Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not Jesus fulfilled prophecy and we are starting right now with Samuel Nassan's opening statement. Samuel, the floor is all yours. Thanks for being here. Hosting this and thank you very much Matt for agreeing to do this. In my very first debate that I did this was in 2012. The argument from fulfilled prophecies was the one I used and I'm excited to be able to just focus on this one in this debate with Matt. So again to begin with let me quote a passage in scripture as to why I believe this argument is important. My contention in this debate is that number one Jesus did fulfill Old Testament prophecies and I make a disclaimer before I start that by saying that Jesus did fulfill Old Testament I do not mean that he has already fulfilled all prophecies. There are some aspects that were meant to be fulfilled in his first coming and there are some aspects that are meant to be fulfilled in the future and there are some other aspects that are being progressively fulfilled as the gospel spreads to all the world. So in this debate my position would be that Jesus did fulfill part of the predictions made in the Old Testament about him. The key text for my presentation today comes from Luke chapter 24 verses 44 to 48 and I read from the ESV then he referring to Jesus said to them these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms might be fulfilled then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. Now scriptures here means the Old Testament was 46 and he said to them thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise again from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem you are witnesses of these things. So then Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment not just of part of the Old Testament you know passages here here and there you know that the Christian apologists has to somehow go hunting to find these obscure passages and to try and somehow squeeze them to make them fit into the narrative of Jesus. Not so Jesus' self-understanding was that he was the fulfillment of all that was the Old Testament. So in other words the Old Testament existed to point people to Jesus and so in that's really the position that I'm taking coming into this debate and so when you look through the Old Testament my position is that when we see that Jesus is the central fulfillment of all that the Old Testament is talking about the Old Testament written by at least no less than 30 authors over a period of more than a thousand years you suddenly begins to make sense in light of the person of Jesus Christ not one at two obscure passages but the entirety of it. So with that big picture what I'll do is in my the rest of my opening statement what I'll do is I'll run through the Old Testament to show why this big picture points to Jesus. We begin with and yeah before I even get there you know for the purposes of this debate you know it's my understanding that Matt will grant that the Old Testament was written before the before the time of Jesus and I know that Matt is not committed to whether Jesus existed or not that's certainly not part of this debate but for the sake of argument it's my understanding that he will grant that these passages already existed prior to the time of Jesus. So Genesis chapter one verse one the very first verse of the Old Testament begins with the phrase in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth so God creates the heavens and the earth and then he creates man Genesis 126 talks about how God creates man and women in his image to rule over his creation and keyword here to be in a covenant relationship with him the entirety of the Old Testament and the word Testament itself is a covenant speaks of God having a covenant relationship with his people in this case of Genesis it's Adam and Eve now in Genesis three men and women sin and they sin against God prompting the first the second covenant or the first covenant promising a savior. So this covenant comes in Genesis chapter 315 where God says I will put enmity between you referring to the serpent and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring and he referring to the seed of the woman shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So right from the get go as soon as Adam and Eve sin the promise is God is going to send the seed of the woman a singular he who is going to crush the head of the serpent have ultimate victory over the head of the serpent by being bruised in the heel. Now I will interpret that as bruised in the heel just mean suffering a slow and painful death but that's again be something we can discuss later but the important thing is that as soon as the sin takes place God promises someone who will ultimately have victory over Satan and Genesis four you see the idea of a sacrificial lamb Genesis four talks about a sacrificial firstborn lamb being offered to gain favor with God and so automatically you have the picture that God expects forgiveness through the blood of the lamb this is a theme that will play all throughout the Old Testament when we get to the book of Exodus there are a number of things that God does for to set the people of Israel free and the last one that ultimately does it is the blood of the lamb on the Passover but before that Genesis goes the what happens in Genesis is it begins with this overarching context of God is going to send the seed and it begins in Genesis chapter 12 with a person called Abraham it narrows down God promises Abraham that through his seed all nations on the earth will be blessed so the promise now is narrowed down most specified to Abraham and through Abraham's seed this is going to happen and we know that through Isaac this comes about and in Genesis chapter 22 we have a very interesting story I think that if I'm not mistaken Matt has spoken on this story before it's a popular one Genesis chapter 22 talks about God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac this is in Genesis 22 verse 2 and off the get go there seems to be a factual error Isaac was not Abraham's only son Isaac was not even the oldest son but why does God refer to Isaac as the only son and in that passage God tells Isaac to go Abraham to go to the land that I will tell you to the mount to the regions of Moriah and there Abraham goes up that hill to sacrifice his son Isaac with Isaac carrying the wood up that hill Isaac is fastened to that wood on top and it's about to be killed when God stops and provides an alternative a ram in the place of Isaac and interestingly in that passage Abraham says this on the mount of the Lord it will be provided future tense it will be provided what will be provided the context is the sacrifice of the only son interestingly enough we know that Mount Moriah or the regions of Moriah was where Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem and 2000 years later Jesus dies on Mount Moriah now is that a conclusive proof that that's a prophecy about Jesus no but you have to see it in the entirety of the context the narrative goes on with it getting clearer and clearer where exactly the sacrifice will be given and then when you come through Exodus you see that for example God forgives sins through the blood of the lamb God delivers through the blood of the lamb in fact in Exodus chapter 6 verse 6 say therefore to the people of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm God promised redemption through an outstretched arm and long story short when you go through the entirety of the Psalms and the prophetic literature you get the idea that God himself will be the sacrifice in fact in Isaiah 53 and I'll probably have only time to just get through with this you notice the phrase comes in Isaiah 53 who has believed was one who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed where did we hear the word arm of the Lord well that was in Exodus chapter 6 verse 6 the means to which God redeems his people and you go down and you find Isaiah 53 promising that this arm of the Lord is going to be despised in verse 3 is he will bear our griefs and carry our sorrows verse 4 he would be verse 5 peers for our transgressions brews for our iniquity and when you get to chapter 8 by oppression and judgment he will be taken away he will be cut off from the land of the living and yet verse 10 says and 11 and 12 talks about his death which will bring bring a blessing to the nations going back to the promise of Abraham that through his seed all nations on the earth will be blessed so again I could go deeper into this but my time is running out I will hope that either through the cross examinations and the rebuttal to help us realize that all this picture of God the context of all this is that when man sinned against God God is beginning a plan to redeem man through him this plan is ultimately fulfilled with Jesus and by the time you get to the book of Revelation which is a prediction of the future you have basically God once again uniting man to him in this grand picture consummating with the life the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ thank you very much Samuel we will kick it over to Matt for his opening statement as well 10 minutes the floor is all yours Matt. Cool cool story and sorry for the late start it was entirely my fault there's also been some internet hiccups but so if we were to ask did Jesus X for example did Jesus rise from the dead did Jesus emerge from a virgin preached the words attributed to him did Jesus have sex did he eat food did he curse a fig tree did he walk on water did he curse the blind did he poop did he fulfill prophecy those are different questions and not all those questions are asking about something can easily be verified and while I'm not a mythicist we can't even verify a single story about a single event from his life including whether or not he actually existed it's probably they have had sex although I'm sure that will offend someone it won't offend them as much as the suggestion that he might have had gay sex which by the way is a more reasonable inference from the text about the disciple whom Jesus loved than any proposed prophecy we're likely to hear tonight but the other things are less mundane and require a bit more than well that's what the story says or we can reasonably infer this about someone hopefully we will have several specific prophecies on offer tonight statements that clearly predict a future event and then solid evidence that show that this future event was fulfilled in fact by Jesus and not merely stories I'm doing my opening second so we would have already heard this except I evidently we didn't the James Randi Educational Foundation for years had a million-dollar prize for anyone who could demonstrate any supernatural ability now this question about whether Jesus fulfilled prophecy I mean the J ref tested people who claimed to be able to predict the future or remote view I myself as a magician can do things that make it appear like I've made a prediction as a matter of fact before the debate started I gave Sam a choice from one of eight symbols which I had already predicted with everything in front of him directly I don't know if he knows how I did it I don't you know it's not going to work well because of the cream screen but so the question is do we have specifics if the James Randi Educational Foundation's million-dollar prize can test psychics like this then and they can set up protocols to test this then clearly this issue about whether Jesus was divine whether he fulfilled prophecy has to be worth more than million dollars so the standard of evidence for Jesus should at least rise to the level of being good enough to win the J ref prize and it doesn't you can't just walk in with a story of one person doing something that was predicted in a different story because if that's the standard then we can say Harry Potter fulfilled prophecy or that Neville fulfilled prophecy in fan fiction for example the trick that I did is not only I think more impressive than any prophecy reported in the bible or any prophecy that we're likely hear about there but it is specific it is not prone or subject to interpretation of verses or symbols for prophecy to be considered a prophetic and correct it must be specific it must be unambiguous answerable by a single future fact without interpretation it can't be something in the that's out in the open that people are working to fulfill like building me a house or bringing the medium rare steak that I ordered waiters and cooks aren't fulfilling prophecy and people actively working to make let's say a Jewish nation state aren't working to fulfill prophecy because that's not what prophecy is it's not hey go do this so the question is did Jesus fulfill prophecy well I don't know how anybody can say yes if we can't even demonstrate any facts about and details about his life it just becomes a story and a story by the way that the authors for example the author of the book of Matthew seem really desperate to have Jesus fulfill as many Old Testament prophecies as possible to the point where I think it's Matthew 2 23 or so he seems to just mention a prophecy that nobody can find in the bible maybe it's a lost text maybe he got a tip from an insider maybe it's just a cool story he heard but the Jews generally speaking do not think that Jesus fulfilled prophecy it's their book it's their prophecies why don't they think that Jesus is the Messiah well because he didn't fit any of the characteristics or he didn't actually fit all of the characteristics of the prophecies even in the story now I could go through the Matthew 2 23 thing is it from another source did he make it up but the truth is it doesn't matter because we have two different genealogies well why do we have two different genealogies may all once through the father and once to the mother that's a post-hoc rationalization it's not like anybody can prove that any of these genealogies are Jesus it's not like anybody can prove that he was born of a virgin or anything else but they have to do these genealogies in order to tie him to David because it the Messiah that is not a divine figure in Judaism it's a king that is there to restore the temple to guide people to obey the law the 613 misfit and that's essentially those are things and he could shouldn't be killed in the process process Judaism doesn't have a concept of fulfilling the law the law is unchanging and God is unchanging in Judaism there's no concept of being born sinful there's no concept of being born in need of salvation Jesus is viewed as an influential false prophet within Judaism because he supported alterations to God's unchanging law the Messiah in Judaism is a warrior king liberator that's there to guide the people to follow the law this concept of the Messiah originated in Judaism the Messiah isn't divine or God he must do certain things and he must not do certain things now it's too much to dig through all of what the Jews did and currently do believe about a Messiah but the Jewish version of Jesus is viewed through the lens of Christianity itself otherwise it would just be another false prophet they the Jews view these as based on mistranslations or misinterpretations and Sam when he's running through these you know talks a lot we a we have Genesis one and Genesis three and all these other things but it's all subject to interpretation Islam and Christianity are perversions of Jewish foundations they are extensions they are unauthorized sequels that don't actually pay close attention to the model instead they change the model which is why there were some Jews that follow Jesus and there were some that didn't because the ones that you know the rabbis who understood this stuff were saying hang on a second you're you're not what we're expecting which is one of the reasons why he was purportedly killed when it comes to messiahs and