Ep 141: Did Jesus Fulfill Prophesy?

00:00>> You're saying they couldn't find the clite.

00:04I'm just going to say that's delightful.

00:09>> Look, they were hiding, they were up under a cleft.

00:14>> It's not always easy to find, it's not their fault.

00:18>> Oh, gosh, it's a good thing my wife doesn't listen to positive.

00:23>> Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:32>> And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:33>> And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access

00:37to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation

00:42about the same.

00:43How are things today, Dan?

00:45>> Riding high, just having fun, getting out into the world.

00:51>> No, not right now, right now I'm sitting in a podcast studio, coming to you live from

01:01Data Over Dogma Studios here in even a lot.

01:04>> In lovely downtown Salt Lake City.

01:06>> Salt Lake City, Utah.

01:08>> All right.

01:09>> I'm fine, how are you, Dan?

01:11>> I'm doing all right, I'm getting over my post-SBL, what do they call them, con cruds.

01:20>> The con crud, yes.

01:22The convention sickness that I pick up, always managed to pick up, usually probably in an

01:28airport on the way home from- >> I think they call it conclave, is what

01:32they call it.

01:33>> They made a movie about that, didn't they?

01:36>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:38But yeah, other than that, it's a lovely-ish, very cold day here, but the sun's out at

01:44least, I guess.

01:45>> Yeah, man.

01:46>> Yeah.

01:47>> And you know what I hear?

01:49>> I hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too.

01:53It is, for us now, in this part of the temporal plane, the holiday season, it is.

02:02Others may be listening, you listener at home may be catching this a different time

02:06of year, but for us right now, it is the holiday season.

02:10And so, as is our want, or want, if people want to get weird about it, we're going to

02:17talk about Jeebus and his birth.

02:20>> It's the time of year where we've got to confront some of that ever-present misinformation.

02:28And we've done this many times in the past talking about things like why December 25th

02:34talked about, we've talked about no room at the inn, we talked about stuff like that.

02:39>> Which turns out, there's not even an inn.

02:41>> There's no inn to speak of, yeah.

02:44>> Why would there be room there?

02:45It doesn't make any sense.

02:46And we may actually, in this episode, I will warn people, we may cover some ground, or touch

02:51on some ground that we have hit before, because it's one of those things where, I don't know,

03:01sometimes you got to hit some things that you already talked about.

03:04>> There are only so many passages in the Bible that discuss Jesus' birth.

03:08>> But I think we got some fun angles to talk about.

03:11>> Yes, we're going to take issue with, this is mostly just apologetics, we're going to

03:17take issue.

03:18>> Yeah, yeah.

03:19>> But right, like the whole show's going to be apologetics.

03:22But our first taking issue, we're going to get on to Ken Ham's website.

03:27>> Ken Ham.

03:28>> And we're going to go over to answers in Genesis, and we're going to see if the birth

03:32of Jesus actually fulfilled prophecies from the Hebrew Bible.

03:38>> And then in the second half of the show, and it will be an exact half, too.

03:45You watch.

03:46Numerically, work it out.

03:47I want you guys to make sure that you hold us to this.

03:50>> Okay.

03:51>> We're going to do sorry apologetics, or sorry apologetics, in which we will talk about

03:59some of the objections that people have raised, Dan, to your claims on the media of socials.

04:07>> Yes.

04:08>> Yes.

04:09>> So that'll be a lot of fun.

04:10>> So that'll be a lot of fun.

04:11>> I am out here to ruin Christmas for everybody, and so a lot of apologists have said, "No,

04:15here's the story, and we're going to talk about those claims."

04:20>> Yeah.

04:21Yeah.

04:22All right.

04:23Well, let's dive in with taking issue.

04:29And we're taking issue this week with, as we said, answers in Genesis.

04:34There's an article written by one, Dr. Tim Chaffee, and earlier, what you guys at home

04:40don't know, is that Dan immediately dove into, "Where's that doctor from?

04:47Do I need to call out now whether that doctor title is deserved or not?"

04:53Whenever people make a big deal of including doctor on their names as, in their credits

04:59for articles, and particularly blog posts and stuff like that, it always raises the red

05:06flag, because there are a lot of folks out there who insist on being called doctor, like

05:11Dr. James White, it's hilarious how much people insist on referring to him as Dr. James White,

05:20and he does not have a legitimate doctoral degree, so it's always just a red flag of

05:26mine.

05:27>> Sure.

05:28Well, it is a theological seminary that awarded this doctorate.

05:35It is, as far as I can tell, accredited.

05:37So I have nothing to say about the credentials of the good doctor, but we will have some things

05:46to say about whether or not the birth of Christ fulfilled a bunch of prophecies because that's

05:53something that related to a claim we hear all the time.

05:55Oh Jesus fulfilled 300 plus prophecies, and you know, the chances of that happening are

06:00buh.

06:01>> Or infinitesimal.

06:02Yeah.

06:03Well, they're significantly better if you craft the story so that he does fulfill this

06:08problem.

06:09>> And that's one of the things that you have to bring up every time people talk about that

06:14because the fulfillment is found in the same book as the prophecies.

06:20So it's like Harry Potter fulfilled a lot of prophecies as well.

06:25As long as you just keep the scope internal to Harry Potter.

06:29>> Right.

06:30>> And so--

06:31>> It's harder to make Harry Potter fulfill the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, but I'm

06:34sure we could find a few.

06:36>> I'm sure we could find a couple, but yeah, what we're talking about is somebody writing

06:41about Jesus in a way that makes the story fulfill prophecy.

06:47And one of the reasons that this is the best interpretation of the data is precisely because

06:53there's another story about Jesus' birth from another text, and it's different in most

07:01of the places where at least the story in Matthew has Jesus fulfilling prophecy.

07:07And we'll talk about that.

07:09But to start--

07:11>> Yes.

07:12>> The probably the most famous prophecy of the whole Nativity comes from the book of

07:18Isaiah.

07:19>> Isaiah, yeah.

07:20We're doing Isaiah 714.

07:21Is that the one we're doing right now?

07:23>> Right.

07:24So this is coming from probably the second half of the eighth century BCE.

07:30And a lot of whether or not this seems like a prophecy is going to come down to how it's

07:35translated.

07:37And the way the good doctor, the translation that the good doctor has here is therefore

07:42the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and

07:51shall call his name Immanuel.

07:54>> Which, by the way, we've mentioned this before, but it really blows my mind how willing

08:03they are to throw this one out there, like right out the chute, right out the gate.

08:08And we know that his name was not called Immanuel.

08:13>> Yeah.

08:14>> Like, forget the virgin thing.

08:17We're going to get to the virgin thing.

08:18I get that.

08:19But like, what the heck is going on with the Immanuel part?

08:23>> Yeah, it's not like it was his middle name.

08:26It was nice.

08:27>> Jesus, Immanuel Christ.

08:28>> No.

08:29That's not where it was like, Jesus, Immanuel Christ, you get down here and claim to me.

08:34>> Your mom, okay.

08:35>> No, yeah, that's so weird to me that they trot that one out.

08:39But okay.

08:40>> Well, and there's a reason for that.

