Q&A 15: The Bible - Just a collection of myths? - Christianity & Myth - Part I
Vern Peterman · Apr 11, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926159586259

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're moving into a two-parter, Christianity and Mythology. How many of you have heard somebody, maybe anything from a personal statement that you've heard, to something on the television, say the Bible is just a collection of myths? You ever hear that? Yep. Okay, I've heard it too.

And we want to address that, at least particularly as it applies to the New Testament. how well does that hold up to investigation and to get specific here. One of the reasons that I particularly am drawn to answer some of these questions was basically an event of almost 40 years ago where someone Close to me was, who at one point in time claimed to be a Christian, began challenging the historicity and the reliability of the Bible. Saying things like, well Daniel, though he claims to be writing in the 6th century, wasn't written until several centuries after that. those kinds of accounts and basically attributing the Bible to a bunch of later written documents than what on the surface you would conclude. Well, so that set me on a several decades long investigation, if you will, looking at historical evidence In this case, it's almost an anthropological issue.

Archaeology, studying archaeological evidence and things of that sort. One of the things I've come across, I'll share just before going into this, I've studied a lot of history and archaeology since about the early 70s. Here is a book, the Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee. Written, copyright 1996. So about a decade and a half ago.

In this book, I was kind of stunned to find that on page 147, and in that context of pages, the reference to the building synagogues, he says in the Gospels, that's bogus. Synagogues as buildings didn't occur until later. And so I was kind of, well, that's rather startling. But it's, again, one of those evidences of skepticism.

Well, the reality is a lot of the claims that are made about the Bible are made in the absence of discovery. So what's happened since this 1996 publication is several synagogue buildings from Jesus' time have been discovered. And so what's written on those pages is wrong. And in fact, what he says about the Gospels is wrong. And in fact, what it confirms is that the Gospels are historically correct. And in fact, confirmed several times over since this was written several years ago, a decade and a half ago.

One instance, and this is the most recent one, September of last year, They found a synagogue which was built almost a century before Christ's ministry, about 80 years before Christ's ministry. And this is in Magdala. Have you ever heard of Mary Magdalene? In her hometown. And so here is hard, fast evidence, and not only from the New Testament times, but from many decades earlier.

So the skeptical statement from this fellow, though I suppose at the time felt he was writing what was true, skepticism about the Bible, as more discoveries are made, just don't hold up. Anyway, we want to take a look today at this. Yeah, isn't that interesting? A part of what's not well understood is that archaeology is a very young science. It's a very young science. Beyond that, a lot of areas have yet to be substantially investigated.

We hear about, for example, Jericho. Here's Jericho. I mean, that's a prominent place in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments. That was where Jesus met Zacchaeus the week before he was crucified. Matter of fact, a week to the day before he was crucified, that was in Jericho. But that's also where Joshua came in with the Israelites, and it was the first battle, if you will, that Joshua and the Israelites encountered in the Promised Land.

Well, John Garstang did an excavation of Jericho and said, well, it confirms what Joshua said. And then about the time I was born, another archaeologist, Kathleen Kenyon, said, no, no, the Bible's wrong. Well, subsequent investigations have found Kathleen Kenyon goofed, and in fact the Bible is correct. But all those discoveries, even though John Garstang did his investigation many centuries ago, you have to realize how much of Jericho has been excavated.

About 1%. Right? So archaeology is a very young science. Most of the sites have not been touched, even in a site that's completely open. In other words, the ancient Jericho has nothing on top of it. You could go in to ancient Jericho, you can see it all now, at least on the top. The places where it's been excavated are very small compared to the total. Most of that mound of ancient Jericho has never been touched. So this is one of those areas where if you were to put the money into doing the whole mound, you would get a lot more information.

So making definitive statements about this or that in archaeology, especially skeptical statements, there is no evidence that, well wait a minute, Right? So, anyway, as we come to this, people will say, well, it's just a collection of myths. Well, wait a minute. Let's take a look here. People will claim the Bible is just full of myths, legends, fairy tales, and similar kinds of claims. I'll just tell you flat out, having looked at this for a number of years, that is assumption, not evidence. Okay? That is assumption, not evidence. We have here on the first page, in the middle of the page, four different terms that are used.

