0:00 Am I going to hell? >> Yes. But here's the thing. Everybody is going to hell. And it's not because they don't believe in God. And look, I'm a historian and a theologian. So, I study ancient biblical manuscripts. And if you truly understand what this book is saying, I don't want you to experience that. >> This is not a place I want to go. So, what do I do about that? >> It's not about trying to earn my way into heaven. It's not about checking off. I read the Bible as many times. I didn't lie. I didn't steal. I didn't cheat. Like, it's none of that. But here's the problem. Unfortunately, we bought the lie that we are the sum of our actions, where we're chasing after things that aren't going to give us what we actually need. Which is also why we live in a world that is lacking in purpose and meaning. >> But the part that I've always struggled with is that the answer being religion as an antidote to that feeling because I
0:46 require a really high standard of evidence because of the way that I am. >> Well, I think not only can it provide an antidote, it can provide the antidote. And I'll explain why. like how can we trust human accounts of these things and then how do you take people who agree that there's clearly something missing to believing that what's written in the Bible is the thing that should guide my life also do you have any doubt oh especially when there are times of struggle and pain and suffering like the whole Epstein thing right now we are seeing examples of true evil so there are moments where I think how could there be a good god however from my investigation I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there's actual evidence for the existence of God the historical reliability of the Bible and the philosophical explanations for meaning and purpose. >> And what is that? >> First, we have >> that is some of the most persuasive evidence one can receive.
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2:22 Wesley, I have this fascinating uh graph in front of me here and it shows several things that I find to be really really interesting. One of them is that as of 2024, the decline of religion has started to level off and actually increase a little bit. And now 63% of US adults identify as Christian, which is roughly 160 million people. In 2025, Bible sales hit a 21-year high in the United States with 19 million units sold. Weekly Bible reading amongst US adults has increased to 42%, which is up 12% since 2024. And in 2024, Christian and gospel music streams in the US increased by roughly 20% according to the Washington Times.
3:08 Wesley, what is going on in society? If we zoom out, >> I think we're in a unique bubble where we found ourselves in a time frame where we're connected more than ever. We've kind of come out of a period of time where the new atheism is very, very popular. You had Dawkins, Daniel, uh, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and they made a big impact in the early 2000s. >> I think we should probably just give some color to what new atheism is. >> Sure. Yeah. >> I've actually got a graph here, which I'll throw up on the screen, which shows the rise and then the the fall of new atheism, but I was pulled in by new atheism. >> And that meant that I, and again, I should probably preface my beliefs
3:54 because people are going to want to know what my bias is when I'm asking questions. I grew up in a very Christian household up until the age of 18. I then became agnostic/ atheist when I started consuming a lot of this stuff from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and all of these people. And then I find myself at a point now where I'm just open-minded and curious, >> but I have lots of questions. Yeah, you had these individuals who are writing these very influential works. But I sometimes wonder whether the new atheism movement worked a lot more effectively in print than it did in actual real life. Like in terms of the practicality of the application of the things that were being talked about, especially in regards to meaning, if you apply ideas like you being a product of time plus matter plus chance, what does that actually give you in terms of the ultimate identity questions? And so I
4:41 think I think that's true in a lot of circumstances where you have these seeds that are planted and they grow and they produce trees that produce fruit that are kind of hard to digest in their actual application. And along with that, we have a world that's very complex. We're more connected than we ever have been. I don't know if we're truly we were ever truly meant to know as much information as we do, especially about things that are going on around the world and things that are hard to to comprehend. And so what I think that all kind of adds up to is people asking questions about, okay, I'm here. I'm right now trying to figure out what's going on. How do I actually find out the
5:30 answers to a lot of these questions that just go beyond the here and the now that I'm experiencing? This is what um individuals like James K. Smith called the dynamics of disenchantment where people are struggling with these transcendent questions, questions that are metaphysical that go beyond just the here and the now in the world. Why is the three pounds of gray matter in my brain able to comprehend the complexities of the universe? How do I how do I come up with a solution to that problem? So, I think that's part of it. I think it's kind of moving on in a world that just is probably more messy than it's ever been. A lot of countries, the UK, Europe, Canada, America, all of these western countries,
6:16 they they were founded on these Judeo-Christian ethics of foundations that come from the Old and the New Testaments, what we call the Bible. And a lot of people kind of attempted to divorce the religious aspect from the societies. And societies became less and less overtly religious in those natures. And then a lot of people saw that their parents were no longer going to church. Like the Bible wasn't part of kind of the household any longer. And I talked to a lot of young people who look at that and they say in almost like a rebellion against their parents, they're now interested in that. Their parents rebelled by disassociating from religion. And now I wonder if there's
7:04 part of a rebellion in kind of looking back and trying to reclaim some of that religious stuff. I think in part as well this younger generation, Gen Z's and I guess to some extent also millennials have been told to live more individualistic lives and that's really been glamorized like be your own boss and now we work remotely and stand on your own two feet and we're even seeing people getting into sort of relationships later and later in their lives and having less children. So they're more it appears people are more unanchored than they've ever been and that was to some degree glamorized. Um but it also appears that when we are unanch anchored when we don't have responsibilities or we're not part of something mental health issues um are quick quick to follow
7:50 >> and for this generation they're suffering the most with those types of mental health issues and then one would assert that they would therefore be searching more for >> answers to some of these existential questions >> expressive individualism I think it rose that's the kind of the terminology in soc in the sociological literature that they refer to it but I I think you touched on a good point in that like as we've removed God, part of the intellectual light enlightenment was that we would move away from the shackles of religiosity and the concept of a creator and that would lead us into a utopia. And I think the more and more we've removed that from society that hasn't decreased our levels of anxiety and depression and meaning. I I think it's increased it. >> Yeah. And especially celebrity worship,
