The Power of Belief- How Jesus' Followers Changed History - Ben Shapiro VS William Lane Craig

Embark on an intellectual and spiritual quest as we examine the essence of discipleship and the profound impact of the gospel. With insights from biblical texts and an enlightening dialogue between apologist William Lane Craig and conservative thinker Ben Shapiro, this episode promises to deepen your understanding of Jesus' role as the ultimate sacrifice and the fulfillment of the old covenant. Explore with us the complexities of faith as we navigate the nuances of Christian and Jewish beliefs, while addressing the challenges faced by modern-day disciples in a world of skepticism and conflicting ideologies.

As we traverse through the historical panorama of Jesus' life, claims, and the transformative power of his resurrection, prepare to be moved by the dramatic trial before the Sanhedrin, the implications of the crucifixion, and the ripples of the resurrection through time. We dissect the scholarly consensus on these pivotal events, equipping you with historical evidence to bolster your faith conversations beyond biblical text alone. This dialogue is not just an academic exercise; it’s an invitation to witness the metamorphosis of lives touched by the resurrection narrative and to engage with the ever-evolving discourse on belief, reason, and the enduring encounter with the divine.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Faith and Failure Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:05

We are charged as believers to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, like that is what we are meant to do. That is what the disciples were charged to do. That is what Paul thereafter was telling the church to make disciples, make disciples, make disciples. Paul was extremely and majority of influence of how to be a disciple, how to have the spirit be evident in your life, how to have the spirit be active in your life, how to be submissive to God even in bad circumstances, how to be able to in the face of our flesh, which is what we fight against every day. Outside of or aside from the people outside of our space. We fight against our flesh inside of us every single day. So there's a guy named I just went stupid William Lane Craig. Now this guy is. He is a defender of the faith. I've had on the show videos of Ben Shapiro before. I like Ben Shapiro. He's very conservative in his ways. But the bottom line is the Bible says, the complete canon of scripture says that Jesus is the only way. So even though I like Ben Shapiro there, I don't know, I'm not God, but if Jesus is the only way and he does not submit to the idea that Jesus is the Messiah and the one true Son of God. There's not a whole lot of room for interpretation there. You know what I mean. But William Lane Craig, he comes on this show and he talks to Ben Shapiro and he presses him a little bit for actually quite a few minutes, just really saying some good points. And so now Ben Shapiro is not an atheist, so we're kind of easing in. I wanted to show this video first to kind of display the heart and the guy William Lane Craig. We're going to do a lengthier video in a little bit.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Ben Shapiro is a guy who knows what he is talking about, like he doesn't lose a lot of debates. Matter of fact, most people go after his higher voice, like they call him a teenage girl or something like that. They go after his skinny stature. They go after I mean, they try to tear him apart in so many different ways because they cannot come up against his mind. Okay, so he believes in God, but he does not believe in the Messiah. So let's see, maybe you, like Ben Shapiro, he's a big defender of truth and not New Testament truth. Let's just dissect those a little bit. But legal stuff, we have political stuff. He's very gifted at understanding those types of things, but for some reason, for some reason, he does not understand or he will not submit to the fact that Jesus could possibly be the one true Son of God, which the Word of God tells us has to be the path to get to heaven. Now that's New Testament. He is the one sacrifice for all after him. But before that, obviously they were in the Old Testament, the first covenant. That's why you have the Old Testament, the New Testament. There was a first covenant and then Jesus came to not only live out a perfect life, but to be that perfect lamb and sacrifice that would ultimately and sustainably fulfill what the blood covenant before that couldn't completely do. They kept having to come back and redo, and redo and redo, but this made it where it was a one and done from the Son. That rhymes. So it's gotta be true, all right.

Speaker 2: 3:56

So let's dive in and watch this. So I'm gonna let me get my little little stuff over here where I can make sure that this is good for you all. So while I'm doing this, if you don't mind, please go to the YouTube channel, like and subscribe. Almost excuse me. My fingers are so calloused, playing guitar all the time, that it sometimes doesn't recognize my fingers. Okay, there we go. All right, so will you like Craig? If you will go, subscribe and like the YouTube channel, make sure you share this video. Maybe somebody who doesn't know Jesus or doesn't believe that he is the Messiah? This is the perfect video for them to watch. Let's watch this together.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Who do you think Jesus of Nazareth was? Jesus claimed to be the decisive self-revelation of God, and I believe that we have good reasons to believe that those claims were true and that, therefore, the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists.

Speaker 3: 5:02

Okay, so let's get into that. So what is the proof that Jesus was who he says he is in the gospel?

Speaker 1: 5:10

Well, first we need to establish who he thought he was Now listen.

Speaker 2: 5:15

This is very important. So if you ever come up on somebody who doesn't really have a base understanding of Jesus, this is where your talking point needs to come from and where your heart needs to come from. Listen to this.

Speaker 1: 5:27

When you look at the religio-historical context of the life and ministry of Jesus, I think you can show that among the historically authentic words of Jesus were claims that he thought he was the Jewish Messiah, that he believed himself to be the Son of God in a unique sense that set him apart from Jewish kings and prophets and, finally, that he thought that he was the Son of man, predicted by the prophet Daniel, to whom God would give all dominion, power and authority.