08:43If you look in, because it's quoted in Matthew 1, I think it's in the 20s somewhere.

08:50>> 123.

08:51>> 123, okay, Matthew 123.

08:54So I've got a few different translations in front of me.

08:58King James version says, and they shall call his name Immanuel.

09:03Now if you'll notice in the Isaiah 714, it doesn't repeat or it doesn't give us a subject

09:08because it's still being governed by the subject, the virgin.

09:12>> Right.

09:13>> Shall call his name.

09:14So the mom is going to name him Immanuel according to Isaiah 714.

09:18Once we get to Matthew, it's no longer the mom who's naming him.

09:21>> Right.

09:22>> What it says is they shall call his name Immanuel, which sounds like this unnamed they

09:30may not be the parents, it may be that the followers of Jesus will refer to him as if

09:40he were God among us.

09:43So it's kind of, the author is kind of massaging things a little bit.

09:50>> I get that point of order.

09:51>> And yet it says shall call his name, even in Matthew, his name Immanuel.

09:58It doesn't say shall call him the Immanuel, shall refer to him by title of Immanuel.

10:05And by the way, no one ever does, right?

10:09No one calls him Immanuel, not in the New Testament, but we don't need exactness here.

10:15And this is one of the things that that apologists will sometimes say, prophecies are vague.

10:21And that just makes him more true.

10:22That doesn't mean it's not like they're intentionally vague so that they can be shellacked over

10:27a variety of different contexts.

10:31So I think the way that you can get around people going, well, wait a minute, his name

10:36is not Immanuel.

10:37I mean, in the same chapter, you say his name's going to be Jesus.

10:44So yeah, this is one of the fudgy ways to get around the fact that this prophecy doesn't

10:51seem to be quite on target, but that's a change that is introduced in the way that Matthew

10:58quotes Isaiah 714.

11:01But Isaiah 714 is being mistranslated here as well because it does not say the virgin

11:07shall conceive.

11:09If you go look into the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, you go look in the NRSVUE, you go look

11:17in a variety of different translations and it will use the words young woman because the

11:24Hebrew is alma, which means young woman of marriageable age, and it doesn't let you

11:33know whether or not it is in the future or in the past because it's using an adjective,

11:41which means pregnant, and so it's just saying, ha, alma, ha, ha, and then you have to provide

11:48the to be verb.

11:49And so you could technically say, well, I want it to be in the future.

11:54And that's what the Septuagint does in the Greek translation.

11:56Okay.

11:57But that adjective overwhelmingly is used to refer to either a current existing pregnancy

12:05or an imminent pregnancy.

12:08Okay.

12:09So it's usually is pregnant or is right about to be pregnant.

12:15Is it about to be pregnant?

12:16Yeah.

12:17And so is currently doing the dirty deed.

12:19Yeah.

12:20Like the pregnancy is in the post to be brief.

12:26And so yeah, what this almost certainly is referring to, the overwhelming majority of

12:31scholars will agree on this, is this is a reference to a woman who is pregnant in the

12:37time period when the author who probably is some historical dude named Isaiah from the

12:448th century BCE, knew about some woman who is pregnant and was like, look, that woman

12:51right there, she's pregnant.

12:53And then it goes on to say she will give birth to a son, which is not much of a prophecy

12:58because that frequently happens when you got a 50/50 shot on that one.

13:03Yeah.

13:04And they, and she will call his name Emmanuel.

13:08And so the, like the prophetic part really comes in the next verse where it says, uh, before

13:14he is, he shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose

13:18the good for before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land

13:23before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted because the, the king is wringing

13:28his hands over the fact that there's this, this coalition that's forming up in the north

13:32and, and Isaiah's like, enhance your calm.

13:35Right.

13:36Because this, that, that lady's pregnant.

13:38She's going to have a son, Emmanuel.

13:41And you know, before his, uh, you know, whatever euphemism or whatever idiom you want to use

13:46today to mean before he, uh, you know, grows up, uh, those, those countries are not going

13:52to be countries anymore.

13:54So relax.

13:55Uh, and that's what the prophecy is doing in Isaiah seven, 14.

13:59Right.

14:00So Matthew is the, the author of the gospel of Matthew has wrenched this out of context.

14:07Now with the help of the Septuagint's translation, cause the Septuagint wants it to be relevant

14:14to its own time and, and place hundreds of years later.

14:18So, um, it's, it's already being brought a little closer.

14:22And so Matthew has just given it one additional step.

14:25And, uh, and it should be noted that this notion that there's a virgin birth is widely

14:30agreed to be a, a posthumous secondary accretion to the Jesus tradition where you're starting

14:38to get, uh, sensitivities to, to the origins of, of Jesus, like, uh, Paul and, and Mark

14:46say nothing about Jesus's origins, except that Paul says, you know, he was born of a

14:51woman.

14:52But great.

14:53And, um, happened to most of us really sets him apart there.

14:57Yeah.

14:58Uh, so there's nothing significant about his origins until we get to the later gospels

15:03where they begin to push the divinity of Jesus's origins further and further back in time.

15:09And so the virgin birth probably developed as sensitivities about the, you know, just

15:16the nature of, of sexual desire and sexual intercourse is, is leading people to, to want

15:22a distance, the divine messiah from, uh, from kind of a natural birth.

15:27And, and we talked about the, the immaculate conception, like that's just, that's just

15:32the further teasing out of, of those concerns.

15:36Yeah.

15:37And so part of me wondered if it was, if, if the virgin birth, because I get that there

15:43were all of these new sort of sexual mores and, and a little bit of, you know, conservative

15:49ideas of sexual, uh, impropriety creeping in or what, you know, in this moment in history,

15:57but also couldn't be that it was just who the author of Matthew was trying to square this

16:05idea of the, I think I remember you saying something about the Septuagint having, taking

16:13the, uh, the, the Hebrew of Isaiah and then making it the word virgin.

16:20Is that right?

16:21So could Matthew just be trying to square it with that prophecy as he's writing it?

16:28I don't think it is solely a result of the translation of Alma as, uh, Parthenos.

16:34I, I think, I think that contributes.

16:36I, I doubt that that is the sole reason.

16:38I doubt that the author was just like, look, it says part of the house.

16:41I gotta do something about it because, um, you know, it calls Dina Parthenos in the Septuagint

16:47after she has been violated.

16:50So like, uh, and I have a friend named, uh, Rodrigo Jesusa who, uh, wrote a wonderful

16:56paper published 15, 10, 15, no, 2008.

17:01So 17 years ago, uh, entitled, uh, is the choice of Parthenos theologically motivated

17:09in LXX, Isaiah 714 or something like that.

17:12And talks about the fact that that word had some semantic fuzziness to it even back then.

17:17And so it may, it may have just been kind of like, yeah, it works.

17:22And, uh, and so the author of Matthew, I think is probably, uh, it's probably a combination

17:28of factors.

17:29Uh, and then the, the author of the gospel of Luke, I think is probably just picking up

17:34that football and running with it, uh, writing as they are after.

17:38And, and the nativity account in Luke chapters one and two, I think is probably even later

17:43than the rest of Luke.