8:37 social media, building a following of your own like sort of low-key narcissism. >> Yeah. >> Has made us more and more and more and more important. And that seems to correlate with worse and worse and worse mental health when you start to become more individualistic and think more and more about yourself >> and self-importance >> versus others and a bigger picture. >> Mhm. I think we were created for community. I think we are as human beings a creature that is created for community ultimately like cards on the table as a Christian because I believe we are created in the image of a God who exists in a set of living loving relationships like that's what the trinity is when we talk about that idea within Christian theology. God exists in
9:23 father son and holy spirit. And so being created in the image of God, part of that is you are created for relationship. And so in a society that's continually removing us, you know, you need to be an influencer. You're influencing everybody else. >> When I think we're not created to be lone wolves or lone rangers. We're created to live amongst community and have that be something that likewise gives us fulfillment. It's not that people who are leaders are, you know, rise to the top are wrong by any stretch, but in a society where we're alone together because we are sitting behind computer screens >> and we're talking to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in
10:08 some cases, but but we're secluded. >> I think that that does something to our souls because we were made to be in relationship with other people. I agree with everything you've said as it relates to the sort of crisis of meaning in society and I also agree with many of your reasons as to why that's occurred. >> The part that I've always struggled with is then the answer being Christianity or any other religion. >> Sure. I agree with, you know, so many of the things you've said, but then I my brain has, I think, especially after the age of 18 when I started reading about all this new atheist stuff and these questions of evil and am I going to hell and all these other things, I've not been able to get there. >> But I'm having this conversation with you today because I am open-minded and
10:56 although I've got like difficult questions to ask, I'm in pursuit of the truth, not any particular ideology or answer. So, how do you take someone like me who agrees that there's clearly something missing, who believes that there's something transcendent? Like, it'd be a crazy thing to assume that this is it. I I think >> Yeah. >> How do you take them from this position to >> believing that what's written in this book in front of me, the Bible, >> Yeah. >> is the thing that should guide my life, >> right? >> Because I I like, again, I say I'm going to say this again, that like >> I think I require a really high standard of evidence because of the way that I am. >> Yeah. You know, I think there's a historical case for it which I'm very much invested in because my training formerly is in historioggraphy. I study ancient biblical manuscripts and their
11:41 kind of reliability and fidelity over the last couple of millennia. So looking at some of those manuscripts that actually can trace back to the actual time frame of Jesus and answering questions like is what we have now what the original authors wrote back then? So, I think there's a historical question to it. And I in my own personal investigation genuinely think that the evidence, the publicly available evidence gets us back to not only the time frame of Jesus, but to early eyewitness testimony that proclaims that this first century Jewish itinerate rabbi who was walking the dusty streets of first century made these claims and then there is sufficient evidence to say that he predicted his own death and resurrection and did it. How do I know
12:28 Jesus Christ was real? And then how do I know what's written in that book is real versus just some guys thousands of years ago made a book? >> Yeah. So that is a question of historical reliability. So there are a couple different ways we could go about it. First, we have four biographical accounts of Jesus's life, which is very unusual. So we call them the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Um those aren't actually our earliest source material for the life of Jesus. that comes in the person of Paul. Paul is actually writing before the gospel accounts and he is uh someone who was hostile originally to the Christian message and he's persecuting Christians. He comes along and he has this radical conversion experience when he's traveling to Damascus where he says he's
13:16 he's literally thrown off a horse. He hears God's voice and it's Jesus and he says, "Paul, why are you persecuting me?" And then he writes these things about his experience and and then ultimately goes and connects with the individuals who are who we call the disciples who are like this this close Jesus community and connects with them. So he's our earliest source but then you have these gospel accounts these these biographies and the gospels are interesting because they fit within the historical framework of ancient Greco Roman biography. So let me give you an example. The most well-known person in Jesus's day was the emperor. His name is Tiberius. Tiberius has four biographical accounts that are written about him. Valasculus Casiodio Sutonius and
14:02 Tacitus. >> So, these are the four guys. Okay. >> And what's interesting in sort of a comparative analysis of Jesus and those people is that they're all writing around the same time period. So the biographies are coming from the first century for Jesus. They're coming in this time period where you have an early eyewitness testimony for the emperor for the most well-known person in the ancient world. All of the sources except for uh Valas Peterculus are coming from the second century. >> Val Petculus is coming from the first century. He's very close to the source, but he's a paid propagandist. So even though he's the earliest, he's the least reliable. And for the gospels that comes around to the 4th century. So there's a
14:50 comparison with the source material for someone like Jesus even though we really shouldn't have anything about him because he's he's kind of a nobody from nowhere >> in terms of the Roman Empire and the grand scheme of things. >> But we have a phenomenal amount of source information for his life. I mean, this is one of the things I discovered when I went through that new atheist phase was that really everybody kind of agrees that there was a guy called Jesus from Nazareth and that he was a real historical person. >> I guess the part in dispute was whether things like his resurrection actually happened or whether he was just a spiritual leader back then like we have spiritual leaders today. And I think one of the one of the things that I got really stuck on when I was reading about Jesus and the Bible was there appears to
15:36 be quite a significant gap between his life, his death, and then the writings that go into the Bible. And for me in my head, I was like, well, if you know, >> if something happened in my life 50 years ago, I mean, I'm only 33, but if something happened 50 years ago, I would not be able to recount it. Frankly, I can't recount what happened last week accurately, >> right? >> Let alone like decades ago. You've you must have heard this argument before. >> Yes. >> What how do you how do you square the circle here? >> So, there are a few things going on. First, we live in a hyperiterate culture. We are writing everything down. The ancient world was far less of a literate culture. They were an oral culture. These stories would have been passed in large groups at at at time frames, especially if we're talking about the biographical material of Jesus is actually written in a closer time frame than the majority of anyone else. >> What was that gap?