Speaker 1: 6:06

So he had this radical self-understanding of being Messiah, son of God and the Son of man. And at the trial scene before the Sanhedrin in Mark 15, all three of these titles come to a head. When the high priest asks him are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One, that is, the Son of God? And Jesus says I am. And then, virtually quoting from Daniel, and you will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven and seated at the right hand of the power. And at that point the high priest rips his robes and says you have heard the blasphemy. What more witnesses do we need? And Mark says they all condemned him as worthy of death and that enabled them, since they didn't have the ability to carry out capital punishment to deliver him over to the Roman authorities, by slandering him as a pretender to be king of the Jews and therefore a political figure who could be tried for treason and sedition and crucified.

Speaker 3: 7:17

So from the Jewish perspective, this narrative has some holes in sort of Jewish philosophy. The narrative begins with the idea that Jesus appears in front of the Sanhedrin and then it claims to be the Messiah. Well, there's nothing actual criminally in any of the tractates that say that if you declare yourself the Messiah, this is actually a punishment, a punishable offense. Even there are many Jews, including Bar-Kachba, who have declared themselves messianic figures. The real gap here is that in the Gospels, jesus' vision of himself as the Messiah is completely different from the prior vision of what the Jewish Messiah is and is actually outside the scope of how Jews describe the Messiah or really have ever described the Messiah.

Speaker 3: 7:58

The Messiah in Judaism has always been a political figure who is destined to do certain things restoring the kingdom of Israel, maintaining control of that kingdom, bringing more Jews back to Israel All of these things are considered sort of political things that the Messiah does. But the idea of the Messiah as embodiment of God is something that's foreign to Jewish religious philosophy, going all the way back to the beginning. So even the idea that the Sanhedrin would be questioning him in those terms and would get from that that what he means is I am God, which would be a much more punishable offense. Presumably that would be actual blasphemy, that it's an oddity.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I think you're absolutely right in saying that Jesus' understanding of the Messiah was radically different from the prevailing cultural understanding of the Messiah among the chief priests and the common people, and he didn't meet their expectations. Indeed, that's what helped to get him crucified. Being the Messiah you're right in and of itself isn't a blasphemous claim. But to claim to be the Son of God in a unique sense, and then especially the Son of man prophesied by Daniel, sitting at the right hand of the power, that is truly blasphemous and is sufficient for his condemnation.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Now the question I think that is raised by your question yeah, your interpretation, ben, is this why should we believe Jesus' reinterpretation of the Messiah rather than the one that the chief priests and the people held? And I think the answer to that is his resurrection from the dead. So what do?

Speaker 2: 9:45

you think so far in this video do you think he's doing a pretty good job? Now they have the dramatic music, but this is just like the first search and I found it. I knew it was exactly the clip I wanted, instead of going 12 clips later trying to find the right one. But one of the biggest things, like even in the Quran you have it stating that Jesus was a prophet, like they're agreeing with, being important in the faith. But the difference and I've said this multiple times the difference from him just being a prophet or a teacher is the claim not only claim, but proof of resurrection. So let's go a little bit deeper.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Jesus' resurrection from the dead is Yahweh's public and unequivocal vindication of the man whom the chief priest had rejected as a blasphemer.

Speaker 2: 10:54

Now, the importance of that is this. So some people say, well, yeah, all of the guys got together, the ones who wrote the scripture, the disciples. They stole his body. But there were so many people that were wrapped up in the testimony of the resurrection Not only just a testimony of it.

Speaker 2: 11:23

But let me explain this to you what lie when it came down to it, when it came down to your life, the life of your family, what lie would you continue to hold to? That you knew was and all you had to do was say, okay, it wasn't true? What lie would you hold to? To where it would cost you your life in some of the most gruesome ways? Okay, after you went through and saw what happened to Jesus, after all that he went through, who in the right mind would be willing to not lay it all on the line, not lose your job, not get a divorce, not lose your kids even, but literally your life? Now, I don't know if you understand this about the human nature, but by nature we will try to survive at all costs, to stay alive, like that's just kind of our instinct that is built inside of us to stay alive at all costs. So, for all of these people who died for the sake and for the name of Jesus, including Paul later, after the death and death bearer, resurrection of Jesus, him himself, coming to a face-to-face encounter. There have been Muslims in other countries and I know some of you can be like this is kind of weird, but listen to me that they have had visions and dreams of Jesus. They have not heard the gospel, but the gospel was presented to them, the gospel of Jesus, jesus himself, which is the word as described in John one, the word being presented to Muslims and changing their lives. And they knew, just like Paul did on the road, that they had an encounter with the resurrected one. That changes the narrative of whether Jesus resurrected or not, because there have been accounts, there have been records of it happening.

Speaker 2: 13:23

Say, well, man wrote this. Man wrote that Everything we touch, use, eat, drink, read has been done by man. You ding dong. So now you don't believe science books. Those were written by men. Now you don't have where we have, history books. If you start going down that road of well man did it, then you have no.

