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Series Code: GFF
Program Code: GFF000008S
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00:01 ♪ ♪ Subodh K. Pandit, M.D.
00:56 We are now in session seven. Glad to have you back. Let's 01:01 look at what we've done so far. We looked first at how we must 01:05 set the premises, become an inquirer. And then we looked at 01:09 the Theory of Evolution along with the idea atheism before 01:16 that and when we looked at that we looked at both sides. 01:20 Whenever there were two theories we looked at both. We gave both 01:24 sides the same chance to win. And because of that we can say 01:28 that so far we've done a very good job of being a neutral 01:32 inquirer. We also now looked at pluralism which says that all 01:38 the religions lead to the same final destination. And we looked 01:43 at that, no it didn't pan out in any of the religious writings 01:47 because each of the religions claim to be the only way. We 01:52 looked at the logic of that and found that ultimately there's 01:55 only one that can really be called legitimately the only way 02:02 We also said that we could not compare the doctrines, tenents 02:08 of belief, the philosophies. We had to put something else onto 02:12 them to help us make that choice And so I said we'd look at the 02:17 stories. We also said that there's a way in which we would 02:21 look at it and not look for the superiority but for something 02:27 else, uniqueness. So let's remind ourselves about the 02:30 marbles. I said if there was only one correct marble, one 02:35 correct colored marble and I had four purples, three blues, two 02:43 green and one red marble in my hand which would be the correct 02:47 colored marble? The red because that was the only one that was 02:52 red. Similarly now when we look at the para religious factors 02:57 that's the history part of it, we are looking for the correct 03:02 colored marble, the red one, the one that is so different from 03:06 all the others. So now, we're going to ask the questions 03:10 regarding those factors. Not the religious beliefs, not the 03:14 doctrines, not those philosophies but the story and 03:18 those para religious factors. The first question, we're going to 03:21 ask quite a few as we go through the next few sessions. The first 03:26 question is what kind of a writing is that scripture? 03:32 By the way, we are going to look at five major world religions. 03:36 Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. 03:41 Each of them has a founder except Hinduism which does not 03:46 have a founder, but all of them have writings which are called 03:51 the basic writings of that religion. So the question now is 03:55 what kind of writing is that scripture? Ancient writing is 04:01 divided into four: Folklore or folktale, legend, myth or 04:08 or historical. What do we mean by these words? A folktale: 04:13 There is no attempt to state a real or true story. The main 04:17 intent is to be interesting and bring out a lesson or a moral. 04:20 In other words, we know that the story is not really true and so 04:25 the wind can give you a nice secret or the sun can smile at 04:31 you or the animals can meet in a big committee meeting. They know 04:35 it's not true. Yes, making it up so that they can tell us a 04:40 lesson or a moral from that. So a folktale, the story itself is 04:46 not true. When it comes to a legend it is probably based on a 04:51 real, true story. But here's what makes it a legend. Changes 04:56 come in little by little until what is ordinary becomes 05:02 extraordinary, what is human becomes superhuman and as 05:07 changes begin usually generations after the event when 05:12 there is no longer any live witnesses to challenge the 05:16 change. Sometimes the time period for making a legend is 05:20 centuries. It's not right away. A legend is not made in the same 05:27 generation as the event. Here's an example of how long it takes. 05:32 This medallion referring to something that was carved out 05:36 about Gautama Buddha was back when. This medallion dates back 05:39 certainly to the second century B.C. If we put the Buddha's 05:44 nirvana, or his death, during the fifth century B.C. then the 05:48 artist who carved the medallion must have lived at a time when 05:52 the memory of the Blessed One was still very fresh in the 05:55 minds of the people. Can you see the span, 300 years and the 06:01 memory is still fresh. In other words, you can't make too much 06:04 of a change. And that is why we say legends are made generations 06:08 after the event and the time period is at least centuries. 