16:22 >> It's it's about 40 to 60 years. >> So, I really want to I imagine there's some people listening that have probably never read the Bible. And I really want to explain to them like what this book is in the simplest terms. Can I I can open your Bible. >> Yeah, of course. Yeah. >> So, is there is there like chapters in here? >> Yeah. So, the Bible is though we now have it in one book is 66 books written over a period of about 1600 years on three different continents by close to 40 different authors in three different languages. >> So, I've just opened your Bible. Y >> and there's one section that says the Old Testament. There's another section section that says the New Testament. M what am I looking at? Like is this God's words? Is this a bunch of people's stories that have been compiled together? What is the Old Testament? What's the New Testament? What's the difference? >> Yeah. So the Old Testament is the Hebrew
17:08 scriptures. So that's the scriptures of the Jewish people. >> Okay. >> So that is uh you know it starts in what's referred to as the Torah, which are the first five books or the five books of Moses. And then that goes in a time frame all the way up to the period of the Persians. >> So that's a certain time frame. Yes. And they've gone and collected books from that time frame or writings from that time frame. >> Yeah. So the ancient Jewish people had and remember all of these books they would have circulated as independent writings. >> Okay. >> So we start to see things like this happen in the 4th century. Prior to that everything's in independent scrolls. So there's an understanding when even you get them all sort of put in one unit that would have contained the scriptures, the word of God more so than
17:54 like this is the word of God. >> The reason why I am unapologetic and very open about my total naivity is because often in these conversations >> you end up kind of preaching to the choir. >> Sure. >> If you know what I mean. And there's a huge amount of people, especially younger people that went through that new atheist movement, were maybe born in the 2000s that are now 26 years old, >> that have never read the Bible, have never even opened one, have no idea what it is. They just think it's this kind of like book of stories. Yeah. >> But these the first um you call these books, I was thinking of them like chapters. >> The first one in the Old Testament is Genesis. >> Who wrote Genesis? Was that a guy or was that God? So the idea is in Christianity the terminology is what's called verbal plenary inspiration. So verbal it's spoken plenary it's like written down
18:41 and then inspired. So there are human authors to all these books. >> Okay. So humans wrote these chapters but they were inspired by God. >> So yes. So the understanding so in the Bible itself Peter says that men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So there's a there's a historical context to all of these like the history of this period of time of the nation of Israel as they were being led by particular rulers. >> And where does Jesus show up? >> Jesus is the New Testament. >> If someone's never read the Old Testament, what is that about? It's just describing the time. >> It's a bunch of different things. So different things. It's there's a whole bunch of genres of literature. So, some of it is history, some of it is poetry, some of it is what's called wisdom literature.
19:26 >> And who decided that these it looks like there's I don't know, it looks like there's about 40 books in the Old Testament. >> Mhm. 39 books that are in the Old Testament. >> Who decided that those were going to be part of the Old Testament because I'm sure that there was lots of other writings at the time that could have been included. >> Yeah. So, by the time that Jesus is around, there's approximately an agreement of what is considered scripture >> by who? by the Jews themselves. >> So the Jews decided which 38 books to put in. >> Yes. So you have conversations by individuals like there's a guy named Josephus who is writing at the end of the first century. Part of what he argues is that the Jewish people don't have kind of an innumerable number of religious texts like the Greeks do. They have a specific number and he uses this
20:13 terminology that they were laid up in the temple. So the idea is that you know these are the books they're housed in the temple and they're a set number and he gives the number of the same number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet 22. So you usually see this 22 or 23 number, but they group them differently. And he gives an argument that one of the reasons that there we can find a timeline for what the Jews consider scripture is he says there's nothing written before Moses and there's not nothing written after the time of Artis Xerxes, which is the Persian Empire. So the book of Esther in the Bible is is that time period. So though there are writings after that there's this agreement that
20:58 the voice of God in say the prophets giving a thus sayaith the Lord statement like communicating messages to the people of Israel has ceased but the Jewish cannon though there's like a closing of it there's a soft closing there's an idea that there's going to be a new covenant God is make going to make new pro promises with his people and so there are going to be more writings. >> Okay. So my understanding of that is that he made the case that God is no longer communicating with people to write these books >> at least that there was a stop point at Malachi. So it's sometimes referred to as the 400 years of silence for that reason >> from the point of Jesus's death. >> Mhm. >> What book from the New Testament is
21:44 written last and how big is that gap? >> That's a debate. >> Okay. What's the debate? So the debate so the the there's it's a question if John's gospel >> is written before 70 AD or after 70 AD and if it's written after 70 AD it's written in the '9s. So it's written pretty far afterwards. >> How many years? >> So if Jesus dies in 33. >> Okay. So about 60. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Fine. >> Yeah. So, so at minimum I I think like 99% of historians, biblical scholars, classicists would argue that the 27 books of the New Testament are written in the first century. And so in that sense, they're in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to a certain degree. >> Mhm.