whether not somebody fulfilled prophecy I'll stick with the people whose ancestors authored the prophecy who have spent their entire life studying it now I know there's another group of people who spent their lives studying it too so at a minimum what we can say is there's a group of people who don't think Jesus fulfilled prophecy and they were the people who are tied to the original prophecies and there's a group of people who do think that Jesus fulfilled prophecies and neither one of them can demonstrate the truth of this proposition sufficient to change the mind of the other and so the one correct answer about whether or not Jesus fulfilled the prophecy or any prophecy is we don't know now if Sam wants to claim that Jesus fulfilled prophecy he needs to state a specific prophecy not a conversation perhaps in Hosea as is one of the foundations for the passage in Luke where a couple of people are talking to each other about something specific to their life and only in hindsight can somebody go back and look at it it's like oh we'll stay with him for two days and then the third day will be fine oh my gosh that's what happened to Jesus it must have been a prophecy yes the text of the Old Testament existed beforehand but it wasn't viewed as a prophecy by the Jews regarding their Messiah because their Messiah wasn't supposed to die and it wasn't shouldn't be viewed as a prophecy by anybody else because it's not until after these events are reported in the New Testament that somebody then goes back and says oh look here's this passage which kind of sounds like what happened that must be prophecy it in needs to after showing a specific prophecy that's not prone to interpretation show that this prophecy was necessarily fulfilled by a fact in Jesus's life and I don't know how you can do that when we can't confirm any facts from Jesus's life especially nothing extraordinary I'm happy to you say yep there was a guy there but we don't know much about it even if he's able to do all of this he still has all of his work in front of him because the fact that somebody made a prediction and some event can be tied to show that it apparently has come true doesn't tell you how it came true was it luck was it a reasoned inference were there people working towards it did the prophet actually have foreknowledge and if he had foreknowledge how did he get this foreknowledge did the foreknowledge come from a god or a time machine was there trickery involved this entire thing about prophecy is a cascaded bait and switch people want you to make you think that Jesus fulfilled prophecy because then your natural instinct will be to say well if you fulfill prophecy it must be God but that the fact that a prediction ultimately did or didn't come true doesn't tell you anything about the source of it or how or why the topic of this debate isn't debated all that often at least amongst theists and non-theists it's debated quite often between different denominations that have different views or between Jews and and Christians but it's not debated too much because it's useless they can't prove what they claim they can prove and even if they could prove it it wouldn't prop up their beliefs if the average mentalist can do much more accurate and impressive predictions and we can it's ridiculous to claim that one story is somehow fulfilled prophecy from another story and while it may upset people to think that you know hey uh did Jesus poop did Jesus have sex the thing is imagine in about 200 years on an episode of modern day debates where the the subject of the debate is did Jesus hook up with fishermen or just have one man that he loved and the atheists could show up and say oh come on it's just a story I know there's language about lying on the Lord's bosom and the disciple whom Jesus loved and introducing that disciple as a son to his own mother but all that stuff is just in the gospel of John you're not going to rest at all on one gospel and one story right this reminds me of the days when people kept pushing Matthew's prophecies and we have no idea whether he's gay or bi or pan or monogamous because you can't prove any of it and that's why I don't see how anybody can show that Jesus fulfilled a prophecy thank you very much we will jump into the rebuttal so these are five minutes each and then we're going into the cross examination so Samuel the floor is all yours I've got the timer set for you thanks so much for being here could you reset the time James uh just I would mute it myself a little bit okay uh it's a little bit if you're able to turn your volume up just a little bit I haven't started the timer yet but your volume is a little bit lower Samuel okay let me just welcome you even if you just get closer to the mic all right is it better now that's better good great okay all right I'm starting yeah uh thank you Matt for that opening statement uh so uh to get to some of the points that Matt actually said uh he said that uh so for because I only have five minutes I'm going to be rushing through this uh and hopefully we'll get the cross examination a chance to actually discuss some of this but Matt's position is not that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecy to be clear and if I misrepresenting him I hope he will correct me later his position is that we can't know anything for certain about Jesus Christ and so here's a point of disagreement definitely I mean I said someone who believes that we do have records of Jesus that are early within the lifetime within the first generation of Jesus and external historical support not to mention I'm sure Matt knows all of this Cornelius Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Maraba Serapia and the Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 43b the whole list of them there's there's a list of both biblical and extra biblical sources in fact I think there's more evidence for the historicity of Jesus than as it's commonly said than any other figure in history that I'm aware of and so if we can't be certain about that Jesus existed we might as well dismiss the entirety of history to begin with and I don't think that's very helpful and so can we verify anything about Jesus Christ? Sure we can sure we can it just depends on what is our criteria of verification well I believe that the New Testament writings are reliable that's clearly not the debate so I'm not going to change the focus of the debate into the New Testament reliability rather I want to address some of the other points that Matt has raised Matt says that prophecy must be specific I agree I think that we can while we may disagree how it's specific exactly the prophecies of the Old Testament are concerning Jesus mind you the entirety of the Old Testament pointing to one single person going down from Abraham to Isaac to to Judah to the tribe of Jacob to the tribe of Judah to the seat of David it gets more and more specific until it comes down to the person of Jesus and that's why perhaps both Mark Matthew and Luke are interested to begin with a genealogy to show that Jesus fits the criteria because the Old Testament makes such specific prophecies as to when it must come I also think that the Old Testament makes a prediction as to when the messenger of the covenant will come in fact in Malachi chapter three we see that the the prophet Malachi prophesied that the Lord himself would come into his temple the messenger of the covenant is going to come into his temple and we know the temple was destroyed some 440 years after the writing of Malachi so there was only a 440 year window for that to be fulfilled but mind you the temple of Herod was only began to be built later on so there's that makes it an even more tiny a window by which the Messiah had to come so I think that the the the Old Testament is being specific but again we may dispute as to whether it is it is specific enough for our satisfaction so he says that the prophecies cannot be by interpretation I would argue that every single thing we say everything that Matt says everything that I say is subject to both interpretation and misinterpretation that's just a fact if I write something people can misinterpret me to say that prophecies must not be subject to interpretation unless I'm misunderstanding Matt here and if I do I do apologize and I hope that he will clarify everything we say really is subject to interpretation he says that people cannot be working to make it happen well if the prophecy is come about by God and God is the one fulfilling the prophecy then it definitely makes sense that God would make every attempt to show himself faithful to the prophecies he comes but I do get Matt's sentiment in that you know some people say that well they make this prediction and then they try hard to fit to make that happen to show to verify themselves bear in mind this this is not what we're talking about here we're talking about a series of prophecies over a period of a thousand years by more than 30 different authors from the time of Moses all the way to the prophet Malachi in the Old Testament so you're not talking about is a a one person saying something and then trying to work hard to fulfill it I totally get Matt's sentiments but if God is the one making the prediction he would definitely do every attempt to make sure that he's shown faithful to his word now a few other things I wanted to get to that is 30 seconds left sure thing the Messiah being the king yes that is prophesied but the Messiah is also a prophet and the Messiah is also God we find that in passages like Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 Isaiah 7 verse 13 Matt said the Old Testament does not have a concept of original sin or being born sinful I'd beg to differ Psalm 51 verse 5 David says in my in sin that my mother conceived me Matt says there's no need for salvation in the Old Testament well David seems to differ he says in that same chapter restore to me the joy of your salvation assuming it's something that can be lost I'm out of time but I look forward to the cross examination thank you thank you very much we will kick it over to Matt for his five minute rebuttal as well floor is all yours so I didn't hear much in the way of rebuttal to anything specific I made as a matter of fact I didn't hear anything that was really specific which is kind of what I've been waiting for apart from you seem to think that I said that there's no concept of sin in the Old Testament what I said is that Judaism doesn't have a concept of necessary salvation you interpret the Old Testament different than Jews do when you talked about the fact that I mentioned that the messianic prophecy was about being a king you said yes king and also a prophet but Jesus wasn't a king and also a prophet at most you could list him as a prophet he wasn't a king and so he does not meet the prophecy even by your own statements the I have a let's see you said that I said that we can't know anything for certain about Jesus life well I don't think we can know anything for certain about anything or anyone so that wasn't my objection my objection was to whether or not we can reasonably have confidence in Jesus performing miracles or being born of a virgin or any of the actions or even that we have a good record of what he said and I don't see that we have a reasonable expectation that the events purported in Jesus life actually occurred especially when you have authors like Matthew suggesting that Jesus fulfilled a prophecy including invented prophecies or at least one that can't hasn't been identified you listed off Tertullian and a bunch of others but those aren't contemporaries they are not eyewitnesses they are people recording reports after the event now it's true I agree that the that the Old Testament was written prior to Jesus or the time of Jesus and that's really cool because a prophecy clearly has to be in place before the thing that fulfills it if you write the prophecy afterwards well that would be cheating now on the on the on the subject of prophecies coming before it only counts if somebody says this is a known prophecy before the event that comes in you can't go and say oh here's an event and here's a passage back in the Old Testament that I can make fit this and so now I'm going to call this a prophecy which is why Jews have a different view of what counts as prophecy in the Old Testament with regard to Messiah than Christians do because Jews are have a forward-looking perspective on this they have a model of what they have been taught to expect out of a Messiah throughout this and it's consistent and when those when those prophecies are met they will know that they have a true Messiah Christians on the other hand have done this exactly backwards which is they took what was written about Jesus that with no way to demonstrate that it's true and then went back and looked at what's in the Old Testament see if they could find things to make it fit that is massaging a prophecy with regard to oh I forgot that the I was waiting for some specific prediction but some specific fact here is a fact that the Old Testament says is going to be about the Messiah it's it's a fact that and when I say oh this was the issue when I say it can't be subject to interpretation of course everything we say it goes through a filter in our mind but Sam when I did the trick before the show was there any interpretation about the symbol on this compared to the symbol on this thing there's no it's not like well you know if you turn it sideways and you look at it it could have been two or three other symbols there were eight symbols on that sheet I predicted exactly one it I could show it to a thousand people who know nothing about the trick and say point to the two that match and 100% of them would get that exactly right that is not true for anything you or any other Christian is has ever or will ever show as prophecy because you have the entire Jewish population that are not Christians saying no that's not prophecy thank you very much and want to remind you folks as we jump into the cross examinations if you have not yet hit that subscribe button as we have many more juicy debates coming up and with that gentlemen thanks so much Samuel the first cross exam is you cross examining Matt for 10 minutes the floor is yours all right thank you Matt for that rebuttal now with regards to you said there seems to be a difference in the way that Christians understand the Old Testament versus how a Jew will understand the Old Testament could elaborate for example in terms of methodology where would that differ and and oh yeah and secondly which Jews are you talking about modern day Jews or rabbinic Jews prior to you know the mesoretic period I don't know that it makes any difference there were there were Jews who had a view about their prophecies then led some portion of the Jews to not accept that Jesus fulfilled prophecy and some did a smaller portion did than didn't and modern Jews still who modern Jews who aren't Christians don't hold that Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecy and they view him as a a false prophet I mean you got to take that up with the Jews I'm just reporting if I'm completely wrong and suddenly the the the scholarly experts within Judaism are now proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord that would be an amazing like you should have started with that in the debate but you didn't because it's not true right yeah so I'll just proceed with with the question so uh uh yeah and and so yeah this something I would love to discuss if you bring this up in the cross examination when you cross examine me that'll be fun to discuss where Jews differ but in terms of let's just go back to so uh you know go back to uh the text that I brought up let's take a common one a very common one I see a 53 uh that I cited in my opening which I think talks about the Messiah dying