You know, we get into Luke, was it 20, 24. They're walking, they pass Jesus, they're all sad, and he's like hey, what's going on? He's like, like basically, haven't you heard? Yeah, you know, Jesus is dead in all those things.
- [08:35]
Bob
So are you the only one in Jerusalem that hasn't heard this?
- [08:37]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah.
- [08:38]
Walter Strickland
So everybody was talking about this. And so to your point, granted I didn't have a wedding that had 500 people at it, but people remember my wedding. And that's not even the death and resurrection of the Messiah.
- [08:50]
Bob
Well also I think, you know, the Chinese whispers is kind of a take on David Hume's argument that of the big fish story. You know, the, the further you get from the original location and time of its, of its current, the bigger the fish gets. So you know, I, I might, you know, my son might correct me when I say yeah, it was four pounder, like two and a half pounders. But the further I get away from it, I keep telling the story, it gets bigger and bigger. That's what Hume said happens with religious stories. And I think that that is generally you can say that you'd have to look at case by case and each religion do it justice. But what's different in this story is the maximal claim. He has risen, the tomb is empty. Was made in Jerusalem like a week and a half after it happened. So it didn't have time to become a big fish. The biggest fish was present right at the beginning. And the very fact that the Romans felt obliged to put up an inscription, imperial inscription on Jewish tombs saying the death penalty is for people who rob tombs within eight years of the resurrection in is also significant. And it was called the Nazarene inscription. And Romans cremated. So this was targeting Jews, particularly Nazarenes in the precincts of Jerusalem not long after Jesus was crucified. There are certain things you can't unremember and one is sticking your hand in Jesus side when you're doubting. And, and here again it's not like suddenly in 1956 we all became doubters of people rising from the dead. The disciples, the men didn't believe, the women when they came and brought the announcement. And Thomas went so far as to say I won't believe until I couldn't put my hand in your side. Just as the case with Mary and the angel. There was no difference between their incredulity at the resurrection and our incredulity at the resurrection.
- [11:22]
Peter Williams
That nt Wright's line, isn't it? He says it turns out it didn't take the enlightenment for us to figure out that dead people don't come back from the grave.
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Justin Brierly
I Believe that.
- [11:31]
Peter Williams
I do think one thing is worth. I think his illustration is fantastic. My grandmother gave me an envelope with money in it. So what is his. I guess my question to him is, what is his actual argument? That there's no reliable detail in the New Testament at all? Well, that argument doesn't prove that. What that argument proves is I don't remember all the details over a significant event in my life. But the claim of the New Testament is that Jesus is risen from the dead. Like you said earlier. I remember I got my wedding day. I don't remember all the details. Well, the argument would go like this. I don't remember all of the details from my wedding day. Well, therefore, you didn't get married. No, no, wait, hold on. I don't remember maybe all the details. Details of what went on at the Resurrection, but I do remember that the resurrection happened. I don't remember all the details of my grandmother giving me an envelope with money in it. Well, did you get an envelope with money in it? Well, yeah. So there's something that stands out there. Now, just real quick with this then. If I'm the sons of Simon of Cyrene, I happen to remember my dad telling me that story every stinking afternoon. I was the guy who carried Jesus Christ. Guys, it's your dad, the cross carrier. Like, I do remember that particular detail because dad brought it up all the time. So Mark puts that in there, aware of the fact that there's going to be discussion about the whole account. And these are guys whose father was there and they're reliable resources. He does. I do. Like God bless. Wes Huff. I'm so thankful for this man. I love that he says, like this is basically citing his sources. Go check out the resources.
- [13:10]
Bob
And Richard Bauckham has a lot on this about why certain names are used in the Gospels. Otherwise, it seems like who cares about Alice or Tom? They're put in there. The names are mentioned because they're still alive and they're well known in that particular Christian community. You can go talk to them then. When you think the four Gospels are not four eyewitnesses, they are four research assignments where they went and talk to eyewitnesses. Of course, John was an eyewitness, but they go and they talk to the eyewitnesses, that has even more credibility, because now they have. Each of the Gospels represents who knows how many sources. It's their memories. Not just the memories of the evangelists. It's the memories of the people they're talking to. They didn't all remember the same things, but what they remembered, the evangelists could put into an orderly account.