22:29 >> And there's evidence even within some of the gospels where you have these names thrown out kind of randomly. And part of the thinking of that is that this is like citing your sources. At one point when Jesus is carrying the cross to Galatha, >> he kind of stumbles and they get another person to carry his cross for a little bit. >> And that person is Joseph of Arythea. Well, one of the gospels names one of Joseph of Arythea's son by name. And the thinking is that this is probably someone who's well known within the early Jesus community. And the purpose of naming that person randomly is to say he's actually well known. Go ask him. >> I mean logically there's quite a risk of
23:15 Chinese whispers to some degree. >> As you were speaking I was trying to think about things that I experienced when I was younger like with my like grandmother before she passed away and I was trying to like accurately recount those memories. >> Yeah. >> I was thinking of like going to her house and then >> I remember one day she gave me some money but I can't remember what she gave it to me for and I can't remember how much she gave me. I know she put it in a card and this was only like hm 20 years ago. >> Yeah. >> And so if I was to write about that today, I would be filling in some some gaps, especially especially this is the other thing that I always struggled with is like especially in a world where we didn't understand science. Now my grandmother like put it in a card and it was like I opened it and the way she did it was often as a surprise. So in a world where I like didn't understand physics or science, I might have concluded that my mother, my grandmother
24:02 did something like magical, >> you know, at a time when we didn't understand anything about like really much about the nature of the universe and planets and the solar system and physics. >> So is that a risk that some of the things that have been transmuted by God into this book in front of me are prone to Chinese whispers and or just like a lack of understanding about the nature of the world like the resurrection for example. >> Yeah. So this is uh this is in my field referred to as mythological drift. So how do we factor in making sure that mythological drift doesn't happen? I think there are a couple things related to what you said. First off, I think I would be careful in trying to ascribe the ancient world as being pres-scientific and therefore largely say ignorant. I mean, even when the angel comes to Mary in the gospel story
24:49 and says, "You're going to be with child." Mary's objection to the angel is a scientific one. I haven't met the minimum requirements of how babies are made, therefore I can't be pregnant, right? So, she's not dumb, right? She's not just at face value accepting that, you know, well, I believe in angels and so, you know, this kind of magic thing can happen. she's still objecting scientifically even though she might not have the terminology to understand like the complexities of child birth and embryology and all of that. So I would say you know this is what uh the writer CS Lewis calls chronological snobbery that he says you know we need to be careful of not to ascribe the ancient world as being more ignorant and stupid than than you know just because we are a product of the enlightenment and we understand scientific things. Yeah. The
25:36 second thing is I think the the Chinese whispers or the telephone game or whatever you call it is a good is a good kind of case study. I think where it falls short is that if you play the telephone game, if you play Chinese whispers, there are rules in order to corrupt the message. So you have to whisper, you can only say it once. You have to do it one person to one person. In an oral culture, you would have been hearing these stories constantly. So when some of these stories are told, they're being told within a lifetime where there could have been individuals who say the story of the feeding of the 5000, that's a lot of people. So there's a lot of witnesses to this particular event. So if you're writing this down, there's an aspect of there are people
26:22 out there who could verify what is being said, at least orally, not necessarily like literarily. Likewise, what we have in the gospel accounts, particularly after Jesus's death, when the disciples proclaiming his resurrection, they go back to Jerusalem, which is the scene of the crime. So, they go back to the exact place where Jesus was crucified and start telling people he was risen from the dead. If there is some aspect of say disingenuousness and making up a story, don't go back to the place where everybody could have seen that thing happen to that degree. Right? So in in one sense, Chinese whispers is is a faulty analogy in that it's less like one person whispering into another's ear and more like a 100 people in a room all
27:09 saying communicating the thing verbally and then getting the other people to repeat it back to them and then corroborating with the other individuals of what's going on. Now I think there I think your point in in the story of your your grandmother and you know the the the letter and is a good one. You know how do we remember things? Do you remember 9/11? >> Yes, I do. Yes. And I was in the the UK at the time. >> Could you tell me a little bit more vividly what what you were doing on 911 compared to your grandmother and the letter? >> Yes, I could. Yeah. I remember coming home from school and like watching it on the screen and my and my dad having it on the screen and usual just looking at the screen. >> Yeah, me too. So whereas I couldn't tell you much of what else happened during an
27:56 average day in that year, I could tell you what happened on September 11th, 2001. And that's because of the nature of what was going on. And I think when we're talking about the gospel stories in particular, first you have what I genuinely believe are eyewitness accounts from at least the source information coming from a group who would have heard Jesus be preaching these things multiple times in multiple different settings. Like it's it's probably likely myself as an itinerate I have given the same talk on a particular subject quite a few times. Yeah. And I joke with my wife that she could give my talk on the historical reliability of the Bible herself. You know, if I'm sick, I'll just send my wife, right? Cuz she's heard it so many times. I think that's the case that's going on with the
28:42 disciples. >> There's an aspect of they would have heard say the biatitudes. >> Yeah. >> That Jesus most likely more than once is the case because that's just the nature of not just itinerate speaking but even traveling rabbis in in the ancient world. And then you have this event that is kind of earthshattering in terms of their narrative of who they are. They've been traveling with this rabbi for 3 years straight. They've been hearing his teaching. They've been seeing miracles at least that are recorded in the gospels. Pretty phenomenal things. And then he gets taken and he's murdered publicly. And they think it's over. They think, you know, there are other messianic movements in the ancient world. most of
29:28 which you and I aren't hearing on a regular basis because when those individuals die, their movement dies with them. And so that's what they think is happening, right? So they think, "Okay, we're done." So the story is they're hiding in this upper room and they're scared. In fact, it's the women who take on the responsibility of like going and figuring things out, which in terms of the time period is actually an embarrassing fact because of the kind of cultural dynamics of what's going on. And so you have the disciples who think it's over. What is it that has 11 scared disciples because one of them Judas goes and he kills himself. 11 scared disciples hiding in an upper room thinking that's it. We're done. We might as well, you know, Peter, James, and