Legend, fable, myth, and fairy tale. Let's look at the definition of a legend. A narrative of human actions rooted in real or at least very possible history which are perceived as being in the realm of reality. A legend promotes the character of the subject, historical person, or persons, into something greater than average, typical, or normal. Can you think of some legends here in the United States?

Pardon? So yeah, Bigfoot would be a kind of a sort of a legendary thing, yes. It is cherry tree. Yeah. Yeah. And apparently there's no basis for the account, but here this legend gets built on it. George throwing the dollar across the Delaware. George throwing a dollar across the Delaware. Yeah. Well, today with inflation, it has to be a lot of dollars.

Yeah. The next one is a fable. A fable is a narrative that has similarity to the legend, but extends into recognized unreality. Like, this isn't just a tall tale, this is like, there's no way. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of gotten to that point, okay? Like this dragging his axe cut the Grand Canyon or something. You say, eh, not so much, right? Aesop's fables would fall into this category, in that the value is not in the fable's supposed historical truth, but in the lesson of wisdom or moral that is illustrated by the fable.

The third one, and the one we're focusing on here, is myth, a story that has meaning in a particular culture or religion, whether perceived to be historically true or untrue. The focus is on the meaning or significance in the culture. Such a myth will convey ideals, explain practices, beliefs, or some natural phenomenon.

C.S. Lewis was quoted as saying that the resurrection of Christ, and by the way, he started off trying to disprove it, and that's how he became a believer, the resurrection of Christ is a true myth. That is, it both explains and is historically true. So, interesting way to put it. The truth is that if something is a myth, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not historically true. The reason for saying that is that a myth is supposed to explain something or make something clear. If something is actually true and also explain something or make something clear, then C.S. Lewis' observation is correct. It actually is a true historical myth.

Okay, the last one here is a fairy tale, a story that intermingles normal life experiences with the fantastic and magical, including creatures and beings that have little or no basis in accepted reality. Fairy tales are typically thought of as being told or read to children. It's possible for fairy tales to have some allegorical connection to historical people, events, and or the creatures described to have similarities to an existing animal or a combination of animals and humans. I began, I think when Randy was about three, maybe four, I began telling our kids fairy, just made up fairy tales, just almost every night. But they were fairy tales, even though I used some people that they knew as names for the characters.

But they were just made up, right? Now, the reason for being specific about that is when somebody says, well, all these things are just myths, sometimes they really mean one of these other terms, because people don't have a specific understanding of what these terms are. It turns out that the Bible uses the word myth several times in the New Testament, and we find those quotes at the bottom of page one there. How does the New Testament use the word myth?

1 Timothy 1.4, there's a warning here about not paying attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.

Particularly the myths and genealogies in this context were Jewish. Why would the Jews pay particular attention to genealogies? Pardon? Tradition. Okay, part of it was tradition. You're correct. And what was the Jews' tradition? Why were genealogy so important to them? To attract their tribes. That's one thing. Which tribe are you from? Because that has various kinds of consequences. You're not going to be a priest unless you're of what tribe? The tribe of Levi, right? So you must have that tribal background. Alright, what would be another reason for tracking which tribe you're from? Prophecy. Pardon? Prophecy, the promise of the seed. Okay, the promise of the seed. The seed of whom? Pardon?

David. Of David in particular, right? Certainly, descendancy from Abraham is shown, and that would be important, but also David And we do see that noted with both Mary and Joseph in the New Testament. And so, descendancy, where you have prophecy that prophesized David, here you have a thousand years later in round numbers, Mary and Joseph then being shown in the lineage of David. So that would be another reason. And what would be some others? Pardon? Property. Yes, there was property, there was inheritance. So there was that kind of thing. There was also responsibilities for which tribe is going to cut the firewood this month. There were things like that, the one in the New Testament times.