17:44I think it's a secondary addition to the gospel of Luke as well.

17:47So interesting.

17:48I'm just coming later.

17:53Uh, I know you want to move on with this, but I do want to check in with one thing.

17:58Yeah.

17:59I, I consulted another scholar about this.

18:03We talked about this, Dan.

18:04We don't consent.

18:05One, one doctor, chat GPT and, uh, and that's called, didn't even get his degree.

18:12Uh, he's no, but he did steal all of y'all's degree.

18:16He did.

18:17Yeah.

18:18That's, uh, that's fair.

18:19So he, what he, what chat GPT said was that somehow Matthew taking these older, these,

18:30uh, prophecies and, and squirreling around with them.

18:35It was part of a midrashic tradition, uh, and certain, yeah.

18:41And so I want to know more about that or, or if, or if that's just sort of not really

18:46a thing, but like, what is a midrash and, and, and how do you clear it up?

18:51Is it a cream?

18:52What do you, well, uh, midrash comes from Darash, uh, which, which means to, to seek, uh, and

19:00so it can, it's, it's, uh, it's an approach to scripture that, that tries to, uh, uncover

19:10significance and, and meaning that is really that is relevant to the reader and, and the

19:15person engaging the text.

19:18And so, um, I think there is a sense in which it is, um, it is certainly engaging in a very

19:25dynamic, uh, interpretive hermeneutic, uh, practice that is related to, to midrash.

19:32I would, I would hesitate to say that like the authors were like, I'm going to do midrash

19:38on this.

19:39And, uh, uh, and so I, I don't think that's illegitimate.

19:44Um, I, I don't know that if I were, uh, writing about this, that, that that I would choose

19:49to focus on that, but, but yeah, I think that's it.

19:53And you're in a fight with Dr. D. G. P. G. P. G. P. G. P. G. P. G. I get in fights

19:57with Dr. Chat G. P. G. P. G. All the time.

20:00Yeah.

20:01As well as you should.

20:02As well as you should.

20:03Don't trust chat G. P. G. K., uh, straight out the barrel.

20:06Get yourself a Dan and then, uh, and then I mean, I guess what, what Chat G. P. G.

20:11said was that the midrash, the reason it said that it was a midrash was that it would, it

20:18claimed that it was normal, uh, as a Jewish interpretive technique to, to sort of take

20:25older, older scripts and, and twist them and play with them and sort of expound on them

20:32and whatever.

20:33Yeah.

20:34And so, and so to take an old prophecy that doesn't actually apply to this and then just

20:39sort of apply it would have been understood at least at the time to have been a not, this

20:45is the absolute fulfillment of this prophecy, but like look at this echo to something in

20:51the past or something.

20:52Yeah.

20:53And, and I think there's truth to that.

20:54Obviously we, we've already talked about how the Septuagint is, is fiddling with the,

20:57with the rendering itself.

20:59Right.

21:00And so, so yeah, absolutely it is, it is following in the, the footsteps of, uh, other, uh, Greco

21:09Roman Jewish interpretive practices in that sense.

21:12It's not an outlier.

21:13Right.

21:14Well, to the degree, I would agree with the notion that like everybody knew, and it was

21:21transparently just, this is how we play with the text.

21:25We're not taking it seriously.

21:26Um, I don't know about that.

21:28I, I think that, and, and, um, I, there's a, there's an argument to be had there.

21:35Uh, no, it does, I mean, it does sound like to me, to my untrained ear, it sounds like

21:41Matthew was making hard claims.

21:43Yeah.

21:44And it doesn't sound like it's like, Hey, let's just play with this a little bit.

21:47Yeah.

21:48See what we think about it.

21:49Yeah.

21:50Have fun with it.

21:51Um, and, and I don't think Dr. Chaffee is suggesting this is just their creative exegetical,

21:56uh, practice.

21:57Right.

21:58I don't think that's the claim.

21:59I think the claim is this is absolutely historical.

22:04And this is what the prophets were talking about.

22:07And this is how Jesus, uh, fulfilled all these prophecies.

22:11And that's how you can know that Jesus actually resurrected, like I, I, that seems to be the

22:17argument coming from the folks who are appealing to these things today.

22:21Right.

22:22Now, now, whether or not the original audience of the gospel of Matthew would have been like,

22:26Oh, I didn't know that was what that was about.

22:29Uh, I think that depends on the audience you reconstruct and, and so, um, I think that's

22:35a little fuzzier and also not really the, the point of what we're doing here.

22:41Sorry.

22:42Not, not to say you're going off topic, but, um, but just to say, uh, yeah, I am, I am

22:47a little lost in the woods here.

22:48So let's, uh, let's, uh, should we get back into some more, uh, let's do a few more of

22:53these.

22:54Yeah.

22:55Um, I think the, the next one that's, uh, brought up is, Oh, you, and you, Oh, Bethlehem and

23:00the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.

23:05For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

23:08That's Matthew two six.

23:09And this is obviously riffing on Micah five two, which, uh, if I can just pull it up here

23:17real quick is a, uh, is a prophecy that says, um, well, it starts in five one, doesn't it?

23:24It depends on how you divide this up, but you, Oh, Bethlehem of Ephrata, who are one

23:31of the little clans of Judah from you shall come forth for me.

23:36One who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old from ancient days.

23:41So that's the, that's the messianic prophecy as it was as it came to be understood by the

23:47time of the New Testament from Micah five.

23:51Now in the original context, this is, uh, probably pre-exilic and the expectation at

23:57the, is that there is a, there is an Israelite king, probably from the line of David, uh,

24:04who is going to arise and, uh, rule the people and lead the people.

24:10And, and there are a lot of details about what's going on in there that are still hotly

24:14debated by scholars, but nobody thinks this is actually about somebody who's going to

24:19be born 700 years later.

24:21This is about someone who is supposed to shepherd Israel, uh, prior to the exile and

24:27but this is, this is why what the reason we're bringing this up is that this is why the,

24:32uh, the, the Gospels have, has whirled this guy into Bethlehem somehow.

24:38Yes.

24:39Yes.

24:40And this is, and this is an interesting point to bring up again, Paul and, and the gospel

24:44of Mark say nothing about Bethlehem, in fact, there are only three places where the word

24:50Bethlehem ever occurs in all of the New Testament.

24:53One is in Matthew's nativity account.

24:55One is in Luke's nate, well, multiple, um, occurrences, but one places Matthew's nativity

25:01account, one places Luke's nate activity account.

25:03And then there's a single verse in the gospel of John, I think in chapter seven that references

25:09the Messiah being born in Bethlehem and the one of the reasons we think, hey, maybe this

25:16is just something that was, that was added later is because both Matthew and Luke have

25:21very different ways of getting Jesus to Bethlehem, right?

25:26Because Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth.

25:29And so both of them have to get Jesus back to Nazareth so he can be raised in Nazareth

25:35and be of Nazareth, middle name of, you know, Nazareth, Jesus of here.

25:44So they have very different ways of doing it.