30:13 John might as well just go back to being fishermen cuz that's all she wrote. to then having the boldness to go out and actually proclaim this message ultimately to the level of persecution and hardship that they endure for the rest of their lives. Well, it's that their rabbi then shows up alive again. And so, at minimum, I think what we can say is that this is a pretty drastic event that takes place in their life. It's a comparative to a 9/11 event for them. And so in terms of like the memory imprint that they are experiencing for the murder of their rabbi of their teacher and then something
30:58 happening where they then go for the rest of their lives. The martyrdom stories are a little bit tricky in terms of their historical reliability. I think a few of them we can say did happen. a lot of them is kind of up in the air but at minimum they suffered persecution. >> So the story in the Bible is that he was killed on the cross, murdered on the cross and then he was put into a tomb >> and then who saw him come out of the tomb. >> So nobody physically sees him come out of the tomb. But the women go to the tomb in the morning and on the third day and the tomb is empty. And so there are
31:44 four accounts, right? And I think it's interesting also that we have four accounts that kind of give different angles on the stories. They're not it's not as if they got together and they corroborated and all gave the same story. The fact is that we have four accounts that kind of capitalize on different angles, which the differentiation in detail, I think, actually gives credibility to the the reliability of it. Because if they were all telling the same thing, you could argue that they got together and they colluded. They don't do that. In fact, they they touch on different aspects of the story. >> Are these people saying that they saw him walk out? Are they saying that they just saw it empty? What is the claims being made about his resurrection from these witnesses? >> Yeah. So, the tomb is empty. >> The tomb is empty. >> And so, it's interesting in in one of the accounts, um, Mary's at the tomb,
32:31 and she actually talks to Jesus, but she confuses him with a gardener. Now, I think it's it's interesting that she doesn't confuse the gardener with Jesus. She confuses Jesus with the gardener. Like, she thinks that that this person she's talking to isn't Jesus. She doesn't recognize him at first. And she she asks him, you know, what happened? Why is the tomb opened? Where did the body go? And then there's also an account of an angel appearing and saying, why are you looking for the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. And then they go back to the disciples who are, you know, hiding in this upper room. Mary says, you know, I I've I met the tomb's empty. I've met Jesus. Jesus is not in the the tomb. He's risen. And some of them don't even believe her. They think she's crazy.
33:16 Now, we don't have like an eyewitness account of the tomb being open. And this is actually an embarrassing fact in the ancient world. So some of those other gospels that I mentioned earlier that are written later on, Gospel of Thomas, Judas, Mary, Peter, there's one of them, the Gospel of Peter, which is actually trying to remedy this fact that women are the first eyewitnesses to the empty tomb, which is a which is an embarrassing fact in the ancient world. If that's not true, if they made it up, it seems very unlikely that they would have done that because women are not considered good eyewitnesses in either Greco Roman or unfortunately Jewish society in this time period. So the gospel of Peter tries to remedy the
34:03 situation by having all of the right people in the right place at the right time. It has the Jewish and the Roman officials camping out in front of the tomb when it actually happens. And then has this recounted the story of the the literally the stone moving, Jesus coming out, all these things. Now, we know it's not historically reliable. We know that because of when it was written. We also know that on the eve of Passover, the priests would not be camping out in front of a dead body. It's just historically um anacronistic. But it is an account of a literary source later on that is embarrassed by what we find in here about the biographical information of the empty tomb. >> So is it just two women that said they
34:48 met Jesus in some form after his death? Mary being one of them which was his mother. >> No. >> Who's Mary? >> Mary. So there are a number of Marys in in the New Testament. Um this was Mary Magdalene. >> Okay. >> Yeah. who who was like a close associate. >> Okay. Like a friend. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, a friend. And then was there is it just her that says she saw him >> in there was a group of them. >> A group of them. >> Yeah. Of the women. >> Okay. And they were separate when they saw him. They weren't they were on their own. >> They were together. So, one of the gospel only mentions Mary. >> I believe it's the Gospel of John. But like I said before, it implies that there are more because she says we don't know where they put the body. >> Okay. So though that account only has her recounting it, it implies that there are
35:36 others and then the other gospels have more women that are going to the tomb. >> As a percentage, what degree of certainty do you have that he was resurrected and that um he was who he said he was? Cuz I agree with you that this character clearly existed like Jesus clearly existed. I personally believe that he was he was killed >> probably on a cross. >> But then you get to this point of resurrection which you have to then believe in something supernatural. >> Yeah. >> So what's the probability you'd assign to it? >> I I >> if it was like likely, unlikely, very likely. >> They're all likely because I think that what the gospel authors are doing is communicating truth. And I don't ultimately see an overabundance of reason why they would write what they wrote other than actually recounting a
36:23 story of what took place. >> I grew up in a place called Plymouth in the UK. I was born in Africa and in my local park there was this big poster on the wall about the white lady. I'll put it up on the screen. It's like a big legend in our city. It's this park and everybody says that they see this white lady in the park that was killed. And actually, there's a big board explaining her life, but it's all just accounts of people that say they've seen her. >> You have things like the Loch Ness monster in Scotland as well, where there's been 1,500 sightings of this big monster in the river. And even up until recent times, 2025, there was a surge of sightings of the Loch Ness monster called the Black Mass in in in the bay. >> Um, and that started in 565 AD. So, one of the things that I've always sort of struggled with when I think about humans
37:08 saying they saw something is we still today have sightings of UFOs and Loch Ness monsters and white ladies in parks that become legend. And actually with the Loch Ness monster, it's pretty interesting that even today there are sightings all the time of this monster that lives in the river. Now, I think maybe me and you both agree that there's no monster in the river, >> but there's something going on. There's something in human nature where we do have like a proclivity to engage in supernatural sightings and then once we've heard it once, we then reinforce that we've seen it too. And even as like a young man, I mean, maybe you believe this, but like I believe that there was a woman that would stand on the landing of my home and it would like wake me up and I would run and and tell my parents that the lady stood on the landing. Again, there's people watching this that think that there was actually a lady.