and do you see that making a prediction of the Messiah dying or as a Christian am I misinterpreting that somehow what what in there talks about the Messiah yeah you can ask me that in my cross examination but my my my okay I'm sorry yeah I mean I mean I was looking at this is just a discussion so what's your specific question for me okay yeah in that case uh yeah uh my I mean if you're if you're doing this in a discussion I'm fine to change that yeah no I was just I don't care I just want to make sure I'm doing whatever you want so what what's your specific question that you want to know about me from Isaiah 53 yeah uh so in Isaiah 53 uh am I misinterpreting it how am I misinterpreting it if I say that that's referring to the Messiah dying is that is that reason why I may be misinterpreting it in your view I don't see anything in there in the original Hebrew that mentions a Messiah right this could be this could be about any any individual any prophet for the Lord anybody working for the Lord and there's not I don't see anything in the original Hebrew there that says anything about the Messiah right so let's let's go through this passage Isaiah 53 we talk about God's way I mean that we begin in verse one which talks about the arm of the Lord so I in my opening statement I tied it to the arm of the Lord for example being mentioned in redemption in Exodus 6 6 would that be a for example would that be fair to say that God says his means of redemption is his arm and it here is talking about the way in which God redeems I'm drawing the two connections in the Old Testament is that a fair interpretation uh in your view I'm sorry I couldn't understand you one more time don't don't waste any of your time but go ahead oh no problem in in in Exodus chapter 6 was six uh you know God says he would redeem with his arm and Isaiah 53 is talking about a suffering servant I'm sure we agree that he's talking about someone who is suffering uh that's going to provide blessing for the nations around Israel as well you would agree to that right no no okay uh so it is it's who is the one suffering in in your view I don't know it's not specific enough that's the problem that's why people are able to interpret it in different ways if you want to have a messianic prophecy it needs to be clearly stated that this is a messianic prophecy before the event that it's supposed to fulfill you can't go and do it afterwards which is what you're doing right so so just to understand your view you're saying that uh we can't know for sure it's too vague uh even though uh there's been a trajectory uh from from uh Genesis 3 that someone is going to basically die uh I mean I don't agree with your assertion that there's been a trajectory since Genesis 3 I look at the story in Genesis 3 and where God says he's going to put enmity between the man the woman in the serpent you view that as setting up a messianic prophecy down the line and I think that's a load of crap that is only done afterwards because what happened is people wanted Jesus to be the Messiah so much that they went back through the Old Testament and found everything they could find to massage it to make it fit why isn't Genesis 3 just about Adam and Eve um yeah again uh I'm happy to answer that uh in my cross examination yeah so I just wanted to then in your view what does Genesis 3 15 mean yeah granted you said it's vague if you are reading Genesis 3 as a Jew uh what what does that mean when it says that I'll create enmity between your uh you know your offspring and the seed of the woman and he will crush your head and you will bruise his heel what would that mean in that context given that they've just said I have already answered this the story is about Adam and Eve and the common trope that women and snakes don't get along okay just just like lots wife wasn't actually turned into a pillar assault all right sure uh in Genesis 22 when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac which we really which we believe sorry something or the words uh to be the exact place where Jesus would eventually die uh the death of Christ uh yeah um yeah so so do you believe that Jesus died then uh in do you believe that someone can have let me rephrase that do you believe someone can have sufficient reason to believe that Jesus died uh at least not not to prove but to have some level of to whatever extent someone to whatever extent someone can reasonably uh believe that Jesus existed of course they can believe he died because that's what happens to people right uh could we could we go further than do you think that there's some evidence not conclusive in your view some evidence to suggest that he died by crucifixion in Jerusalem there the story is that he died by crucifixion but I don't have any reason to believe that the story is about this individual or true okay so let me turn the focus to in uh the the discussion on methodology uh how would one for example if if supposing the events and all this did take place that's for the sake of argument granted the events did take place uh how can we granted we don't have video cameras and there's no way I'm granting that there's no way I'm granting that it's absolutely ridiculous if you grant that everything I said everything in my holy book is true then my holy book wins well of course that's boneheaded I'm not even convinced that the place of his death which which I would I would put probably as Golgotha I don't I don't even hold that that's identical to Mount Moriah in the first place so I don't make that same connection in Isaiah but also the Isaiah story is horribly flawed in the first place when you say Isaiah story is flawed sorry go ahead yeah there's no reason to test Isaiah other than to teach Isaiah something and so if you're God and you want to test Isaiah to see if he knows and understands you and you say hey go kill your son Isaiah you're talking about Abraham right yes sorry what'd I say you said Isaiah oh I'm sorry I Abraham sorry the by the in the binding of Isaac so when the Bible says you know your your son the only your only son the one or the only son whom you love uh it's interesting there's a comma there because it might be the only son whom he loved it might be the only son that was still at home we don't know and so you see a bunch reading a bunch into that only son thing only because Jesus is referred in the case you wouldn't have looked at that story about Abraham an eruption Matt just it was a little bit hard I don't know if we got that question the connection abed and flowed for a second if you want to just back up one sentence so it the these you made a big deal about how the passage with Abraham and Isaac says your only son whom you love the only reason you care about that is because Jesus was referred to as God's only son if Jesus hadn't been referred to that way in the New Testament this passage in the Old Testament would never have been viewed as anything remotely connected to Jesus there were sacrifice there were plenty of other sacrifices and meanwhile if you're God and you're opposed to child killing when you go to Abraham and you say hey I want you to kill your child if Abraham knows and understands you correctly the one and only correct answer is depart for me foul spirit for my God would never ask for me to slaughter my kid what is what this thing shows is that God would and did expect a child sacrifice and that Abraham expected God to ask him for or was willing to do a child sacrifice on God's behalf and all of it is just absolutely abhorrent but you can say this we are pattern-seeking machines and so once people see Jesus and the story they go back through the Old Testament and say oh look it's similar to that similar to that similar to that similar to that yes because these are all passionate stories about human beings and our character and heroic things and Joseph Campbell goes through this in the in the era with the Thousand Faces okay you know what I'm going to yield the rest of my time and yeah I can go to Matt you got it we'll switch it over for Matt to ask questions to Samuel and so setting the timer and by the way I want to give you guys positive feedback from the twitch live stream Corvi7us says gotta say I'm loving the extremely respectful back and forth so far so thanks for that feedback I really wish Sam would just start calling me names so we could get it over with that's right the floor is all yours Matt uh okay so I'm wondering what you think is the most specific prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus yeah I don't I don't think uh so just just for context I think that we can't take any of those prophecies out of their context I think the Old Testament as a whole you know make a unified projection concerning Jesus right from Genesis all the way to Malachi and so to to rip one prophecy if you take for example what we just did Isaiah 53 out of its context Isaiah 53 has no standing it's just talking about a guy who is going to die and who's going to bring about blessing for the nations but if you see it in the context of Genesis where the sin the fall and and the promise of covenant redemption and that coming it makes sense and that's that's why I think that I will not be able to pinpoint exactly one I think they come in in the entirety the unit of the Old Testament itself yeah I'm sorry but that's the problem and I don't know how we move on from here because without a specific prediction all you have is fuzzy warm feelings of the context and oh if you've got if you look at it this with this and that and then you have this and you look at this over here and then this and this oh my gosh it's just so overwhelming there's just so many prophecies and yet could anybody name one specific prophecy that was necessarily answered by Jesus well I think I think this I think maybe I was not clear in my in my first answer Matt but what I was trying to say was that no I think there are many prophecies that are specific but what I'm saying is when you name one name one if you think there are many prophecies are specific name one Isaiah 53 Genesis 22 I've named them in my opening statement you haven't named them what is the prophecy yeah I was getting to that Matt so what I was saying is that all of these prophecies come in the context of the rest of scripture and when you take them in it's like basically taking a word what is the strongest word in this sentence it doesn't work the sentence comes as a unit right I'm sorry but your analogy is flawed a prediction is a single prophetic statement period you don't have to take it down to the point of words I did a magic trick before here that made a prediction that was specific that wasn't prone to any interpretation why can I do better tricks than your God well and essentially God is not doing magic tricks he's making a covenant promise you don't know that I do know that I think Matt I think I do know that you don't know whether or not I did a magic trick or whether or not I actually made a prediction with supernatural powers actually I did because you told me you're going to do a magic trick so yes but was I telling you the truth how did I do it then how did I know what you were going to do I'm going to take you at your word as I take the scripture at its word unless there's your mistake that's why you've been fooled twice today well I don't have any other questions if we can't get to one specific prophecy this entire thing is a waste of time I because if it's just your case now becomes you believe the bible and I don't absolutely exactly congratulations and under that harry prodder fulfilled prophecy and you know I don't know what to do if I can't get a single prophecy that we can assess because if somebody were up for the james randy education foundation's million dollar prize this would not even get them in the door and yet you're talking about prophecies from god supposedly this would not even pass a preliminary test you have not even established a criteria by which we could establish that a prophecy existed and had been fulfilled to usually the cross exam to be fair uh let's see if we are able to kind of keep it into the questions that's probably more ideal that okay I have no more questions because the one question I had the one that would have solved everything thank you refused to be answered matt has given up the rest of his six minutes so Samuel you can ask matt for 10 minutes the floor is all yours now I think I think that in in a sense I think it's kind of the same with me as well because every question that I'm asking matt he's saying that I don't have an interpretation for this correct me matt if I'm misinterpreting you but you said that you know it doesn't matter what he thinks you know it's just too vague either that or that was kind of what you said so in a sense I don't think the cross examination would the second cross examination would go anywhere as well I think we have a difference in methodology I think that we can take the historicity of Jesus to be certain I think we can take the death of Jesus to be certain in light of the evidence we have well hold on one second same thing for you Samuel I if you guys are gonna if you're if you're not gonna ask questions we could just go into open conversation I'm totally okay with that if both of you guys are so it doesn't have to be in the form of a question but otherwise I'm kind of expecting you Sam to ask questions to Matt no I mean I'm just saying that I don't think that that's going to go anywhere unless we want to have an open conversation if Matt wants to yeah that's fine I'm fine with having conversation and I know there's people who are going to have questions everything it's just incredibly frustrating to agree to did Jesus fulfill prophecy when and I don't mean this as a snarker insult but literally sorry Matt you just you just you just froze again I know I can't tell you anything about it right could you repeat again could you repeat what you just said again yeah it's no to say here's a character in a book I can't prove any specific thing from his life but the first part of the you know these these other prophecies of these other books that are included in here they make claims that I view as prophetic of this but the people who wrote them we don't know that they view those those passages are prophetic the people who are the descendants of those people who have been waiting for those prophecies people filled don't view those prophecies as prophecies don't view your interpretation as accurate and so we're at a point where you say Jesus in the story fulfilled the prophecy Jews say he didn't I say I don't see how you can say he did anything like did Jesus walk on water did Jesus poop I think if Jesus existed he probably pooped but I don't think he walked on water unless it was frozen right I think the difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying Matt is that I think that the old testament needs to be James just to be clear this kind of an open discussion until we want to go for Q&A you know but I think that's until yeah we're open for open discussion for maybe like 25 more minutes that's fine yeah yeah anyway yeah what I was saying Matt is that we have a difference of I believe that whenever words are written they're meant to be written they're meant to be interpreted I'm just having a difference of interpretation than a Jew reading that passage and I'm saying that if interpreted X way my way then we can see that it fulfills the life of Jesus that's a tautology let me finish let me finish that's a tautology Matt let me please let me finish so what I was saying is that if it's interpreted in this way it can do that and I'm thinking this is and I'm not just saying that I'm saying that this is the way it is meant to be interpreted by the original authors how do you prove that and oh yeah by context I was just going to finish one point