- [14:14]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, and just to underscore the maximal claim here is that Jesus rose from the dead. The parallel that's being made in the illustration of the grandmother giving money in an envelope, that's not a significant event in the life of somebody. I mean, praise be to God, I had a grandmother who'd give me money every year for my birthday. So that happened all the time, juxtaposed with the fact that Jesus died and rose. Those are. Those are not parallel sort of pieces of information. Like, one is very simple.
- [14:42]
Peter Williams
Yeah, but he remembers it, right? I mean, he does remember the detail of that significant. That was significant enough for him to remember that it happened.
- [14:51]
Bob
The event itself.
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Peter Williams
The event itself is still taking place based off of what he just said.
- [14:56]
Justin Brierly
One last thing. It's not about this particular thing about the resurrection, but every time the Bible has been criticized or doubted, archeologically or historically, it's proven itself to be accurate, even when they didn't have the proof of it. So, like, back, you know, for Acts, they were like, oh, well, Acts says that this emperor was in charge at this time, but we all know that's not true. And then, lo and behold, they find some coins that have that emperor's little face stamped on it at the time that it was. So every time the Bible's been doubted and archaeologists and historians start, you know, dismissing it and like, oh, here's the myth, here's the fish story. It keeps on proving itself true.
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Bob
Pilots stone.
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Justin Brierly
It has stood the test of time so far, up to 2,000 years later.
- [15:37]
Wes Huff
The second thing is, I think the Chinese whispers or the telephone game or whatever you call it, is a good kind of case study. I think where it falls short is that if you play the telephone game, if you play Chinese whispers, there are rules in order to corrupt the message. So you have to whisper. You can only say it once. You have to do it one person to one person. In an oral culture, you would have been hearing these stories constantly. So when some of these stories are told, they're being told within a lifetime where there could have been individuals who say, the story of the feeding of the 5,000. That's a lot of people. So there's a lot of witnesses to this particular event. So if you're writing this down, there's an aspect of. There are people out there who could verify what is being said, at least orally, not necessarily like literarily. Likewise, what we have in the gospel accounts, particularly after Jesus death When the disciples proclaiming his resurrection, they go back to Jerusalem, which is the scene of the crime. So they go back to the exact place where Jesus was crucified and start telling people he was risen from the dead. If there is some aspect of, say, disingenuousness in making up a story, don't go back to the place where everybody could have seen that thing happen. In one sense, Chinese Whispers is a faulty analogy in that it's less like one person whispering into another's ear and more like 100 people in a room all saying, communicating the thing verbally and then getting the other people to repeat it back to them and then corroborating with the other individuals of what's going on. Now, I think your point in the story of your grandmother and the. The letter and is a good one. You know, how do we remember things? Do you remember 9 11?
- [17:32]
Stephen Bartlett
Yes, I do. Yes. And I was in the UK at the time.
- [17:35]
Wes Huff
Could you tell me a little bit more vividly what you were doing on 911 compared to your grandmother and the letter?
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Stephen Bartlett
Yes, I could. Yeah. I remember coming home from school and, like, watching it on the screen and my dad having it on the screen, and I was just looking at the screen.
- [17:50]
Wes Huff
Yeah, me too. So whereas I couldn't tell you much of what else happened during an average day in that year, I could tell you what happened on September 11, 2001. And that's because of the nature of what was going on. And I think when we're talking about the gospel stories in particular, first, you have what I genuinely believe are eyewitness accounts from at least the source information coming from a group who would have heard Jesus be preaching these things multiple times in multiple different settings, like, it's probably likely. Myself, as an itinerant, I have given the same talk on a particular subject quite a few times. And I joke with my wife that she could give my talk on the historical reliability of the Bible herself. You know, if I'm sick, I'll just send my wife. Right.
- [18:37]
Justin Brierly
First, Wesley Huff made the point that I made. I just wanted to point that out because he's brilliant and anything I can say that sounds, anything close to what he said makes me feel smarter.