37:54 Probably maybe there was. But I you know what I'm getting at is like how do how can we trust human accounts of these things when clearly humans have an ability to make make things up that aren't real in some situations. >> Sure. Part of the answer to the question is one of the evidences for Jesus's resurrection is the fact that you and I are still talking about it almost 2,000 years later. >> My friend said this to me. I was telling you before about my Christian friend. He was like why are we still talking about it? Well I we can't prove it. >> It wasn't it didn't happen. So we're always going to talk about it. there's there's never going to be I mean unless >> something happens >> right the difference is that there are these other messianic movements that happened in the ancient world >> and so uh like uh Simon Barora the reason why we're not talking about Simon Barora as a messianic figure is because he died and his movement died with him
38:40 >> and his disciples didn't go out and then proclaim his continued message until like to their own detriment so I would say a few things I would say liars make poor martyrs in that you will die for something you believe is true, but the chances of you dying for something you know is not true >> are less likely. So if we're talking about the disciples and especially if what they're getting for this particular proclamation is they're being ostracized from their own communities, pagan gentile communities and the Jewish communities because remember there was persecution on both sides because it was at a certain point in time continuing to
39:26 say that Jesus was the Messiah and on top of that that he was God himself was not very popular Within the early Jesus communities, there's a complexity to the fact that people usually lie. You look at cultic figures, right? Right. Cult leaders usually do things for prominence or money or sex or influence. The interesting thing about the early disciples is they get none of that. In fact, they almost get the complete opposite of that in that Jesus says, "You're going to be persecuted. you're going to be put in front of tri tribunals and you're going to be interrogated. And that's exactly what happens. And they know that there is there's a danger to this because we have
40:12 in the book of Acts, which is the book after the gospels, we have a recounting of the first martyr of Steven. >> I think of like someone like Martin Luther King or Gandhi as being, you know, leaders from history that appeared to be from what I've understood very selfless and actually realized that they were all going to die. I'll never forget the speech actually where Martin Luther King says, "I've been to the mountain top." He was a very religious man, very Christian man, and says, "I've been to the mountain top. You guys get there, but I don't get there with you." >> Right? >> And then from the information I had, he died very, very shortly thereafter. And as he's saying, "I don't get there with you." He's he's emotional in his face. You see him crying. The video is was very con persuasive of the Christianity, by the way. >> Um, and then he's pulled off stage and then he's shot thereafter. feels like a man that knew he wasn't going to live
40:57 much longer but was willing to put his cause ahead of um his own mortality and um I guess Jesus was doing the same >> in a certain regard in terms of the disciples though I think like if they know this isn't true if they know that there's this kind of this has been mythological drift if things have been exaggerated why then especially experiencing that persecution seeing their friends die in that kind of setting do they continue to go on and do it. >> I think they definitely believed it was true. >> Yes. I think at minimum whatever is going on they like you you look at some of these uh secular historians and they look at the data and they say whatever's going on the disciples believe something happened that they saw something >> and so the I just think that the
41:43 explanations of the alternatives of that actually happening are insufficient in so far as how they actually explain the data. Do you have any doubt? >> Oh, of course. >> Okay. So, you have at least even 1% doubt. >> Oh, definitely. And I think especially when there are times of things that are far more existential than historical, when times of like struggle and pain and suffering, and I look at the world and I look at how messy it is, the children who die young, people who are abused, all of these things, I there are moments where I think, how how could there be a good God? I mean, I'm not immune to doubt. Um, and and the interesting thing that I find about the Bible is that the Bible is very open to the God of the
42:29 Bible being open to us coming to him with our doubts. >> Mhm. >> You know, onethird of the book of Psalms, which is like right in the middle of the Bible, this kind of poetic literature, if you want to call it that, are sometimes referred to as the lament or the complaint psalms. It's things like Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from me? I like I cry out by day and I hear no answer. And I think what's interesting that I find with the Bible is its transparency in saying we're going to struggle. You know, there's this really great story in the Gospel of John. Well, this is in a couple of the instances of the Gospels where John the Baptist who's like Jesus's cousin and good friend, he's been in prison because
43:14 he's been speaking out against Herod. He's been being a little bit too verbal politically. And so he gets taken and he's in prison. And though he's the one that baptized Jesus and said, you know, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When he's in prison, he doubts and he sends his disciples over to Jesus to ask, are you the Messiah? Are you the one we're waiting for? Or should we we be waiting for another? Now, in that interaction, Jesus actually says, John the Baptist is the greatest of all men born of women, which is basically everybody, right? And yet in that very same setting, John the Baptist is doubting that Jesus is who he says he is because he's experiencing pain and suffering. >> On that point of um you seeing you know
44:01 horrific things happening in the world and then having doubts. I think for me that was one of the persuasive arguments of the like new atheist movement that I became a part of when I was like 18 years old which was I think Richard Dawkins had said about you know if God is all loving >> then why would he let a 2-year-old kid in Africa have their eyeball eaten out from the inside by a parasite. >> Yeah. >> Like if if if I could intervene with that because you know the assertion is that God is omnipotent or powerful and omnisient or present. >> Yeah. If I could intervene with that as a human, I would stop that. And so if God is omnipower, omnipotent, sorry, all powerful and omnipresent, knows everything and is everywhere, then why wouldn't he intervene with the baby having its eyeball eaten out from the inside? >> Yeah, it's it's a good point. And I
44:47 think if there is an objection that is truly impactful on Christianity on in the atheist corner, it is the problem of evil and always has been because it's far more of an emotional and existential question than it is an intellectual question. Now, part of the problem with it is that if we're talking about evil with a capital E, we're implying that there's a good with a capital G. And so I think we do run into an issue when saying that evil exists or implying that good exists. And if we're implying that good exists, we're implying that there's a moral law to adhere to to call the good good and the evil evil. And if there's a moral law, then there has to be a moral lawgiver. And that's where we come into issues with is this subjective