Matt and then I'll answer the question of how we can prove that the Jews that disagree with me also have their own interpretation they have a difference of interpretation I mean we can discuss that but once and that's one of the reasons in the cross examination I was kind of trying to get what was your interpretation of that so that at least if you're disagreeing with me on interpretation we can have a discussion as to what the text means but if we can't engage and discuss what does that passage mean we can't even begin to ask the question of whether Jesus fulfilled that but did you want me to answer your question on uh I think you did say something that I said I'll answer kind of forgot it just how do you prove the original intent because the Jews disagree with you on the original intent clearly I mean I think people may disagree with all sorts of things but I think the way we prove original intent is by looking at first of all the historical context the cultural context and the literary context and that's what I've been trying to do to look at the the context in which it was written both cultural historical and literary I think that way that's how we interpret I think every piece of literature okay if you want to this isn't about interpreting literate literatures but let's stop that pretense if you want to just say the bible's literature then I'm fine with that the bible's literature and now there is no prophecy because literature doesn't have prophecy no I think I think Matt that I mean anything that is written I'm considering it to be literature regardless of whether it's inspired by that's not what literature means if you don't know what literature means all right I I don't know what to do because now so you've argued tautologies you've said basically that if we interpret the bible the way you interpret the bible you're right well duh big freaking deal if we interpret the way the by the bill the way the Jews interpret it you're wrong if we interpret that the way I do it you're both wrong right and so and so at the end of the day I believe that the authors the original authors had an original intent and we can look at that intent and see whether for example my my interpretation is accurate or the Jews interpretation is accurate and I should add I should add that it's my understanding that the Jewish interpretation has not been the same that's why I asked you whether you're holding to a rabbinic view of interpretation which is precedes the later time when after Jesus do you have a different school of thought right after that which is kind of responding to the claims that Jesus was the Messiah so if you have for example it's my understanding that the the Talmud the Talmudic writings or rather the rabbinic writings preceding Jesus believe that those passages were messiah that that's my understanding and I don't pretend to be able to put a sauce out now and give it to you my thing is I will so if we're gonna have a discussion about whether or not Jesus fulfilled prophecy we should have a prophecy and then a demonstration that Jesus actually fulfilled it and when I say that I don't just mean here's a passage in the Old Testament that I view as prophetic and here's a passage in the New Testament that I view as fulfilling it we need to actually demonstrate that this happened actually happened and that it fulfills that prophecy and you can't seem to do either part of it no I'll disagree with the way you phrase that so what I'll say is that what I try to do is to get to the Old Testament to say first of all there is a prediction being made and I'm trying to establish that that it's coming in the context of human sin it is talking about the forgiveness of sins it's talking about how that will come the means to which it will come and then I want to get to the second part which is showing that Jesus did do that and I was actually planning to touch on things that I thought most of us would agree on Jesus died and all that but the thing is that when we can't agree as to whether the Old Testament is at all making that prediction Matt we can't even begin to discuss whether or not Jesus fulfilled that agreed which was my entire opening which I wrote before this because I knew you couldn't otherwise there wouldn't still be Jews do you believe that you know for example we can disagree on that you could write something Matt and that you could have later you know maybe 50 years after you and I are gone people could disagree as to what you uh you meant when you wrote that I think people can't right but that doesn't mean that you did not have an original intention in writing that would you agree that doesn't mean that they have any way of knowing what my original intention was you're convinced you know what the original intention was wait a minute just to be clear you don't believe that you know if let's say there is hypothetically a disagreement about a piece of writing that you wrote that if there is a disagreement no one can know for sure what you meant is that is that really a position or that someone nobody can I don't think anybody can know anything for sure so yes of course it's my position that nobody can know for sure what I meant but it may be but maybe but maybe someone can have a reasonable understanding of what I meant but they can demonstrate that and make the case just like when I did this trick if I do this trick to for a thousand people over a thousand years there will be zero worry about point to the two symbols that match that would happen every time why can I do better fucking things than your god can yeah I think equating symbols in a visual setting which clearly you and I have visual doing things with regards to the way I didn't limit it to symbol I just happen to do I'm sorry Matt you froze again officey yeah I think you just froze again it's okay but anyway I'm probably under a DNS attack or something because well actually my youtube hasn't stopped at all and I've got gigabit internet here so who knows what's going on I apologize for something I can't fix and don't know about no problem as far as I'm concerned I'm done you know I mean unless Matt wants to ask me anything we can go ahead I really don't this whole thing boils down to can someone anyone on the planet present a specific prediction that was clearly made and known to be a prediction about a messiah before the events that was clearly answered by Jesus and the answer seems to be no again I I know you think you've done that but you haven't I'm just wondering what like what do you do with all the passages that I did in the opening statement what do you say to that this not specific enough is that what you're going to say to that correct okay that's fine we disagree then on that you went there so none of them so a prediction shouldn't be and some and I mean these by the way these things are sometimes written in the present tense and you have to there's two guys talking in Hosea about a lord that they're going to go visit to get healed and you want to interpret that as the foundation for what was it is it Luke 21 46 so something written in the present tense in Hosea you want to interpret as if it's a prophecy being fulfilled and that's just nonsense I'm not which passage in Hosea are you referring to well wasn't it the Luke 21 46 that you were referencing uh no uh but you mean the first passage I referenced or is it is it Luke 20 hang on the first passage I referenced was Luke 44 was 44 to 48 it's Luke 24 was 44 to 48 yeah okay hang on yeah Luke 24 44 to 48 yeah and so let me go to 46 look 24 46 sorry it was 24 not 21 he told him this is what is written the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance for the forgiveness ascends will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem where is that written that passage there where is it written in the Old Testament because generally people point to Hosea I've never had anyone point to Hosea for that so Hosea chapter 6 for the first three verses come let us return to the Lord he has torn us to pieces but he will heal us he has injured us but he will bind our wounds after two days he will revive us on the third day he will restore us that we may live in his presence let us acknowledge the Lord and let us press on to acknowledge him that is the stereotypical passage the Christian apologists have used to point to uh either either for Luke 21 24 46 or maybe it's the Matthew 223 one uh yeah so I would never I've never in my life used that passage to prove that passage uh or to use that as a prophecy you know so I okay I'm when I talk about the death of Christ I'm looking through for example Genesis 3 15 I'm looking at the passages which basically the entirety of the Old Testament man uh is talking about the the death of the blood of the Lamb as a means of forgiveness of sins only in your eyes the entirety of the Old Testament to Jews is their history and it's a comedy of errors about God trying to tell the trying to make the world right and it goes wrong and he tries to make the world right and it goes wrong and everybody disobeys and he stops trying to save the whole world and then he picks out one tribe that becomes his chosen tribe but they screw it up too over and over and over again and then everything just kind of halts and boom here's Jesus to save everybody except that he's only come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that you can go back and look at that as a Christian and say wow the Old Testament all of this points to Jesus and you know what it's utterly unconvincing to anybody who doesn't already believe it because that's not what the Jews look at it right so I think when you when you say for example that it's unconvincing to people who already believe it I think that's clearly wrong and it's not true because you know there have been so many Jews who once you know that have been that have been converted by basically just looking through those those passages and coming to that so okay there's a lot of people who aren't all that skeptical maybe you're speaking hypothetically right no one would be convinced but I mean I know people that have been convinced no one should be convinced anybody so I can do a magic trick right now that is better than anything specific prophecy you've gotten I should get more praise and credit for being godlike than anything written in your holy book but wait a minute when you say better what are you basing that off like how what's your standard I can make a specific prediction and have it come through without interpretation I did it before we started yes yes and it proves that you made a prediction and came to pass but again what's I mean I don't I don't get the it's more than you've demonstrated with regard to Jesus and prophecy tonight by a long shot okay so again I think that as far as I'm concerned I'm done because I think that the passages that I prove I mean I shared rather it's intended to communicate that God was trying to do something was Jesus gay no definitely not how do you know that it talks about a disciple that Jesus loved who laid his bosom on the Lord who Jesus introduced to his mother as a son how do you know Jesus wasn't gay well that's because that goes back to exactly what I was telling you about in terms of looking at historical cultural context it did brotherly love filia you know was something that was just common between men of that time I've been to India and although not from India you know in India when you go people hold each other's hands guys hold each other's hands and they walk and there's no one even thinks of it being remotely you know homosexual in nature or anything like that it's just a culture cultural thing in fact you have David and Jonathan that were basically pretty close you know and and kind of you know in the same thing they are not gay as well you know so you know this is just you know misinterpreting it in light of our culture and I think that that's why for example we need to go back to the historical cultural context precisely because of that okay yeah I think the text I think the text more strongly and clearly identifies Jesus is gay than any prophecy thing that you've come close to that's more specific than anything you offered yeah I find that really strange because that's clearly nowhere intended in the text I think Jesus was a Jew and Jews believe that it was sexually morality in light of Leviticus to suggest that that was what was happening I think would be to to rip but Jesus changed other things that and this is the reason why they crucified him he was he changed God's unchangeable law that's why they killed him how do you know one of those wasn't just being gay okay pick one you said that Jesus changed the law could you pick one oh basically the vast majority of the 613 mitzvah that were practiced and that were required elements of the law that Jesus now came to fulfill and Jesus fulfills and eliminates the sacrificial law there's your one could you point me to a passage in a new testament that sees that then we can look at that together yeah not off the top of my head no because I didn't come here to debate that particular topic but you don't think I'm right no you don't think that Jesus said specifically that he came to fulfill the law and that the sacrificial law and that the sacrificial laws have gone away since then so Jesus never said that the sacrificial laws have gone away did they go away and they did and and wasn't it Jesus that said you don't need to do this anymore so that's why I'm asking you if you could show me a place then I can look at that in my understanding I don't came to I don't see anywhere with Jesus so when was your last sacrifice when was your last sacrifice I don't do it because of Paul's writings uh Matt and it's got nothing to do with so the thing is that I think what we are saying here is the argument that you're trying to make that I understand is that because Jesus changed the law Jesus was going against it I don't think Jesus changed the law on the contrary Matthew chapter 5 Jesus actually says I did not come do not think that I've come uh to to change the law let me get the passage for you do not think that I've come to to change the law but to fulfill it which is interpreted as not a jot or tittle of the law will change but none of this is relevant to prophecy so we can move on came to abolish the law I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law and yeah so I think that Jesus would say the exact opposite uh Matt I think he would huh okay yeah I mean that I thought my whole point was that Jesus came to fulfill the law and the sacrificial laws stopped applying then so when you say that Jesus came to fulfill the law that's I mean I'm responding to your original point Matt when you say that you know that Jesus came to fulfill the law he did not come to break the law when you brought up the the practice of homosexuality you're assuming that Jesus broke the law I'm saying Jesus did not come to break the law but to fulfill the law and by fulfilling the law as far as Christians are concerned Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf as far as the sacrificial laws what did you think about it depending on which Jews Matt you're talking about are you talking about messianic Jews are you talking about rabbinic Jews liberal Jews which one are you talking about uh let's go with orthodox Jews I'm not familiar with orthodox Judaism today okay well anyway none of this is relevant to prophecy so we can move on yeah yeah okay yeah I mean I guess we can move to the to the Q&A uh James yeah we will jump into the Q&A so thanks everybody want to say we appreciate all of your questions and just because we are trying to make sure that the Q&A doesn't take up a disproportionate amount of our time we're asking super chats ten dollars or more will be read and we ask for serious questions only as we really do want the