06:12 A myth is so far back in history that it is generally accepted as 06:17 somebody's imagination. The story is probably not true, the 06:21 characters are probably fictitions and they usually 06:24 involve the supernatural world of gods and goddesses. And here 06:27 the time frame is many centuries and even millennia. How about 06:32 historical? Here the attempt is to state the story as it really 06:39 was. No significant additions, no core changes and we 06:44 specifically use the word core because all ancient writings 06:48 have changes. The question is are there peripheral changes or 06:52 are they changes that really shift the story out from its 06:56 original form? And one more criterion. The closer to the 07:03 event the writing the better it is, the more credible it is. 07:06 In fact of all of these four, folktale, legend, myth, 07:10 historical, the historical is the best credited piece of 07:16 ancient literature. Now look at those letters on the screen. 07:21 EV means event. Whenever there's an unusual event the people make 07:28 it into a story because that's the only way they can pass it 07:32 from the generation to the next and from that generation to the 07:35 next. So when it's being passed it is called oral tradition. So 07:40 from the event we get the oral tradition. The after a few 07:43 generations said they might forget some of the details and 07:47 so they agree to write it down. Somebody writes it down and then 07:51 it becomes a written tradition - WT. So event to oral tradition 07:56 to written tradition. Now we do not have any of the original 08:00 manuscripts. All you have are copies. So now we want to ask 08:05 which is the earliest manuscript we have, which is the earliest 08:09 copy we have? It's called an EM. And you also notice a dash 08:12 between those letters. The dash refers to those gaps. If the 08:17 gaps are really wide then the credibility of that piece of 08:21 literature goes down. If the gaps are very close then the 08:26 credibility goes up. So let's look at now the writings 08:30 themselves of these five great world religions to see how they 08:35 fare when compared to the descriptions of these four types 08:40 which we said. Hinduism: The Rig Veda is the earliest and 08:45 then the anthologies which is Upanishads. Then the epic, big 08:48 story the Ramayana followed by the Mahabharata in which is 08:52 found the Bhagavad Gita which everybody quotes and says that's 08:56 the core of Hindu thought. So the Bhagavad Gita is basically 08:59 the baby of the traditional Hindu writings. Look at the 09:03 statement that is in the Bhagavad Gita: Lord Krishna 09:07 first spoke Bhagavad Vita to the Sun God some hundreds of 09:11 millions of years ago. There is no way anybody can check that 09:15 out. The fact is the story says it was lost to the human race 09:20 and came back again at the Battle of Kurukshetra at the 09:24 beginning of the present era, the Hindu era, 3102 B.C. The 09:30 battle also was 5000 years ago. It is difficult to get back to 09:35 check on the story and that is why most scholars agree that the 09:38 Hindu story, these big ones like the Hermine and the Mahabharata 09:43 are actually mythological in their core quality. And that's 09:49 why the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology says: "Krishna 09:55 according to Hindu mythology is an avatar or an incarnate of 09:59 Vishnu the preserver of the Hindu universe. So the Hindu 10:05 writings basically mythological, not wrong, you are not 10:10 discrediting them but we do state they're mythological. 10:12 How about Buddhism? Here are four statements: "The humanity 10:16 of the Buddha is expressed by a Theravada monk" A Theravada monk 10:20 who lived at the time of Gautama Buddha. And he said this 10:23 "Was he not born at Lumbini,... Did he not complete existence at 10:27 Kusinara?" In other words, he was born here and he died here 10:31 just like anybody else. Sentence or statement two: "Soon after 10:36 the passing of the Master, a change began to set in." 10:38 How about the third sentence? "At the beginning of the 10:42 Christian era..." Four to Five hundred years have now gone by. 10:46 "...the transcendental nature" the superhuman nature of the 10:50 the Buddha "became more and more pronounced." Little by little, 10:54 more and more. And statement four: "In one of the most 10:59 important pieces of Mahayana literature there is not much of 11:02 the man left in the Buddha. Mahayana Buddhism came onto the 11:05 scene about 700 to 1000 years later. He is now, in this 11:11 Mahayana literature "an exalted being who has lived for 11:15 countless ages in the past and will continue to live forever. 