Matt Whitman is a pastor and creator of the Ten Minute Bible Hour.

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Skeptiko-501-Matt-Whitman

Skeptiko-501-Matt-Whitman

Audio Clip: [00:00:00] Well as a Christian I guess that it would be easy for you to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Is that what we’re resorting to here, Gestapo tactics. I would like to hear that. Would you like to hear me say the Lords prayer? Fine I’m happy to, our father ,art who is up in heaven Aloe Vera be thy name, forgive us for trespassing, and do not lead us to the temptations because we are tired of them and they’re dancing, and deliver us from evil with your mighty sword and falcon forever and ever and ever, amen.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:41] That’s Zach Galifianakis and of course Will Ferrell in the movie, The Campaign and you know, actually my favorite part of that clip, but I wasn’t able to get it comes right after that, when the crowd have kind of stereotyped Bible belt Christians is booing because he doesn’t know the Lord’s prayer and Ferrell protests and says, I got the gist of it and I’ve been working through these shows on Christianity and Judaism and social engineering by the Romans, and I have to wonder to myself am I may be making too big of a deal about this because at the end of the day, I do kind of feel like Christians do get the gist of it, right? I mean, it’s all about love and light and forgiveness and compassion and for the modern, liberal, mainstream, protestant and America, that is what Jesus is all about, that’s what his message is all about, that’s what Christ consciousness is all about. So what’s the big deal? They got the gist of it, right. So and I’ve kind of said this before, but I’ll say it again, I’m trying to go past that, I’m acknowledging that, I’m acknowledging how awesome that is, especially in the context of a society we have that basically denies spirituality at every turn, either through science or through wink and nod Hollywood, Luciferian, Satanism, whatever that thing is. So where I’m trying to go is the next level of saying, okay, what’s beyond the gist of it? If we were going to try and get to some kind of factual thing, like I say and I know that’s slippery and tricky. What would we leave in? What would we throw out? Now, none of that would be a problem as you’ll hear for today’s most excellent guest, Matt Whitman and I have to stress, and this is just straight up the truth. I can’t tell you how far Matt stands above so many of the biblical scholars, religious scholars, comparative religion professors all that stuff, you know I’ve talked to a ton of those people. Matt stands head and shoulders above them in terms of standing up and dealing with the data and sorting through it and being able to push back with a well reasoned, supported argument of his position. So I’m going to play a couple of relatively long clips from this interview because the interview is very long, it goes a lot of different places. And I want to give you, at least as Will Ferrell says, the gist of it.

Audio Clip: [00:03:27] What do you think the chances are that the gospel writers had access to Josephus? I think 100% that Luke had access to at least the early publications of Josephus. I don’t think Mark had access, I think he wrote earlier than that and drew his details from Peter,