So there were a number of different reasons, some more important for one tribe than another, but a number of different reasons for tracking genealogies. But the Jews would sometimes pour themselves into these genealogies and on the north side of the inner part of the temple area is where they kept all the records. And up until 70 AD when they were destroyed, one could go into the north side of that central temple area called the Nahas and you could look up the record. Anybody could go look it up and boy you could just pour over those genealogical records and make your copies and get completely engulfed in it.

So there was that, but there were also, pay no attention to myths because the Jews also had their myths. And I've told various ones in the past. One of them I talked about was one of the Jewish myths was that Abraham would stand by the gate of hell and make sure that no Jew ever went in the gates of hell. So that was a Jewish myth. And there were others as well I could give examples of. But that would be an instance.

And so Paul's warning Timothy, don't get caught up in these things. All of a sudden you're caught up in tremendous diversion. Second Timothy, here we have the same kind of warning. And we'll turn away their ears from the truth and we'll turn aside to myths. In other words, this warning about those who lead others in this direction. And again, these are very likely Jewish myths. Flip side here, top of page two, as I quote Titus. So here's each of the three pastoral epistles have a warning about these myths.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and now Titus 1.14. Not paying attention to Jewish myths, and here he's very specific, it's Jewish ones, and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. What's the commandments of men part of it? The Jews added to the Bible by doing what? Not only generating Jewish myths, but what else did they have? No, that's not correct. No. Listen. Yeah. What's that? Yeah, they added, you know, extra rules to the law. They had extra definitions.

In other words, if the Bible said you must not work on the Sabbath, well, then they had to define what was work. And oddly, then they said, okay, you could only go a certain distance. There was a Sabbath day's journey and that's all that was allowed. But then they had certain ways you could get around it. And then what was defined as work.

And it wasn't work to get your animal out of a ditch or out of a well or a hole. That was not work. But something else might be work. Interestingly, one of the conclusions of the rabbis is if you had to fix a musical instrument so you could play it on the Sabbath, that wasn't work.

Yes? Do you have a reminder of the question I had from last week about the Lazarus being healed on the Sabbath? And actually Jesus had to travel to get there, so he was just My recollection offhand is Friday before the crucifixion, the week before was Zacchaeus and Jericho and then coming up that steep route from Jericho up towards Jerusalem was Bethany and House of Figs and then Bethphage, House of Dates Right in those towns on the back side of the Mount of Olives was where Lazarus was raised. He was actually traveling on the Sabbath and of course his healing of Lazarus would have been something they would have accused him of. This is a healing that amounts to healing to the point of resurrection. And that's been another question, is it work to resurrect somebody on the Sabbath?

I mean, you can get real picky, but that's what he's warning about. People get all caught up and, you know, okay, we've got this definition, this rabbi says this, this rabbi says that, you know, and we're arguing and different schools of thought. And of course, some schools of thought are just arguing, right? And some folks love that.

So this word myth or the Greek mythos, where we get our word myth, right? had a more universally negative connotation in the New Testament, typically referring to a story invented by the author directly for his listeners, and known by the author to be presently and or historically false. The author would simply make it up. Does the Bible talk about Abraham being at the gates of hell to make sure Jews aren't there? No. And all the other myths about, because frequently these myths would involve key historical characters in the Old Testament, would involve angels, some of whom had invented names.

And then finally, 2 Peter 1.16 is quoted there in page 2 towards the top. And we did not follow cleverly devised tales, myths, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. What is Peter saying right there? We did not make this up. We were eyewitnesses of it.

And one more thing. Was Peter wanting Christ to be resurrected and just hoping against hope that it would actually occur? Not even sort of. I don't even know that guy. Right? Yeah, this was not something the apostles were just really hoping for and so they're going to write it in that way just because that's what they really wanted. Not even close.

The apostles testified to Christ's resurrection, even though that wasn't at all what they expected. Repeatedly stated by all four Gospels. They not only were not expecting it, but even after they were given testimony, there continued to be skepticism. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Oh, we've heard that Jesus resurrected, but I'm not so sure, right? They're telling Jesus who was resurrected that the Not-Surely was resurrected, right? And what happens? The women come and say to the disciples, the tomb's empty, right?