- [18:46]
Peter Williams
I think you could take him arm wrestling, too.
- [18:48]
Wes Huff
Yeah, I'm sure I could.
- [18:48]
Peter Williams
Maybe Walter could.
- [18:50]
Justin Brierly
Seriously just wanted to stop for a second because I appreciate what he's doing because he's just maximizing how many witnesses. It's easy to go. I mean, just the thing about. He said about the 5,000 and the points that y' all were making previously. It's not just the 500 in Corinthians, but there were these thousands of people here, these thousands of people here, all these other people. And so it just helps with how public, you know, we did again going back to Irenaeus, that Christianity isn't a secret esoteric religion. It's public, it's not private, it is proclaimed and it's out there to be verified. And there were plenty of opportunities in addition to that. Makes me think of someone like Gary Habermas who is an apologist on the resurrection, specifically the resurrection. And his big thing, I think it was his doctoral dissertation was can I prove the resurrection using non biblical texts, Just using just basic history, Tacitus and just all the things out there. So going back to the maximal story like the tomb was empty, Jesus existed, he was dead and it was claimed that he rose again. Well again we don't need extra biblical, but it sure is cool to have those. And so just Wesley's reminding me of how many thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
- [20:11]
Bob
What's really staggering is when it comes to the existence of Jesus, the arrest and arraignment of Jesus, trial of Jesus, his crucifixion and his burial in the tomb, and even the emptiness of the tomb, all of the parties involved agreed, yes, that's true. So when people say, well, I didn't know if Jesus really existed or do we really know he was crucified or do we really know he died? Because Romans weren't good at knowing when they had successfully crucified somebody. Those are just non questions for scholars. And I'm talking about skeptics who don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Jewish scholars, agnostic scholars, non believing scholars of different kinds, they all say, I mean up to the tomb was empty. Everybody agrees. The question is, for instance, when the religious leaders say that the body was stolen, the disciples stole the body, that's great for us because what it says is the tomb was empty.
- [21:32]
Peter Williams
That's right.
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Bob
In order to steal a body. So they had to come up with some explanation. Now is that a credible explanation? Not in light of the history of what happened to a sealed tomb. When the empire was involved, they made sure people were dead, they sealed it up, somebody like Jesus, they even put a Jewish guard in addition to a Roman guard. And one of the. We know from Tacitus that the punishment for leaving your post, if you were a Roman soldier, was death. You would be crucified. So whatever frightened them enough to flee from the tomb was more frightening than thinking about the prospect of being crucified.
- [22:27]
Walter Strickland
So there's agreement on the details, but we're trying to figure out what these details mean.
- [22:33]
Bob
Yeah. What's the significance? I don't think we. I don't think we get the whole significance out of just the resurrection happened. The whole. We read the whole Bible to find out what the resurrection was, what it means, what it was intended to accomplish. It's the beginning of the new creation. But you don't get the meaning of the resurrection apart from its reality as an event.
- [23:02]
Peter Williams
You got to start with the history of the thing before you get the meaning. Yeah.
- [23:05]
Walter Strickland
Amen to that.
- [23:12]
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- [24:08]
Justin Brierly
Now, later in the discussion, the podcast host Stephen Bartlett asks Wesley Huff if he is going to hell.
- [24:16]
Stephen Bartlett
If I sin in my life, do I go to hell?
- [24:19]
Wes Huff
You don't. I mean, the answer to that is yes and no. But the.
- [24:25]
Stephen Bartlett
Am I going to hell?
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Wes Huff
Are you going to hell? Steven Bartlett. Is Stephen Bartlett going to hell? This is the clip that they're gonna put online, right? Wes says Stephen Bartlett is going to hell. I mean, here's the thing. Everybody is going to hell. Everybody. Here's how I've said it in the past, right? The Bible is very clear. All good people go to heaven. But Jesus said, no one is good but God alone. So if all good people go to heaven and no one is good but God alone, only God is in heaven.
- [24:53]
Stephen Bartlett
So do you believe that there is a hell and heaven as we sort of typically understand it, a place that is great to go to after we die and a place that is very hot.
