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New Testament Scholar Reacts to Tom Holland on Jesus || The Rest is History || SLP439 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 439 of the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Thomas Thurriot, media producer at Speak Life, and today we're responding to another podcast.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, other podcasts are available.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: The rest is history, is a podcast that you might well have listened to.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's presented by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrooke.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Tom Holland, who of course has featured on the Speak Life channel a number of times.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: And they just released a couple of episodes about Jesus.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so in this episode, Glenn is joined by Dr.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Peter J.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Williams from Tyndale House, Cambridge, to look at the recent episodes from the rest of history and uh see what they make of them from a historical New Testament perspective.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so I hope you find this episode interesting and helpful, and I will catch you at the end.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Speak Life.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Glenn Scrivener, and joining me is Peter Williams.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: He is the principal of Tyndale House in Cambridge.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: Great to be with you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we are thinking about history and faith, and uh, you are certainly a person of faith and uh and a scholar and a linguist, and uh you deal with ancient texts all the time.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your day-to-day work.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_04: Well, um I have the privilege of leading uh Tyndale House in Cambridge, which is a Bible research institute with about 50 people working on a daily basis at the doctoral level or above researching the Bible.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_04: So it's quite a fun place to be.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you've obviously come across the work of Tom Holland and his book Dominion and uh the rest is history history podcast with Dominic Sandbrook.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a fan?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so he's he's obviously um and both it's a great podcast, and and uh Tom Holland's uh a great historian and communicator and public educator, and uh also I think uh someone who's you know, I say as as a Christian, very uh a friend of the Christian faith.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so I'm very um you know uh pleased to have him um uh say so many positive things um about um the effects of Christianity uh over time and uh so on.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: So it's uh yeah, it's it's uh great.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_04: And uh they're both really enthusiastic and and bounce off each other in a really great way.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and their friendship really shines in the podcast.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I that's what I love about it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um they've just had these two episodes back to back.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they've talked about Jesus Christ the mystery and then Jesus Christ the history.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've had a chance uh to listen.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: What what what what are your top couple of uh takeaways from these two episodes?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean I really like the fact that um you know uh Tom's very clear on the existence of Jesus and uh you know positive um in broad outline uh towards uh the gospels.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: And um I particularly appreciate his um recognition of the brilliance of Jesus' teaching and the way that the um the best way to explain what we have is that Jesus actually comes out with his teachings, not his followers.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_04: That that doesn't really explain stuff at all.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I think his uh recognition also that Jesus uh takes a deliberate decision to go to Jerusalem knowing that this is likely to uh lead to his death is uh is uh just a great um insight uh even put uh from secular history uh that here is a remarkable individual who uh is not thinking uh like so many of us uh do about themselves, he's actually uh thinking about what's right and thinking about others.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_04: And uh to have that concluded by someone working from the presuppositions of secular history, I think is a great thing to have.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um and amazing that that sort of putting together there's the genius of Jesus, there's also his exalted opinion of himself, yeah, yeah.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also the lowliness of what he does riding a donkey into Jerusalem to embrace his death.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so his his self-understanding, believe you know, uh Tom would say he believes he's the one who's gonna call the world to account, uh, you know, and judge people.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: He he writes himself in as the the um you know the king in the parables, but also is prepared to um go to Jerusalem and be silent um before the authorities um uh so he doesn't defend himself.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, uh what a beautiful combination in in any person.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But um he also he also owns the fact that he he said he thinks of himself as both Grinch and the Scrooge rolled up into one person uh because he does drop the bombshell in their Christmas uh episode that he doesn't think that uh events unfolded like they do in uh Luke chapter two or Matthew chapter two in terms of the Christmas event.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we will get into that because um Peter, you you do believe that um uh Christmas happens the way that Luke and Matthew kind of described.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll get into that a little bit.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I just wanted to um ask you about one aspect of the podcast where Tom finishes by uh talking about whether historians can also be people of faith, whether people of faith can also be historians.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to be a Christian to accept that because Nietzsche said that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Nietzsche said Jesus is the strangest person who ever lived.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned Occam's razor before.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're using Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is that Jesus was the Son of God.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh historians wouldn't make well, do historians make that claim?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do are there historians who would end their book by saying No, they don't.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So Stephen J.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Gould said, famously said that they're a rival magisteria, the magisteria of science of religion.