Pints With Aquinas - Did Jesus Christ Bodily Resurrect from the Dead? Dr Robert M. Price VS William Albrecht

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Dr. Robert Price and William Albrecht debate the resolution, Did Jesus Christ bodily resurrect from the dead. BIG Thanks to our sponsors: Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Exodus 90: https://exodus...90.com/matt/   Format: Opening Statements: 15 Min each Cross Examination: 20 Min each Audience Questions: 30 minutes Closing Statements: 5 Min each   Bio's Dr. Robert Price is a Biblical scholar. Price is the author of a number of books on biblical studies and the historical roots of the Christian faith. He is considered a leading scholar on religions. He has participated in over 30 live and moderated debates. Price is currently the editor of the Journal of Higher Criticism. Learn more about Robert here: https://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ William is an international speaker and debater and has participated in over 65 live and moderated debates. William is the author of The Definitive Guide to Solving Biblical Questions About Mary: Mary Among the Evangelists & The Secret History of Transubstantiation: Pulling Back the Veil on the Eucharist. William runs a website dedicated to the Early Church Fathers that includes unique translations, articles, commentaries, and debates on the Fathers: https://www.patristicpillars.com/  

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, welcome to pints with Aquinas. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like pints with Aquinas and want to support us, you can do that in one of two ways by supporting us on locals or Patreon. If you go to pints with Aquinas.com slash give it'll let you know there what you get in return. Thanks. Good day, good day, good day and welcome to pints with Aquinas.
Starting point is 00:00:20 My name is Matt Fradd. I'm in a different setup today. So forgive any weirdness that may take place during this fantastic debate. The debate resolution is did Jesus Christ bodily resurrect from the dead? And it'll be between William Albrecht and Dr. Robert Price. Shabir Ali had to withdraw for health reasons,
Starting point is 00:00:42 but let me give you a little bit about what's going on here. So Dr. Robert Price, first of all, is a biblical scholar. He's the author of a number of books on biblical studies and the historical roots of the Christian faith. He is considered a leading scholar on religions. He has participated in over 30 live and moderated debates. Price is currently the editor
Starting point is 00:01:01 of the Journal of Higher Criticism, and you can learn more about him by clicking the link in the description below. He'll be arguing in the negative that Jesus Christ did not bodily resurrect from the dead. William Albrecht, who we've had on the show before, is an international speaker and debater and has participated in over 65 live and moderated debates. William is the author of the definitive definitive guide to solving biblical questions about Mary, is the author of the definitive guide to solving biblical questions about Mary, Mary among the evangelists
Starting point is 00:01:26 and the secret history of transistentiation, pulling back the veil on the Eucharist. William runs a website dedicated to the early church fathers that includes unique translations, articles, commentaries, and debates on the fathers. Again, the link is in the description below. So the way this is gonna go,
Starting point is 00:01:42 there's gonna be two 15-minute opening statements, cross-examination each of 20 minutes each, and then we'll have audience questions, which will principally be drawing from those who support us on Locals or Patreon and Super Chats, 30 minutes, and we'll have closing statements for five minutes each. Before we get underway,
Starting point is 00:02:01 I wanna say a massive thank you to Hello. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Hello.com slash Matt Fr Fradd click the link in the description below to learn more about hello It is a prayer and meditation app that will help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ They've got fantastic Meditations for every day of lent that have been read to you by people who have played Jesus Christ say in the passion And in the chosen Jonathan Rumi Really good stuff and it's a fantastic app I highly recommend you download it when you download the app there's some free material
Starting point is 00:02:30 but if you want to get access to the entire app for at least a month to just try it out go to hello.com slash matt frad h a l l o w dot com slash matt frad to learn more. All right. All right. All right. Nice to have you both on the show. Thanks very much guys. Let's just jump into it here. Um, sorry. There's one of those awkward things that I said would happen. All right. Um, so we'll start with your 15 minute opening statement. William, again, we'll be debating whether or not Jesus Christ bodily resurrected from the dead. So unless you have any initial comments, let me know and I'll click start whenever you start. Good to go. Y'all able to hear me though?
Starting point is 00:03:15 Yes, sir. Great. Okay. Let me hit. I am ready now. Thank you very much for that. There are a number of historical pillars that we can cover. One particular fact that I like to emphasize a lot when talking about the bodily resurrection of our Lord is the fact that major scholars agree, indeed the earliest historians, philosophers, enemies of the faith, agree that Christ was executed by crucifixion, which is a truth shown forth in the Gospels, the New Testament writings, and the Jewish and pagan historical sources. The enemies of the faith, such as Salsus, Marcus Fronto, Porphyrios, and others,
Starting point is 00:03:56 mentioned that Pontius Pilate executed Christ by crucifixion, and Lucian of Salmosata attest to the historical truth that Christ was indeed crucified. The evidence points to the fact that Christ was killed by crucifixion. But today we're not going to be talking about the crucifixion. We're going to be talking about the bodily resurrection of our Lord. Is there any evidence within Holy Writ, within sacred scripture and early testimonies, whether it be of the enemies or of those, they're a part of the phaser. Now, one thing that I appreciate about my opponent and friend today, indeed good friend Dr. Price, is that we both don't care for what the majority of scholarship
Starting point is 00:04:40 has to say. Indeed, we don't. Indeed, I reject a lot of liberal scholarship. So I'm going to be taking a very classical traditional approach when it comes to the bodily resurrection of our Lord. I believe the Bible to be inerrant. I believe the scriptures are inerrant and I believe this truth was held up by the early church unanimously. And that is the key pillar of the discussion today, particularly in examination of the letters of St. Paul and the early church writings. We'll focus on the eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ and hopefully we'll have a friendly discussion
Starting point is 00:05:15 when we have our cross examination back and forth. But I'd like to begin with what many people deem a creedal statement from St. Paul. St. Thomas Aquinas called it kind of like a tract statement. I'll go with that. I prefer that much more than the usual, uh, adopted creedal statement that people say, even though of course it is put forth in a creedal type of manner, the early church would have called it a tract. One Corinthians is, we begin in chapter 15, which is massively important for us. St. Paul says, now I would remind you brethren, in what terms I preach to you the gospel
Starting point is 00:05:52 which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast unless you believed in vain. Now I know we're about to get to the contested portion of it, but it's massively important that we read. He says, for I delivered to you as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that it was raised in the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12th,
Starting point is 00:06:19 then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep, referring to some that have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. Now what do we take, what can we gather from this incredibly important account from St. Paul? We gather a massively important historical force put forth. As one Thessalonians points out, the early Christians and Jews for that matter held fast, meaning held consistently to divine traditions that were handed on. This meant that they were not all either
Starting point is 00:07:06 confined or preserved on some kind of parchment or in some old dusty book, but rather that the divine tradition, that divine paradoxes was taught universally, this is what Paul is setting down, and was held fast to. Saint Paul presents the historical message of the bodily resurrection in the most important manner possible. And he relays it in his writings after it was already known through all the churches. But I think one question that will be raised today will be how was Christ raised in the writings of Saint Paul
Starting point is 00:07:41 and perhaps any other writing in the New Testament? Bodily, or simply immaterial manner. in the writings of Saint Paul and perhaps any other writing in the New Testament. Bodily or simply immaterial manner, Saint Paul tells us that our bodies will receive life just like Christ received life. In Philippians 321, Paul says, the Lord Jesus Christ who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself. Paul's emphasis on the Somatites thought saints in Philippians 321, the glorious body is a theme we find all throughout the gospels as well as the book of Acts where the sermons are replete with the teaching on the empty tomb and the bodily resurrection of Christ. In the book of Acts, as we will
Starting point is 00:08:25 hopefully get time to look at, it's very important, in the Book of Acts, St. Peter preaching on Pentecost gives a very clear reference to that empty tomb of Christ. It's a very clear one, and perhaps one of the most important ones we hear when we go to church and we hear it being preached from the pulpit, one that was preached from all the pulpits by the early church, those closest to the time of Christ, those that were taught and trained by the Apostles. And Acts 2, there's a stark contrast that is put there between Christ and David, Jesus Christ. David was dead, was buried in a grave, but Christ died and was also buried in a tomb. Although the text really leads us in one direction. It tells us David's tomb is still with us.
Starting point is 00:09:11 In Acts 2.29, David is still in his tomb, but Christ experienced his bodily resurrection. He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption. He was raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, we're told. Again, as I said, the contrast I need to emphasize again is clear. Christ is not in the tomb anymore. David saw his flesh corrupt. Christ did not. That the early witnesses believed in a fleshly bodily resurrection
Starting point is 00:09:41 is highlighted by the usage of sarts in the passage. Literally, the flesh did not see corruption decay. Jesus was still in the tomb, as tomb was a huge part of the theme of St. Peter's preaching here. If his tomb was not empty, then he indeed would have seen corruption as David did. This is an important contrast that was seen in the early churches, evinced in the earliest apostolic writings and their commentary on this very passage.
Starting point is 00:10:11 Hopefully later on we'll get a chance to talk about the more than 500 that tends to be contested quite a lot. And I want to give my friend Dr. Price credit that Christians, Catholics, evangelicals, they must provide a good response to these questions that either non-believers or people that are on the fence want to know about. What about the 500?
Starting point is 00:10:36 These appearances, by the way, we have incredible testimony of the fact that these truly did occur in the writings of those early church fathers, which we'll be hearing about later. But the appearances in Scripture are attested in an incredible fashion. The appearance to Saint Peter is attested by Saint Luke and Saint Paul. We find that in 1 Corinthians 15.5 and the Gospel of Saint Luke 24.34. Simon Peter was the first of Christ's male disciples to see the risen Christ. The Gospels mention doubt when Jesus appears to his followers after his resurrection in the terms of some doubted, but there are appearances there. So this is incredible how there's connection in Matthew 28, 17, Luke 24, 37 to 38, and Mark chapter 16.
Starting point is 00:11:30 The appearance of the women is, we can be fond of the gospel of St. Matthew and the gospel of John. Now, why would I bring up all of this testimony that verifies previous testimonies brought up in the various scriptures? It shows the very fact that this connection, this historical truth is testified to by multiple authors in incredible fashion, which
Starting point is 00:11:53 if anybody were to put this under scrutiny to examine it, we can see a very clear trend here, that the appearances are clearly testified by multiple authors, some of course in a very different manner with different languages as my good friend here Dr. Price knows. St. John wrote his Greek differed greatly from the other Apostles so they had their own unique style of reporting some of these appearances nonetheless they all speak of the bodily appearances of our Lord and Savior. In 28-9, in particular, Mark, in the Gospel of Matthew, excuse me, he tells of an appearance to the women after they left the tomb.