11:18 So it was written in the earliest writings that he was 11:24 just an ordinary person who was born here and he died here. 11:27 Seven hundred to a thousand years later, Oh no he was not 11:30 born, he always lived, and he didn't die, he always will live. 11:33 This change tells us the story of Gautama Buddha basically is 11:40 legendary. How about Judaism? Thirty-nine books in the Old 11:47 Testament, 20 authors. These are the books that the scholars take 11:54 and from there it was pulled out the Talmud, Torah, the Talmud, 11:58 the main writings of the Judaic literature. I could not classify 12:02 all of them into a single one, so I left it unclassified. How 12:07 about Islam. "The Quran was put together in writing by 652 C.E." 12:11 Common Era, same as A.D. "within 20 years of Muhammad's 12:15 life. [And] the writing was confined to one generation. 12:18 But Muhammad did not write it." He was supposed to be not so 12:24 conversant with writing and reading. And he is the only one 12:28 who is inspired in Islamic tradition. Therefore uninspired 12:32 individuals wrote it out. Yeah they may have got it from him 12:36 but they wrote it out. It was compiled twice and after the 12:40 second compilation of the Quran it was done in the Caliphate of 12:45 Uthman. Uthman now the leader ordered all the manuscripts 12:50 destroyed. So really it's difficult now to go back to 12:54 to see if the Quran really were the words of Mohammad because 12:58 the only connection or one of the big connections is 13:02 manuscripts and the manuscripts are destroyed. But still what we 13:06 are dealing is the time period and since it was early written 13:10 compared to the event, historical. How about 13:14 Christianity? The earliest manuscript is about 114- 134 13:18 A.D. The original manuscripts were 20 to 50 years of the life 13:23 of Jesus, confined to one generation and we do not have 13:26 core changes. But do you know what the earliest Christian 13:30 writing is? It is not in the Bible. Eleazar Sukenik Professor 13:35 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found two "ossuaries." 13:38 Ossuaries are the receptacle pots in which you put 13:41 the dead man's 13:42 bones and then bury the whole pot. The ossuaries are where the 13:46 earliest Christian writing is found. They are dated about A.D. 13:51 41, within 10 years of the life of Jesus. One of the ossuaries 13:54 reads "Jesus God". And another ossuary said: Jesus ascended One 14:00 Take note, think. It required Gautama Buddha 700 to 1000 years 14:07 to transform him from a human to god-like. Here within 10 years 14:13 the whole process has shifted from event to oral tradition to 14:19 written tradition. Earliest manuscript in this case is the 14:23 written tradition itself because those writings were the original 14:27 writings on the ossuaries. Ten years is actually no time. And 14:33 all the while as God. Nobody shifted from being human to 14:37 a God in that time. This is the only writing that has no gap. 14:40 So we can already say emphatically that no longer any 14:44 solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after A.D. 14:49 80. That is Sir William Albright One of the greatest American 14:52 archeologists. The next statement is by Nelson Glueck 14:56 a Jewish archeologist, and he said: It may be stated 15:01 categorically that no archeological discovery has ever 15:05 controverted a biblical reference. You have got to say 15:11 Wow! Not a single. Give credit where credit is due. How about 15:17 one of the greatest archeologists of all time, the 15:19 British archeologist Sir William Ramsey. He was doing his work 15:24 in the same time period of the New Testament or about 100 A.D. 15:29 The first century. In his digs he came across a situation he 15:34 was not really able to explain. He looked here and there for an 15:39 explanation, finally found it in Luke's writing of the New 15:43 Testament. He then went to his dig and came across another 15:48 perplexing situation and Luke helped him out. It went on and 15:52 on for 30 years and after 30 years this is what Sir William 15:55 Ramsey said about Luke. "Luke's history is unsurpassed in 16:00 respect of its trustworthiness." "This author should be placed 16:03 along with the very greatest of historians." Not religious 16:08 historians, very greatest of all the historians that have 16:11 assembled themselves on planet earth. This is what Norman 16:16 Geisler said: "In all, Luke names 32 countries, 54 cities 16:20 and nine islands without [a single] error." Unusual. So 16:25 obviously the New Testament appears to be historical. So I 16:29 then compared that with other books, writings, I think that 16:34 everyone acknowledges as historical from about the same 16:37 time period. These Roman historians for example Caesar's 16:42 Gallic wars. Herodotus history and Tacitus annals. Now I want 16:47 you to