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Wes Huff
Place that is very hot. I mean, there's a lot of imagery of, like, fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth. I think a lot of that is kind of reflective and allegorical more than. It's like a physical, tangible thing that is. You know, most of our perceptions of hell are largely shaped by depictions in the Middle Ages of Dante's Inferno and that kind of thing. Right. I think it's more so that
- [25:31]
Tom Holland
you
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Wes Huff
will experience the full weight of the separation from God's goodness. Not necessarily a separation from God, because I think God's punishment and his wrath are going to be felt there. But if we're talking about, like a good place, bad place, in the very simplest of terms, yes. But heaven isn't full of good people. Heaven is full of people who understand they are not good enough. And so I mentioned that, like, justice, mercy thing. Justice is fulfilled on Jesus. So because justice is fulfilled now, mercy, which is not getting what we do, deserve, is able to be given to those who put their trust in Jesus.
- [26:13]
Stephen Bartlett
So if I don't believe in Jesus and I don't believe in the Bible, but I live a good life, I'm nice to people, charitable, try and be kind wherever I can be, and I don't believe in God, am I going to hell or heaven as it relates to the Scriptures?
- [26:30]
Wes Huff
Well, I don't think if you're living your life rejecting God, God is not gonna force you into his presence.
- [26:37]
Stephen Bartlett
So you. I'm not gonna go into heaven. I'm not gonna go to heaven then.
- [26:41]
Wes Huff
No.
- [26:41]
Stephen Bartlett
Where am I gonna go?
- [26:43]
Wes Huff
Well, you would go to hell.
- [26:46]
Stephen Bartlett
So if I don't believe in the Bible, Jesus and God, then I'm going to go to hell?
- [26:51]
Wes Huff
Yes. Insofar as if heaven is a place for those who have submitted their lives to Jesus, who are living the identity of what they're created to be and said, you will be done, God.
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Stephen Bartlett
Yeah.
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Wes Huff
Hell is a place where God says, you rejected me. Your will be done. I'm going to give you what you want in that I'm going to remove my grace and mercy from you, and you are going to experience truly what you desire in being separated from me and my goodness and my grace.
- [27:25]
Stephen Bartlett
And what is that place like, according to the scripture? Give me a depiction in my mind of what hell might be like for me.
- [27:32]
Wes Huff
Yeah, I mean, it's not a good place. It's not a nice place. It's a place that no matter what's going on, if you are a believer, if you truly understand what this book is saying, seriously, I think it should motivate you to want to desire. Stephen Bartlett. I desire you to have a personal relationship with your creator. Because I don't want you to experience whatever hell is. I desire for you to be in perfect relationship with your God. Not necessarily because I want you to get out of hell free card, but because I actually think that in living how God created you to Be in accepting, living out the image that you bear, you're going to find the meaning and purpose that you ultimately have expressed that you have this innate desire for.
- [28:31]
Peter Williams
All right, So I think for that conversation, that was a very thoughtful and engaging and good way of saying what he just said. There's a great story from Gerhard Ferdi about one of his vicars who went. Who was doing Lutheran World internship up in New York. And the church where this vicar was working happened to be where Woody Allen shot some movies. So Woody Allen apparently is quite the theologian. So they get to talking and this occur. She got to know Woody Allen quite well, I guess, in theological conversation. And at one point they're having this conversation and Woody Allen said to her, you know, the thing is, I mean, I think it's great. I think it's really interesting. I just can't believe it. And she goes, so what do I. What do you do? She comes back from her internship and says, what do you do with that? And Ferdy's line was, she should have said something like this. Finally, you get it. You're exactly right. You can't believe this. And that's what I'm here for, to tell you the good news that because you can't believe this, God sent his son to die for you and your sins are forgiven, and just give it to him. I think sometimes I think West Huff did this much better towards the end of the conversation where he's, here's how hell works and how heaven works. And finally he says, look, at the end of the day, Christ is for you. Now, I think he kind of puts it on him a little bit too much. I'm not going to split those hairs. But I do think he does at least say here, God doesn't want you to go to hell. And it's not sort of this like you just got the test answer wrong about God. Here's someone who's created you, given you everything, wants you to flourish, wants you to have a proper relationship with him, wants you to know all of the good he has for you, and you've rejected it. And he's done something about that to prevent you from continuing to reject it. So let me tell you that God in Christ accepts you, and you just flat out proclaim it. You just do the deed and hand over the goods and let the Holy Spirit figure out what to do with him from that point.