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess historians would count it in similar terms that you know that history and religion are rival magisteria.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, you know, so so Gibbon, um, in the uh back in the 18th century, you know, he he he articulated this very well.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: He said the theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native purity, a more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that historians do not accept supernatural explanations.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: They may be Christian.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's nothing to stop a a a historian being a Christian or believing in the supernatural, but I think when they come to write history, by and large, they don't adduce supernatural explanations.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that you need supernatural explanations to explain Jesus and the emergence of Christianity.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just first as a sense check, um, would would you agree at that at that point that there are no sort of historians that would would make that conclusion?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I think there are people who are obviously who are professional historians who believe Jesus rose from the dead.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_04: But the um question more is do they conclude that as a historian?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I think sometimes that in a sense history is uh set up a bit at like a game, like a hedge fund.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, a hedge fund, the hedge fund manager is supposed to win whichever way the market goes.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that history as a discipline can be set up with a sort of certain artificiality so that it wouldn't be able to recognize a miracle if it hit the historian in the face.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: Because according to the parameters of modern history departments, uh miracles are simply outside of the ability to um for a historian to investigate.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and so uh that I think is where, of course, your input affects your output.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: So if you're not allowed miraculous input in the first place, uh you know, it it can't um you know be in the output.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'd also uh talk in some sense about the sensitivity of of your detector.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, I've got some bathroom scales, and I can put a toothbrush on the bathroom scales or a uh razor or even my entire shower gel and it won't register as having a weight, but when I get on, it will measure that I do.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and so it just simply if uh um the instrument you're using is not capable of detecting a miracle, um, then you're not going to.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's one of the problems about um the way the the discipline is set up.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's a good discipline, it's it's great, but re recognize it's a discipline rather than reality.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Tom then goes on to talk about um Stephen Jay Gould speaking about the science and faith kind of issue, and Stephen Jay Gould is famous for saying that they're they are non-overlapping magisteria.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Tom in uh the podcast talks about rival magisteria, which I think is is interesting because I I I don't read Stephen J.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Gould as saying that they are rivals, science and faith.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think rivals uh kind of assumes a turf war, whereas non-overlapping kind of assumes that that they can get on with their own respective businesses and and leave one another alone.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you do you see uh are there rival magisteria between between history and faith?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: I do remember hearing um Gould in the flesh uh when when he uh came to Cambridge packed room.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and very much uh you know the emphasis was uh these are non-overlapping.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not talking about that area, but I think he gave a primacy to his own.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um uh what I would want to say is that um knowledge needs to be integrated.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_04: One of the things that you don't get from science is any values.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um science can't even tell you that um science is a worthwhile enterprise, um, so or worth investing any money in.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: So I would say it's it's about the right sort of um way of treating information.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_04: And the the information that's coming in in the Bible um is coming um in the form of signal and words, um and it's uh miracles are not meaningless random magical events, they actually come in uh a semiotic pattern, they come in a pattern of meaning, and just as we are um um able to detect meaning in each other's words and each other's expressions and so on, uh I think that's um what you've got in the Christian scriptures is communication from God in a way that we are able to um detect and respond to, uh, and that includes the miracles.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's um coming at it from the right angle.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, a big category in uh the Bible is the category of testimony.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and we as humans are uh very much our entire society is built on testimony, that's how we buy products, that's how we eat.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so it's using that category rather than the artificial parameters, if I can say, of professional history, uh that enables you to respond.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the miracles of Jesus are emphatically not random, freaky, supernatural stuff, uh but uh like meaningful things, such as such that um, you know, this sort of pre-Paulline um teaching that he received in in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, which um I think Tom sort of references w without without naming it um in in the episodes.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um what was handed to me is of first importance that Christ died according to the scriptures and that he was raised according to the scriptures, and so that the whatever is happening, the the point is not simply there's a freaky occurrence, but that there is yeah, it's it's according to the pattern of the scriptures, it's it's making sense of the story.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a meaning and significance to it that that goes beyond, oh, uh, you know, that there's some kind of supernatural event going on.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Would you would you say that's that's somewhere in the book of the case?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's important uh when you think of um miracles in in the Bible, not to think this is a uh just another claim of paranormal, you know, uh weird stuff.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's actually coming within a whole context of message.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Such that when you get to the resurrection, they they talk in the podcast about there are alternative explanations for why it is that the apostles had the experience of meeting the risen Christ, and they go through, you know, even naming magic mushrooms and and and those sorts of you know mass hallucination I you know ideas.