25:46And if you just read Matthew, if you do not have the gospel of Luke, if you just read

25:50Matthew, Joseph and Mary are from Bethlehem and there, yeah, yeah, and they, then they

25:57take off a, Herod does his thing and they got a, they got to scramble into Egypt as refugees.

26:05And then they want to come back after Herod's dead, but Herod's son, Arcaleus is ruling

26:09in Judea.

26:10And so they've got a head north and it says they settle in Nazareth, which is not what

26:16you do when you're returning home is what you do when you're going to find a new place to

26:21live.

26:22Right.

26:23And so the gospel of Luke is entirely different.

26:25They live in Nazareth, they're just going down to Bethlehem because of this census thing

26:31that is going on that we're going to talk about later.

26:34Yeah.

26:35So the, so the why and the reason behind this is just that we have to, and for the fulfillment

26:41of prophecies sake, we have to get him to be both from Nazareth and from Bethlehem.

26:48Is that correct?

26:49Yes.

26:50He's Jesus of Nazareth, everybody knows where he came from, but we somehow got to have

26:56him born in Bethlehem.

26:58Okay.

26:59So, so we have two completely different stories about how Jesus of Nazareth was actually born

27:04in Bethlehem.

27:05Yeah.

27:06And, and that is, and, and scholars think this is probably because after Jesus's death

27:11when stories about, oh, this is a Messiah, he resurrected a game on, game on everybody.

27:17People were going, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is Jesus of Nazareth, but the Messiah

27:22is supposed to come from Bethlehem, at least last time I checked, Micah five, the Messiah

27:27was supposed to come from Bethlehem.

27:29And so the story develops, oh, yeah, nobody, nobody knows about it, but he actually was

27:34born in Bethlehem.

27:36So, so I think that's probably what's going on there.

27:39All right.

27:40Which brings up the next prophecy that, that he fulfilled, which is not actually a prophecy

27:47watch.

27:48How dare you?

27:49So, we, we go down to Matthew two, verse 18, and we have Herod, the slaughter of the

27:57innocents.

27:58Yes.

27:59Not a part of Luke, but, and that one feels like a pretty strong oversight.

28:04That one feels like, ooh, Luke, what are you doing?

28:09Yeah.

28:10And the reason all these prophecy fulfillment things are in Matthew is because Matthew was

28:14the one who was like, we got to have him fulfilling all these prophecies, more prophecies, more

28:19prophecies.

28:20And so, well, and he often is like overtly says, and this fulfilled the prophecy of X.

28:26Right.

28:27He was, he was being very overt about the whole thing.

28:29Yeah.

28:30One of the main rhetorical goals of the gospel of Matthew is to show how thoroughly and comprehensively

28:35Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecy from the Hebrew Bible, even if it's not an actual prophecy

28:40from the Hebrew Bible.

28:41Okay.

28:42So, Matthew two, 18, we get a quote, a voice was heard in Rama weeping and loud lamentation.

28:47Rachel weeping for her children.

28:49She refused to be comforted because they are no more.

28:52And this is from Jeremiah 31.

28:54And this is about the exile.

28:57It's just a lament.

28:58Right.

28:59And, and this is something that, that happens quite a bit in the gospels where they take

29:02something that is lamenting something that has already happened and they flip it and

29:08they say, oh, this is about the future.

29:10This is about this thing that just happened and, and this is, this is about Jesus.

29:16And so obviously this is about Herod killing all the innocent people in Bethlehem because

29:20Rama is not by Bethlehem.

29:25So like Bethlehem is like six miles south of Jerusalem.

29:29Rama is like six miles north of Jerusalem.

29:31So well, someone was that weeping and lamentation was loud.

29:36Yeah.

29:37So probably not that one's not as much of a bullseye as, as the others also weren't.

29:47So it's a slant prophecy.

29:53And then just a few verses before that we have, because of Herod's slaughtering of the innocent,

29:59we have Joseph and Mary grabbing Jesus and running off to Egypt.

30:05And then we have out of Egypt, I have called my son, which is another non prophecy that

30:11comes from the book of Hosea chapter 11 verse the first.

30:17And that is when Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son.

30:23The more I called them, the more they went from me, they kept sacrificing to the balls

30:28and offering incense to idols.

30:30So this is about Israel coming out of Egypt with the Exodus and just not being able to

30:37figure out, keep those dirty balls out of your mouth.

30:41Keep your balls to yourself, man.

30:43You don't know where they've been.

30:45So another, another thing that is not really a prophecy, but is something that the author

30:50of Matthew, and certainly this is something that you see in a lot of biblical hermeneutics

30:57and a lot of biblical exegesis is just see resonances.

31:01Oh, this is just like this thing that happened over there, boom, prophecy roasted.

31:07It gets to be a prophecy, even though it was never understood that way.

31:12Is your understanding of this one, because it is confusing why Matthew sent them to Egypt

31:19when nobody else talks about him going to Egypt or do other people talk about him going

31:23to Egypt?

31:24I don't know.

31:26So like, is it your understanding that Matthew took this Hosea and was just like, I'm going

31:32with that.

31:33I'm just going with it and just threw it into the story.

31:36It's so confusing to me because you're right out of Egypt.

31:41I called my son is very clearly a reference in Hosea to, you know, to the people of Israel.

31:51I don't, it's so weird to me, why, why, why put him in Egypt?

31:57I think it's part, it's a pretty complex constellation of events that Matthew has constructed here,

32:03but you need to get Jesus, Jesus to Nazareth.

32:07Luke has Jesus, or at least Jesus parents, starting in Nazareth, Matthew does not.

32:12So how do you get him to Nazareth?

32:14Well, if you have him leave, then you scare him out of Bethlehem.

32:19Yeah, you scare him out of Bethlehem.

32:21He comes back, but he can't resettle in Bethlehem.

32:25Right.

32:26You need him in Nazareth.

32:27Okay.

32:28Well, you have Arkelaus ruling in Judea, but guess what?

32:31Arkelaus was not ruling in Galilee.

32:32Okay, we can get Jesus to Galilee.

32:35That's how we get him to Nazareth.

32:36He's, he's got to leave, come back when Herod is dead, but then because somebody else took

32:43that part of Herod's kingdom, then Herod's direct line is no longer ruling over Galilee.

32:49We can have them settle in Nazareth.

32:51Okay.

32:52Where's he going?

32:53Why is he getting out of, of, uh, Bethlehem?

32:56Oh, let's get him to Egypt because we've got this passage that says I have called my son

33:01out of Egypt and let's get him to Egypt because of Herod slaughtering of the innocent.

33:07Like it's, it's a very complex, um, procession of events, but it all, it all fits together

33:14quite well.

33:15It is a, it's a dramatic story that has Jesus get from Bethlehem up to Nazareth and allows

33:23Matthew to say, Oh, prophecy, oh, prophecy, guess, guess what, prophecy, um, along the

33:30way.

33:31So, and I just had to look it up and remind myself, Nazareth is way up north.

33:36It's like, yes, 150 kilometers north of Jerusalem and Bethlehem is like right next to Jerusalem.

33:44Uh, it's like six kilometers or miles.

33:47I, I forget which one six is the number though, uh, south, south, southwest, just barely a

33:53little bit west of, uh, Jerusalem.