And so they say, whoopee! That was what we were hoping for, right? No! Peter and John go running in there to check it out for themselves. and then walk away scratching their heads. I wonder what that's all about. But Peter is explicit here. We did not make this stuff up.

It is not what we were expecting. None of us were expecting it. As a matter of fact, I was willing to have them record the Gospel truth in the Gospels and that's that I denied knowing Christ and I wasn't sticking around for the crucifixion because I didn't want to get nailed up myself. And I wasn't expecting the resurrection. And when the woman told us we didn't rejoice because it was a fulfillment, we still didn't believe it. We didn't make this up. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. We saw him again and again and again. Especially Peter. Yeah, Norman?

One of the things this morning on the Lutheran hour, they were talking about all the reasons that people gave for Christ not being resurrected. They went to the wrong guy. Yeah, went to the wrong tomb. Of course it's empty, it's the wrong tomb, right? Yes. And the stone was pulled away because it had never been put in place to begin with. And they never mentioned the fact that the burial shroud was left there. Yeah. Empty burial shrouds aren't something you find all over the place, and especially left in some kind of an order.

If somebody were actually to try to come out of that, they would have to do a bunch of unwrapping. And by the way, the things that they used to wrap the body with stuck the cloth to the body. So it wasn't something you just casually unwrap and walk away with the body. Oh, by the way, one more thing.

What were Jews not permitted to do except that it would cause them to be ceremonially unclean, not to touch a dead body, right? So to have a whole bunch of Jews go and grab Jesus and then to have them then go off to the various ceremonies taking place in Jerusalem would not be a good mix. Let's look down here.

How long does it take for legends and myths to develop? And by the way, this is one of the things that drove, in the absence of evidence, that drove the claim many years ago that the authors of the New Testament wrote many, many decades after the original supposed events. Why did they need to have that be true? They needed to be true because myths take a period of time to develop.

If I were to develop a myth that Wayne is 12 feet tall and weighs 450 pounds and it's all bone and muscle, you'd be looking at me and saying, Vern, I've got a problem. He's sitting right here. And so the difficulty is if you're in the context of where people can say, uh-uh, then that's a problem. So what needs to happen in order for there to be myth is have the original event and then enough time separating it that people can't cross-check it. You don't develop mythology where people can look straight at the evidence and say, no, not happening. If people wanted to contest Jesus was not descended from David, they could have done so up to 70 AD.

Why? There's the records right there. Anybody can go check. Were the myths created intentionally or were they just like a game of gossip that just manifested itself time over time over time over time over time? What's interesting is the records that we have where we have a definite myth It seems to be, in these cases, something that was developed rather right away. Someone would make up a story that seemed reasonable to them. But now, while it was developed right away, in order for it to stick, it still had to have been about an event some time ago, right? We have a case history with the Greek myths, and that's the bottom part of page 2. Herodotus is a Greek historian that allows us to test the tempo. This is a quote from the middle of page 2. Herodotus enabled us to test the tempo of myth-making.

Even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core. So it takes time. Two generations are long enough or what? Too short. Right? Too short. How long is two generations? Pardon? A generation Yeah, maybe 20 and 20, or maybe even a little bit longer. But yeah, you would have to have some decades go by, and even that, it's saying, is not long enough. Quite a number of decades before you could have, realistically, the development of mythology.

So we have the Greek myths. that are all that's left of the ancient Greek religion, about 1200 BCE, and that's before the Common Era. I don't prefer that term, but that's what the author used, because this is a quote. The residents of what we would call Greece and Asia Minor, the west end of what's now Turkey, shared a common belief in a group of deities that came to be known as the Olympians. The ancient texts we call Greek myths are mostly from the period known as the Classical Greek, Greece rather, circa 500 BCE, 500 years BC as we would say it. The stories behind the myths are from a much earlier time but written versions don't exist before classical times. So from 1200 BC to 500 BC, how many years are we talking there to develop these myths? Yeah, we're talking 700 years.