Speaker 1: 13:53

even if you just look at the Bible as historical text, it doesn't change the validity that a man had a pen in his hand and wrote with ink it is the divine demonstration that these allegedly blasphemous claims are in fact true, that he was who he claimed to be and that, therefore, I follow Jesus in his conception of what it means to be the Messiah.

Speaker 3: 14:22

So when it comes to the resurrection. Why is resurrection proof of divinity? So Lazarus is resurrected.

Speaker 1: 14:27

That was why I wanted to emphasize the religio-historical context before we talked about the resurrection. A miracle taken in isolation is inherently ambiguous. The proper interpretation of a miracle is going to be given by the religio-historical context in which it occurs, and the resurrection of Jesus is not just the resurrection of any old body. It's the resurrection of the man who claimed to be Messiah, son of God and Son of man, and who was crucified for those allegedly blasphemous claims.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Now imagine what kind of a collision of coincidence would have to happen for it to just so happen to be the same guy who was claimed to be the Messiah. See how crazy and rare that would. I mean it would be impossible.

Speaker 1: 15:20

If God has raised this man from the dead, then he has, I think, unequivocally and publicly vindicated those allegedly blasphemous claims.

Speaker 3: 15:30

So one of the counter claims to some of this is that the gospels are written significantly after Jesus lives. Even the earliest gospel is written what? 70 CE, somewhere in 40 years after Jesus is crucified. So what's to say? I mean that, like most historical events, there is some play in the joints here.

Speaker 1: 15:49

So this would be the historical argument against the exact veracity of the gospel revelations, for example, Well, I think it's important to understand, ben, that in order for a historical document to be reliable, it isn't required that it be in air and temperanious, of course, of course. So what I would argue is that underlying the inference to the resurrection of Jesus are three great, independently established facts which are supported by the historical evidence and which, surprisingly I did my doctoral work on this in Germany are recognized as such by the majority of New Testament scholars today who studied the historical Jesus. And these facts would be that, after his crucifixion and burial by a member of the Sanhedrin named Joseph of Arimathea, the Jesus tomb was discovered empty on the first day of the week by a group of his female followers. Secondly would be that various individuals and groups of people then witnessed appearances of Jesus alive. And finally, number three would be that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Despite having every predisposition to the contrary.

Speaker 1: 17:20

The vast majority of scholars have come to accept as convincing the evidence in support of those three facts, not assuming biblical inerrancy or inspiration, but treating the gospels as ordinary historical documents. You can show, for example, that the fact of the discovery of the empty tomb is attested by at least six independent sources in the New Testament, some of which are extraordinarily early. No scholar denies that individuals and groups saw post-mortem appearances of Jesus. The only question is whether you should or could dismiss them as hallucinatory. And again, nobody denies that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

Speaker 1: 18:08

So these three facts are pretty firmly established, and the only question is then how do you best explain them? And down through history, attempts have been made to explain these facts without recourse to the resurrection, like the conspiracy theory, the apparent death theory, the hallucination theory and so forth. And I would argue that none of these naturalistic theories meets the criteria for being the best historical explanation of the facts. None of them is as good an explanation as the one that the original disciples gave that God raised Jesus from the dead. And if that's right, then I think we have good grounds. Indeed, we're almost compelled to revise our typical understanding of who the Messiah was supposed to be.

Speaker 3: 19:01

So we can have the historical argument back and forth, obviously and I think that there are arguments that you can make, I think there are arguments that I can make I honestly find them relatively uninteresting. Is the truth? Simply because I'm not sure that we're going to come to any sort of consensus on them.

Speaker 2: 19:13

You know the reason he finds it uninteresting is because he would lose that argument, and William Lane Craig did a excellent kind of breaking down. So what I suggest to you is take this video with somebody who, maybe, maybe they believe there is a God, maybe they believe okay, I'll entertain that idea. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, god does exist. But how can I? Even like the whole story of Jesus is kind of far-fetched, okay, well, that is a great question. And then you can send them this video.

Speaker 2: 20:03

I make these videos not only to help equip you as the believer, but also for you to be able to articulate what you believe, why you believe it and how it could even be true. Because you know you're not going to be able to, like William Lane Craig did here. You're not gonna be able to, as a believer, go to a non-believer and say, well, I just believe because the Bible tells me. So that doesn't compute in their minds, because Bible is not truth to them. So you have to come to a place of reason, a place of logic. So share this video with them.

Speaker 2: 20:39

Reach out to somebody and say, hey, listen, maybe you don't believe all that's going on, but watch this 15, 20 minute video. Hopefully by the time I edit this and give it back out. It'd be about 20 minutes or 10, 15 minutes. So send this to them and say, look, I'm not trying to preach to you, but here's some evidence that I have found outside of the Bible. Outside and see, he talked about scholars not theologians, but scholars who study things of the past who have all agreed, majority, have agreed I won't say all, cause, that's like fine Majority agreed that Jesus was a person. He did exist, and there are records of an empty tomb that historically he was recorded to be buried in. So that right there will lead them into a lot of other areas and questions. That is exactly where God wants them, and so share this with them and let's move on to the next topic.

Speaker 1: 21:49

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