show to be the highest qualities possible for listeners. Bill Levine thanks for your question says please demonstrate the prophecy fulfilled by Jesus that you think has the most evidence to support it and please give the evidence and modern day debate is awesome thank you for your kind words Bill and I think that one's for you Sam yeah again to go back to what I said in my opening statement I gave a list if you want me to pick one Isaiah 53 I think for example talks about the suffering servant whose debt brings about blessings for the nations I think that's one of the clearest prophecies I think that anyone who looks at the crucifixion of Jesus you know which is again not a disputed fact among historians it's some dispute but it's not a major dispute among historians I think the vast majority of critical New Testament critics would accept that when you look at that passage that talks about the Messiah wounded for our transgressions bruised for our inequities the punishment you know that for our sense you know the punishment that he suffers brings us peace and by his wounds we are healed that to me is one of those prophecies that shows that a Messiah must come and a Messiah must die and I know of no other one's no other claimants who say to be a Messiah who came to die for the sense of the world up in Jesus so that would be one and I would think that the way when you talk about for example being clear in prophecy the way you gain clarity is by looking at it in the context of all of what the scripture says when you rip it out of its context it really has no value at all because you're missing the big picture of where this context or where this passage is coming from and I think that was the point I was trying to get and that's why I think using like bring your strongest prophecy I think it's not the best way to look at it next up question from James McGrann for Samuel said surely if God is inspiring a book and made future predictions they'd be incredible and specific give us the explanation of gravity creation evolution or dark matter as examples they're saying I didn't quite get the question so they're saying they think that if they're saying quote surely if God is inspiring a book and made future predictions they would be incredible and specific predictions such as giving us the explanation of gravity or creation or evolution or dark matter again I think that I would fully agree that there is incredible and specific predictions but it becomes incredible and specific when read in its context not taken in isolation and to basically bring it to you know evolution dark matter and all that is basically trying to you know make the shot and then draw your target around it we basically take what God has revealed covenantally and interpret basically the life of Jesus in light of that which is why I really began with the Old Testament and tried to establish that to me it's incredible to me it's specific but when you're when you're looking at it without the context that's one of the reasons why in the cross examination I wanted to spend time wondering what was Matt's interpretation of that so that at least we could have a discussion on interpretation I think when you when you look at that and you be able to look through the authorial intent it becomes incredible it becomes specific taken the entire Old Testament and if anybody came forward with a prediction that vague claiming that they had been fulfilled right now they would be laughed out of the room it would not qualify for the JRF million dollar prize it would not qualify in a courtroom it wouldn't qualify anywhere it only qualifies to the people who believe that they are looking at the inspired word of God and desperate to find a way to make it fit which is why when we ask for specifics oh no no it's all about context it's all about context well any God that is smarter than me could make a very specific prophecy answerable by a single set of circumstances with not with subject to no interpretation and that has not happened but we can I can I respond to that briefly or do you want to go to the next question if you want to very briefly oh yeah I would say that God can mad I don't deny that God can I just think that God did what he did and we're just discussing what God did ready he did oh we're discussing what you think God did I don't think there's a God who's ever done anything and you're making excuses for the God that hasn't done anything right and then on my on my view I think you're imposing your plausibility framework on what for example is or whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what's a plausibility framework and how the hell do you think I have a plausibility framework I think that for example that when you when you look at certain things and say it has to meet my criteria that is a plausibility framework I think all this is not my criteria alone I'm talking about the criteria of skepticism and science of logical investigation of evidence of making sure that something is specific in its prediction so that it cannot be subject to interpretation so that you're less likely to be wrong okay how specific I mean sorry Matt do you want to move on I'm sorry James did you want to move on because I mean clearly we disagree on criteria here and yeah we'll jump into the next one Sydney v thanks for your question says if wishes were let's see uh let's see okay looking for more serious questions but Jay Rivera 345 says Matt just wanted to say thank you for the impact you've had on my life hell and fear of the rapture gave me traumatizing nightmares even though I felt I was a good Christian they're all gone now that I'm atheist keep it up thank you next up v one six street burners says Samuel for a collection of books like the bible to say something that has been proven to be false like quote rabbits chew the cud in Leviticus 11 how can it be rational to believe it's true and reliable again I need to look at the context of Leviticus 11 it's not something that I've looked at uh and when I've looked at I'll respond to that yeah gotcha and this one coming in from becker p thanks for your question said Sam if biblical prophecy can be interpreted then how is the bible any different from Rasputin in a newspaper's daily horoscope they all involve vague statements that can be quote unquote fulfilled in many ways right so there are two differences that I'll point to and first of all just to be clear I'm going to repeat myself again every piece of writing is subject to interpretation you can't basically come and say there is any piece of writing that basically would mean the same thing given if a thousand people read it everyone who reads anything whether you read it on Facebook or whether you read it on Twitter you are making an interpretive jump all are all texts equally ambiguous uh no then clearly some are more prone to confusion and context interpretation than others for example a mathematical formula with a treaties below it that describes it in great detail would be much clearer to every user than isaia 53 right no and and that's what I mean yeah in terms of mathematical no hang on mad hang on you just said no no hang on hang on hang on a minute yeah so what I'll say is that for example if you're talking about a mathematical formula sure I'll grant that but what I'm saying is I probably shouldn't have started out by saying no because I'll take that probably but I'll listen I'll take that back okay so what I would say is that when you look through the context of that to me it is clear and I think to the audience in which they've received the original audience that received it it's clear but bear in mind when we say all of this we're looking through a piece of literature that was written thousands of years ago it meant something to the original audience you and I cannot expect whose fault is that it's not my fault it's god's fault please let me finish that uh yeah so uh when when it's written to an audience more than a thousand years two thousand years ago before you make an interpretive jump you're going to have to understand what it meant to the original audience and basically make that make the jump as to what it means for us today you can't basically assume it is written for 21st century christians and yes god did that and I don't think it is god's fault he has every right to choose i did it and it's not his fault no it's not god selectively reveals stuff at points in time that will be confusing to people in the future but those people in the future are going to be judged based on their ability to understand it and it's not god's fault whose fault is it it's not god's fault at all i think what is it uh no it's not god's fault at all whose fault is it uh yeah i think it's human being's fault okay sinful i think our sinful nature uh blinds it i think you have sacrificed your humanity humanity and your intellect on a fire to a god because if none of us had any say in when it was revealed and how it was revealed and god is the only one who had any say in when it was revealed and how it was revealed it's not cannot be anybody's fault other than god's and for you to blame it on human beings just shows the depravity of how far backward you are willing to bend over to make excuses for that book uh again i think i would disagree with matt on basically when he says that you know that it's wrong to blame humanity i think humanity is sinful i think humanity is in their own sinfulness twistings uh and i think that's the entire argument of romance one that although the words the ways of god are clear uh we in our sinfulness twisted now clearly matt and i approached this from a different worldview the ways of god were clear we wouldn't be here having this conversation would we uh no matt i think to be to be fair you've said that even if god wrote you know even if god did an extraordinary miracle i forgot which one it is in one of your previous debate you said even if there was an extraordinary miracle you would not believe it that's that's what you said that's not what i said what i said is i would not necessarily believe it was god i would believe whatever it was i witnessed and whatever the evidence was for it however in your model where a god chooses to reveal things how can it possibly be my fault if he hasn't revealed himself to me so so wait a minute you just said that no matter for example you would believe you wouldn't believe it was from god even though it was extraordinary why then would you blame god because the fact that something is extraordinary doesn't mean it's from god you have to demonstrate an actual connection between the thing and god how do i tell the difference between something a god did and something an advanced technology did until that time as it's actually demonstrated here's a god and this god did this it's not justified to believe that because this happened you're correct in inferring that it was a god meanwhile back to the question that i asked which was how could it be my fault if god chooses whether or not he's going to reveal something to me yeah because regardless of the amount of evidence you have matt you would not believe by your own no no sir no sir no sir you do not get to accuse me of that that is a bald fucking lie when presented with ever when presented when pre no no i'm not done talking yeah when presented with sufficient evidence i'm willing to believe anything you do not get to say that i will refuse to believe anything when it's presented by evidence in response to my question if god chooses whether or not he reveals something to me how can that be my fault revealing is not the same as having evidence demonstrating it how can it be my fault i'm i'm done with this discussion james i'm done with all of this let's go the next question that's the most dishonest bullshit what we'll do is i think what matt's just closed minded he won't believe anything that's absolutely what i'm going to do is matt i'm i'm trying to get this back on track okay yep so uh i don't know if you i didn't even mute you i muted myself so that i could keep ranting at sam's absolutely vile character attack on me what we'll do is we're going to try to get through the rest of these questions and so if you're willing to bear with sam i'd be grateful i know that i'm willing to yeah it's rough and tumble but maybe maybe if the question is addressed to me james i would prefer uh that you know i get to answer that because if matt wants to respond that's fine uh you know but i'll prefer if i get a chance to answer the question instead of it going to another round of cross examination yeah so we'll jump into this next one this one coming in from and i it is true that due to the amount of questions that we have we we want to ask that if you guys are you guys okay with one person responding to each question that's addressed to them and then we just go to the next question i don't know my character's been attacked and there's shitheads in your chat right now that are calling me all kinds of names because sam accused me of refusing to believe things even when sufficient evidence was warranted which is the opposite of skepticism that is the opposite of what i've advocated for and he did it while refusing to answer the question that i asked okay so i mean it is i do want to ask that folks in the chat this will be my last modern day debate for both of our guests we do want to ask that you would please respect the guests and also moderators do want to ask that you would please help out in terms of holding people accountable regardless of what side they're on in terms of trying to monitor people that are saying things that they ought not and so this next question comes up from don fulman says uh let's see my question for matt doesn't the septuagint written 200 years before christ prove prophecies were predicted before christ's birth well does it does it prove that prophecies were predicted i have not objected the notion that prophecies predate christ that that's never been the objection the objection is which prophecies there that predated were known to be prophecies and were actually filled by jesus and we haven't been able to get a specific answer gotcha and thanks for your question this one coming in from shigel wire says love your work matt keep it up and thanks to samuel nasan for having the debate as always james is a pillar of good vibes thanks for your kind word shigel wire appreciate your positivity from john b zanos carthage says let's see appreciate that looking for more of the serious questions this one coming in says b16 street burner says samuel for a collection of books like the bible to say something that has been proven to be false like quote oh we got that one sorry about that this one coming in from amy newman says midnight after show tonight at modern day or uh youtube well the link we have put in the description box of this event itself and so uh that after show with amy is linked below and our guests are linked below as well folks amy newman says question for samuel why do the majority of jews believe that jesus did not fulfill prophecy i think part of the reason why many of the jews believe that jesus did not fulfill it i think it's because of a misunderstanding of the old testament first and foremost and number two a lot of what became a lot of what became jewish apologetic or rhetoric or polemic against christianity came after the messianic period uh which is you know following the fall of jerusalem uh you know in ad 70 uh you know the jewish understanding big basically began to move away from interpreting the old testament as their predecessors did and began to move towards basically polemics against christianity you see glimpses of that in a babylonian talmud as well which was dated to 150 ad so i think that jews today are in a way relying on their literature that was written in response to christianity instead of