Starting point is 00:12:41 An appearance, by the way, echoed in the Gospel of Saint John and Mark. In John 20, where one after another, Peter and the beloved disciple, even Mary Magdalene's disciples and Downey Thomas encounter the risen Jesus, we are shown this incredible testimony brought forth, very powerful. Now, one thing that I did mention was that I don't rely on liberal scholarship to paint a portrait for my face. I trust the writings of the early Church Fathers much more. Great scholars such as the great St. Jerome Historians who I think were much more a student erudite than people such as Gerd Ludemann or even a person that we both know personally, Dr. Bart Ehrman. But nonetheless, you have these scholars, not all of them believers, that will tell you things like Dr. Ludemann. It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the
Starting point is 00:13:32 disciples had experiences after Christ's death in which Jesus appeared to them as a risen Christ. Now, I don't think these appearances are merely vision, and I think that would be very difficult, very difficult position to take. Indeed, there's no indication that these were mere visions. The Greek used in the Gospels and in the New Testament would be particular if these were mere visions. Bar-Ehrman says, we can say with complete certainty that some of his disciples at some time insisted that he appear to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead. Paula Friedrichsen, I know in their own terms what they saw was a raised Jesus. I'm not saying that they really did see him. I wasn't there. I don't know what they saw. But she notes as a historian,
Starting point is 00:14:20 they believe they had seen the risen Christ. And I'd like to point to many other unbelievers, even the father of modern science, Francis Bacon, who notes and explains it is novum organum from Christian theology that science, he says, that this is compatible in essence with it. So the belief in the resurrection was held by some of the greatest intellectuals of our time. Some of the greatest scientists, Blaise Pascal Johan Kepler, Robert Boyle,
Starting point is 00:14:48 Gregor Mendel, Michael Faraday, James Maxwell, and the list goes on and on. Are they are authorities? No, but I'm showing that even unbelievers attest to the fact that this, these testimonies, these testimonies were believed by the followers, they were willing to go to their martyrdom, they were willing to go to their death because they incredibly strongly believed that their Lord had risen from the dead,
Starting point is 00:15:16 He rose bodily, not in an immaterial fashion. And we think of, I mentioned earlier, the great church fathers. Well, who are the early church fathers? Today, I'm not going to be talking about medieval fathers. So, realizing, you know, perhaps the incredible figures like the blessed of Duns Scotus or Saint Thomas Aquinas to show early evidence of the bodily resurrection.
Starting point is 00:15:40 But when we look at such incredible figures as Pope Saint Clement of Rome, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, writing in one of them, some believe Clement wrote in the first century. Ignatius, perhaps in the early 100s, his light foot, would put that, would date that. Very early datings. These individuals were acquainted with the apostles, those that were taught and trained by Christ. Indeed, what did Saint Irenaeus tell us? He tells us that he recalls as bishops, Saint Polycarp would talk to him about hearing the preaching from Saint John about the witnesses of the bodily resurrection. You can find that in his fragmentary writings. What about 1 Clement? How did Christ resurrect? The Lord continually
Starting point is 00:16:27 proved to us that there shall be a future resurrection of which he has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruits by raising him from the dead. Pope St Clement of Rome says Ignatius' letter to the Smyrneans emphasizes where his heart lay. I salute you all, individually and together, in the name of Jesus Christ and in his flesh and blood, by his suffering and resurrection. But how did he rise from the dead, St. Ignatius says, fleshly and spiritually, in union with God and with you. Indeed, every single apostolic father, those philosophers and theologians converts that were actually taught by the disciples, taught a bodily
Starting point is 00:17:11 resurrection of Christ, the chain of divine teaching of paradoxes Paul spoke of in one Corinthians was an unbroken one. Again, I mentioned Irenaeus earlier. and to further mention it, he says, but Polycarp, he says, he talks about Polycarp, was not only instructed by the apostles and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but it was also by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church of Smyrna. Polycarp is an ancient writer that passes on the testimony from actual eye witnesses. This is incredible testimony.
Starting point is 00:17:49 To sum up these, I believe the historical evidence points to the truth highlighted by St. John when he testified to Christ telling them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And he spoke of the temple of his body for as Saint Luke says in the book of Acts, you killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And indeed we are witnesses of this. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, William. And just on time. That's always very impressive to me. All right. So we have almost 500 people watching right now. So I would like to invite those 500 people to just give that like button around
Starting point is 00:18:30 house kick to the face because that will help. Hey, nice Stein. You got there, William. I want to show that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I'll put in a plug for you there, man. People can grab the grab it. I'd be coming to Patreon. Absolutely. That's very kind of you. Thank you, Dr. Price. We are so honored to have you on the show today. And obviously, this is a Catholic channel, so perhaps the majority of people watching are Christians, but I would like to invite them to listen
Starting point is 00:18:56 seriously and carefully to all that you have to say right now. Feel free to begin whenever you like. And I'll click the 15 minute. OK. Feel free to begin whenever you like and I'll click the 15 minute. Okay, I wonder if those 500 are the same mentioned by Paul and, nah, I guess not, probably not. I just think it's important, helpful maybe for people to know where I am coming from and not coming from. I am not the typical subversive, militant atheist
Starting point is 00:19:27 that one would naturally expect in a debate and exchange like this. It might interest you to know, though technically it's irrelevant, that I am a Republican and a big fan of Donald Trump. I do not care for the left who are destructive and ruining our culture. So I want to get that straight. I also do not hate religion or the Bible. In fact, I love all the religions. I love the Bible, and all my work is really aimed at elucidating the Bible, which I love.
Starting point is 00:20:08 I am no longer an evangelical Christian. In fact, some could argue with some justification that I don't qualify as a Christian at all, though I am attending an Anglican church. But I guess I'm kind of the loyal opposition in a way, and I found as an evangelical that the deeper I got into the Bible, which I did thanks to my fundamentalist church giving me this insatiable interest in the Bible, the more I got into it, the less I found that traditional doctrines like inspiration and fallibility and inerrancy helped and facilitated the
Starting point is 00:20:52 understanding of it. Rather these doctrines tended to to straightjack at the interpretation of the Bible and to tell us what it couldn't be saying. So we would have to rely on some sort of a statement of doctrine, whether they called it tradition or not. I often stand up for the Bible and rationalize and explain what Carpers call contradictions, which are often not, but I don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. And let's see, I would like to just note that I'm no crusading atheist in any fashion. I don't really want to belong to that community and it is of no concern to me what anyone else believes.
Starting point is 00:21:52 As to paraphrase what Jesus says to Thomas Aquempus in the invitation of Christ, who appointed you to set everybody straight? I've never forgotten that and I think, yeah, what am I supposed to be doing? I do just hope to provide, my approach is Socratic. I want to provide information and access to perspectives that people that are interested in the Bible may not have had occasion to learn about, and I urge them to make of it what they will to to construct their own synthesis, which may be a lifelong thing, but what they think about God or the lack of one or the Bible, whatever, that's, you know, up to them. Let's see,
Starting point is 00:22:48 that's, you know, up to them. Let's see. Now, as for this issue, I think it comes down to the difference, well, at least for me, it comes down to the difference, as Van Harvey wrote in a book called The Historian and the Believer, to what is the difference between the two. And on this kind of point, it seems to me that, now I could be wrong, granted, but I get the impression from much reading of apologists, I used to be historians are hampered because in most cases they came to their belief for not just inductive reasons. They weren't dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God like John Warwick Montgomery claimed. I don't think they were convinced by the evidence. In fact, in 1 Corinthians, it says that Paul eschewed rational philosophical discourse when he was evangelizing the Corinthians because he knew that no matter how good a case he made, after he left, the next month,
Starting point is 00:23:57 some representative of cynicism or stoicism or Mithraism might come down the road to Corinth and have a better pitch of the spirit and the power of the gospel, which I take to imply a kind of existential or emotional encounter with it. Well, then one becomes, some become apologists after the fact and seek to make a case that I gather Paul would not have made to try to convince them. And I don't know if they're unable to make a resounding gospel, Holy Spirit convicting pitch or what, but they seem to think they need to try to prove it. And I believe they're misunderstanding the role of historian, and that's this, as I take it. The historian has to be inductive, no matter what he or she would like to be true or believes
Starting point is 00:25:00 to be true from some other source, different experience. The historian must be inductive in method. And this means the historian is always open to disproof that whatever suggestion a historian makes, whatever quote conclusion is always going to be tentative and provisional, that you're going to say, well, as near as we can tell, this appears to be what happened. This is very likely why. But who knows? People may discover new sources.
Starting point is 00:25:36 They have, oh, I could just take the Hitler diaries, if anybody remembers those from some couple of decades ago, I guess. Somebody claimed they found these diaries by Der Fuhrer where he turned out not to be so bad a guy. Pretty bad, but not as bad as we usually say. And so, ooh, if that's true, people said we're going to have to take a second look at old Adolf. But then it turned out, no, that these were all fakes and they found the guy that did it
Starting point is 00:26:07 and said, oops, sorry about that, Hugh Trevor Roper and others said, I guess we jumped the gun, so now we'll have to backtrack. Well, that's always the danger. That's a stark example of it, but you always have to say, you know, who knows what archaeologists are going to find? We don't know what they won't find, you know, we can't predict the future. All we can do is the best we can with what we have, the evidence. And what do we do with the evidence? Well, here comes another major mark of the historian. He or she uses the principle of analogy, as explained by Ernst Trelsch, who I think really clarified this.
Starting point is 00:26:53 He said that we were not there in the past. We don't know what happened, unless you happen to have a time machine in the garage that I can borrow. But so far as I know, nobody's got one. So you have to look at the evidence as fragmentary as it may be and ask yourself, is what I'm reading, the account I'm reading,
Starting point is 00:27:18 is it something that has any analogy in present-day experience. For instance, the medieval claims that one day it rained cats and dogs literally from the sky, or that the rain was all blood one day. I've read these examples in various books, or that some guy changed into a werewolf. Just because somebody said it doesn't mean it's true.