- [30:42]
Walter Strickland
That's really helpful. What West Hope was saying is basically, if you live a life that articulates that you don't want God's gifts, you're going to get a place without God's gifts forever.
- [30:57]
Bob
If you didn't want them throughout your whole life, then you won't have them ever.
- [31:03]
Walter Strickland
But what we forget very quickly is the common graces of God are everywhere,
- [31:09]
Bob
whether you embrace him or not.
- [31:10]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, beauty, the gift of peace, life, life, provision, like all those things are from the very hand of God. And so if we strip existence from those things, that's what that place is. And people have described it. He mentioned that our descriptions of hell come from the Middle Ages, Dante's Infernal and so forth. And that's true. But I think as I look around at the world that is, everything is a gift from God in an existence without these things. And the hope that comes from the Creator that gave those to us, that
- [31:49]
Bob
is Hell with God as the center. In the scriptures, God is the center in the Garden of Eden. Wherever God is, wherever he has planted his capital, life, goodness, health, joy, peace, justice, all flow from it. That whole plot of land is holy and it's flowing milk and honey. When the Spirit fills the temple, the temple, all of God's goodness and glory spreads from the temple out into the land and the people. God's presence means flourishing. Wherever God is in the midst of his people, there is joy and happiness and peace. But whenever the people profane the sanctuary, God no longer keeps his presence there and it is overrun by marauders and finally destroyed, as the temple was twice. So if we maybe think of it in those terms too, that, yeah, heaven is wherever God is, that's going to be good. It's not like heaven is a place and hell is a place. Heaven is the place where God is in the midst of his people. Obviously where God is not present in the midst of his people is Hell. It is a desert of jackals and thorns and thistles and a place of weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth.
- [33:25]
Peter Williams
I think I appreciated too that West Huff didn't cut corners. Am I going to Hell? Yeah, that's a tough. I don't like to say this to you, but I'm telling you the truth out of love. The other thing worth noting on all that is that language of weeping and gnashing of teeth when describing of hell is not a sort of, oh, this is so unfair. We had no idea it was going to be like. Like it's not. These people who are shocked that they're suffering the gnashing of teeth is anger and bitterness towards God and what he's doing towards them, which is In a sense, we've rejected you our whole lives, and we're going to continue to sort of dig our heels and even here in hell. And so it's, it's not a sort of unfair situation. Hell is ultimately justice. And that's, that's the terrifying part.
- [34:09]
Bob
Yeah, and I love the way Wes started out with, well, all of, all of us are going to hell.
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Peter Williams
Yeah, that's right.
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Bob
You know, that's the. Let's start there. If God were, if God were just to be just and not to show mercy.
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Walter Strickland
There's none righteous.
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Bob
There is none righteous.
- [34:26]
Justin Brierly
And again, this is why substitution matters so much. This is why, to answer that question, you have to proclaim the clarity of the gospel because am I going to hell? Is God forsakenness Jesus experience forsakeness? So you don't have to. Do you want that one or do you want it? I mean, he paid the bill. Do you want that gift of the bill paid, or do you want to pay that bill? And the fact of Jesus actually as our substitute, went through forsakeness, so we would have to only get God's. Yes, glory, favor and blessing. Next is historian Tom Holland with Justin Brierly and Peter Williams discussing the identity of Jesus. Let's see what we can learn.