engaging the text itself i think that when you have a an honest jew who wants to interpret a text we can and that doesn't mean that if they honestly would agree with me that's not what i'm saying i'm saying we can actually get back to what the text mean and actually have a discussion as to what these passages mean um and and i think that that that actually is one of the reasons why jews don't believe and i think for most of the part i think many of the jews today are relying on their traditions rather than going back to the old testament that's the other main reason if the jews would go back to their scripture and read it for itself instead of relying on their traditions i think they would be it'll be a lot easier for them to see christ as the fulfillment of all that was prophesied gosh yeah this one coming in from ferran salas says herald camping was another failed profit quote unquote but at least his failed prediction was specific the end of the world but yet we are still all here so samuel i give you a chance if you want i think it's i'm not gonna respond today gotcha this one coming in from james all stare hannah says matt what about the prophetic psalm 22 isaia 714 as well as several passages in the babelonian talmud view isaia 53 as prophetic as well as yes you feth ben ali shaman ben yo you don't have to keep trying it doesn't matter mom and maman aids you're not saying that wrong you don't have to keep trying it doesn't matter so the notion that some things were prophetic before jesus uh is something that i haven't rejected at all the issue is whether or not jesus fulfilled prophecy what is it what can we show about jesus that actually happened that fulfills prophecy and is it something that is by the way extraordinary like hey here's something specific and this is going to happen and wow that's incredibly unlikely or is it something that would have been fulfilled of it like if i say the united states will have a woman president is that a prophecy because it seems like it's something that's going to be inevitable and if you say that eventually someone will suffer and their suffering will bring about a better world for people isn't that going to be true over and over and over again so it's not like it's not like there's a jesus person was the only person who ever suffered and had people benefit from it it's not even the only person for that you know that that's happened within the doctrine um so yeah i mean you can point what we need is something that's specific that is answerable by a single specific occurrence or you can have a whole bunch of things that are pretty close to specific answerable by this but you don't have either one of those next up will steward says matt if we can be sure of nothing then it is futile to assume anything therefore isn't your assumption that jesus didn't fulfill prophecy equally as invalid as the belief that he does uh so can you read the first sentence of that again and then stop when i stop sure they said matt if we can be sure of nothing then is it is futile to assume anything i agree stop i'm not assuming that that's my point i'm not assuming so first of all the fact that we don't have absolute certainty doesn't mean that we don't have reasonable confidence that this notion that we can't be absolutely certain is a purely philosophical one that means you can't have a measurement that is more accurate than the tool that you're measuring with and if we cannot prove that reason is absolute which we can't it's just we have no reason to think it's not absolute but we can't demonstrate that's absolute then we can only be as confident as reason permits and if reason doesn't permit certainty then what we have is a maximal confidence and so what we should always be striving for and this is the principle of skepticism is to proportion your level of confidence in a position with the evidence for it and so if there's kind of good evidence maybe you're 60 confident if there's really good evidence maybe you're 98 confident if you don't see any way it could possibly be wrong maybe you're 99.999999999 percent confident this is only a strict philosophical notion that we cannot be absolutely certain that doesn't mean that we can't have justified confidence levels and be more confident about something than something else I can be and Sam doesn't disagree with this this was the whole thing of the difference between two predictions the difference between two texts a math text and isa of 53 your confidence level in what they mean is proportional to the clarity in the evidence for them and so we should be less confident in something like isa of 53 than we are in two plus two equals four this question coming in from endo xd thanks for your question said matt what are your thoughts on i read this on hosea 62 and why does that not count as prophecy for jesus rising the third day as said in luke love your work matt by the way never stop thanks oh you mean the passage that i was referring to to to as a reference for for luke 2446 that sam said he'd never heard and wouldn't use i already covered it but yeah i'd recommend that sam and everybody else take a look at that because for luke 2446 hosea 6 verses 1 through 3 or whatever is what is quite often pointed to as the prophetic old testament thing for that um yeah i i don't see how it actually applies other than hey let's we'll be fine in three days is kind of what the story is got you and good day to you sir says samuel jesus and is not i can't it's hard to make that out um jeremy pay says didn't jesus eliminate the dietary law by saying it's not what goes into a man that makes him unclean yes he did yeah yeah jesus basically said that it's not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean but what comes out of him uh that makes him unclean and the taxis in doing so he declared all food to be clean uh yes uh jesus did eliminate the diet dietary laws by saying that uh and i think i was looking forward that that passage to be brought up actually um that's uh so yes uh jesus did do eliminate the dietary laws and now i think you want to go even further into the theology of why the dietary laws uh were there it's my understanding that the dietary laws were there to distinguish that which was clean and unclean and this is forms part of the ritual purification of the in the old testament uh which is that um yeah which is which is basically that uh you know that the things that unclean can contaminate us and that in light of christ coming all these things exist to point people to him and that when he purifies all these things he makes pure that just ties forward to the vision where peter has in x chapter nine was it ten uh where he's seen this vision uh that basically he's seen the food that the jew would consider unclean he's told to go ahead and eat um and basically uh peter says i've never touched anything unclean and the voice says back to him don't call unclean what god has made clean it has now been made clean i think that's the same argument paul uses in colosians chapter two was 15 and 16 uh where paul says that uh do not let anyone pass judgment on you with regards to food or drink these were a foreshadow the reality of which is christ so i think in that sense christ fulfills the dietary laws got you on thanks very much also want to remind you chat yes do want to keep it respectful i would encourage you folks if you have if you want to throw your poop at someone throw it at me for real we will not ban you or delete you if you if you trash me we have many video comments to prove that and so do want to let you know we do want to respect the speakers they're linked in the description folks and so like i said if you have insults things to say throw them at me and with that evat thanks for your question says so according to the cultural context paul would be would prefer men romantically speaking because he was part of the roman military and culturally they practiced uh home uh let's see they practice men having relations with men so samuel is it likely that paul preferred the company of men no i think when you look through the entirety of paul's writings roman's one uh first Corinthians uh he clearly condemns homosexuality there uh using the greek word arsene koiti uh so uh yeah i think that paul clearly was not and i don't know where you get the idea where where this person got the idea that paul was in the roman military and that just because of that that paul would have done that paul was a roman citizen i don't think there's any text that too that i'm aware of uh that would indicate paul was part of the roman military gotcha and thank you very much for your question this one coming in from gab mark has says looking for more questions related to the debate no offense but mark read uh let's see and thanks for your question by the way somebody suggested i owe james an apology i'd like i'd like to know what for but uh to whatever extent i owe james an apology it's unreservedly offered uh i haven't been mad at james once through the debate so i don't know don't know what i did but okay i know that things get heated here folks and and uh but i do want to say um i really appreciate our guess and i one thing i know that is in the chat i have to be honest i'm just going to be real with you folks it bothers me when either side is attacked you guys it's just life is too short i if anything if i if anything comes out of this channel like one of my biggest values my hopes is that people that folks in the chat is that we'd resist like oh they they take that position they're a christian they're an atheist they're a whatever so i don't like them and it's like please don't i i feel like there's now it's like threats i feel like somebody saying people are without jobs don't lose this source of income because of a chat you might regret it's so weird the things people somebody else said they were 74 confident that i don't have any character it's strange what people in chat decide to say but anyway i haven't gotten a look at it because i'm i believe you um i want to so i do want to address that folks is that you know we're only on this planet for a short time i think we'll all at least agree on the idea of like there's something valuable to being able to disagree with someone and and treat them well and so we we ask you in the chat to do that and it's something that we have asked the moderators who give warnings we used to be pretty laxadaisical it was just like hate speech your band that was always a rule and now it's getting to the point where it's like it's so tribalistic with a debate channel that it's like gosh it's like we folks don't you get it that our guests why would they want to come here if they get treated like crap uh you're kind of undermining the goal of the channel which if you're at the channel like you must in some part like the goal of the channel and yet you're so it's like we do want to ask folks true tolerance is disagreeing with someone and still respecting them right so we do want to ask you for that folks and we're going to jump to this next question we don't have that many left we do want to keep our promise on reading those that we have promised and so appreciate this one coming in from will stewart says matt the first half of my earlier question that you agreed with was a statement of agreement and they said the question was is therefore your assumption that jesus didn't fulfill prophecy equally as invalid as the assumption that he did there's there's something about the phrasing that it made it hard for me to follow that can we do that one more time yeah no you're not the only one this is a it's a mouthful so they said because it's it's referring to a previous question and i'm not sure what the previous question was i think they're saying that you guys actually so he sent a question in earlier and he's saying that you guys are actually on the same page for the first part of like you could say the kind of the introduction of the question and he said uh so here you saying the question was is therefore your assumption that jesus didn't fulfill prophecy yeah there's no way you're gonna understand okay so this is easy i am not assuming that jesus didn't fulfill prophecy fulfill prophecy i am uh not accepting the claim that he did fulfill prophecy and we would need to establish a clear prophecy and that something specific about jesus fulfilled it i'm not assuming anything and i am only rejecting the claim that jesus did fulfill prophecy because i'm having good standards of evidence if anybody came to me ever in my life and said hey here's a book that makes us a claim about something's gonna happen in the future and here's another book that shows that that event happened in the future now if i granted all of it i would still be in a position of saying wow that's interesting how did this specific claim from the past wind up coming true did that person have a time machine did they have access to a god did they get lucky did they have people working towards this did they make a prediction that was likely to come true like you know hey we're gonna have a woman president or what and i would judge them all on the same criteria for the same type of claim here's a prophecy claim just like when the j ref tests people who claim that they can predict the future you have to have a specific statement in place beforehand and something not subject to much interpretation yes since samuel wants to point out we interpret everything uh not subject to much interpretation that clearly demonstrates the truth of it it's the same across the board and yet we don't get it with jesus we don't get it with other religions i we don't get it with the air quotes psychics on the psychic hotline which is why nobody's ever claimed the million dollar prize gosh and thank you very much for this question from good day to users so samuel widened jesus fulfilled the prophecy in mica 515 and lay waste to the land of assyria why wasn't he called immanuel even once in the new testament i think uh yeah so two questions i think that are really really good if you remember in my opening statement i said that not every one of those prophecies were fulfilled i believe that when jesus comes back the second time he'll be coming back in judgment and the first time he came he came as a ransom for sin and when you get to uh and that i think basically in short the mica prophecy will be fulfilled at his judgment so there's there's there's passages that you know for example when jesus read uh the citation from israel the spirit of the lord is upon me uh anointed me to preach the good news do good works and he comes to the end where he says you know to proclaim the favorable year of the lord the next line says and the day of vengeance of our god jesus doesn't go there he stops there because there's a second coming where he's going to bring about the day of the vengeance of our god and so we as christians we identify there two different comings in the second coming uh will when be when the judgment will be held uh now i think with regards to the other question why was jesus not called immanuel i think mat in matthew chapter one when you look at the entirety of the gospel of matthew matthew's goal is to kind of show jesus as being immanuel so where so the term immanuel is not really his proper name but rather is a title he carries so in a sense matthew says that he will be called jesus and the hebrew word for yashua means that you know yahweh redeems or god's redemption god's deliverance it basically means that god will redeem or save and the angel says to in matthew chapter one was 21 if i'm not mistaken to joseph call his name jesus for he will save implying that jesus is the god who saves now matthew gives his own commentary right under that saying this was to fulfill what the prophet ise spoke his name will be called immanuel which means god with us and