33:55Okay.

33:56Yeah.

33:57So, uh, like if you're standing on, uh, in a high point in Jerusalem, you can just make

34:03out one of the hilltops of, uh, of Bethlehem, if you're looking south, uh, and you know

34:09what to look for.

34:10Yeah.

34:11Um, and then we got an interesting one that, uh, God warned Joseph in a dream not to go

34:18back to Judea.

34:19So instead he took Mary and Jesus to Nazareth and Galilee that what was spoken by the prophets

34:23might be fulfilled that he would be called a Nazarene.

34:28And what I think is interesting here is, and this is another reason to think that Matthew

34:32does not have Joseph and Mary in Nazareth prior to Bethlehem is if this prophecy is that he

34:39would be called a Nazarene, why didn't Matthew say, so they went home or why did it like

34:45he has this decision to go to Nazareth.

34:49And that decision is what ultimately fulfills this prophecy, which it does not seem to be

34:55motivated by any kind of previous connections to this place at all.

35:00So, but the, the problem is there's no part of the Hebrew Bible that says he would be

35:05called a Nazarene.

35:10So that's a, that's a reference to a prophecy that we have no knowledge of.

35:14Well, and, and the there are two ways that this has traditionally been answered.

35:19And one is more common these days than the other, uh, one is that he would, uh, he would

35:25Nazarene is really supposed to be like Nazarite.

35:29Okay.

35:30And those two things, just to, those two things are not even related conceptually, is that

35:35right?

35:36They are not related conceptually.

35:37However, the way they are written in Greek transliteration is very close together.

35:42Right.

35:43So, um, but they, like there's nothing in the Hebrew Bible that says the Messiah would

35:50be a Nazarene either.

35:51Right.

35:52And the other thing is that it could be something from Isaiah 11 one, which talks about a, uh,

36:00a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

36:05And Jesse is David's father, so it's Davidic.

36:10And it just so happens that, um, the word for, um, the branch shall grow out of his roots

36:19as netsair and so the, the claim is that Isaiah 11 one basically says the Messiah will

36:28be a netsair or a Nazarene if, uh, if you like.

36:35So it's still squinting at this pretty hard to try to make a connection there.

36:42But it, and it might be that Matthew was like, we got to have a prophecy here.

36:47Come on.

36:48Something.

36:49And they were like a netsair is like, I can work with that.

36:51I can work with that.

36:52Let's do Nazarene.

36:53That sounds like he's from Nazareth, uh, so possible that there were, you know, that

36:58there was just a Nazarene prophecy going around that just wasn't that we don't have or whatever.

37:04Yeah.

37:05It could have been something that they were like, this is the gratha, the unwritten prophecy,

37:09or it could be something that was in some texts that we just don't have anymore that,

37:14that at that time, the author of the gospel of Matthew was like, I can buy that being

37:18scripture.

37:19Um, so yeah.

37:21So what we have in Matthew is a series of things that really apart from just the identification

37:29of Nazareth and the identification of Bethlehem are not in Luke, um, where Matthew is, is

37:36telling the story in, in their own unique way to have Jesus fulfilling these prophecies.

37:44And the, and the data don't support the conclusion that, that Jesus actually fulfilled these prophecies.

37:50The data, I, I would argue, don't even indicate he was born in Bethlehem.

37:53I think most likely he was probably born in Nazareth and then at long after he died, people

37:58were like, who's going to stop us from saying he was born in Bethlehem.

38:02We could say what I want.

38:03The president, um, you know, they, they were just like, yeah, we can, we can have him born

38:08in Bethlehem.

38:09And, and these are ways to tell the stories and, and ways that make it seem like you're

38:12fulfilling prophecies, even when they're not even prophecies to begin with.

38:17Yeah.

38:18So make it throw a few in.

38:20Why not?

38:21Make it feel up.

38:22It's fine.

38:23Oh my God.

38:24And so I think, uh, I think if, if you want the fulfillment of prophecy to be evidence

38:30of something, you got to do an awful lot better than this, uh, because these that like, it's

38:36easy to fulfill prophecy when you're the one telling the story.

38:39Um, and, and if your whole goal is to show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, you're a motivator.

38:45You're an, excuse me, you're a motivated crafter of a specific kind of story.

38:51Yeah.

38:52Um, yeah, I just, I just find that a stretch.

39:01Other, uh, prophecy fulfillment in this article from answers in Genesis, isn't he, doesn't

39:07even merit talking about?

39:09I mean, things like Nazareth was looked upon with scorn, uh, which, which meant that, uh,

39:16it fulfilled the idea that the Messiah would be despised and rejected of men.

39:21Yeah.

39:22Come on.

39:23Really?

39:24We're going to stretch to that hard.

39:26Yeah.

39:27Yeah.

39:28That's, that's quite a reach.

39:29But, but you know, these, these kinds of articles are not for critical thinkers.

39:33They're for people who really want to believe and just want to be made to feel like they

39:37have good reason to believe because even even some of the things in here are about, uh,

39:43like when, when we get to the, he would be called a Nazarene prophecy, like they introduced

39:48these options and it says, however, there are a few plausible solutions to this dilemma.

39:53So what is the argument?

39:55The argument is that it's plausible.

39:58Um, here are ways that we can, uh, argue that it's plausible.

40:02So it's, it's not about what's most likely.

40:04It's about, and, and I would say plausible is even a little bit of a stretch.

40:08It's, uh, it's that tiny little sliver of not impossible that apologetics is concerned

40:13to, to gin up.

40:14Well, if that's where we're going to go, if we're going to talk about that, let's do

40:18some sorry apologetics and move on to our next segment.

40:22All right, so sorry.

40:27It's apologetics.

40:28Uh, we're, we're going to get to this.

40:30Uh, you Dan sent me a document.

40:34Oh, let me pull it up.

40:35It's somewhere.

40:36Uh, here we go.

40:38Uh, and these are, give us the setup for what, for what, uh, what this is.

40:44Okay.

40:45So I, I've frequently pointed out that, uh, Luke chapter one and two, one, contradict

40:52the gospel of Matthew, but two contradict themselves, uh, and they, and they contradict

40:58the gospel of Matthew mainly in the fact that, uh, we, we've talked about some of it.

41:05Like Matthew has Joseph and Mary living in Bethlehem.

41:08They have nothing to do with Nazareth until they're coming back from, uh, from their

41:14refugee stint and are forced to go up to Galilee, uh, in fulfillment of some prophecy

41:22somewhere.

41:23Uh, so, so that's one example, uh, you know, Luke has, uh, Jesus is born in Bethlehem and

41:29they hang out.

41:30They're hanging out with family.

41:31They go to the temple.

41:32They fulfill what's required of them.

41:34And then they just mosey on back to Nazareth.

41:37Right.

41:38You do not, do not get the sense that the king is trying to murder the baby in the gospel

41:46of Luke, like this fleeing or whatever.

41:49Yes.

41:50Yes.

41:51And you know, and they're like, well, the author just didn't think it was important.

41:54It's like that is pretty profound, authorial neglect to be like, yeah, they, they went

42:01to the temple.