look at three factors here. Number one: Time gap. 16:51 Number two: The number of manuscripts, the back view 16:56 writing and number three: The proximity of the authors. Where 17:00 were the authors who then wrote out the stories regarding what 17:06 happened the event. So first the gaps. Caesar's Gallic Wars was 17:12 written in about 100 B.C. about then. The earliest manuscript 17:15 is 900 A.D. a gap 1000 years. Herodotus History a gap of 1300 17:23 years. Tacitus Annals a gap of 1000 years. In other words, no 17:29 historian and any other person can vouch that anything was 17:33 changed, added, deleted or modified for 1000 years. And yet 17:40 they call it historical. So the gap is 1000 years. Here in the 17:45 New Testament the gap is basically just 20 to 50 years 17:49 and if you look at the ossuary the gap is less than 10 years. 17:54 So if 1000 years of a gap is historical we should have no 17:59 problem with 10 years. In fact, there is no gap at all. High up 18:04 in its credibility. How about the number of manuscripts? 18:09 Why do we look at the number of manuscripts? Because if there 18:14 are just two or three, say one in your house in this town and I 18:18 live in the same town and one of the manuscripts is in my 18:20 house and one is in the grocery store and one in that library. 18:23 Then one night a few of us who don't like what is said the 18:27 third or fourth paragraph on that page. We don't like it. We 18:30 want to change it. We go to all the manuscripts and we change it 18:33 In the morning nobody knows it was changed but it has been 18:37 corrupted because all of them have been changed the same way. 18:42 There's no way to decide whether it was corrupted or not. Whereas 18:48 we had say 50 manuscripts, one here and one there and one in 18:52 this country and one in that state and one in another town. 18:55 You cannot go to all of them in a short period of time and make 18:59 the change. While you are making the change, people will know 19:02 that the change is being made and they'll go back to the 19:05 search on that and realize it's been corrupted. But we also know 19:10 the original that has not been corrupted. In other words, if it 19:15 is a small number, it's possible that it's corrupted whereas if 19:20 it's a large number then the charge of corruption goes down. 19:25 Because if they all say the same thing it is hard to imagine 19:29 anybody going and doing the same thing in all the records. So the 19:33 number of manuscripts. Caesar's Gallic War is backed by 10 19:38 manuscripts worldwide. Herodotus History by eight manuscripts 19:42 worldwide. Tacitus Annals by 20 manuscripts worldwide. The top 19:48 of Greek literature is Homer's Iliad. Homer's Iliad is backed 19:55 by 643 manuscripts. You can almost say wow because these 20:00 numbers are so small, eight and 20 and that Homer's Iliad is 643 20:04 Now suppose I tell you that the New Testament is backed by 686 20:13 manuscripts. Would you give credit where credit is due? 20:18 I hope you would. But really what is the number? You know 20:24 the New Testament is backed by 5686 manuscripts and they're 20:33 just the Greek manuscripts. If you add the Armenian and the 20:38 Arabic and the Egyptian which is the Coptic and all the rest of 20:43 them put together you know how many manuscripts back the New 20:47 Testament? 24,900. Look at the number. Look at 10 and 20. And 20:58 look at 24,900. So in that factor to the New Testament 21:04 really is amazing. Impressive. How about where the authors 21:13 were? Where were these authors? Were they close by or were they 21:17 distant? Distant maybe geographical location, maybe on 21:21 the next continent. Well then the credibility goes down a bit. 21:24 Maybe they were separated by a few generations. Again the 21:27 credibility will go down, whereas if they were close 21:30 by credibility rises. Now if you look at all the historical 21:35 writings of that day there is hardly any writing in which the 21:41 author was very, very close to the event. But look at these 21:47 statements of the authors of the New Testament. Peter who was an 21:52 author, he said: "We did not follow fables...but were eye 21:58 witnesses." They were right there. Same as John. In the next 22:03 statement John says that "From that hour that disciple [meaning 22:07 himself, John] took her [meaning Mary] to his own home." So John 22:13 is writing about himself. How about Luke? He says: "When we 22:19 sailed over the sea...when we came to Myra." He's right there. 