45:32 or is this objective. I think the atheist movement would argue that that moral good is virtue of what helps me to survive. So like watching a small child suffer in such a way. >> If I didn't feel anything bad about that, >> yeah, >> then I wouldn't have the wiring for survival because I wouldn't have the proclivity to defend a suffering child. If I don't have that, then I probably don't reproduce and I don't pass on my genes and then I'm selected out of existence. So that pain I feel when I see a child suffering is a function of my evolutionary mechanics that make me more likely to survive and anyone that didn't have that wouldn't have survived and wouldn't be here now. >> Sure. >> So evolution therefore is the answer. >> I think that might suffice in certain
46:20 instances. However, it's still sort of smuggling in moral categories into a biological explanation. So part of I mean you read Richard Dawkins, you read you read River Out of Eden and he has that section where he talks about you know we shouldn't expect to see any rhyme or reason good or bad you know DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is and we dance to its music. And there's an aspect of Dawkins himself in that volume at least at that time when he wrote it articulating that at the end of it all there is no such thing as actually you can't call that parasite in that that boy's eye evil. You can say I don't like it, but to to import this moral category of evil is actually to import an idea. And this is actually what Dawkins was
47:06 criticized by by individuals like John Gray, the philosopher who taught at the London School of Economics. And he says, you know, you're a really great biologist, but then you want to impart actual intrinsic value to people. And if you're looking at a simple selfish DNA perspective, you can't actually ascribe that because your DNA, your selfish DNA exists to carry on its selfish DNA. And so in one sense, that child has no bearing on you. Now, it might have like a a protective mechanism where you want to figure out why the child got the parasite, and so you try to avoid that in order to not get the parasite yourself. But science can't actually give you an explanation
47:53 for what the moral implications are in that instance. Let me give you an example. >> I think I understand the point there. Um it's essentially asserting that like why does that child matter to me? Because my DNA should just be trying to take care of itself. >> Um I guess in biology there's um I don't always know who my child is. But also from an evolutionary perspective, if we were raised in communities and tribes, we took care of all of our the children. >> Sure. >> In in the surroundings, I would take care of my brother's children and he would take care of mine, therefore. >> Yep. Yeah. >> And again, that goes back to the point of survival, which means that I'm more likely to survive if I take care of like my community sort of. You you read something like uh the origin of species though like like uh Darwin himself
48:39 when he's articulating the survival of the fittest there is an aspect of you shouldn't take care of those people because they're actually bringing the genetic gene pool down. So we see even in like the eugenics movement pulling a lot from individuals like Darwin in order to validate the fact that in order to carry on your selfish DNA, this idea of taking care of the marginalized and those with on the fringes of society and those who are the the lesser than is is not evolutionary advantageous because survival of the fittest implies that the fittest should survive and these are obviously not the fittest. It's actually a Judeo-Christian ethic in the
49:25 understanding of everybody having equal value that we should be taking care of people because they have intrinsic value, not exttrinsic value. That allows us to then even import an idea of taking care of those who are not necessarily specifically related to me and mine. And it comes back to okay, where are we grounding this objectivity in? cuz there have been societies that have attempted to do it in like a might is right aspect and and you ground the objectivity of what we say is right in a society that says this is better for the most amount of individuals within a particular community. I think about um Yevel Noah
50:11 Harrari Harari in his book Sapiens where he says that the real defining trait of >> our species versus other species was our ability to collaborate and basically scratch each other's backs >> and that that meant that we had um evolutionary advantages because if we could work together in a big group and we could believe in stories and we believe in money and prison and governments etc. we could band together and take on the lion or band together and take on the elephant or whatever. And it's actually that in part there you have like I need to take care of you, you need to take care of me and we're going to reciprocate that altruism uh and increase our survival chances. So again that might explain why I care about that kid um because the species that didn't >> Uhhuh. >> they would never have been able to band
50:56 together and take on the elephant. >> Yes. I think it's largely our modern perspective living in a society where we are uh starting on second base already with our moral perspectives, right? We have inherited all of these moral categories because of our Judeo-Christian ethic. If you look at basically every society prior to this or even societies in the east, that's not a given, right? That's not an assumption. Especially in societies that have say uh understandings of karmic cycles whether that's in like Buddhism or Hinduism the idea of altruism is actually can be categorized as an evil because in the cycle of samsara of birth life death and rebirth you are actually the your lot in
51:44 this life is due to your wrongdoing in the last life. So in helping someone like that you are actually inhibiting them from being reincarnated better on the other side. So an idea like altruism doesn't exist within that eastern society. And if you look in the ancient world, let's pick on the Babylonians. The Babylonians, if they were to read Dawkins' River out of Eden, would basically say, "Yeah, exactly." Right. So they have this creation story. It's called the Inumalish, and it's this big battle of the gods, and it's uh it's an origin story, an attempt to explain why everything is here. But the conclusion of it is basically you are a product of a big battle and a mistake, right? The one god loses and you, everything around
52:29 you, the earth, the sky, it's just the remains of the gods that lost. So meaning, value, purpose, not really ultimately. You're just the product of time plus matter plus chance as well. It's just framed within a religious perspective. whereas Dawkins frames it in a natural materialistic perspective. So where do we get the categories to even say that we should be taking care of people in communities outside of our specific community because in some cultures they have the ethic of love thy neighbor but in others it's eat thy neighbor and so the question is which society do you want to pick? And you're saying that that came from Judeo-Christian values.