42:02This is really important that you know that they feel fluelled all this stuff.

42:05What about the fact that the king tried to murder him?

42:07And so they had to flee to another country, uh, no, not important.

42:11Um, so let, let's go through, uh, your, your arguments and objections.

42:16You, what you've done is you've separated this out into, uh, you've made some arguments.

42:20Yes.

42:21We're going to do some role playing here.

42:23And I'm going, I'm going to make the apologetic, uh, objection to your, to, to whatever your

42:29claims are.

42:30So, and feel free to editorialize to your heart's content.

42:32Oh, you know, I will, you know, I will.

42:36Glad to hear it.

42:38Okay.

42:39So, uh, we're going to start with the fact that the Bethlehem story is likely a secondary

42:43addition to the Jesus tradition.

42:45We've already talked about some of the reasons why, but one of them is the fact that it's

42:49never even mentioned in the letters are, uh, letters of Paul or in the gospel of Mark.

42:54And again, the word Bethlehem only ever occurs in Matthew's nativity account, Luke's nativity

43:00account and John's reference to the prophecy of the Messiah coming from Bethlehem.

43:07Uh huh.

43:08This my friend is the fallacy of the argument from silence.

43:13Yes.

43:14That is because they didn't mention it.

43:17Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

43:19Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

43:20They were not paying attention to important things.

43:25Yeah.

43:26And, and you know what?

43:27One of all the stuff we're going to go through this probably is like the least illegitimate,

43:33uh, because there is a degree to which it is an argument from silence.

43:37Yeah.

43:38Uh, now there, there is a point, uh, that a lot of people will make an argument from silence

43:42is not a fallacy.

43:43If we should have it, if we should expect to see it, if they should have mentioned it.

43:49And, and I think that that is not necessarily true, at least of the, uh, the writings of

43:56Paul, um, because Paul's not really about his temporal life.

44:01Uh, we have a passing reference to him being born of a woman, but that's serving a more,

44:06uh, a more, um, theological point.

44:08Well, I'm not even not claiming to have met Jesus.

44:13Right.

44:14Whereas, um, these, uh, gospel authors were at least the, if the authorship attribution

44:19were correct, we would be assuming that the authors had actually met and hung out with

44:24Jesus.

44:25Um, now, now the, like Mark is supposed to have just been the interpreter for Peter.

44:33So he, not necessarily, uh, new stuff, Luke is, you know, doing all this investigating.

44:39So, um, to, to a degree, yeah, we would expect them to have hung out with them.

44:44So it is true that that's a bit of an argument from silence.

44:48Mark, I think you would expect some kind of reference to this, but what's, what's interesting

44:53is even just outside of the Nativity accounts of both Matthew and Luke, they never refer

44:59to Jesus having come from Bethlehem.

45:01It's always Jesus of Nazareth.

45:03And scholars think that the Nativity account in Luke is a secondary edition.

45:08And there are even scholars who think the Nativity account in Matthew is a secondary

45:11edition.

45:12And the fact that they never, you never have a reference back to anything that happened

45:16before Jesus's baptism in any of the Gospels, apart from the Nativity accounts themselves

45:24is suggestive that the, his origins were not important to the stories that were in circulation

45:32about, uh, Jesus, it's once his ministry begins, that's when Jesus becomes relevance to everybody.

45:41And so you've got those Nativity accounts, but outside of that there, there just doesn't

45:45seem to be any relevance to Jesus's origins and certainly no indication about being born

45:51in Bethlehem.

45:53But we've talked about other reasons to think this is a secondary edition as well.

45:57So if we're just isolating that one point, I would say to some degree, Touche, um, and,

46:04and would say, but there are a lot of other things that contribute to that conclusion as

46:09well.

46:10And, and this is one of the conclusions I think is I would say is probable is most likely,

46:15but it's certainly not a slam dunk and I'm going to guess we're not going to get a lot

46:20of Touche's in this, uh, I was about to say that's the last you're going to hear that

46:24from me.

46:25So, so relish it.

46:27All right, next, uh, next Matthew and, and we talked about this in the previous segment

46:34seems to have Joseph and Mary living in Bethlehem and only later settling in Nazareth as a result

46:39of their desire, not to return to Bethlehem in light of Arkelaus's rule in Judea.

46:45Uh, but says, uh, Mr. Apologist coming in, uh, Matthew never says that Joseph and Mary

46:54were from Betla never says that they were from Bethlehem and not Nazareth.

46:59You never claims that he just, they just happen to be there then.

47:04Yeah.

47:05Yeah.

47:06And this is, this is a pretty common one and, and this is, uh, something you see in a lot

47:10of the arguments about contradictions where, you know, one resurrection story says there

47:15was an angel and then another resurrection story says there were two angels and it's

47:20like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

47:22It said there was one.

47:23It didn't say there weren't two right to say there's an angel only means there's at least

47:29one.

47:30Yeah.

47:31If, if it says there's an angel, all that means is there was at least one angel.

47:34And if it says there were two angels, all that means is that there were at least two.

47:38Could have been billions of angels.

47:39Right.

47:40There could have been angels coming out of the cracks in the rocks and they only felt

47:44it was relevant to mention one or two, um, and, and, and this is a much weaker point

47:51because as, as we pointed out, the, the narrative States pretty clearly that they are coming

47:57back out of Egypt and they're like, Oh, we can't go back to Bethlehem.

48:00I guess we got to go to Galilee and the text says that they settle in Galilee in Nazareth,

48:07which is what you say when someone is moving somewhere new, not what you say when someone

48:12is returning home.

48:13Right.

48:14If this is where they were originally from, the narrative would be different.

48:19This is not the way you describe someone returning home.

48:23Well, and that, that hit home for me when I looked at that map just for just a few minutes

48:28ago.

48:29Just because like that is so much farther away and they're, you know, they're on donkey

48:34back.

48:35If there's even a donkey, there's not even a donkey, but like when you, yeah, when you're

48:40going that far out of your way, you're, uh, yeah, that's, you, you'd mention that that

48:47was home.

48:48It does feel like.

48:49Yeah.

48:50All right.

48:51Yeah.

48:52So I don't think that objection holds any water.

48:54I think that's a pretty weak one.

48:57Okay, next Matthew has Joseph and Mary and Bethlehem until they flee to Egypt to escape

49:04Herod's killing of the innocence and only returning to settle in Nazareth after Herod's

49:08death.

49:09Luke two 39 has them peacefully returning to Nazareth after they fulfill the legal requirements

49:15related to Jesus's birth.

49:17In other words, Luke does not seem to know that they were literally chased out of the

49:21country by the king, right, and then forced to, uh, to reside in another country before

49:28returning to Nazareth.

49:30Right.

49:31And here the objection, uh, is very similar.

49:34Yeah.

49:35Yeah.

49:36It's just, well, it doesn't say that, uh, it doesn't preclude the possibility that the

49:43slaughter of the innocence happened and they went into Egypt.

49:46It just, it just doesn't mention it.

49:49Yeah.

49:50And this is the, the same kind of thing as, as earlier where you take these incongruities

49:55and suggest that a, it's just, it's dealer's choice.