That's a little bit shy of what we have for the Gospels, right? The Gospels, we have the earliest copies we have of the Gospels date to within decades of the time they were originally supposedly written. So this doesn't sound like it fits. When we take the example comparing the Greek myths, that was 700 years from the original time when these events supposedly took place until the development of the myths.

The oldest myths can be traced to three main sources, Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric hymns circa 800 BC, a little bit before the time of Isaiah. That means that by the time they were written down, these works had survived 400 years of additions, subtractions, and mutations to finally become the versions we now call authentic. And by the way, this is not the case with a lot of the Jewish myths. A lot of the Jewish myths did develop just before and during New Testament times.

And that's why Paul's warning about them, right? Because they were showing up. The Greek myths are a window into the distant past, a view of a world that existed not only in the mind of the Greek poets, but in the hearts of the humble and long-suffering natives of ancient Greece. Some of you think of what some of the Greek myths that he's talking about? The myths about Hercules, yes, and the various creatures that Hercules fought. Other Greek myths? Yeah? Psyche and Cupid, it'd be another. Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Those would be examples of Greek myths. How about the Trojan horse? So, Greek mythology. Now, we get on to page three here.

Given these comparisons of another adjacent Mediterranean culture, it would appear that a few decades would not even be near enough time for mythology about Jesus Christ to develop into what we read in the New Testament. Now, is the New Testament written in mythological form?

When you have a myth, Do you have appeals to eyewitness testimony? Do you have appeals to multiple eyewitnesses? Do you have people saying, I heard it, I saw it, I touched it? No. And that is exactly what we have quoted here in Luke 1, in Acts chapter 2, and subsequent page there referenced to 1 John.

But here's Luke just as an example. Luke writes inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. Does that sound like the development of mythology? Not so much.

And if you read through the Acts 2 account that's there, if you read through on the top of page 4, the 1st John account, here's John writing on the top of page 4. This is the letter of 1st John. He's writing, the first of what we have is three letters. what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you that the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete."

Does that sound like mythology to you? Not even close. He is repeatedly emphasizing and he talks about what we've heard more than once, what we've seen, and what we've touched. So a confluence of three senses and multiple references to those. And then alongside that using words like we testify. Words that have legal import and legal implication.

So you don't see the mythological pattern. One of the things we do find in the myths is that there isn't this kind of claim in the myths from ancient times. What we find is things are simply told, period. Without this verbiage that says we saw it, we heard it, and you simply tell the story. when you're telling a myth, not make this multiple kind of appeal to use of the senses, confluence of the senses, or even multiple people seeing. That just is not what you see. That's not what you read. So the documents of the New Testament are not written in mythological forms.

That would be a very odd way to write a myth. with the multiple appeals, and it essentially gives something that is verifiable. Someone could say, oh no, you didn't see that. Where are the other people? Where are the other writings, etc.? Here's another point here. We have a section on page four towards the top. Mythical patterns in first century Judaism. They're in bold. As noted on page 1, a principal characteristic of myth is that it explains and supports cultural and or religious practices and beliefs.

But the Christ of the New Testament was not at all compatible with the concept of the Messiah, the Messiah ben David, Messiah son of David, held by first century Jews in Judea and Galilee. That is of course what we find in the Gospels themselves, not even the disciples were expecting. that Jesus would be of the form that he in fact was.

While the fervor for a military and political Messiah grew to a boiling point, birthing first the Zealots, Acts 1.13 is of course Simon the Zealot, and then the Sicarii. The Sicarii are not named in the Bible, but they're referenced there in Acts 21-38. That's what the 21-38 is next to the Sicarii. The Sicarii was the most extreme Jewish, we'll call them a Jewish terrorist group, from the first century.

Jesus neither acted in compliance with that popular belief nor supported it among the disciples, even though the disciples themselves expected Jesus to be that military and political Messiah until the day he ascended. Even after days of seeing Jesus resurrected and having Jesus tell them years in advance, I'm here for this, what did they continue to look for? even to the day he ascended, they continued to say, is now the time you're going to establish your kingdom? Are you going to drive the Romans out now?