53:16 >> Yes, >> I would agree. Yeah, I would agree that. I think I'm trying to understand if it's innate in us from a God what's good and evil or whether it's, you know, we we all subscribe to a culture that was, you know, the foundation of that was these Christian values and um yeah, which one is it? >> Yeah. Well, was I born with a good and evil or was 2,000 or 3,000 years ago when Jesus came to be and we had these books? Did that just influence them? >> Yeah. Well, I think ultimately there's an aspect of our conscience that's imprinted on us that we we understand ethics to some degree or another, but the framework to actually find the objectivity of that ethic is found in the revelation of specific revelation in
54:02 scripture. >> Do you believe in evolution? >> I don't. >> You don't believe it's true? >> No. I am open to the fact that I don't think that a belief in evolution undermines Christianity in any way. However, I'm and prefacing this by saying I'm not a scientist. I'm an advocate for intelligent design and I would basically punt the complex conversations of evolutionary biology to individuals who are far more studied than me like Steven Meyer and Jonathan Mcclache and John Tours and Douglas Axe and those individuals who have studied it. At the exact same time though it also depends on what you mean by evolution, right? So like adaptation genetically is a thing >> I guess. So I'm saying do you believe
54:48 that we evolved from very simple organisms to become a human that you see today? >> No. >> And the argument for that would be you know I share 98% of the same DNA as like a chimpanzeee and we have these fossil records which seem to show a progression over time. >> You don't believe that's true? >> No I don't. But at the exact same time, I think, you know, there are individuals within the Christian faith, intelligent people who do and have no problem with understanding of a theistic evolutionary model. However, I think in the effort of survival of the fittest, I still think that you're starting a few miles down the road in answering the question of the arrival of the fittest. How do minds come from mindless matter? How does everything come from nothing? How do how
55:36 do we answer those questions? And I think that's why you can use the evolutionary model as an explanation of how God has actually created right the biology of the situation. But I think the bigger question is the cosmological questions. How did this all get going? You know, the big bang, what was the big banger? How did that first ball get rolling? And then why can you and I, Stephen, sit here and like I said before, have the three lbs of gray matter in my head kind of uh ruminate over these very complex questions. >> You know, I I think it was on the
56:21 Galapicus Islands. I'm probably going to butcher this, but I'll I'll do my very best. They, you know, the sailors went to an island, they left a bird there, they came back 50 years later, the bird's beak had grown to be very, very long >> because the prey on that island that it was eating were in in hole. So, they needed longer beaks. So, it kind of shows us that if you leave an animal in an environment, it will adapt and it's, you know, it will select out the the short beak birds for the long beak birds. And just in that short period of time, you can see that it's like, you know, it's becoming a different type of animal. And if you extrapolate that out over a long long period of time, almost an inconceivable amount of time, you know, maybe hundreds of millions of years, >> one can understand why like me and a chimpanzeee,
57:07 there are similarities in how we look. Um, and there are 99% similar like 98% similarities in my DNA and a chimp chimpanzeee's DNA. So, one would argue that we are we have a common ancestor. Yeah, >> it's like very compelling evidence to me. >> Sure. I mean, it's the transitions going from as the chimpanzeee type thing, right? Because we're obviously not arguing that that we were a chimpanzeee, a chimpanzeee exist today, but that yeah, that homminid, whatever that homminid was, >> what is the transitionary fossil explanation whatever that goes from the monkey to the human being? And I don't really think we have an answer for that in terms of consciousness questions like why what makes our
57:52 ability to reason and think and contemplate different than all of the other species in the animal kingdom. And how do we go if we're arguing that, you know, everything comes from single-sellled organisms? I guess you could have a if you want to call it a time of the gaps explanation, you know, just just add lots of millions of years and it solves this issue. I don't know if I am completely satisfied with that answer if cuz obviously there's adaptation but you know if you're looking at whether there's the dodo bird example or Darwin's finches right where the beaks are different um you're still getting beaked birds and we've never seen one species turn into a
58:38 completely different species >> the thing that I filled the gap with is that it's just a matter of time so you know with the birds example it's like 50 years or something or decades But when we think about Earth being like 5 billion years old, >> I think it's almost inconceivable what can happen over such a long period of time like it's conceivable that if me and you went to different parts of planet Earth and lived in two completely different environments and then we came back 5 billion years later and there was no medicine and no factors helping us to survive that you know we would have branched gone in two different directions completely and you you know your ancestors who were living in the jungle might 9 foot and actually what was useful for survival where I lived in some cave was
59:25 being 2t tall, >> right? >> And then we wouldn't be able to reproduce which kind of makes us different species now. Like that's I mean that's sounds conceivable for me over four like 4.5 billion years. Seems conceivable that like we both agree on adaptation. >> Mhm. >> Like small adaptations. But then if you expand the time horizon, those small adaptations become massive. >> Yeah. I mean ultimately no matter which way you want to swing it, I think the adding millions of years as the explanation is a little bit too convenient. >> But I think at the end of the day, you're still looking at the complexity in nature that points to a design of something that is is amazing. And the the question of okay, how do we Dawkins is, you know, famous for saying
1:00:11 that that it it has the illusion of design to it, right? There's not not actually a design to it. It's just the illusion of design. But I think, you know, if we actually look at when Darwin was writing, they thought the smaller you got, the simpler it got. And now we know that the smaller you get, in fact, the more complex you get. >> As in the more you zoom into the design, like the more you zoom into the brain or >> Yeah. Our understanding of science has grown exponentially even from Darwin's day. And there's an aspect of like Darwinian evolution that is is has moved on into what we would now call like neodyarwinian evolutionary theory. And you look at um individuals like I mentioned Steven Meyer before and he even uh has questioned some of these
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