throughout the entirety of the gospel of matthew matthew tries to show why jesus is god with us and in fact the final words of the gospel of matthew this is in matthew chapter 28 verses 20 ends with the phrase i am with you always even till the end of the age fulfilling the title of jesus being immanuel god with us even until the end of the age so yeah it's a title so i can i can put like a couple seconds on the end of this what you just heard was a question why wasn't jesus called immanuel and it was answered well matthew called him that even though nobody else did and claimed that it was prophecy fulfilled that's what you heard or the author of matthew we're going to jump to the next question if you want to hear a response from our guests you can in the description box you can read or hear more in terms of what you'd want to if you want to hear their further response but this next one coming in from fadar koon 24 says a prediction that would save people's lives would be germ theory why would an aspect of the biblical god not make such a proclamation 2000 years ago and bring more people to follow christ because the goal of the scripture is the salvation of humanity it's concerned with the soul of humanity and not with dealing with germs jesus will one day bring an end to all of this himself without needing to give us hints on how to do that that's just christian theology i think the biggest problem again and i i think that matt understood this as an attack on his character it's not i i in any way no way in no way shape or form did i mean that as an attack on his character i believe all of humanity is sinful that's just what scripture says if i'm a christian i'm obligated to believe that uh and uh so i believe that all of humanity is corrupt that includes me uh i am corrupt uh and sinful and your attack on my character had nothing to do with the claim of corruption it was accusing me of refusing to believe something even if god gave me direct evidence and that is an outright lie i i will finish this and i'll respond to that uh so uh what i want what what i meant to say is that uh i kind of lost my train of thought uh well do you remember when i was going with this james i don't know but i was in complete agreement with you about the nature of this question and the purpose of christianity there's no reason for god to tell us about germs because god yeah this this life is like dirty rags this is a place to wipe your feet before the real life begins god doesn't give a crap about what happens to humans in the one and only life we are sure we're gonna get yeah so thanks thanks matt for that and in response to your question i think that what i was trying to say is that it's the natural tendency of human beings uh to deny god uh even though god has made himself clear i think that's in actually that was not for me that was just me quoting roman's chapter one was 18 to 23 but although they knew god uh you know and i can read that passage if you want but that's although they knew god and god had made himself clear to them you know man chose to not give god the due credit even though they knew that uh so that was me just citing that from roman's chapter one and that's just my theology matt it was not meant to be a personal attack it was saying that basically any if basically without the work of the holy spirit anyone will not even though the evidence is right before them they will not you are misremembering the discussion the point had nothing to do with roman's one you challenged my position as skepticism and misrepresentative as cynicism and i clarified that no if i remember correctly matt you pointed out i pointed out that uh you know that you were imposing your plausibility framework that's where it kind of began right uh and i said that you know you we all have a plausibility framework you're imposing that on this so to you this will not come across as uh you know something that is specific enough it does not meet your criteria is what i was trying to say and then i told i went on to point out that i if i heard you correctly in a previous debate you said that if a sign i can't remember exactly what it was i think was in debate with micahley connor uh where you know if a sign was there uh you know you wouldn't believe it uh you and then you corrected i wish you'd just stop because you don't remember and you're getting it all wrong again you have completely misrepresented my position i'm literally sitting right fucking here telling you i'm willing to accept anything based on sufficient evidence when the issue with the resurrection was if somebody is dead and then they are alive again and i don't know how it happened i'm willing to believe that they were dead and that they are now alive again but i'm not going to immediately go giving credit to a god or the person standing next to me who's trying to claim credit or anything else there needs to be a demonstrated causal connection between the source and the effect and until that happens it is a mistake for anyone to believe it that's skepticism and you earlier misrepresented is i would deny and not believe the evidence even coming from god go back and rewind at what you actually said if that's what if i mean if that's and i my memory on that is a little bit hazy and if that's the case i misrepresented you i am sorry for misrepresenting you yeah all good yeah i didn't hate you i was just like i can't believe i'm being misrepresented when i'm literally here to correct it but it's all good thanks for correcting it man yeah go ahead james yeah we'll go to this next question from appreciate charles in solo says let's see all right jj in and in chat just called me a nazi i mean come on it's like that's not it's it's funny that now they're just trying to poke yeah okay so guys this is where why are you angry matt because my character was attacked i've been i've been very clear i'm gonna answer your question attacks do you want to be very oh yeah you guys why like for those of you who are purposely trying to stir the pot why would guests come back in debate why would they feel welcome they don't want me to and they're gonna get their wish if you call them things like nazi you guys if you want to call me whatever you want i'm dead serious call me whatever you want like i don't care but not for the guests don't do it it's we're we're going to start banning a lot of people if they're and i for sure just saw somebody call matt a nazi with no reason i don't there's no reason it's it's they don't want me here but and we should i'll stop i will ignore them for the rest of tonight i matter of fact i'll just turn off chat entirely well so that we but there is something to it that we have a culture well forgive me hold on one sec i do want to acknowledge and say thank you to the the huge number of people that are not doing that are not trying to stir the pot they i want to acknowledge them there are a lot of people out there and so i don't want to sound um unfair but there are also people that clearly you're out there trying to stir the pot and i'm telling you get ready to get blocked because it's just like how are we it's not a good culture if people trash our guests so we'll we'll jump to the next question but yeah i definitely am just like uh yeah that is true what matt had claimed in terms of someone calling him a nazi and so uh don fulman says shaz sam he did great tonight you've got a fan out there and then uh let's see talus and overlander just because i uh appreciate your positivity he says matt is a handsome boy so because it's the the uh we haven't had a ton of positivity tonight so do want to at least read that but folks uh yeah we want to say we appreciate you being here no matter what walk of life you were from we whether you'd be christian atheist you name it but we do really despite the fact that it's a debate channel it's rough and tumble sometimes it's you know heated and controversial and things like that but folks my hope is that people like those of you the i think small percentage who are hateful and trying to stir the pot and call people nazi my hope is that you would come to this point of among other things one recognizing you disagree with somebody completely and just being like uh it's water under the bridge i'm not going to take it personally and so instead of throwing insults at them like that so mike q922 says matt we appreciate you what are your thoughts on the disciples in paul's testimony on the resurrection and why reject their claim they saw him so good question and by the way i don't apart from addressing the issue of having character attack i don't have any problem with sam sam and i can go out and have a conversation a meal whatever else maybe sort through this stuff a different way another time um when it comes to the reports of the apostles um i we don't have originals we don't we have our stories and stories of copies of translations of oral traditions and while i think that there may be some truth to the story i don't know how to distinguish what's true from what's not and it would be nice if we had some way to thoroughly and properly investigate this that didn't rely on speculative historical methods you know a time machine would be great or it would be really good if the god in question would just provide this clear unambiguous evidence to everyone so that you didn't have a thousand denominations of christianity so the christians didn't have to be a war between protestants and catholics so they didn't have to be at odds with the jews so they didn't have to be at odds with islam um it would be really nice if rather than relying on texts which we know canon have been altered do differ from the originals if this is the foundation upon which an all-knowing all-powerful all-loving god has decided to judge humanity then he is foolish he does not seem to understand the basics of epistemology and prefers that people believe things that are gullible on a foundation that will lead them astray and does not seem to want to clear it up and so i'm believing the scriptures when it says let god be true and every man a liar i'm not going to believe ancient stories told by men about god god can tell me himself next up thanks for your question this one for you samuel this one is charles and solo brings up an ethical question says drowning babies is a moral god drown babies and thus god is a moral for sam what's your counter please answer in a syllogistic form yeah again i i did an entire debate with t-jump in makin in person in atlanta just about a month ago on this one topic where t-jump kept raising this objection god's you're just referring to the flood where god drowned humanity god basically was it was an act of judgment against sinful humanity that's the position i could not be a christian if i did not hold to that position yeah and then basically it was an act of judgment and yes god can judge anyone who basically violates his laws uh because he is god that's it so might makes right yeah i think that god is basically yeah righteous and he has the right to do whatever he wants yeah including killing children yes okay might cue nine to two says let's see second question says sam your thoughts on the rapture second coming and one thousand year reign of christ there's different views when the events will happen thanks and god bless yeah i mean i think yeah for me i have no idea i'm happy to say i don't know uh on this one i've i've studied the text i'm currently doing a bible study on the book of revelation i don't understand uh the book of revelation at all um so i'm not going to pretend like i know i figured out i was a historical premillennialist um and and and yeah uh we're not getting too much into explaining what that is but currently i'm just just open to to basically uh to basically uh either our millennialism where you don't believe in it in an actual thousand year period uh or even considering post-millennialism i'm just not sure got you and thank you very much for your question appreciate your support from judy donk who says ban these fools makes the environment extremely unwelcome love mdb hate to see it with these people uh basically disgracing the channel and i'd agree folks um i hope that you just project all of your anger all of your malice all of your rude comments toward me and moderators don't erase those that's okay like but not toward the guest folks ralph alice let's see okay um yeah this isn't per se relevant uh to the question of the debate but we are looking for more relevant questions uh i don't know if this uh is really helping in terms of resolving the tribalism so another one come in or has come in from pepe 740 says uh let's see love you james i'm a big fan of matt and uh sam is it all right if i buy you as a slave under the rules okay not per se under this topic but uh we uh basically we're going to wrap up with that so we do want to say folks we do appreciate well sam forgive me i didn't if you want a chance to respond to that um and give me that chance i didn't mean to cut you no i i i didn't uh and if i was a slave i think the scripture would command me to submit to my master so uh and yeah that that's just it because for the christian this life is not all there is we are told to be i mean the christian is told to to basically recognize that all things are from god but that's where the hope of the resurrection really comes in when jesus comes it comes back to fulfill the rest of the messianic prophecies uh to enact justice in the world and to basically become king and to rule literally uh on earth uh forever and ever that's the hope of every christian and that's the hope of everyone who places their fate in the messiah christ jesus i want to thank matt for this discussion i do apologize for uh mischaracterizing him earlier i hold no ill feeling against him and it pains my heart uh and it pains my heart to see that you know when people attack him on the chat calling him a nazi and all that uh that that's i mean i i hope to god that's not a christian uh and and thank you uh james as well for moderating this debate and i also not not only i appreciate sam's honesty through that that last answer because those type of questions are ones where a number of apologists that i've sat down with uh will not be that honest they will not say that yes i would have to submit to my master because you know everything happens according to god's plan and everything else uh and and what the book actually says my view is that the book should say that if you are a slave you should try to escape and take as many other slaves with you and you know stand up in opposition to a vile culture that has owning you as property um but then i'm only more moral than god so what do you expect all right now i see people would have laughed at that except for you guys you two didn't laugh at it uh all right anyway i'm sorry i'm trying to read the no it's fine you're trying to read a bunch of stuff i was joking about being more moral than god because i'm willing to tell slaves to escape rather than to tell them to obey their masters even the cruel ones but you know sometimes jokes don't play gosh and and oh xd thanks for your question said sam belief isn't a choice why do you say one can choose to or not believe and why would god punish us for something that is not our choice um so just to be clear uh belief is not a choice uh yeah i mean i think uh in so again i think that um part of the reason i think that my views that mad just pointed out may be different it's because i'm a calvinist i think that fate is something it's a gift of god it's a work of god one cannot uh you know have faith in god unless god first begins to work in the heart of a person uh turning the heart of a sinner to love a god uh who uh it who basically seems uh you know fears and and powerful and demanding our submission in every sense of that i think it's only to the