Would you please do that? No. All. It was not according to their expectation. There's the quote here of Acts 1, 6-8, right in the middle of page 4. So when they came together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time that you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? By the way, when they said kingdom to Israel, did they mean you're restoring the kingdom to the church? No, that's not what they meant. They meant a literal kingdom with the Messiah, the son of David, as their head over literal, national Israel in the land of Israel. That's what they meant.

So Jesus says, it is not for you to know the times or epics which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, even to the remotest part of the earth. Which they still didn't quite understand what he meant, right? But later they did. So we have the bold question there.

Yes, but isn't Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection just a copy of pagan myths about a dying and resurrecting God? Anybody ever heard about that? There were other dying and resurrecting gods in ancient times, and this is just the Christian version of the dying and resurrecting gods. Now, historically, It's true that there were accounts of dying or resurrecting gods. So that part sounds like, well, maybe this Jesus thing is just one of those.

But that doesn't check out. We have five points of objection to that. The first one, number one there, the repeated direct appeal to witnessing these actual events literally and in the context of real history does not match the character of any pagan mythology.

The pagan mythologies about a dying and resurrecting god made no appeal to eyewitness testimony or the touching or hearing or anything else that goes along with it. So that form of a dying and resurrecting God, where you talk about multiple eyewitnesses, even eyewitnesses that were convinced against their will, right? None of the ancient dying and resurrecting God accounts, mythology, fits that.

On page five, number two, the Judaism surrounding Jerusalem and Judea was particularly opposed to such pagan, and that's what it would be, all those ideas were pagan, pagan mythological notions, though Judaism had a mythology of its own, as we've noted, and would not be a likely cultural root of such accounts if of pagan origin. The Jews in Jerusalem, if somebody came up with some pagan myth, they'd say, you know, I'm not going for that. So the pagan myths getting rooted and salted in Israel, extremely unlikely.

Okay, number three. The pagan mythologies from prior to New Testament times are typically related to an annual crop cycle. Do you see Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection being related to the annual crop cycle and an analogy for agricultural productivity? No. You don't see that. The pagan mythology is the mystically based, mis-pictured physical realities in agriculture, whereas in Christianity, the actual physical resurrection of Christ did not relate to agriculture, but to the present spiritual lives and eternal physical bodies of believers. That Christ was resurrected, and that you were identified with him in his resurrection, was not something that there were mythologies about. Didn't match up. The next one, pagan mystery, musterion. Those of you who have been around a few years, this is when I bring up the moose, right?

Which have been supposed parallels to the New Testament accounts, date to after the New Testament era. So when somebody says, oh, but the ancients had these dying and resurrecting gods, Those stories didn't come up until after the New Testament times. So what would have been the source and what would have been the result? If anything, someone might say that the Christian account of the resurrection was then borrowed by the pagans.

So the timing of those accounts is not correct. But there's also a number five, a very important point, and that is in the mystery cults it went like this. You were told that if you would swear yourself to secrecy on penalty of death that they would put you through these very special and secret rituals to bring you into this mystery cult. Was that the way Christianity was carried out? No. And why not? How was Christianity carried out?

Openly. Yes. Let's tell everybody. We proclaim Christ and Christ is crucified. We tell everybody. Right? Behold I tell you a mystery. I tell all of you this mystery. Right? And so the Christians use the word mystery in the exact reverse in that they went and told everybody. Let's go out to the middle of the plaza here at Ephesus and just start telling everybody. Right? None of this swear to secrecy stuff. Matter of fact, don't keep it a secret. Right? Make sure you tell people. So it's the exact opposite of the mystery cults. That is another aspect of it that doesn't fit with the pagan mystery cults where you had the crop cycle associated with it and all that. Okay, conclusion here.

Regarding the New Testament message as focused upon Christ, here are the summary reasons why the primary claims of the New Testament cannot be categorized as myth. So one, the New Testament at several points specifically warns against establishing or following myths. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, all three pastoral epistles, and then 2 Peter. 2 Peter 1 of the Apostles, 2 Peter the sponsor of the book of Mark, 2 Peter the author of 1 and 2 Peter warns and says, we didn't make this up.