22:24 So are these authors far away or close by? They're not just close 22:32 by, they are part of the story. And you cannot get any closer 22:36 than inside. Can you see the credibility then of this piece 22:41 of literature? Therefore, "in real terms," says Ravi Zacharias 22:45 "the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient 22:48 writing in terms 22:51 of the sheer number of documents the time span between the events 22:55 and the document, and the variety of documents available 22:59 to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient 23:03 manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and 23:08 integrity." How about the statement by Sir Frederic Kenyon 23:12 He looked at all of these factors again just like we did 23:15 now and this is what he said: "No other ancient book has 23:20 anything like such early and plentiful testimony to its text, 23:24 and no unbiased scholar would deny that the text that has come 23:29 down to us is substantially sound." Now that is saying 23:34 something, isn't it? And here's a statement by F.J.A. Hort: "In 23:40 the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the 23:43 text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably 23:49 alone among ancient prose writings." Not ancient prose 23:55 religious writings. Among all ancient writings. In other words 24:01 look at the unstructured writings of the Mayans and the 24:06 Sumerians and the somewhat structured writings of the 24:10 Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and then the 24:15 more structured writings of the Chinese and the Indian and the 24:19 Greek and the Roman. And you put them all on a table at a level 24:24 plain. This New Testament will rise up as the best attested 24:31 historical piece of literature in the world based on the 24:37 features of that which makes it historical. And historical 24:42 increased credibility. That is what we are looking at. So some 24:47 people say Oh I don't think that I can agree to what you think it 24:51 said there because it sounds mythological. Yes it does. But 24:55 the features of the writing are clearly historical. In other 25:00 words, its historicity is so strong that this is what John 25:06 Warwick Montgomery said: "To be skeptical of the resultant text 25:12 of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity 25:16 to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period 25:21 are as well attested bibliographically as the 25:25 New Testament." Do you know the import of those words? In other 25:31 words this is what he's saying: If you look at the New Testament 25:34 and say I'm not sure if I would like it. I want set it aside and 25:39 you do set it aside then you will have to set aside all the 25:44 other historical writings of that ancient period because all 25:48 of the others do not match the credibility of the New Testament 25:52 This has the highest credibility So if we discard it well then 25:59 you'll not be able to talk about the Pharaohs or the 26:02 Chinese dynasty or Babylon or Cyrus the Great or Alexander the 26:06 Great or Caesar Augustus or Julius Caesar or any one of them 26:10 All of them have to be shifted off into obscurity. This seems 26:16 to be the standard. Now it's amazing because it's a religious 26:22 writing and people sometimes differentiate between religious 26:27 writing and a secular history. They call it religious history 26:31 and secular history. But friend actually there is no difference 26:37 between religious history and secular history. If it is 26:41 historical it just stays historical. There is no 26:44 difference between those two categories. Look at what you see 26:48 and look at the factor that we have placed into consideration. 26:53 We've looked at not just one, two, three, four, five factors 26:57 and when you look at all of them compared all the religious 27:02 writings, the New Testament is not just historical, solidly, 27:08 but the best attested historical piece of literature in the world 27:13 Do you think it is like unique? Like it is colored red? So while 27:20 the Quran and the New Testament are historical in nature 27:23 according to criteria we applied the New Testament clearly has 27:28 the highest credibility and integrity of text. 27:31 Probably a red marble? 27:35 If you have enjoyed this presentation with Dr. Subodh 27:38 Pandit and wish to watch more of this unique 13 part series for 27:43 free online, visit the website GodFactOrFiction.com. That's 27:48 GodFactOrFiction.com. If you would like to order this 27:52 fascinating series on DVD it is now available from White Horse 27:56 Media... 28:03 Dr. Subodh Pandit has written two eye-opening books entitled 28:07 Come Search With Me: Does God Really Exist? and Come Search 28:11 With Me: The Weight of Evidence which further explore the topics 28:14 of evolution, theism, atheism and religion. 28:18 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-08-26