- [35:09]
Tom Holland
But in that context of the whole question of doubt, I suppose as a historian, you can say, actually we have really good evidence that Jesus really did die by Roman crucifixion. It's something that's attested to in all four gospels. But of course, all four gospels also claim he rose again. So is that the point at which you say you don't know what to do with those historical claims, or we just have to put them to one side? I think you say it's clear that they believed that he had risen from the dead and that it took them time to work out what that meant. In fact, I mean, as far as I can tell from the relations, they're still trying to work out what that meant. And they clearly believed that something extraordinary had happened. And I think to doubt that makes a nonsense of the emergence and spread of Christianity. But, you know, the, the, the Gospels are not the only texts describing someone who lived in the early first century A.D. for instance, who, who, who goes on to become a God. So in his life of Augustus, Suetonius goes into great details about, you know, the food he liked and the kind of his sexual tastes and the kind of hat he wore and all this kind of thing. And then he says, yeah, then he rose up, he you know, he went to heaven and he, you know, he's seated at the right hand of his divine father. You know, Augustus's divine father, of course, is Julius Caesar, who's also a God. And you go, yeah, whatever. I mean, just because. Just because you have. You have the life of an extraordinary person, who the person is writing that life says becomes a God, I don't think serves as evidence that that person did become a God.
- [36:48]
Bob
I think that there's a big difference between Suetonius saying that Caesar's son ascended to the right hand of Caesar and the Bible saying that Jesus rose to the right hand of the Father. First of all, because in the Roman world, Caesar was God. Caesar became divine, and when he died, he ascended and was worshiped. But what happens here is God becomes flesh, not from earth to heaven, but heaven to earth becomes flesh, and he's eternally begotten by the Father. And furthermore, the people who believed in the resurrection of Jesus were Jews, not Romans. That came later. The first people who believed, for the most part, in Jesus were Jews. They had absolutely no entertainment of any idea of Caesar being divine. They were strict monotheists. And so for Jesus to be raised from the dead was not a mythological kind of something you couldn't verify. It had to have been a tangible, bodily resurrection for it to have fulfilled what the prophets had promised that Jews were looking for. So, yeah, in a Roman world, you could have made all kinds of parallels and so forth, but there's no parallel. As importantly, the uniqueness of the event was not a claim that people couldn't
- [38:49]
Justin Brierly
verify,
- [38:51]
Bob
but one that they could and that even Jewish historians like Josephus could recognize as, on the face of it, a Jewish account of something that actually happened in Jerusalem.
- [39:06]
Tom Holland
Shouldn't we make a distinction between, say, a Roman or a Greek context in which you don't have a bound set of numbers of gods, and a Jewish context in which there's only one God. And it seems that Christians kept on the monotheism of Judaism and then identified Jesus as that God. And that's the really extraordinary thing to be having something like in Philippians, where a bit of Isaiah is quoted where it says, you know, every knee will bow, that he'd be given a name above every name, where it's quoting the Old Testament, where God says to me, every knee will bow. And I think it's that sort of thing which is going on, which is so different. And I think you've talked about this thing where isn't it extraordinary that Jesus tells stories in which he is the king and he is the judge of the world. And that's a really weird thing. He's not just someone who comes out with really amazing sayings. He also has this, I think you call it a high view of himself.
- [40:07]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah.
- [40:09]
Tom Holland
Although in many ways, of course, he is the humblest. He is the servant of servants. I mean, I think you can sense in the Gospels a very coherent sense of what Jesus thinks is going on and what his role is. And his role is to proclaim the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. And what the kingdom of God exactly is. Is kind of mysterious in the Gospels. But clearly what it is not is something that has any truck with the. The temple cult of the Judeans or the temple cult of the Romans. Jesus is equally silent before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate. And he rejects the claim of both of them to be the representatives of a divine order that is manifest in earthly power. And I think it's that. That. That sense of a kind of division between the world of God, the world of Caesar, the world of the temple, that is so radical and so full of potential for the future. And I think that in that sense, he is properly proclaiming a radical sea shift in the way that certainly people in the Christian world will come to conceptualize pretty much everything. And that is a really, really profound sense that you don't have to believe that he's the Son of God to recognize that he is preaching something that is seismic in its implications. Augustus also, you know, hit the idea of his divinity and the divinity of Caesar. I mean, that is also kind of quite radical in the context of the Roman world, because it's making manifest in a way that people can perhaps instinctively understand the process of change from a republican system of government to an autocratic imperial system of government. And so, again, you can see how at exactly the same time that the Gospels and Paul's letters and so on are preaching a recalibration of how believers in Christ should understand society, humanity, and the relationship of the earthly to the divine. In the Roman imperial context, the stories of the divinization of Julius Caesar and of Augustus and in due course of. Of Claudius, likewise channeling profound changes in the way that the Roman world functions and how people understand the society in which Romans lived.