Starting point is 00:27:51 Now if you found modern analogs where something like this was observed and documented, well then you'd have to take a second look. One example about the gospel narratives, you have a lot of exorcism stories. Do you discount those? Oh, they never happen. There's no reason to do that because you can go to certain churches today and see exorcisms. You know, you explain them as you will, that sort of thing happens. Were there healings? Well, there appear to be today, go to certain healing rallies. Some of them seem to be hoaxes, but some, no, can't explain them away that way. So this cuts both ways. And I always liked, my favorite example when I take pride and have it made
Starting point is 00:28:39 up because I'm sort of a nut and no reputable scholar would do this. Suppose you come in from a long day's work and you sit down in front of the boob tube and you turn the remote on at random. And the first thing you see is footage of a gigantic reptile crushing a city beneath his huge feet. What is your first guess? Oh, I guess I'm watching Fox News or CNN or something. I'm watching the news here. No, I mean, it's not beyond imagination that this could be footage of an actual attack by Godzilla. But you have to ask yourself, is there any known incidence of such things happening? Well, no, you're probably gonna think,
Starting point is 00:29:27 you know, I bet I'm watching the Sci-Fi channel because I know of a lot of movies where big dinosaurs in unconvincing rubber suits are made to look like a stomping Tokyo to matchsticks. Well, okay, faced with that analogy and the lack of one in real life, what am I going to conclude that it is probably? Well, it's probably a monster flick. It's probably not a real monster.
Starting point is 00:29:59 I don't know. Maybe somebody cooked one up. I'd have to check it out. But short of that, like, I have to assume it probably is a fiction. Well, in the same way, when I look at the resurrection stories, I think, are there any instances of this on record by people with, that are not axe grinders for cults and so on. I don't know if any of them even claim resurrections, but do we have modern? Believable testimony about that not that I know of but do we have ancient myths and religious narratives where various? Demigods and philosophers and messiahs and so forth die and rise from the dead well yeah there's
Starting point is 00:30:47 there's loads of those ascensions into heaven and all that i don't think anybody really thinks atis or uh romulus or any of these guys rose and ascended into heaven everybody pretty much recognizes i mean it'd be different if after ge H.W. Bush died he came back and then floated up into heaven. You say well look if it happened with Bush I guess it could happen with Attis or Jesus but we don't have anything like that. So I say to cut to the chase that belief in the resurrection of an ancient person is always inevitably going to be rendered improbable. Now that doesn't mean we know it didn't happen, that we know it couldn't happen. They always pillory poor Hume saying that he argued in a circle, he didn't. He just said given the criterion of experience of our day without which we will be prey to any scammer, huckster,
Starting point is 00:31:48 or lunatic. My pal Larry Talbot here changed into a werewolf. I don't think so. We don't know what happened or didn't happen, but the historian again renders only probabilistic provisional verdicts, if you even want to call them that. And that I think is a New Testament historian. I guess I can call myself that pompous thing since I have a PhD in New Testament, but that doesn't prove anything I say is true. I hope you realize. I'm pretty sure you do.
Starting point is 00:32:24 That I'm saying, we know it didn't happen. Well, we can't know that unless you've got a time machine. But the thing is, if you admit, so I think Karl Barth said, he said, yeah, I know it's improbable. The Bible says it was improbable that Abraham and Sarah could have had Isaac,
Starting point is 00:32:45 but if God's involved, all bets are off. With God, all things are possible. Okay, granted, but just because it's possible doesn't mean it happened. God created the world in six days. He could have created it in six minutes if he wanted to. Does he have to have done anything he might have done? I mean, it just seems to me that if you admit that, okay, a miracle is improbable, but I think it happened anyway, why? What epistemology is it that is called faith? If you are sure that, yes, Jesus rose from the dead, I'd like to know how. I mean, this sounds to me like Rudolf Steiner saying he knows what they used to do in Atlanta because he has some kind of alternate way of seeing into the past. You don't. You're kidding yourself. And I think faith cannot double
Starting point is 00:33:41 as a reason to believe dubious historical assertions. We can get into this so-called documentation of it, I guess, in the... Well, how much time do we have? Ten seconds left. Okay. Well, yeah, let me let it rest there and we'll pursue it in the cross exchange. Terrific. Thank you, Dr. Price. Oh, and there's the alarm. Yeah, okay. Well, look, this is great. We're going to move into a time of cross-examination in which each presenter will be given 20 minutes
Starting point is 00:34:16 to cross-examine the other. And what that means is they get to ask them questions for 20 minutes to try to better understand their position. I want to make it clear that the presenter isn't being rude if he chooses to use his time to interrupt, to push the conversation further along. That's just how cross-examination works. Before we get to that though,
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Starting point is 00:35:37 Exodus90.com slash Matt. All right. Okay. So we're going to start with you, William. You help. You'll have 20 minutes to cross examine Dr. Price whenever you begin or click start. Great. Dr. Price, you you mentioned
Starting point is 00:35:57 you or you rather you alluded to the the pagan myth stories you brought up at this in particular. When I look at the evidence, the earliest testimony on Attis and I look at the documentation from scholars, I don't see any resurrection account in Attis. I find that to be later, a later Christian, either in interpolation or interpretation.
Starting point is 00:36:22 What are your thoughts on that? interpolation or interpretation. What are your thoughts on that? Well, we do have evidence of it. Martin Van Mazeren, who is a big wig in the study of Attis and Sebelius and all that stuff, points out that we have a pottery shard or something that depicts the dancing Attis. Well, in the stories of Attis we read, that's the posture of the resurrected Attis. It conceivably could mean an ancient ad for American bandstand or something, but in fact, what it seems to be referenced to is the otherwise attested from later documents resurrection posture of Attis. But there are resurrections like Osiris and others whose Baal and others where the stories of their resurrections predate that in Jesus by hundreds of years. The pyramid texts.
Starting point is 00:37:31 Let me stick to Addis for the time being though. Are you able to hear me okay, right? Yes, go ahead. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, sticking to Addis, we'll move to the others in just a moment. So from what it from what I gather, it seems to me that the only thing that you're mentioning there is perhaps pottery. But in terms of actual documentation, talking about a resurrection of Attis, let me just confirm with you, that would come later. Am I correct?
Starting point is 00:37:54 Actual writings talking about a resurrection in Attis, I have not found anything to be. I know, yeah. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, that was. Well, yeah, let me move to another. We do have. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Yeah. That was, well, yeah, let me, let me move to another, another pagan figure. Yeah. I know. With, with Addis. Okay. You brought up, I believe that you brought up, you know, very well though, as we've dialogue before that there are scholars that, that differ on this. For instance, if you look at a Modjoff
Starting point is 00:38:25 who in the encyclopedia of religion and in various other writings, scholars are rather divided on whether or not Osiris even resurrected at all. I'm sure you're aware of that. Yeah, but I think it's nonsense to be blunt about it because we read narratives where it makes very clear that Isis managed to put the severed limbs of Osiris back together,
Starting point is 00:38:52 like the Frankenstein monster kind of, and anointed him and raised him from the dead, after which they had sex and she became pregnant with Horus, whereupon Osiris descended to the nether world, which is exactly analogous to Jesus ascending into heaven because their heaven was underneath, and there he becomes the Lord and judge of the living and the dead. So I just, it seems to me special pleading to say that this was. Well, the, the, the, the, well, the formula in that very same writing says, rise up, you have not died.
Starting point is 00:39:34 So I, I don't, I don't think it's very clear as to whether or not he died or not. So you've got a number of scholars. Well, if you get chopped to pieces like in a butcher shop, I'd say it's a pretty safe statement. Right but it's as you know very well it's a fantasy story you have a number of of these tales. So is this one in my opinion. Right we can get to that in a moment though right now we're talking about the the rising and dying pagan deities so it's a fantasy story though so it doesn't
Starting point is 00:40:01 necessitate death if it's being questioned within the very document itself whether or not he died. And you've got a number of scholars divided over it. You would at least admit that it's not clear cut whether he resurrected or not. I will not. I don't think that's the case. Well, I do think so. So I guess we won't come to an agreement on that one. So I disagree with you on Osiris, but did you mention another one? I think you mentioned... Which was the other one you mentioned? Baal. Okay. In terms of Baal, so let me ask you this.
Starting point is 00:40:37 Let me kind of move it in a different direction, because when I look at Baal, even there, as we've dialogued about before, I find a bunch of holes in that narrative. There are scholars that deny he resurrected there as well. Do you find any of these pagan deities, do you find them to be imitations of Christ in terms of virgin-born, crucified, and bodily risen? reason? No, I don't think there's any reason to think that. Jonathan Z Smith is one of the biggies who denies that there were pre-Christian dying and rising gods. I've written in reputation of him, and he, for instance, says that there was some doubt about Baal's death and resurrection,
Starting point is 00:41:22 but then he admits they found new texts that show, well, yeah, he did die and rise. But how have those texts been dated, though? Well, yeah, from the same period, the Ugaritic texts. The clincher on this seems to me to be the fact that early church fathers argued that why are there these dying and rising gods like Jesus? Well, Satan must have counterfeited the resurrection of Jesus in advance because he knew it would happen because he already held a Christian interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. What I want to point out is no one in their right mind would make a claim
Starting point is 00:42:06 that Satan counterfeited them in advance if he didn't have to explain away acknowledged fact that these were early early Christianity. What church father did that? What church father made that claim? Pirmacus Church, Tertullian, Justin Martyr. So first off Tertullian is not a church father, as you know very well. But I don't agree with you on Tertullian. Hold on. He's got to have a halo. He's got to have been referred to as a saint in the church. He never was.
Starting point is 00:42:38 Let's talk about Justin. Bob, you got to be fair to the Christian faith. You got to be fair. That's just what I'm saying. You got to be fair. It's just what I'm saying. You're obviously a spin doctor. Well, I love it when you call me a Bob, we remain friends, even though you think I'm a spin doctor. Let's talk about Justin water. Well, but let's talk about Justin martyr, Bob, because you're wrong. Even even though you're tall, he's a
Starting point is 00:43:00 heretic, you're wrong on him. But let's talk about Justin martyr. Justin martyr does not claim that those tales came earlier, Bob, that's your big problem. You're gonna have to show, isn't that right? Okay, then show me proof, because I've got it in front of me. He's claiming, well, let me clarify for the audience.