We were eyewitnesses. It was the real thing. Number two, the New Testament at several points appeals to direct or indirect eyewitness testimony confirmed by other senses, hearing and touch, in a context in which falsification was quite possible. And there would have been many who would have been motivated to bring out the evidence and testimony if they could do so.

Who would have been motivated to disprove Jesus' resurrection if they could? Pardon? The Pharisees, of course. No way they would want this. Right? And who else? The Sadducees would have been another group. Why? Because they don't believe in the resurrection of anybody resurrecting. Anytime. And they also don't believe in the Messiah.

Right? So the Sadducees, you're right. Who else? Yes, the Romans, okay? And by the way, who else we got around Jerusalem? You got the Sadducees, you got the Pharisees, you got the Romans. Basically, nobody among the unbelieving world, the non-Christian world, nobody present of any power and influence wanted this to happen. Okay? Nobody.

If they had been able to do so, it would have been very easy to say, guys, here's the cross. Here's the tomb. Here are the soldiers. See the seal on the stone? Or even to come up and say, look, you guys goofed. See, here's the real tomb. Here's Jesus' body.

But nobody could do it. Even though they would have been strongly motivated to do so, and even though a great many of them, in having power and influence, would have loved to be able to disprove the resurrection. And if it had not occurred, it would be very simple to do so. Piece of cake. You had a number of people involved in the judgment and the resurrection.

Yeah, Norm? In more modern days, in the last 250 years, we have the Freemasons. Yes. which have preached the work of God in their own way, but they wish to keep certain things very secret. Yes, they do. And I'm just curious, is that a modern form of what's going on? Yes, this idea of the mystery religions has continued on in groups like the Masons, where there's the secret ritual and don't tell anybody and that kind of thing.

The typical rituals with the Masons, even early on, have various sorts of pledges that you won't go around telling people. because I had family members who came back to Eastern Star, and my family did not believe, necessarily, in keeping anything secret, although my sister did go in to Joe Keller. Point three.

There is not sufficient time from the original events to the recording and assemblage of the New Testament to generate myths. Some of the evidence and indications are now that the Gospels began to be recorded as early as about 10 years after the original events.

And it's just not enough time. You have way too many witnesses. You have way too many people around who don't want this, you know, being testified, proven, spoken of, anything of the sort. The apostles were told by the Jewish leaders after they got a whipping and then put in jail, don't go talking about this anymore. And what they said was we can't stop telling about what we've seen and heard. Sorry. We're going to keep talking. We're going to keep telling because we've all seen it. And it wasn't that long ago we didn't believe it, but now we most certainly do.

Number four, the claim by some that the accounts that Jesus developed from other pagan mythologies is out of historical sequence. Wrong sequence. Those accounts were recorded later than the time of the New Testament, and not in the proper genre, that is, not in the proper kind of writing. to have been developed from the pagan myths that were the supposed source. And number five, while a myth is developed in an accounted, excuse me, an accommodating cultural context, there are a number of aspects of the cultural context of the New Testament, the unbelief of the apostles, the people not looking for this kind of a messiah. A New Testament which would not be conducive to developing the New Testament account and letters. You did not have anything about the right historical and cultural context that would support the development of myth. It wasn't at all what people were expecting, it wasn't what they wanted. Isn't it interesting?

God says, you know, you want this, you're expecting this, that's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to do something quite different. Next week we're going to be taking a look at part two of Christianity and Mythology by looking at Christian myths. Yeah, Christian myths, things that have been developed among Christians that many Christians believe. You may have even seen it in your email, right? But are not true. So Christians do have a mythology. not supported by the Bible or history. So we'll take a look at that next week. Okay?

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, we thank you that we have indeed an event that took place in history, better documented than any other event of ancient history, testified to by those who gave their lives in many cases, to support the truth and we thank you for the truth that you did indeed rise from the dead and that it is not a false made-up mythology but in fact took place in history, in time and in space so that we would live with you for eternity. We thank you for that. Thank you for this precious blessed hope that we have. In Jesus' name, Amen.