- [42:50]
Peter Williams
So here's what's interesting. Jesus is equally quiet before Pilate and before. Before the Sanhedrin read the Book of Acts. Jesus is clearly Paul. The disciples are talking about a God who cannot be contained in temples anywhere. Okay, fair enough. How come this thing takes why is it then, I mean, Jesus is quiet before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate, and then they kill him, and then why would it go anywhere else if he's dead somewhere? What happens so that that message starts to take over and change people's lives and drive disciples, drive Jews out to start changing their days of worship and spreading this message? What is it that takes place? Something must happen between that time of Jesus for Pilate and the Jews and the spreading of the church that changes things. What is it that brings about the change if it's not the resurrection? You've got to have an explanation of something else, right?
- [43:43]
Bob
And moreover, the disjunction that Tom Holland makes between Son of God and preaching, the kingdom that changes the world, which he's documented so well, can't exist. So let's say he's not the Son of God, not the eternally begotten of the Father, no incarnation. He's just another man. You're not going to have two things. You're not going to have Jews en masse. Not en masse, but a sizable number of Jews leaving the temple. The temple was their only lifeline to forgiveness before God. They weren't going to leave the temple, their very sense of Jewishness. And secondly, they're not going to follow this crazy guy who's talking about a kingdom that doesn't actually have a throne anywhere on earth. And then third, they're not going to be crucified for it. They're not going to die for it. You'll die for all people. Die for all kinds of cults, all kinds of weird beliefs. They'll die for it if they think it's true. People don't die for causes they know
- [44:58]
Justin Brierly
aren't true in Jesus's identity. This annoyed me. He called himself the Son of Man, which is Judge of the Universe, Lord of the Sabbath. So to be like, oh, yeah, he wasn't modest. Yeah, of course he wasn't, because he was the King of the universe who made everything. And it's like, go ahead, go further with that line of thought, that little chuckle because C.S. lewis talks about liar, lunatic, Lord and guru, all that kind of stuff. So that was one thing, but the other piece was going back to the silence. He's actually misreading what's happening. And I think it's the irony, because in the garden, Jesus says, who are you looking for? And so we're looking for Jesus. I'm Him, I am He. And they all fall back. He was presenting himself, and he was the irony of being With Pilate and Pilate doing his thing, and Jesus being quiet is. Here he is. I mean, that is a beautiful moment of Jesus being like, I'm not answering you. Who do you think you. His silence was huge.
- [46:02]
Bob
His silence was so that he would go to the cross.
- [46:05]
Stephen Bartlett
Right, Right.
- [46:05]
Peter Williams
Which is what he came to do.
- [46:06]
Justin Brierly
Exactly. And then the final. The biggest picture that Jesus was actually in control was the sign above Jesus. This is Jesus, king of the Jews, said, I got to change that. He claimed to be. And you have Pilate saying, I've written what I have written. Jesus was the king who was in charge the entire time by giving his life away. He came to die. And he said, when I am lifted up, and this is Calvin, there's no more stately throne than the Roman cross that he was lifted up on. When I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. And so he's separating two things that actually belong together, that he's the one who's bringing the kingdom. It's not some ethic. That's the kingdom ethic. It's the king has brought the kingdom, and it's in the proclamation of who he is and what he's done.
- [46:53]
Bob
And can I just say one last thing on a positive note? I think what's so encouraging about Tom Holland here is it seems to me, I'm not an expert on Tom Holland, but that he seems to be moving. He seems to have moved somewhat from earlier views, and I think it's very instructive that he acknowledges Jesus was crucified, he was buried, and the earliest Christians believe that he was raised from the dead. So then the next step is, if they believe Jesus was raised from the dead, but they knew he wasn't, why did they get themselves killed?
- [47:45]
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