Starting point is 00:43:19 Number one, what he does find parallels with, Bob, are other aspects of these pagan deities. But he never once says that they predate the Christians. He says they ripped them off. And then secondly, Bob, he's very clear. He says that none of them had an ending like Christ. He says Christ was unique. So in order to prove your case, for the resurrection, not any of these other issues of pagan deities, you've got to show, you said early church fathers show it, but Justin Martyrs is not a friend of yours. If you read the text, number one, you're
Starting point is 00:43:55 mistaken. Well, then prove that I'm mistaken. I've got the text in front of me. I don't have the text on hand, but it'd be easy to find. Okay. So what he says here, I'm gonna read it to you. He says, what has been taught about Christ is older than all those writers, he says. He's very clear. And then he says, and I'm gonna pull it up here. He also says that the manner of suffering and death are different. That's in his Apologia 22, Bob.
Starting point is 00:44:23 So even though he's noting there's some parallels, I think this is a big problem that, and with all due respect, we've dialogue about this before we disagree. But I don't think atheists or agnostics or others that are examining Justin Martyr are noting that Justin Martyr is clearly not saying that these predate the Christians, he's saying that they ripped them off from the Christian. And that's the case that I am making. Since there's no evidence of any of this before
Starting point is 00:44:50 the Christian era, I think Justin Martyr's case is very clear. Oh, you're forget it. I mean, it's well, let me ask you this, Bob, let's be let's be fair. Would you agree that that's perhaps a valid reading, perhaps, of Justin Martyr? Or you think it's not possible to read Justin Martyr? If I've forgotten what he said, I think it is not. Okay, well, Justin Martyr, will you at least admit? Because you've told me many times, Bob, you've said,
Starting point is 00:45:19 look, you've even said this to me personally. If Christ rose from the dead, it doesn't crush my belief system. You've told me, well, let me ask you this, Bob. Justin Martyr- I'm sorry, what was that? What did I say? You've told me that-
Starting point is 00:45:36 About Christ? Yeah, you deny the gospel accounts, but you've told me if Christ rose from the dead, it wouldn't destroy any sort of your belief system. You still hold to the same thing, right? I hope I didn't say that. I must've been hallucinating. I have no belief system for one thing, but I have said it turned out Christ rose from the dead.
Starting point is 00:45:57 Great. I'm not, I don't think it's a bad idea. I just think it's insupportable. Okay. So going back to Justin Martyr, Bob, and I hope you don't mind I call you Bob as people if people may not know, I have great respect for Dr. Price. We're friends. We talk often. We keep in touch. We are good friends. I don't want people
Starting point is 00:46:18 to think that we're not right. Let me let me push back a little bit. Let me say is it not possible that Justin Maher, and I would argue even for Drutalium, were arguing that these were ripoffs of the Christian story rather than, to me, I find it nonsensical, that Justin would be arguing, well, the devil foreknew this and the devil imitated this beforehand?
Starting point is 00:46:43 Because I don't find Justin ever claiming that these pagan accountants predate the Christian narrative. In fact, he's very clear to emphasize, and I know we can talk about virgin birth and all these other details, but today we're particularly talking about the resurrection. He notes that the end of Christ, Christ's death and resurrection are unique.
Starting point is 00:47:02 He doesn't say those are the same as those other pagan deities. Do you at least agree that that's a possible reading of Justin or you just completely disagree with him? It doesn't square with my memory though. Of course I'm an old relic so maybe my memory is no good, but the idea that if the other ones who died, the other saviors weren't crucified, that breaks the whole thing. That's a distinction without a difference. I mean, if- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no even tales of crucified pagan saviors. The argument that Justin Martyr is making
Starting point is 00:47:46 is that they are later. They don't predate Christ is the argument he's making. The point that I'm trying to make to you is that people have been misreading him for their own agenda. He's not claiming they predate Christ. He's saying these were ripped off. He's calling them imitations.
Starting point is 00:48:01 I'm just asking you. Yes, he says before the fact that the devil knew of Old Testament prophecy, he knew what would happen, so he planned these things in advance. C.S. Lewis tried to put a better face on that by saying that God planned them in advance inexplicably so they'd be like typologies, as if anybody could have understood that. But even he understood the church fathers, the few that mentioned it. He claimed that he was gonna ape a prophecy
Starting point is 00:48:31 and what have you, but he never claims that the bodily resurrection or the crucifixion happened in any of these pagan saviors prior to Christ. It's a point I'm trying to make is that he's very clear that they were imitations. But you know what, we can get to that later because you don't quite recount that. But I will read that in my closing statement. I'll make sure to read that.
Starting point is 00:48:50 I want to have enough time to go over other questions. I want to look at 1 Corinthians, Bob. 1 Corinthians 15, you have said before that this is an unreliable account. Do you still hold to that? Oh, yeah, right. I'm just wondering, though, why would it be unreliable account. Do you still hold to that? Oh, yeah, right I'm just wondering though. Why would it be unreliable? Well for a bunch of reasons nor am I the first to say this not that that matters
Starting point is 00:49:14 You don't want to take credit for it though For one thing whoever wrote this Cannot have written what it says in Galatians chapter 1 that he received his gospel from no mortal source but directly from the Kurios, the Lord. Well here in 1st Corinthians 15 I passed along to you as a first importance what was delivered to me that Christ died for our sins and all this stuff. That's not the gospel. I mean what was it that was revealed to him that he didn't get from those who were apostles before him? This is not, I mean, maybe Galatians is the
Starting point is 00:49:53 one that isn't kosher, but this cannot be from the same writer unless he's a multiple personality. unless he's a multiple personality. But that's only the beginning. How could it not be from the same writer if in 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul is very clear, because just a few chapters earlier, as you know, he's very clear that the information he received was received by Christ. So I don't see how this is contradictory
Starting point is 00:50:23 because in Galatians, as you point out, he's talking about receiving the gospel from Christ as well. But as you know very well, Bob, that Catholic has no problem affirming that and not finding any contradiction, because as you know well, the early fathers, St. Jerome, Pope St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril, believed that this was given to him by the risen Christ.
Starting point is 00:50:45 Even if you don't believe Christ rose from the dead, I don't take the position of other evangelicals that this was given to him by Saint Peter. Catholics have no problem affirming this was given to him by Christ. He says in 1 Corinthians 11 that he received the Lord's Supper, those words from Christ. Isn't that a possible reading? Would that not be a even if you even if you tell me William I don't believe him would that not be a possible reading
Starting point is 00:51:10 of 1 Corinthians 15? Well it's possible but it seems to me that Haim Maccabee and others are right that even in the 1st Corinthians 11 thing he's talking about a vision he had. He doesn't say that individuals who had seniority, as he does, whoever does in 1 Corinthians 15, passed it on to him. I mean, that would be diametrically the opposite. Let me ask you this, because I've asked the very same thing to a mutual friend that we have, John, John Loftus, because he brought up that same argument, and I find it very lacking.
Starting point is 00:51:52 Where in 1 Corinthians 11 would we read that he received this, it was given to him by our Lord? Where is there any indication of it being a mere vision though, Bob? You know that there's nothing there in the Greek that would indicate it to be a mere vision. Well, I'm only saying there, that is just a plausible reading. The other is true. You would admit that the literal reading of the text says the Lord gave it to him. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:52:22 Yeah, so what I'm saying is- It's apparently a chain of transmission that he's the last link in. Okay, so Yeah, so Apparently a chain of transmission that he's the last Lincoln So what I am saying is I don't doubt that st. Paul. He studied under Cephas He studied under Peter we read about it in Galatians where it says he went with Peter To historicize to learn as a historian But Bob I believe that a good amount of that information, that gospel account was given to him by Christ because he affirms that in the book of Galatians, some early fathers believed when he was in Arabia that he was taught by the risen Lord. So even if you don't believe
Starting point is 00:52:56 that, that is very easily harmonized and the early fathers had no issue looking at it that way. Despite you face bombing Bob, you know that that is a valid reading, is it not? You just said that the thing in 1 Corinthians 11, there's no indication that it was a vision. Where on earth is there any indication that Paul was studying with Jesus for three years in Arabia? I mean, that's a total fabrication.
Starting point is 00:53:26 Hold on, Bob, you misunderstood. I was talking about 1 Corinthians 11, then I went to the book of Galatians. In Galatians, we are told that he received the gospel, not from flesh and blood. It was a revelation from Christ. We are told that there, Bob, and we're told of his time in Arabia.
Starting point is 00:53:43 That's my point. But in 1 but then first corinthians 15. He says the opposite that he was taught this by these people Okay, I don't agree. I think that this was handed down to him by our lord I don't think there's anything in one corinthians 15 that necessitates some other secondary or third-hand source Giving him that material bob Bob, I disagree. And I think it's very much in line with what we're told in the book of Galatians. It was, look, Bob, it goes right in with 1 Corinthians 11 where there's no indication of the vision.
Starting point is 00:54:15 He received it from our Lord. And then you look in the early fathers, they had no issue. They weren't trying to harmonize a difficulty here. They were giving a reading that was already well understood in the church. Surely they were. Besides, what did they know? They're writing long after any of these events.
Starting point is 00:54:35 Clement of Rome is not writing long after. St. Ignatius is not writing long after. We've got to know who wrote first, Clement. There's no name on it. So the majority of of scholars as you know would agree Clement wrote Clement. You've got an early testimony from Saint Piero. That is appeal to consensus. That means nothing. There is no name on it. So early in early church history Bob, early church writers such as Jerome and others recognized that one Clement was not pseudonymous.
Starting point is 00:55:04 It was written by Pope Saint Clement of Rome, Bishop of Rome. They lived 200 years later. How would they know that just give you the party line? Because there is that chain of tradition passed down by the well, we have a very good chain of tradition and none of them contradict each other, Bob. So I think Well, it's your it's gonna be your turn for cross-examination in 20 seconds
Starting point is 00:55:36 It's your time for you to nail me and and don't let me call you the spin doctor now because now you got 20 minutes Let's see. You got your time to nail me now Bob This is very frustrating. we're in different universes of discourse. I think we need to... No problem at all. I'll begin the time. I just want to say loving the passion guys. This is fantastic. This is how men go back and forth. And for those in the chat who are getting offended, just get over yourself. This is how good people talk. You'll be fine. Have a beer.