49:58The awkward could have said something, but just decided not to.

50:02But again, in, in this case, that is- Luke's body was running long.

50:05He was like, oh gosh, you know, I, I just started this story, but one needs to use the

50:11editorial mind, uh, when one, if you want to craft an interesting story.

50:16Yeah.

50:17And my argument would be that is pretty criminal neglect to leave out that detail.

50:24Yeah.

50:25It's a pretty, it's a, it's such a strong detail too.

50:30Yeah.

50:31Like that's, that's juicy.

50:32That's a juicy part of the story.

50:34Oh yeah.

50:35Big time.

50:36And just chronologically, it doesn't seem to work because in, uh, in Matthew, Herod

50:41says, uh, says, when did the star appear?

50:45And then goes and, uh, has everyone two years and under killed, which suggests that this

50:51is taking place two years after Jesus's birth.

50:55So Jesus is like maybe almost two years old, if not two years old, when this is happening

51:00and still in Bethlehem and, and still in Bethlehem.

51:04So, uh, another indication that they lived in Bethlehem right in Matthew, but in Luke,

51:12it says that they, uh, you know, they had to present them at the temple.

51:16And when all was fulfilled, they returned to their own city or their own town in Nazareth.

51:23And then it says they visited Jerusalem at the Passover every year.

51:31That does not allow for one them to, uh, flee to Egypt until Herod dies.

51:39It does not allow for them to be a persona, non grata in Jerusalem for however long.

51:47It does not allow them to still be around in two years when Herod is, is on the lookout.

51:53And it also suggests that they were free to come back once a year.

51:59And so it just, it just doesn't fit.

52:01Right.

52:02It doesn't fit.

52:03Speaking of them coming from Nazareth down to, uh, to Bethlehem, why did they do that?

52:12Well, we have the mechanism in Luke is this, this notion of a worldwide census, uh, Caesar,

52:18one of the world to be taxed.

52:20So, uh, he, he, uh, told everybody they had to go to their own city to be taxed.

52:27And, uh, the point to make here is that Rome would not have issued a census requiring everyone

52:32return to their ancestral hometown to register because that one wouldn't be possible for

52:38many people would nuke the economy for months, uh, and would give the Romans utterly useless

52:45information.

52:46Right.

52:47The whole point of the census is, uh, who's living and working where so we can tell the

52:52people who are governing that place, this is how much we want from you in taxes.

52:57So, uh, the notion that, uh, you would just go wherever you were from, uh, to register

53:04is just bafflingly, just asinine, just ahistorical that would not have happened.

53:12Uh, excuse me, Dr. McClellan, but I do believe that you are, that is your real name.

53:18If that, if that's from an accredited university, that doctor, but I do think that if you went

53:26to the British Museum and looked up, uh, P London 904, the papyrus 904, you would see

53:34very clearly that, uh, that there was a Roman edict that read Gaius Vibius Maximus prefect

53:42of Egypt says the enrollment by household being at hand.

53:47It is necessary to notify all who for any cause whatsoever are outside their gnomes or territories.

53:55To return to their domestic hearth or home that they may accomplish the customary dispensation

54:03of enrollment and continue steadfastly in the husbandry that belongs to them.

54:09Hmm.

54:10Yes.

54:11So they were, they were, wait a minute.

54:16I think I see the problem of my own argument.

54:19Uh, yes, and, and that would be that this says nothing about ancestral homestead or hometown.

54:26It says your, your hearth, um, and, and this is talking about returning home precisely because

54:32people traveled, people traveled for work, people traveled for pleasure.

54:36And if they're doing a census, they want to know where you live or where your, your job

54:41is.

54:42Yeah.

54:43Where's your hearth?

54:44Get to the hearth.

54:45Uh, Ali Ali oxen free.

54:47We need you, we need you back at your hearth and, and this is unrelated to the notion that

54:53this census would require Joseph to travel to Bethlehem and the, the text says that he

55:01went down to Bethlehem because he was of or descended from the house and the lineage

55:09of David.

55:11That's not saying that's where he lived, it's saying that's where he descended from

55:18ancestrally.

55:19He was of that ancestral hometown, uh, point of order, Luke two, three says that everyone

55:27went to his own city, which suggests hometown rather than ancestral hometown.

55:34Boom.

55:35You got schooled.

55:36Yes.

55:37It does say they all went to their own towns to be registered in verse three.

55:40And then it says Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea to the

55:45city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and family of David.

55:49So here's the interesting thing though.

55:52When you go all the way down to where it says they went home, which is, uh, I think Luke

55:58two, is it 39?

56:01Yes.

56:02Uh, when they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord.

56:05So, so this is that, um, stuff in the temple with the baby Jesus and all that.

56:10And they've fulfilled everything that is required of them.

56:14They return to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.

56:19And the Greek is identical to the Greek of Luke two, three.

56:23In other words, it says everybody in verse three went to their own town.

56:29According to Luke two 39, Joseph and Mary's own town, exact same Greek was Nazareth.

56:37Oh, so if you're saying that the census only required you to go to your own town, uh, then

56:46they left their own town.

56:48Right.

56:49And they, they messed up this census somehow.

56:51Yes.

56:52One way or another.

56:53They messed it up.

56:54Yeah.

56:55So he just misunderstood.

56:56Uh, it was pretty big mistake.

56:59He's like, ah, like I showed up at SBL a day early because I thought I, I, I am on a committee

57:06at SBL and I thought our committee meeting was on the Friday and SBL starts on Saturday.

57:11And no, it turns out that there are a lot of meetings that take place on Friday.

57:15But my particular meeting had actually been scheduled for Saturday.

57:18So I showed up a day early, uh, for, because I didn't understand.

57:23So, um, so yeah, that kind of thing happens, but, uh, it's a much bigger mistake for Joseph

57:29and Mary had to, had to travel that distance while she was pregnant.

57:32Yeah.

57:33Cause that's rough. She's like, why would we have to go to our ancestral home tent?

57:38I don't know.

57:39I don't know.

57:40I just, sweetie.

57:41I don't know.

57:42I just think that's what it means.

57:45Well, do they have those new electric donkeys?

57:51I see.

57:52I see an e-donkey.

57:53Uh, okay.

57:54So, uh, we have no record of an empire wide census, uh, from anywhere in ancient Rome

58:03and they would not have conducted a census themselves within Herod's own client kingdom.

58:10Herod was a client king, very similar to the way that, uh, we, we have a lot of other

58:14countries that kind of do our bidding in the United States.

58:17And we have a long history of telling countries to do our bidding, um, we're good at it.

58:23What do you want?

58:24Yeah.

58:25And, uh, and something very similar went on then and basically Rome said, Hey, this is

58:30the tribute that you owe to us and we don't care how you get it.

58:35Just pay it.

58:36And then Herod would go around and say, give me my money, uh, and charge taxes to people

58:40based on the tribute.

58:41And obviously Herod would also one for me, one for them, one for me, one for, it would

58:46charge extra.

58:47Right.

58:48But, but Herod was in charge of figuring out how to get the money.

58:52And, uh, all Rome one wanted was, Hey, we'd like this much money from you.

