Christian Apologist (Mike Licona) is Troubled by his Holy Book

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I have a lot of unanswered questions. I've there are things that bother me.

They worried me.

I think one thing I've learned and I learned this from Gary Habermas, a mentor of mine,

I would come to him and I'd say, Well, what about this? And what about this? And he'd say, Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Yeah. Okay, well, why is that bothering you?

So, you know, yeah, but there's debate today amongst scholars who wrote Matthew, did Matthew actually write the Gospel of Matthew? While Mike did Jesus rise from the dead?

Yeah. Well, if Matthew didn't write Matthew, would Christianity still be true? If Jesus rose from the dead? Yeah. Well, then why is it bothering you so much?

Bart Ehrman, we've had five debates, he and I, and

he would point out all these different contradictions and errors in the Bible. And I said, Well, I don't grant those to you, Bart. But look, if Jesus rose from the dead

if Jesus rose from the dead Christianity is true, even if it were to be the case that some things in the Bible aren't. And he agreed. It's like, well, what's the big deal then?

So that's the response that it has provoked for me. I've used the so yes, I have a lot of unanswered questions. Yes, there are some things in the Bible that troubled me. Honestly, I don't like to read the Old Testament.

So

but I've, I've learned to put things into perspective. Guys, you guys just saw that. This guy,

Mike,

Michael Lang Kona.

if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, I've just gotten to know who he is actually, on. He's a big player, apparently, in the Christian speaking world, obviously, next year was William Lane Craig.

Anyway, look, I mean, why I just wanted to make a quick reaction video on this. Because I just found that for someone who's meant to be one of the scholars of the Christian faith and English speaking world, how can you come up with such from your own perspective, blasphemous statements? Like you're saying, I don't like reading the Old Testament.

But isn't the Old Testament scripture is in the Old Testament, the Word of God isn't the Old Testament, according to you,

you know, comprising of not just

the five books of the Torah in the beginning, but also the words of the prophets, and people who have been given revelation from God. So how could you not like reading that? If you're a true,

Christian?

And then you'll say, Well, if Jesus rise from the dead, then Christianity is true.

What do you mean, if Jesus did not rise from the dead in Christianity is true? If you're casting aspersion,

on the validity of the Bible, in and of itself, including the Old Testament, why don't we we can do the same thing now with textual analysis of the New Testament? How do you know, Jesus rose from the dead? How do you know Jesus was the Promised Messiah? That was

that was prophesized in the Old Testament, if you don't like reading the Old Testament, if it's not something we should take seriously.

So you see, it's a circular argument. And it's problematic on many different levels. And I think that this is an indication of, especially in the apologetic world, and we have as well in our community, our Muslim community, where apologists get battered. Yeah,

they get battered so hard on certain issues, usually moral issues, that they throw the baby out with the bathwater. So in this case,

I'm not gonna mention names from our community. We do have people that do the same thing as this guy's done here, but

you've just thrown the baby out of Buffalo.

Without scripture, you've got nothing my friend, Do you get it? If you don't have this the thing? Your principles and doctrines, are you are you giving me a Catholic rendition of is this meant to be a Catholic rendition where the community and the ecumenical councils of the patristic

elders

in the early Christianity, Christian period, it was the crystallization of the doctrines of the Trinity etc. are these? Is that the authority? Or is the authority vested in the scripture? As a Protestant? How can you even make the claim? That?

Yeah, that you don't like to read the Old Testament? So you see, I feel like this is you thrown the baby out with the Buffalo. And because you've been battered in the, in the in the apologetics world, where people tell you how can you have a verse telling you that you can smash the baby's head on the rock or whatever, okay. And going into these things, and at this conference, you to know that Jesus Christ, you're saying is God,

Jesus Christ, you are saying, as God in this conference, you to know that he's the one who ordered, you know, the young girls to be taken Book of Numbers, 31, verse eight, whatever it is, yeah. Where he loved the book, or, you know, to be taken off to, you've destroyed everything in the land. And we don't even need to go into the Old Testament rhetoric because it's very well known. Okay, maybe at this conference, you to look at the creation story, and its conflicts with modern science, or maybe it discomforts you to look at, yeah.

Other

issues

relating to

the prophets and how they dealt with, you know, their daughters, their mothers, their sons, whoever it may be incestuous relationships, of love, and this and then other prophets. Maybe these things really

just come for you. But the thing is, then,

aren't you not doing that? By the way, there's a guy called Mohsen Yeah, he was one of the

patristic. If you look at it from a church farmer perspective, he was actually quite early on.

He wasn't a church father, because he wasn't considered part of the church, if you want to use that term, as if there was some kind of unity of the church in the early days, there wasn't. But there's this guy called marcian, who basically believed that they, he was an early so called, he's not, they would consider him. Obviously, Christians would consider him.