Starting point is 00:56:04 We talk on the phone often. We're friends right? Right? Bob. Yeah, all right 20 20 minutes starting now go for it Well, I think you're the fact that you're uh Taking for granted the authorship and authenticity of the various New Testament documents, and then the Church Fathers and of the Apostolic Fathers where there's serious doubt and good reason for that any of these things are by the people whose names they bear, and some of them don't even originally have names on them like all four gospels. And you just, you have a worked out party line official authorized understanding of church history that places these documents spun
Starting point is 00:56:55 in a certain way into their proper places. You just are not taking it as a critical historian. Oh, that's a good one, Bob, because you have told me and you've said it over and over, I don't care what critical historians say. So I am going to... No, I am a critical historian. I've never accepted it. You don't care what the scholars say. You don't care what the scholars say, Bob. And I don't care what they say either because I believe church history,
Starting point is 00:57:26 I examine it, I've studied it. So I don't believe what any new liberal comes up with that they want to crack the jackpot with this new information. Notice one thing though, Bob. I never once harkened to the truth of the Gospels. I kept what you know, people who believe to be the earliest testimony I held to Saint Paul. And another thing, Bob, I didn't go into, I know there's multiple
Starting point is 00:57:52 apostolic fathers. I kept to Pauli, to Clement of Rome, and Ignatius of Antioch. Figures that as you know well, Bob, there's that chain of transmission in the Antin-Nicene fathers, Nicene and afterwards, where nobody's arguing of different authorship. Even if you don't think it was them, that historical tradition does exist there. If you look at the- How do you know they knew what they were talking about? Well, if I compare what they were talking about
Starting point is 00:58:21 and I look at the testimony of scripture, it lines up perfectly, what we see what one Clement we see Clement and Ignatius when they talk about the resurrection they're all talking about Christ rising bodily from the dead now I know that you won't take this as a valid argument but I find it rather shocking that these early fathers would so willingly go to their death or martyrdom for something that would have been a hoax so we know a rather shocking that these early fathers would so willingly go to their death, their martyrdom, for something that would have been a hoax. So we know a number of these figures. Well, they wouldn't even know it if it were. They believed it, that's for sure. They had a lot of guts and died for what they believed.
Starting point is 00:58:56 Oh, okay. That's wonderful. So you believe they believed it then. I'm sorry? So you believe that the earliest Christians did believe Christ bodily rose from the dead? Well, no, actually, I think you've got good evidence again in 1 Corinthians 15 that shows that there was at least an alternate, if not earlier, I don't know that we can date it, precisely a view that Jesus rose spiritually because not physically, because what does it say in First Corinthians? Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
Starting point is 00:59:31 and therefore he was buried, a natural body or a physical body, let's assume it's natural though, and raised a spiritual one. Now, Luke directly contradicts that. Oh, touch me and see that I am not a spirit because a spirit does not have flesh and bones that you see that I have.
Starting point is 00:59:50 Now, I just cannot imagine how anybody can harmonize that with a straight face. So Bob, I think the way that that is, I don't think that even needs a harmonization. I think that all we have to do is really examine that phrase theology, flesh and blood. For instance, I have done a deep study in the Thessalus Lingiogrecie
Starting point is 01:00:12 of the utilization of flesh and blood. It's a very interesting one. And you can find it three times, I believe three times in the New Testament, Matthew 16 and Bavaries. You can find it in the Greek Septuagint, in the book of Serat. I think the one thing that is very clear here is that
Starting point is 01:00:30 it's really just talking about the mortal, which would be flesh and blood. Over and over it utilizes that in that way. Why is that a metaphor for mortality? Because flesh, it decays because it's material and spirit isn't. That's why I built Craig to use this dodge in a debate years ago.
Starting point is 01:00:52 They wouldn't even have the phrase flesh and blood for mortality if they didn't mean physical flesh that rots. So I don't think that there's any problem with flesh and blood because what's being talked about here, Bob, is the fact that the mortal body cannot enter heaven. It's being very clear that earthly body can't go into heaven, the abode of the Father. We're told that as well in Matthew 16. Paul is saying that corruption, literally flesh and blood, the human body cannot enter
Starting point is 01:01:23 into heaven. So I don't find any contradiction with the humanization. It's why it won't. There's no fleshly resurrection. No, no, no. It's talking about the mortal body. We don't believe that the, that the, Bob, you know this very well. There's that, that's the very point St. Paul is making. The mortal body is not going to be what goes into heaven, and Christ's body was a glorified one. Well, now Bob, you called me a St. Paul.
Starting point is 01:01:51 I am amazed. I don't understand how you can say these things. Well, I can say them because I've looked at the way that phrase is utilized. I've looked at how it's used in the Old Testament Greek and in the New Testament. It's very clear the distinction being drawn by St. Paul is the fact that our mortal bodies cannot inherit heaven. We've got to have a glorified body. That's what St. Paul is saying. Isn't that what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 15? And a glorified body is a spiritual body. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Right. And I don't agree with the claim that whenever spirit is used, that it's being used in an immaterial manner. Because I've looked at the utilization, the way spiritual is used
Starting point is 01:02:37 over and over in St. Paul, and he doesn't use it to be for immaterial, Bob. So no matter what, even if you disagree with me, even if you disagree with a bodily resurrection, he's being very clear. He's talking about an incorruptible glorified body. Is that not the very clear message that he also puts forth? Yes, which would mean not a fleshly body. How would flesh be suddenly incorruptible? He says it can't be incorruptible. He's talking about the mortal body, right?
Starting point is 01:03:10 What does it mean in Romans 8.11 where he says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies. He's being very clear. Christ was raised in a bodily manner because he's saying bodies will receive life just like Christ received life. Isn't that the most logical reading of that, Bob?
Starting point is 01:03:35 It is a spiritual body, quote unquote, in 1 Corinthians 15, which is entirely compatible with that Romans thing, just like the glorious body of Philippians. But the problem with that, Bob, the area where I heavily disagree with you on, is the fact the utilization of that Greek word, pneumatikos, for spiritual. I don't think Paul ever uses that to mean something spiritual in the modern Western kind of way.
Starting point is 01:04:00 Remember, we've got to look at this, Bob, from the lenses of those early writers. And if you do a study on the way... Why? These guys probably... Because they didn't write last year. That's why we have to. They didn't write in 2021.
Starting point is 01:04:14 So we've got to look at how that Greek word was used back then. And when we do, it's very consistent in all of St. Paul's writings. And you know, as a New Testament, as a critical scholar, that if that particular Greek word is being used by the New Testament authors that way, you would have expected to be used that way as well in the post biblical era, and we find it used by figures like Ignatius of Antioch. He uses the very same Greek word. You find it in Ignatius 1, Ephesians 7, 2, and in that he says, there is one physician who has possessed both the flesh and the spirit, both made and not made, God existing in flesh.
Starting point is 01:04:56 And here Ignatius says, Bob, he says Christ is sarcacos, fleshly, and plumatikos, spiritual. This is how spiritual was used all throughout history the New Testament text and afterwards so I don't think spiritual is akin to sane immaterial or symbolic I just think you are twisting the text as a ventriloquist dummy this is analogous to use a ridiculous example, but I think an apt one. Suppose the church elders confront the pastor who's been screwing around with the organ player.
Starting point is 01:05:34 And they say, you're committing adultery. We can't have you preach anymore. And you say, oh, well, you know, throughout the Bible, adultery is used to mean idolatry, but two-timing God. You can't show that I was worshiping Apollo or something. No, we don't need to. That's not the issue.
Starting point is 01:05:54 It seems to me you have to look at it in the immediate context as well. It's like, why would anyone ever use flesh and blood as an image for mortality if the flesh is not inherently mortal and 1 Corinthians seems to oppose flesh as Luke does, oppose flesh to spirit. It's just that Luke and the writer of 1 Corinthians 15 are on opposite sides of that. So in what, how, I get around that.
Starting point is 01:06:26 It's very simple. In 1 Corinthians 15, we read that the body is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. So right there, you've got it, that the body is going to rise again. So if it's talking about a physical body here and saying that the physical body is going to rise, but in glory, that's a physical body you can touch, Bob. Then in verse 44, it is sown a natural body, it is raised as spiritual. But Paul,
Starting point is 01:06:53 right the verse before, tells you that that spiritual body is a body that will be in glory. They're both physical bodies, Bob. No word does Paul say, okay, well guess what? This is a physical body, but now you're gonna be a spiritual kind of ghost kind of vapor. And Bob, let's be honest, that's not there in the text. Paul is being very clear. He believed in a bodily resurrection of Christ. Even if we look, even if I toss away all the research
Starting point is 01:07:22 of that particular Greek word, Bob, you know very well. The context is very clear. And outside of the docetists and perhaps Gnostics, you don't have anyone in the early church that would have adopted this kind of belief that it was an imitative of a Greek word. You do have Gnostics, but you're crossing them off. They are early Christians too,
Starting point is 01:07:42 but they don't count with you because they're not Orthodox. They didn't write the Gospels. We know that and we're talking about the historical references. They were not accepted by any of the early church. And we talk about all of the apocalyptic early church. Okay. In terms of heritage. In terms of the early church. Okay. In terms of the heritage.
Starting point is 01:08:00 In terms of the early church. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Okay. In terms of the heritage. Christians say those Catholics aren't Christians. What are you talking about? Of course they are And they were heretics So yeah, I grant that that there were heretics, but don't you notice Bob and it's not my cross-examination time but let me just let me say I Notice when reading the writings of the Gnostic Gospels, there's a very clear difference. There's no historical flair
Starting point is 01:08:24 Compared to the very simple writings in the Gospel accounts or in St. Paul. You have fantastical stories that I think are really not in line with the early Church. The reason they were rejected, Bob, the reason that they fell apart is because no one from the apostolic band gave the stamp of approval to their writings is what I would say. We don't even know who the apostles were. The names don't even match completely. You're just assuming this orthodox paradigm that Jesus taught the disciples, they taught the bishops,
Starting point is 01:08:58 and they taught us down the line. It's just institutional ideology. So Bob, even if I deny every teaching of my Catholic faith, which by the way I've not always been Catholic even if I deny every tenet of the faith and even if I look at the These accounts as a person that is simply examining them I can say there is early evidence testimony in these, in these group of followers that can date their writings of the time of Christ, in this very first church, I can say they believed with conviction
Starting point is 01:09:32 that Christ bodily rose from the dead, and they provide tons of testimony and evidence. Even if you deny that, there is testimony within these writings, even if we look at them as secular writings. And then we look at the writings of the first followers and what are they doing they're affirming exactly what was said there look Bob you know very well even if you deny what st. Pauli car believed he is he was taught and trained by st. John we're
Starting point is 01:09:56 told this very early on well this is in the 100 so Bob this is really early on we're here in a is not where somebody comes up with a hadith or a supposedly missing surah of the Quran and they say now this is real because I got it from Abdul Al-Hazrat and he got it from Karim Abdul-Jabbar. How many years later is Islam Bob? Bob, come on. Islam, you know very well, has no stake to claim in ancient, in the ancient faith. They are so late to the game.