58:57So yeah, there's, there's no, the notion that there was an empire wide census that included

59:03Herod's client kingdom is not supported by the data.

59:07Except for in Tacitus's annals, book seven, chapter 41, a tribe known as the say it right.

59:19See you today. Uh, did I, did I misspelled that? Yeah, it's actually the eye should be

59:27an L and the, the E should be an eye.

59:31So try again to say it right.

59:33I can't.

59:34I don't know what you just said.

59:35You say it.

59:36C L I T A E clite.

59:39Yeah.

59:40Something like that.

59:41Um, okay.

59:42I misspelled.

59:43That's okay.

59:44I just, I should have, I looked up other things.

59:47I didn't get around to looking up what that was.

59:49Okay.

59:50Uh, anyway, in Tacitus, the, the clite, uh, were required to give an account of their

59:58revenue and submit to a Roman tribute, submit to a Roman tribute, even though, uh, they were

60:04subject to a client king named Arkeleus.

60:07Yes.

60:08And this is not the Arkeleus that took over a rule of Judea after Herod died.

60:12This is Arkeleus of Capidocia.

60:13Uh, this is a different Arkeleus.

60:15So, so this is brought up and offered.

60:17That's my preferred Arkeleus actually.

60:18Yeah.

60:19But, um, this is the best one.

60:21Yes.

60:22The Arkeleus, if you will.

60:24Um, and this is brought up a lot.

60:26Um, our, our good friend, uh, inspiring philosophy quoted a, a scholar who brought up this passage

60:33as evidence that's, uh, they would have meddled in the affairs of other clank kingdoms, including

60:39imposing sensus I, sensi, censuses, um, upon them.

60:45And the problem is that's not at all what the text says.

60:49I'm going to read from a translation and then correct some of the translation and then explain

60:53what's going on here.

60:54At the same time, the clite, a tribe subject to the capidocian Arkeleus retreated to the

61:02heights of Mount Taurus because they were compelled in Roman fashion to render an account

61:08of the revenue and submit to tribute.

61:11There they defended themselves by means of the nature of the country against the king's

61:16unwore like troops till Marcus Trebellius, whom Vitelius, the governor of Syria, sent

61:22as his lieutenant with 4,000 legionnaires and some picked auxiliaries surrounded with

61:27his lines, two hills occupied by the barberians, the lesser of which was named cadre, the other

61:32Devara.

61:33It just goes on.

61:34I stopped paying attention.

61:36I don't know what I'm, I, I did too.

61:38Um, but in short, it does not say that Rome imposed a census.

61:45It says that this tribe that was subject to Arkeleus was compelled in Roman fashion to

61:54render an account of their revenue.

61:55Now here's the problem.

61:56Uh, the, it doesn't say in Roman fashion.

61:59The Latin actually says, uh, according to our mode, they were subjected to a census.

62:06Okay.

62:07Now here's the thing.

62:08If you go ask a classicist what's going on here, they will every last one of them tell

62:14you, oh, this means Arkeleus imposed a census upon the tribe that was in his own kingdom

62:23and did it in the Roman fashion.

62:25Right.

62:27And it didn't work.

62:28They objected.

62:29They ran off to the hills and then they were giving Arkeleus trouble and Arkeleus had to

62:33go, uh, Rome, can you help out here a little bit?

62:38And Rome was like, Oh, you again?

62:40Okay.

62:41Send the, uh, we're going to send Trebellius, Marcus Trebellius with a bunch of legionnaires

62:46and some auxiliaries to root out the rebels that you evidently can't handle on your own.

62:53So you're saying they couldn't find the clite.

62:55I'm just going to say, uh, that's delightful.

63:00Look, they were hiding.

63:03They were up under a cleft, um, not always easy to find.

63:07It's not their fault.

63:12Oh gosh.

63:13It's a good thing.

63:14My wife doesn't listen to Papa, um, uh, but I just realized that could have reflected

63:21negatively on me and that was not where I was going.

63:24I'm just not where I was going.

63:26I promise you not where I was going.

63:29Um, but that has nothing to do with Roman posing a census on a client kingdom.

63:35That has to do with a client king imposing his own census and trying to do it in the

63:40Roman fashion.

63:41Cause when Roman poses a sense in census, you don't say Rome is imposing a census in

63:46the Roman fashion as the, as those Romans are ones to do.

63:51Yeah.

63:52You just say they impose a census because they, of course they're doing it in the Roman fashion,

63:57but no, this was a client king doing it as the Romans did, um, like they do on the discovery

64:03channel.

64:04And so, um, it was, this has nothing to do with that.

64:08So yeah, there, there are apologists who will bring this up and it is profoundly misguided.

64:12Yeah.

64:13And that brings us to the final.

64:15Let's, let's do this.

64:16Wait, wait, wait, wait.

64:17We're, we're running long here, but now this, this, this could go on forever, but Luke

64:22two, two claims that the census took place when Corinneas, I'm going to say that name

64:26again.

64:27Cause I slurred it.

64:28Corinneas governed in Syria.

64:30And that would be a reference to the census overseen by Corinneas when he was legged in

64:35Syria, starting in six C.E. after Herod Arkeleis deposed was deposed, excuse me.

64:42And Rome took over direct rule of Judea and needed to know how to text the region.

64:46Yeah.

64:47Okay.

64:48So, uh, the objection you've given me, uh, involves a word that I, I just say pro T or

64:58pro T. Okay.

65:00We're not crushing our throats here.

65:02No, no.

65:03Okay.

65:04So, uh, the objection is Luke two, two uses the word pro T, which can mean earlier or

65:11before.

65:12So the passage should be translated.

65:15This was the registration before Corinneas began to govern in Syria.

65:22And, uh, the problem here is that, uh, pro T, it's actually spelled slightly differently

65:31when it's used to mean earlier or before, uh, is followed up immediately after by a noun

65:38or a participle, uh, or, uh, a phrase that is in the genitive case.

65:46And that is not what we see in Luke two, two.

65:50So there, there are scholars who have been like, yeah, this is, while it's not an, uh,

65:55you know, utterly impossible reading, it is not a plausible reading.

65:59And it's clearly just apologetic in origin.

66:02It is just an attempt to sidestep the fact that Luke two, two would have to have this

66:09census and Jesus's birth dating to six CE, which directly contradicts Luke one, which

66:17has it occurring during the reign of Herod the greater, very shortly after his death in

66:24four BCE, a full decade before Corinneas took over rule.

66:29So, uh, yeah, that, that objection also does not work.

66:33It's not the weakest of all the objections here, but it's far from a plausible objection

66:40to the recognition that Corinneas, uh, had nothing to do with Syria or any census anywhere

66:45near the reign of Herod the Great.

66:48All right.

66:49Well, there you go.

66:50Uh, Apollo, sorry, apologists, uh, you're sorry apologetics don't seem to be cutting

66:56it this time, but next round, they're going to come through with some hardcore stuff.

67:02Oh, I'm sure they will.

67:03You better, you better be getting down to fight and wait so that would, so that because they're,

67:07uh, they're coming for you, uh, friends, thank you so much for tuning in.

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