Obviously, we were this was Muslims, he would consider him as a heretic. But he said that, you know, you've got two kind of gods, the God of the Old Testament, the evil god, and then the God of the New Testament, who kind of is the loving God and comes in, takes us away from,

you know,

the clutches of this evil god. And it's almost as if this, this licona, I'm sorry, if I'm pronouncing his name, right or wrong,

is affirming this narrative? Now, what I found was really interesting. I'm not saying to that level, but he's affirming that narrative. What I found interesting is William Lane Craig, who's mad at me, he is an eminent scholar in the religion of philosophy of religion. He didn't correct him.

And this is even more disturbing, if you think of it because these guys are just wouldn't this makes me feel like now, the Christian world is, is reaching such a decline period. There's a decline period. Now in terms of Christian apologetics and Christian.

What do you call it, faith spreading missionary work, and so on, especially in in Western Europe, is reaching such a low that these guys are willing to throw the baby out with the Buffalo and willing to change their religion completely? Now, he said, If Jesus rise from the dysentery argument, it's such a such a ridiculous unscholarly argument. He goes, if Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. All right, if you believe Jesus rose from the dead, but then for the sake of argument, you believe in a new prophet called Prophet Muhammad,

as Christianity is still true. Now, that's my, that's my honest question to you. Because what you didn't think about is additions to that belief? Just because you believe Jesus rose from the dead? Is that is that all it is? So your faith is based on a historical event? So as a historian, if I look back and say, You know what, I doubt the existence of the resurrection. And by the way, there are good, well qualified historians here in the West, that not only doubt, the crucifixion and the resurrection, but they doubt the whole existence of Jesus Christ. Now, as a Muslim, I don't doubt the existence of Jesus Christ as a Christian, I'm sure you don't either. But the point is, why

should faith be predicated on a historical event which can easily rationally be

happened 2000 years ago, I can say I don't believe it. You guys are not all of you guys. But a lot of you guys deny the existence of dinosaurs. You say, look, the fossil record. The archaeological fossil record has been,

well, you know, the devil put those fossils in place, whatever it may be that you guys say not all of you, young

Ah, creationists, for example, some of them I've heard those conspiracy theories. And point is, you can have those beliefs. But if you're willing to put cast aspersions on the fossil record to that level, then why why is it not reasonable for someone to cast aspersions on this historical event of the resurrection? say, well, we have eyewitness testimony. So no problem. You have eyewitness testimony you have this you have that whatever. And by the way, I'm not even going to go into the contradictions in the four gospels, the Synoptic, Gospels and so on and, and how these contradictions

are problematic for historians. Yeah. Forget about for Muslims and Christians and Jews and whatever for historians that look at the data, this is a problem. I am not even going to go into that, that, that

that matter? Well, I'm going to go into instead of say to look,

you

what comes before what does the historical event become before the scripture orders? The scripture will come come before the historical event.

Obviously, the historical Good, okay, so now what is the scripture that you accept? If you're saying you don't like the Old Testament, meaning there's something wrong in the old says, You don't like it?

Something's wrong. How could you not like reading God's Word? You see this in our tradition? If someone said, I don't like reading the Quran?

I mean, is this guy a Muslim? Is this guy even a Muslim?

How could you not like reading the Quran? Why? Because there's some things in it that this country

you know, there are some injunctions, let's be fair and honest. There are some injunctions which are very similar in the Old Testament and the Quran, they're very similar injunctions. But for someone now to reject the Koran as a result of this

is problematic, because for our from our perspective, the epistemology is, you go back to the Creator God, who created the world, and he said profits of which Jesus is one of them, Moses, Jesus, Abraham, etc. and Mohammed is the final prophet of all of those prophets, and whatever he comes with his why His revelation, and therefore anything he says, must be concurrent with the Absolute Truth with the objective truth. That's a simple that is a simple categorization design belief. So someone says, I don't like reading those injunctions, those points of guidance, then for me, that person has not been has not believed in those points of guidance. So I'm really shocked that you can have

someone who's in the apologetics, or whatever you want to call it, in the Christian apologists what you want to call it, whatever they do, and they are speaking like that, and the crowd is swallowing up and clapping along. It shows you the state of Christianity in the West has reached an all time low. I probably say that has reached an all time low since probably like 1000 years. Honestly, people are just willing to accept ku klux on any kind of straw to maintain their faith in these doctrines, which have now largely become outdated for the majority, or when the opinion of the majority of us becoming a majority. By the way, I'm not saying this the majority just yet, but in

probably about 20 years, it would definitely be the majority of Western Westerners anyways, so don't want to come around to my articles.