Starting point is 01:10:28 Muhammad clearly ripped off from various different faiths. They does not have that- It's just a historical analogy. Like, you know, I kind of resent your saying, you know very well as if I were lying about this. Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm just saying that I don't think, I know, no, Bob, come on, Bob. I don't think you're lying about anything, but I'm just saying that I don't think I know no Bob come on Bob I don't think you're lying about anything but I'm just saying I don't think Islam works because you know very well is what I meant that it comes
Starting point is 01:10:51 much later is what I mean. It doesn't matter it's like a field of Buddhist traditions too. You can see how certain things happen with that like the genealogies and chronicles, they probably have no validity. Certainly the words, the ones in Genesis don't. They're credentials, a lot of the conflicting genealogies of Jesus. They're- I don't think they're conflicting.
Starting point is 01:11:15 Yeah, I don't think they're conflicting, but it's a topic for a whole other debate. The debate is on the resurrection. I don't think they're conflicting in any way whatsoever. But again, the reason I make that point about Islam, Bob, is because when I'm talking about the very first writers, these apostolic writers, I'm telling you, we can look at them as testimony, as sources.
Starting point is 01:11:36 We don't need to take their words as dogmatic. They're providing a historical reference to a very early belief. Will you at least admit that? They'd like you to think so, but there's no way to verify it. And it's pretty clear that as in Islam, which is those guys are about the same distance from the founding as these people were of of Christianity, you have this tendency to claim like that, oh, the apostle Lebeus started our congregation. What? Well, if the next guy says, oh, well, Thomas founded ours, so we beat you. It's like that with the ecumenical patriarch
Starting point is 01:12:20 and the others, their rivals. Oh, well, Peter founded your church. Well, Peter and Paul founded ours. There's no basis to this. It's just a can you top this game? Let me offer you a little response to that, Bob. One thing that I find so very fascinating is when we look at the Syriac writing, the earliest followers of Christ from the Syriac Church, they present a very unique portrait of early Christianity. What is that portrait? That is a church that is far disconnected from figures such as Ignatius of Antioch and all these other figures, and yet they are writing and talking about the very same things that the Latin writers,
Starting point is 01:13:03 that the Greek writers are talking about. And you've got some of these writers that don't even have knowledge later on in history of a St. Augustine. Yet they're teaching these very same things, Bob. I don't think any of these just gathered around the table, fabricated anything. I think that these churches could trace their lineage
Starting point is 01:13:23 back to the apostles, which is why they had this universal belief, in particular, we're talking about today, the bodily resurrection. And I think when you examine that early historical testimony, even if you're not a believer or part of any church, you have to admit it's a very strong case for the bodily resurrection of Christ. It is not. It just shows that they had an ideology, a dogmatic agenda that had become normative for them and so
Starting point is 01:13:51 they're all signing on to it. If they didn't know any better, I don't think they were liars, but they just believed what they were told and that it was a holy thing to do and I think that is really intellectually selling out and thus a sin. But Bob, the Syriac writers and fathers were not heavy on dogmatics at all. If you look at the great scholars of the day- Well how about for nature's sake, he's writing an Antioch of Syria. That's not a universal way. Well I'm telling you that it is universal, but I'm telling you they're so far disconnected later on in church history. They're not gathering around the table to share all of these ideas. There is this universal belief because they can trace their churches to an apostle.
Starting point is 01:14:38 They all believed it and they held these same views, all the while clearly not gathering around the table and saying, okay, well, St. Augustine, you believe this over there in Hippo, I'm going to believe this over there. It didn't happen like that. Yet they held the very same views on this particular issue that we're talking about. None of them denied that Christ rose bodily from the dead. Rather, they all rose in unison and condemned Gnosticism and all of these other views except for all the gnostics and medianites and adoptionists who you just won't give a membership card to Those there were a lot of people a lot of early Christians and different things, but we don't listen to them Yeah, I think that we don't listen to them because they were condemned by these churches that clearly could trace their lineage
Starting point is 01:15:22 because they were condemned by these churches that clearly could trace their lineage to an apostle. They were condemned, that means you're not gonna listen to them. One day, Bob, we can examine whether there's evidence or not, whether these apostolic churches can trace their lineage to an apostle. I think they very well can. I know you disagree, but if you look at the writing of St. Jerome in his Bible, on his illustrious men. He's very clear which figures in the early church had that ancient pedigree. And when we examine them, they testify to this.
Starting point is 01:15:52 They can be used, even if they're not used as faith figures, they can be used, in my opinion, as historical witnesses. All right, all right, all right, all right. All right. Well, that was that was that was bloody fun not gonna lie we're gonna move into a time of questions and answers so if you have a question in the live chat please at me because that will help me before we do I've just decided I got this out of the fridge it's a bud light next and it has zero carbs and I've just thought I'd try it on air and see what I really think about not an advertisement just for fun. Actually that's not bad I was actually planning on making fun of it I even had a line in my head I was gonna say like sour milk
Starting point is 01:16:41 poured through a used sock but that's actually quite good. Ah, well there you go. Ah, okay, well, all right. So we're gonna take a time of Q and A now. And, you know, each of y'all can have a couple of minutes to respond. And then, you know, let's say if I ask Dr. Price a question, then William can respond afterwards. Okay, this comes from supporter
Starting point is 01:17:05 Jonathan Rickles. He says, for Dr. Price, does your position change at all if we assume for the sake of argument that a god exists who has the requisite power to work a miracle? No, it doesn't because though there could be a God and that God could do anything It does not follow that he necessarily did do everything people say he did William you respond to that or no Sorry about that I hit the oh no, I do could you repeat that again so I could get the tail end of the question? Yeah, no problem. The question was for Dr. Price, this person, Jonathan Ricklis, says, does your position
Starting point is 01:17:51 change at all if we assume for the sake of argument that a God exists who has the requisite power to work a miracle? Yeah, I think that it should, even though Bob is saying what he said, I think that it should. But I think that a simpler approach would be that if Christ truly rose from the dead, the way it's presented to us in the Gospels and in St. Paul's account, then we have to examine everything else that Christ said, everything else that Jesus of Nazareth said. And when we examine everything else that this enigmatic figure had to say, I believe that we come to the conclusion that Christ was eternal God, and then there really no other direction to go is, I would argue, Christianity, and of course, the original
Starting point is 01:18:36 apostolic Christian faith, which is Catholicism. All right, so this question is for William, and then Dr. Price, you can respond. William, what evidence would you need to see to change your position on the bodily resurrection? Well, I think a lot would need to be done to falsify the incredible amount of writings we have from St. Paul. It would be a mountain to overcome the fact that this is a historical
Starting point is 01:19:05 figure. It would have to show that these writings of not only Saint Paul, but those that testify to having known Saint Paul, to knowing the apostles were just massive frauds and forgeries, and all these writings are just fabricated and lied about. Indeed, that would be quite the mountain of evidence to present including You'd have to also wipe away all the enemies of the faith who are even though they're enemies of the faith They're testifying to the fact that these early followers believe this look at what Justin the martyr says in the 100s We didn't have time to examine it
Starting point is 01:19:39 But he's talking about an effort among the early Jews to squash this movement, to squash evidence for the bodily resurrection of Christ. I hate to be very honest, but it would be very, very difficult to overcome the massive amount of evidence that we have that Christ indeed bodily rose from the dead. Dr. Price, would you like to respond to that? Well, the question just to recap, we have the certain voices like, we're told that Theodos, whoever he was, claimed to be a disciple. This guy was the teacher of Valentinus, the Gnostic, and Theodos was supposed
Starting point is 01:20:28 to be a disciple of Paul. Now, I have no idea if that's true. I'm just—and similarly, Basilides was supposed to be a disciple of Glaucius, who was the Immanuel of Peter. Is any of that true? I have no idea, but my point is that various people made analogous claims, and there's no way to know which of them were true, if any, because it's the same sort of thing as people writing pseudepigraphical works, which we have truckloads of. Like, did Enoch write the books of Enoch that that we have? First second third Enoch and all that no no responsible scholar thinks so and for real good reasons And there were many others like that and so it's just that I don't think such claims tell us anything Okay, next question is for
Starting point is 01:21:23 Let's see here. Dr. Price. This comes from Steven Brozco. He says, how do you account for the fact that Christ's apostles and their disciples in the first century didn't consider him just another failed messiah figure? If Jesus died and didn't rise from the dead, what did the apostles have to gain from preaching his bodily resurrection? Well, you're already, I think, assuming too much of the traditional story is historically true. I would say we don't really know who the heck the apostles were. The names vary to some degree from one list to another. We know nothing about them. The only things people think we know derive from second
Starting point is 01:22:07 and third century legend-laden, emprytite gospels. I mean, I'm sorry, acts. The Acts of Paul, Acts of Thomas, Acts of Peter, Acts of John, and so forth. Just read one of them. They're so fanciful. Like, for for instance it shows Nero having Paul beheaded and then Paul comes back alive again a few minutes later into the throne room and tells him you're next. And then Paul's disciples went to his grave, I don't know why since he just got raised from the dead, but they see the open tomb with incandescent light around it and then see the risen Paul ascending into heaven. Nobody ever mentions that, but that's one of the big sources for what we know about Paul. If we didn't have that, I don't think we would know. First Clement,
Starting point is 01:23:00 I think even refers to this silliness when he talks about Peter and Paul both dying because of jealousy, because that's just why the authorities jail and kill the apostles in the apocryphal acts. They were alienating women who'd converted to Encratite celibacy Christianity and left their husbands locked outside the bedroom door. Their husbands went to the kings and so forth and said, you got to get rid of these homewreckers. And that's why they were put to death according to these silly apocryphal gospels. Yet that's, and that's, I think, what First Clement is referring to. So
Starting point is 01:23:38 we have virtually no information about these guys. So it isn't really even a question. We don't know that they really died as martyrs. All of that comes from fanciful fictional tales. I mean, even compared to the Gospels, it just seems to me that that's way too optimistic about the groundwork of the argument there. Thank you. William. Yeah, I appreciate Dr. Price's response there. But the one thing I'd like to say at the get-go is that as somebody examining and analyzing the evidence today, I don't care about fanciful tales. The Apostolic Fathers that I brought up
Starting point is 01:24:23 don't give you any of these fanciful tales. The apostolic fathers that I brought up don't give you any of these fanciful tales. I don't care about any of these fantasy stories or apocryphal tales. I was utilizing real people. Now, how do we know we're real? We've got them writing and then after they write, we have people testifying to their existence and we get to a figure like Saint Jerome, who is visiting these different apostolic churches in his illustrious men, he catalogs who they were, why they were so significant, even before him in the 100, Saint Irenaeus is doing that and they're not doing it on the basis of fantasy tales.