work of the holy spirit we can love such a god and come to recognize him as lord uh but uh yeah i think that why does god punish us he just to be clear i don't know if that's the way the question was phrased but god doesn't punish anyone for not believing in him he punishes us because we are all sinful let's be clear i deserve to go to hell for my sins i'm a sinner in every sense of that word the only reason that i have the hope of assurance of the resurrection is because of the jesus took my health for me on that cross uh and that's what i believe as a christian got you this question in from mark reid says james is a mess of beta soy boy love you james thank you mark reid appreciate that and veneceus furira thanks for your super smile and then let's see lying for jesus dot org says sam what would qualify as a false or unfulfilled prophecy when uh someone makes a predictions that that actually clearly does is proven not to come true a good example of that would be when the false prophets predicted that israel would not go into captivity clearly that was false israel did go into captivity and that was an example of a false prophecy gotcha oh by the way by the way i want this i need this and i'm sure that this time matt would be with 100 with me claiming that trump would win the election when trump did not win the election that's a false prophecy yeah so yeah and i did that in 2016 when i said trump wouldn't win and he did so i was a false prophet in 2016 and and the whole world paid the price for it gosh and next up i think that uh let's see actually i remember you paul you'd asked a question so let's see oh that no not quite but want to say thanks everybody for being with us tonight no matter whether or not you're a christian atheist agnostic muslim you name it folks we do hope you feel welcome and we appreciate you being with us we are going to make changes which i will address in the post credit scene in terms of uh yeah definitely we like i said if you want to trash me have at it we won't delete it and moderators don't delete it but like i said we do not want you to trash guests and that is hurting the channel so we are going to we'll talk about that during the post credit scene one reminds you that our guests are linked in the description and also folks we are thrilled that you're here if you would enjoy this debate want to let you know on screen you are seeing right now we're on virtually every popular podcast app so check us out there as we are really excited to see a lot of people have been downloading those so super encouraged by that and if you're listening to a podcast want to let you know you can find our guest links in the podcast description box as well now and also want to let you know hey if you rate us if you're listening to the podcast that helps us a lot we do appreciate that and so one last thanks to our guests it's been we love you guys i know it's it is it's rough and tumble matt and sam and we appreciate you guys we hope that everybody out there can and like i said i think most people actually are tolerant it is a small percentage of people so i don't want to for everybody out there a lot of you are awesome i don't want you to perceive it as me throwing you know kind of calling you out when in actuality it's a small percent but long story short thank you matt and sam for being with us same for me and by the way in chat right now in addition to sam and i'm talking about how badly we both need to pee because we drink too much we were talking about getting together to discuss these things elsewhere don't assume that just because something got heated that all of a sudden oh my god it's like the person in chat that was like oh matt's a nazi i see this over and over again on twitter and everything else everybody who disagrees with me as a nazi and you're the worst and i don't think in those terms and sam doesn't either which is why we can have kind of a knock down drag drag out exchange and still have something productive i think there was a lot of productive stuff here tonight and anyway that's it thanks everybody appreciate it yeah appreciate that thanks so much and yeah i encourage you folks having bitterness or unforgiveness uh for those of you people out there trying to stir the pot want to let you know you're only hurting yourself like it's not something that you're gonna like it's gonna like blossom into something beautiful it's it's going to be something that it's like you're going to be miserable while holding out of those grudges and so i'm telling you folks but anyway we will be back in a moment with post credit scene on upcoming debates as we were excited for those and so i want to say thanks everybody keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable we'll be back in just a moment we want to address a few things housekeeping wise in particular so sorry i think i missed a question oh man becker tp i'm so sorry i did miss your question shoot me an email at modernatabate at gmail.com and i'm happy to give you that ten dollar super chat back because we didn't get to read it during the q and a i'm really sorry about that uh they asked uh matt have you read tom hardy's poem the the impercipient it's about the idea that lack of belief is not a voluntary choice um so i know that you wanted to have it actually have that aster in the q and a so i am sorry about that and yeah do want to like i said for real though feel free please do email me and uh if if we're gonna guarantee that we'll read a super chat that's ten dollars or more then we've got actually got to do it and i just missed that one i didn't see it so um folks want to say for the positive people out there which is the majority of you i think like no joke probably 90 percent of the people that watch this channel like they're happy and they're you know um they're pleasant and they are not trying to uh what's the word i'm looking for slander or uh do any sort of libel to trash people and so i do want to acknowledge them and say thank you and it is true though that folks we are going to have new rules that this is something that matt has brought it up but it's not the only speaker that i'm sure has noticed that some people out there are trying to trash the guess now here's where it gets tricky there are a couple of things things here in which it's going to be a challenge but we have to we do have to change because it's like this isn't going to be a professional like kind of growing kind of uh channel the way that we're hoping if people are just uh calling guests nazis like you guys uh or i should say the small percentage out there of you who are trying to do that uh dave langer says so auto ban for anyone trashing guests now too that's where it's sticky uh that's where it's tricky because we get into a lot of sticky situations such as you know if someone says so for example i saw somebody say that samuel looked constipated tonight uh like are we gonna ban him for that um i frankly i'd be like if you you know like that seems like so you know the tricky thing is if we don't ban it we might have people say oh hey james looks like you guys are not neutral you're not playing it you know fairly you instead um will ban you know like you'll ban that but then if something else said that's like worse uh let's see you know so it's a it is a tricky line to walk and so don't let don larson jr says lovey james james is like the brother i never had appreciate it don larson jr seriously your positivity means a lot especially on a week like this i've had a it's been a hard week and uh this debate was challenging in terms of it being controversial and people calling guests nazis and all that um but i actually to this week has been a really hard week and so i want to tell you guys we don't want you to have like a like some sort of grudge or anything like that um and matt it sounds like it's not coming back and i have no ill will for matt um we aren't entitled to host anybody right we aren't and so for me it's that uh you know i have no hard feelings that at any of the guests who say nope not coming on a modern a debate it's like that's their call and we'll never have a grudge or anything like that and so i do think it needs to change though regardless of whether or not matt actually comes back it is true that it's like i've never and i'm i'm amazed because i've never seen anybody tonight was just i i think it's i've seen trolls before and you know um it's a trick where we always wanted people to have freedom of expression to you know like even if they say you know who knows what they're gonna say but as long as it's not hate speech that's always been against the rules and so um you know it's a challenge where it's like we don't want people to feel like they're walking on eggshells but we also really don't uh and yeah andrew handles min you're right so the james people that hurt the guests hurt the channel i was under the impression hate speech only or i'd be doing a lot more timeouts um yes andrew i have i think it's probably you probably realize it's pretty clear i already see that namely like is that we have to have change in terms of like we i've got to tell you folks and now you know why because some of you i feel like a lot of you like because that's the thing is uh you know if i delete stuff and it's like because you're attacking a guest and you're like wait come on james and it's like hey you saw it like a lot of guests won't come back if they're being treated like crap and that makes sense right like why would you go somewhere where you're treated like crap so topot2 says this super chat is just for you and the moderators james thanks for all the hard work all you all do let's see thank you for your support appreciate that and also let's see just reading in i do want to say hello i do appreciate you guys hanging out with us um there is a lot going on one in particular i'm excited that the podcast has been booming if you guys have not checked this modern day debate on podcast out yet oh my gosh you guys i'm just pumped that people have been able to use it because when i when i first started uploading i was thinking uh it was like back back in like april maybe i think may june i was afraid that nobody would listen and so i'm super encouraged that lots of people have been downloading the modern day debate podcast so i'd encourage you pull out your cell phone look up your favorite podcast app and find modern day debate on that favorite podcast app we're on virtually every single podcast and i'm excited that that's one thing that is positive for modern day debate is that that's been growing and i am excited though that uh you could tell that mad and samuel and this is something i'd encourage you guys is you'll notice that like at the end of the conversation they're like meh i don't know the grudge against you it got heated but they were like yeah you know we're not gonna you know i'm not you know i'm not gonna uh hate you or whatever and so the shower crier says uh let's see lay it down james don't let them trash you either i i mean that's the trick i don't care if people trash me i really don't i mean it's the internet i expected that i i've gotten some pretty dandy comments um i i almost want to show it off like a badge of honor there's one debate where everybody just completely ripped into me because they thought i did a bad job and uh mods we want to say but for real moderators don't delete people trash talking me i don't care but we do want people to treat our guests well it makes sense that they don't want to come somewhere where they're treated like crap um but we do also want to acknowledge we appreciate the 99% probably or so 99% of people were positive kind and so we appreciate you um mr p says james thrashing and satire are very are two very different things i agree and so um yeah i mean that's the trick guys but here's the thing like what if you know uh what if a guest says hey that satire is like pretty clearly ripping into me like um where it's like if they feel like crap because of it it's like um yeah so i would say maybe so dave langer gives feedback i appreciate your feedback dave langer this should be a community discussion i don't want to just you know declare like a bunch of rules especially so it's like let's hear your thoughts dave langer says for stuff like that a post deletion and warning is probably better so i think that's fair um maybe that's what we should do moderators let me know and uh you know maybe that's what we do instead and but i would say this too i have to be honest um you know i i see some sometimes i see a person say oh man this speaker is so dishonest and it's like i think that the speaker is being sincere and so it's like you know um um sometimes like people in the chat will call the guests will be oh they're being so dishonest right now and it's like that's where it's like well do we delete it i don't know um let's see brian stevens is hanging there moderated bait you got this james yeah and it's a it's a hard spot to be where it's like uh if guests don't want to come back because of of being trashed it's like man uh james mick gran says hey man you're doing a great job not much more you can do here thanks appreciate that positive support means a lot uh let's see courier says maybe you and the two or more guests are in a streaming bubble cutoff from other platforms and the two or more guests are in a streaming bubble cutoff from other platforms i don't even know what that means but we're glad you hear courier s and reza wad of gore says nice job moderator moderating um matt has a toxic group that trolls him and they say i think it sloshed over from the atheist experience where it happens a lot in chat um yeah i don't know if um like where the people are coming from uh let's see but yeah i mean let's see top hot if you or uh not top hot brian stevens if you missed it i don't know if you're asking what you missed but yeah it's namely that uh we basically some speakers don't want to come back because people are i mean that's the other thing too is that like i think a lot of times it's like let's be honest uh in this not regarding the people trolling matt i i do believe that there are people that probably follow matt around to try to troll him um wil stewart says would it also be a good idea to have the guest agree to not reach out during the debate it's a bit distracting the debate is with the other person not the chat uh it's true that we do want them to like debate the person that we brought on the channel but um i can't blame matt for seeing the the haters um like i i can't it doesn't so i mean like um in another context if it wasn't in this context wil i might mention like hey is like if we focus you guys on the debate rather than like hanging out in the chat except in this case though i wouldn't say that because it's like well matt brought up something that i i've never seen anybody call a guest a nazi until tonight uh that's as bad as i've seen it but i it's true i will concede that there are people you know sometimes it's like i said i mean for many eons i've seen people say oh this guest is being so dishonest right now they're being so dishonest i see that honestly pretty much every night and oftentimes it's against the christian uh not always but it it's not just the atheist that get that it's both sides and it's frankly every side because i think i remember nadir a muslim guest getting that too and so uh let's see long story short uh i would say yeah folks it's a it's a tough line to walk but yeah i think what we will do um lono says uh he didn't say it recently it was after sam insulted him he said it was his last time on mdd was that why he said it was his last time i i can't remember but um like i said we never have um like we always we're happy to have matt back like i enjoy matt uh like i enjoy his company we we spent time together we had dinner together