Starting point is 01:25:00 So I think it's very clear, these apostolic fathers that I bring up, they talk about the Gospels and not these fantasy stories. By the way, the book of Acts is a major source for the life of St. Paul, not some fanciful, apocryphal gospel. So we can trace their lives, by the way, they're talking about death. That's what I said. Okay, sure, sure. In terms of that, I grant and even at that, Bob, I think even at that apocryphal stories, at worst, some of them are simply making up stories, but providing a tale
Starting point is 01:25:34 or a historical belief present in an early community, similar to the Protoevangelium of James, which, as we know, takes free rein with historical material, but shows that the early Christian community believed in certain things about Holy Mary. So when it comes to James, testimony of his end is in Josephus. So here's another thing that Bob brought up. I think we need to be careful because you hear second century like, oh, wow, that's really late. but it's not really late think about when the book of Revelation was written when it they
Starting point is 01:26:09 stopped writing it this is really early when we have this testimony some people would have known been acquainted with st. John as we know polycarp was by the way we know they died Ignatius tells us he's going to his martyrdom not telling him telling us any fanciful tale. St. Pauli Cark, read the martyrdom of Pauli Cark. Nothing fanciful there. This question is for William. This question is for William. It comes from James Andrew Lewis. Would you ever use the Shroud of Turin, William, to support the resurrection?
Starting point is 01:26:43 Or is it only good for edifying one who already believes? And then we'll have Dr. Price respond. I think the shroud of tremendous is a great piece of evidence for the fact that we have an early community that recognized and venerated this because they believed it to have been the shroud for our Lord and Savior, and they truly believe that he bodily rose from the dead. I don't think from the shroud itself
Starting point is 01:27:08 that you can prove the bodily resurrection. I think you can prove that there was a community that believed that this individual was Jesus of Christ and he truly bodily rose from the dead. The manner in which he was killed, by crucifixion, the crown of thorns and all of that, I do think it is supported very well. By the way, for people that may be wondering,
Starting point is 01:27:27 I did a show a few days ago with a bona fide scholar, a scientist, Dr. Bertrand, who does make an incredible case for that. I'd recommend you go check that out. He's also done shows on EWTN. I would use that, but I would not use it on the level of the gospel accounts or the accounts of St. Paul. Dr. Price.
Starting point is 01:27:50 I think it's been debunked. It shows desperation when advocates of it say, maybe they took samples from the wrong part of the shroud. samples from the wrong part of the shroud. Ever since that project began, they detailed their methodology and were careful not to take it from burned portions of it and so on that, had they done so, might have given false carbon dating. It just seems, I mean, it's some, maybe, if it's authentic authentic it could be somebody's shroud but a lot of folks were crucified and the dating of it. The Pope brought out the guy in the 14th century whom he said and the man confessed that he had created the shroud. And that happens to be just the same century that the carbon dating indicated. So I just think, you know, you're just lengthening the line of defense rather than shortening
Starting point is 01:28:59 it with a thing like that. Here's one more difficult thing to try to defend. All right. I think that they've come up with replies since then, Bob, I think that they have. But I'd recommend you definitely check that material out. No doubt. Okay. This question is for Dr. Price, comes from Noah, who's a supporter. Thanks, Noah. He says, what is your best theory slash explanation for the disciples' willingness to be martyred Paul's conversion and the rapid spread of Christianity? Well the the martyr deaths who you know who knows what happened to any individual but obviously
Starting point is 01:29:40 Christian martyrs courageously went to their death because of their belief, or at least their Christian identity. They wouldn't repudiate that, but of course that's really all part of the same package. But that doesn't mean they were right. It just means they they weren't lying about it, which would be utterly perverse if you know it's going to kill you. But nobody doubts that they had courageous, true faith in what they believed, but that doesn't prove it was right, any more than, like, Joseph Smith presumably believed that God had told him that polygamy was okay, and that's what got him lynched. And does that mean he was right? He had, he had guts, probably believed it by that that time But that doesn't mean we have to accept what he said was true now the rapid spread of Christianity
Starting point is 01:30:30 There was a lot good about early Christianity that anybody could see Tertullian said the blood of the martyrs is seed People look at these people willing to go to their deaths and they say wow If that is something to die for, maybe it's something to live for, I ought to check it out. Also during times of disaster, collapsed buildings and earthquakes, plagues, Christians cared not only for their own but for others too. And Julian the Apostate complained about this. He said, if only our priests, he was a neo-pagan, if only they would do this, but those darn Nazarenes, our priests run from
Starting point is 01:31:13 the hills. The fact that Christians were against exposing infants, thank God, that, I don't know who admired him for it because that whole horrible notion was commonplace in those days, just like it is today, exactly. But the result was Christians wouldn't do that and sometimes even rescued the infants they saw in the gutter. And so they weren't afraid to have more women, children, female children, because that's what a lot of the bums that did expose their babies said, oh no, another girl?
Starting point is 01:32:00 We even have an old papyrus letter where this guy's writing home to his wife and says, how's the pregnancy coming along? If it's a son, keep it. If it's a girl, expose it. Unbelievable. Well, Christians didn't do that.
Starting point is 01:32:15 And so they had more mouths to feed, but also more daughters to marry off, kind of like in Pride and Prejudice. And they did. And so the daughters engaged in missionary dating. They would wed pagans and get them converted. And so also the fact that there were these God-fearing Gentiles who liked the Bible and liked Jewish ethical monotheism, but they didn't want to go the whole way and get circumcised, etc.
Starting point is 01:32:48 And here was this message that said, well, you can be patched into the biblical history and the people of God. You don't have to embrace these cultural mores that are alien to you. You just need to be baptized and believe in Jesus Christ, etc. Repent. And well, a lot of people would say, hey man, that's just what I've been waiting for. A lot of Jews who were tempted to assimilate into the Hellenistic world would see pretty much the same thing. You mean I don't have to get circumcised and get laughed at at the gym because of it, this would do. I'm happy to go this route. So there were lots of reasons that Christianity was very attractive. And
Starting point is 01:33:35 there's a great study by Rodney Stark called The Rise of Christianity, where he says, from the data we have, population figures and so on, it appears that Christianity mushroomed, but at pretty much the same rate as the Moonees and the Mormons in more recent times. They had attractive things to offer and a lot of people bought it. And so that's something for Christians to be proud of. And I personally regarded as utterly perverse
Starting point is 01:34:03 when some Christians have said, you know, Christianity must have seemed so stupid and perverse that nobody would have accepted it except for the miracle of the resurrection. What are you saying there, that they all had visions of the risen Christ? I mean, that reduces to saying they liked the idea that Jesus rose. Or you're saying, you mean the Holy Spirit hypnotized people into believing it because they wouldn't have otherwise? That is a terrible argument Christians have a lot to be proud of. And so it's no mystery why Christianity caught on. This is even before it became the Roman state religion.
Starting point is 01:34:49 Thanks, Dr. Price. William. Yeah. Paul trained under Gamaliel, at the feet of Gamaliel, Gamaliel, however you want to pronounce it. I see no reason why he would have given up his life in order to enter the massive persecution that he was about to undertake. He was killing Christians by every account that we can see in scripture and even afterwards we can see this. In my opinion, why give this up? Why go to the lions to be eaten as St. Ignatius did, because I believe, as St. Ignatius said, he knew that
Starting point is 01:35:27 Christ was truly bodily risen from the dead. I mean, if you look at the accounts in the gospels, I mean, they're consistent. He believes Christianity in short. Right, he believes Christianity. So that's the one thing that I see here, Bob, is the very fact that these accounts in the gospels, by the way, I disagree that we can't prove what you said about the apostles, but that's a conversation for a whole other day, perhaps a whole other debate. But they believed Christianity, they believed they saw the bodily risen Christ, they believed that he was alive in a physical way. I find this to be completely different than a Joseph Smith who
Starting point is 01:36:06 was a notorious fraudster. It can be shown that his teachings were not in line with anything you find in the biblical era. You can clearly see that he didn't know what he was talking about. Very similar to the other fraudster, Muhammad, who, as you know, and I'm not saying it's you know, Bob, I'm seeing the audience, as you all know, and if you don't do the research, he picked and chose what religious things he wanted to grab from and made his own faith. So I don't find any parallelism there. In fact, I find Mormonism and Islam to be very diametrically opposed to the apostolic faith. And why did the faith, why did it explode? I'm thinking the fact that these people, they spoke with eyewitnesses,
Starting point is 01:36:52 people that had seen the risen Christ, Justin Martyr, who had no reason to convert to the Christian faith, because at the time that he did, they were still being massively persecuted. He converts to the Christian faith, and he notes that there are efforts among the Jews to kind of squash this evidence of the resurrection. So I think that even people, even with the amount of evidence that was present, there was this movement among the
Starting point is 01:37:18 Jews to squash this evidence. Even if people say, well look, you have no evidence of that. You do look at Rabbi Akiva. He is a historical figure. He is condemning the utilization of the Gospels, even some biblical texts that were part of Judaism's official scriptural list because he recognized, hey, we're losing people. We're losing converts because they're being, they're becoming convicted of the truth of the Catholic faith. Why was this attractive? I'm going to tell you why it was attractive. It was attractive because the Eucharist, they recognized it to truly be the body and blood of our Lord
Starting point is 01:37:58 and Savior, that risen Christ, and they truly believed that those words were handed on by the risen Christ, that the words were preserved, and it was attractive because it fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament. Our son of man has come, he was and he is truly God, they recognize him to be eternal God. That was what was attractive, so attractive that it didn't mean a life of luxury. It didn't mean that even as even as you know this Bob even when Constantine came there was a temporary time there of luxury if you will and then more persecution There was no luxury about being a Christian. There was eventual martyrdom that was waiting for you
Starting point is 01:38:39 So I think what was attractive is that this face was true because our Lord and Savior bodily rose from the dead All right Final question here and then we'll move into closing statements This question may have been offered prior to the debate. So feel free to adjust it It comes from Jonah Sala. He says dr. Price if the resurrection did take place Demonstrably so so that you accepted it, would that be enough to convert you to the faith? And you go to an Anglican church, so however you want to interpret that.
Starting point is 01:39:13 Or would there still be other issues with Christianity that would cause you concern? That's a real good question. I don't really know, because there's, like I I say that you know, there are accounts of demon exorcisms in the Gospels and there are known accounts. I mean, you know, you can go witness exorcisms and healings in certain churches But that for instance is not enough to defeat the problem The problem I have with theodicy the notion that you can really get God off the
Starting point is 01:39:47 hook for all the things he must be allowing in the world. For instance, I mean, there are more issues involved as you anticipate, so I'm not really sure. I'll have to think about that. Yeah. William? Could you read that again? Yeah, so it had to do with Christ's resurrection, whether it could be demonstrated to Dr. Price's satisfaction, would he convert to the faith or would there be other issues?
Starting point is 01:40:14 So I mean, feel free to maybe swap that around for you if you'd like. I think that one of the major, excuse me, I think one of the major problems that has got to be dealt with in a fashion that is not only passionate, intellectual, biblical, historical, it's a problem of evil and suffering. And that's something, a topic for a whole other day that I'd love to have with my good friend Bob. And I think that a number of people say, how can this be possible from an all loving God? And I think when we look at the answers laid out in Scripture for us, what the church has historically taught, I think that there are incredibly sufficient answers there. I think that we have rest and
Starting point is 01:40:56 peace in our Lord and Savior, provided we follow the path of Christ laid out in the scriptures laid out by by our the Holy Catholic Church. I think that there is a lot of incredible evidence for the bodily resurrection of Christ. And I mentioned it earlier, I'll mention it one more time. I think that if we examine all of the evidence for the resurrection, which I think is a lot, if we look at it, look at these documents from a historical perspective, and if we come to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth truly died, truly body rolls from the dead, then we have to examine every other statement that he made.
Starting point is 01:41:36 And in my humble opinion, it is the reason why I'm Catholic, because it will lead you to the doorstep of the holy Catholic Church. And I think that the evidence of the resurrection is incredible. And I hope, look, I want the audience to know one thing. I don't have these debates simply to come out here and not try to have somebody convinced. I do want people to be convinced because I want people to realize there is truth in our Lord and Savior.
Starting point is 01:42:03 And there'd be no greater reward than one day I get to worship side by side with my dear friend Bob Price, because it would all be worth it, because I consider him a very good friend, a very close friend, and I think that faith in Christ is essential in this life. All right. We are, thank you. We're going to move into closing statements now. William, you'll have five minutes, and then now. William, you'll have five minutes and then Dr. Price
Starting point is 01:42:26 You'll have the final word so William whenever you'd like to begin i'll click the timer Sorry about that. Let me get my timer. Yeah, no worries Okay, I will begin now Thank you very much for that. Uh lively change bob Uh, I want the audience to know that Bob and myself remain friends
Starting point is 01:42:45 and we will for a very long time, God willing. Bob is incredible, an incredible mind on him. And of course, I'm going to continue to disagree with him. I think the evidence shows very clearly, I don't believe that there is testimony, any testimony that lines up with any of these pagan deities of them being crucified, them dying, them bodily risings in the dead. I don't find that in any of these figures. And I have examined them in a meticulous fashion. I've looked at Adonis, Attis, Baal, Dionysus, Hermes, Krishna, Mithras, Orpheus.
Starting point is 01:43:22 I mean, I don't find any parallelism there at all. Now, when I look at the writings of St. Justin Martyr, and perhaps later on when I talk with Bob again, we'll look at Justin Martyr more in depth, I don't think Justin is putting forth the kind of buffoonery that others have accused him of doing. I think Justin Martyr is very clear. I think he believes that the pagans of his time were clearly ripping off the Christians. I think the language is very clear. He's very clear. He says it. I read it earlier. The death of Christ, his end, his resurrection was unique. He says that it's not alike they're not all alike that would tell you that they are not similar in terms of the bodily resurrection don't you say that there are other things that are similar such as virgin born crucifixion and what have you I grant that I do but here's a problem he doesn't tell you they predate the Christian faith he's making an incredible case that they are rip-offs.
Starting point is 01:44:28 And I agree because everything that we look at historically shows they don't predate the Christian faith. So the bodily resurrection of Christ is unique in that sense. We got into a long discussion on spiritual, the utilization of that word. I would recommend people go to my blog, check out an article written about a year back. It was written by myself and my very good friend,
Starting point is 01:44:49 the Reverend Dr. Kompis, by the way, who is a top notch, one of the top scholars in the world. Where he looks, he examines the utilization of that Greek word in the TLG that the Thorslinger Regretche and shows how it is used in the early literature and in the biblical and post biblical literature, you're going to find that Pneumatikos is not being used for immaterial or kind of vaporous kind of body as I pointed out. One figure I would like to point you to, the great Saint Cyril of Alexandria. He's writing, again people know him, to be one great Saint Cyril of Alexandria, he's writing, again, people know him, to be one of the greatest pillars of Christology. What does he tell
Starting point is 01:45:30 you? In his commentary on the Twelve Prophets, he's talking about Christ. He says, this was done for the people in a fleshly or material way. Christ performed for us both spiritually and immaterially. Did you catch that? It is a consistent utilization of this Greek word. Here's the shocking thing. Cyril, a master of the Greek language, here utilizes two Greek terms. One is pneumatikas, the other is noetas. Pneumatikas for spiritual, the other for immaterial. If you caught that, you caught it. In contrasting the two Greek terms, a Greek master is very clear how pneumatikos or spiritual is being used. And you find that all throughout scripture. So what is the
Starting point is 01:46:17 number one message that I hope people that are maybe believers and non believers gather today? It is the fact that even if you look at these documents as mere writings, we have the massive amount of testimony in St. Paul of the bodily resurrection of Christ. And he tells you, he tells you, I received this. I delivered to you what I received. No, it doesn't tell you, OK, Peter gave me all this info. No, it doesn't tell you that I received this. Who did he get it from?
Starting point is 01:46:48 Read one Corinthians 11 Galatians one read the testimony of those early followers, those closest to the time of Christ, they will tell you our Lord and Savior gave him this information. I don't care what any liberal scholar would say. I'm not calling Baba liberal scholar and calling others that deny this liberals and I don't care what any liberal scholar would say. I'm not calling Baba liberal scholar and calling others that deny this liberals. And I don't care if they don't agree with this, because the early church did believe this. And I think of my final 20 seconds, if I if I could sum up anything, I would
Starting point is 01:47:17 repeat what I said earlier, from the Gospel of St. John, where it says, destroy this temple, our our Lord says and in three days I will raise it up and he spoke of the temple of his body St. Luke said you kill the author of life, but God raised him from the dead He said in the book of Acts indeed Christ is risen bodily risen Thank You William. Dr. Price. You have the final word five minutes whenever you'd like to start well, I don't wanna just repeat what I've said already. I would just like to make a couple of reading suggestions
Starting point is 01:47:52 if anyone's interested. There's a book of mine called The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man that I think the subtitle is How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition? I'm sure it's on Amazon. And another one is by M. David Litwa, L-I-T-W-A, called Jesus Deus,
Starting point is 01:48:18 I-E-S-U-S-D-E-U-S, that deals with the truckload of various parallels between Jesus and various ancient figures. And with that, let me reaffirm that as William says, we are friends and this is just great sport. And not that the issues are not important but there's a you know it's the Argumentation is needn't be bitter. It's it's a lot of fun and we need more of it So thanks for having me on here. It's good to see you again Thank you, Dr. Price if people wanted to learn more about you as I say I've got a link in the description to your website
Starting point is 01:49:00 But what would you like to point them to or what would you think they need to know that they'll find when they click that link? I've got the oh Lists of my articles. I write a column called Zara Foostra speaks and a lot of them are Reproduced there. I guess some of my stories are I'm not really sure offhand. I've written a bunch of horror and adventure stories and the like. A bunch of my old sermons are up there and so forth. So you'll rapidly get the impression that I too am a multiple personality. Will the real price please stand up? So thanks for having me on. Thank you and I think we can all agree that certainly if the leftists are
Starting point is 01:49:50 destroying anything it's comic books. Oh yeah. Yeah it'd be nice to have a Superman 10 years from now who's not a transgender Islamic abortion doctor transgender, Islamic, abortion, doctor, something. But anyway, William. I'm not getting too ready. There's no way. William, where can people learn more about you? I've got the link in the description below. What would you like to point them to? Yeah, they can head over to my web page.
Starting point is 01:50:15 You can check that out. If they liked anything that they heard, I've got a book that I've written on Mariology. They can check that out. I talked a lot about Christ today. Very heavy on Christology would be a book I co-authored on transubstantiation the secret history of transubstantiation they can check that out and they can find that and I
Starting point is 01:50:33 Hope they were edified and I hope that hopefully people learned something new and I had a great time man Yeah, well, thank you so much guys and God bless you. Thank you for being here Do us a favor click that like. And if you're not yet subscribed, please consider subscribing so you can keep up to date with all the great content we've got coming here. Let us know in the comment section below who you thought made good points and why. And what might be really cool is if you said
Starting point is 01:50:59 what you thought your ideological opponent said that was a good point so that we could all try to be a little bit more open-minded I thought this was a fantastic discussion. I'm very grateful to both William and Dr. Price for being in it. God bless you Have a lovely day

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