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um is there a sense of that sort of Sherlock Holmes thing that you know once you've eliminated the impossible, what you're left with, however improbable, must be the truth?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something to that?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think there's a a difficulty about the whole category of improbable.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, what is improbable?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um is uh would we say that the um development uh of um conscious things from non-conscious things is improbable?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: How how improbable is that?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Or or life from non-life.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_04: And so I I want to say that um lots of people may have what seem to other groups improbabilities within their um system, um, but the the the the Christian b belief set hangs together, it hangs together in this person of of Jesus, um, who does have a very good story end uh that corresponds to the beginning of the story in the Jewish scriptures.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_04: So you can go to a synagogue, look at the opening chapters of their Bible, um, and and find this scene at a tree and you know, death coming into the world, um, and um the climactic scene in the New Testament is a scene at a tree uh giving life, um, through someone giving their death.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh uh and and so I'd say already that's that's quite unusual that you've got these different parts of this collection of books of the Bible which hang together at at least at a superficial level, at least at a superficial level, and they were not written by the same people.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_04: So you you've got some sort of plot line uh arc which goes together with Jesus, um, which also, I mean, it's interesting to hear um Tom Holland acknowledge so readily that uh Jesus must be brilliant because of all these different things that are attributed to him.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's really hard to explain that as just coming from the um uh hi hi his followers.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_04: So you start getting these uh uh uh unusual things clustering around this person, Jesus, that you know make make him uh really exceptional uh in terms of you know, someone who, again, according to Tom Holland, uh was prepared to go to Jerusalem knowing this would cost him his life, uh, but it was the right thing to do.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I I think it's uh it's very interesting uh to put these things together.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that was fascinating, um Dominic Sandbrook, pushing into the resurrection, and then Tom Holland saying, actually, there are three things that are remarkable about Jesus.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not not simply this resurrection story, but also the way he um embraces death and goes willingly to to death.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then before that there is the the genius of his teaching, and that that's a special area of interest for you, isn't it, Peter?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_04: October 2023 on uh the surprising genius of Jesus.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: But it it is uh yeah and it's really looking at particularly his stories and um the remarkable things within them, his ability to teach two levels of people, uh students simultaneously, um stretch top scribes, and so on like that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I think it's the the fact that he does that, combine that with the fact that he also is the first person with the positive golden rule attributed to him, and you know, uh no one finds his body, and he deliberately seems to uh go to Jerusalem uh knowing he's gonna die, and his story fits within the you know, a story arc uh that finishes off the first parts of the Jewish scriptures.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, and it's all these things mounting up, and you start saying, at what point are these just random things, or are they actually making a meaningful pattern?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: And for me, uh they do, and that's where I think I I love the discipline of history, but if the discipline of history has set the parameters so that it can't recognize um the signal that you get in the person of Jesus, then I think there's a problem.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and and isn't that true about all sciences?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: They they need to be adapted to the object of inquiry.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't do astronomy with a microscope and you don't do microbiology with a telescope.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, therefore, if you're yeah, if your methods are not not adapted to the object of your study, you need to change the methods.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: And and and and and some things that they simply couldn't be.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: So there's no scientific way of detecting love.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um so that that's where we've got to just just make sure uh you recognize what matters.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um science is fundamentally about relationships.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that the whole enterprise is is just social from beginning to end.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's accumulation of human knowledge, it's relying on your mates to do the peer review, to send you the right samples, everything.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: The amount of scientific experimentation that one individual scientist has done is is infinitesimal compared with all the things that they believe science tells them.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a huge social um thing, and that's good.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: We are meant to be social creatures.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that also means that in continuity with that, um what Christianity um advocates is a relationship uh with our maker who has come and shown himself in the person of Jesus.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: So it's very much um the same things that you would use in science, namely evaluating testimony.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, and relying on the word of testimony of others.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that probably accounts for like 98% of the things that I say that I know is because I've trusted somebody who's talking.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's just important to recognise.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's the way we're built.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we see that in the episode as well.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think Tom talks about a couple of points where you know certain skeptical historians have cast doubt on things like the triumphal entry into Jerusalem because it's it's this weird story of Jesus on a cult on the foal of a donkey and what's going on with that.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just manipulating events so that um Zechariah 9 is going to be fulfilled.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and Tom sees the ring of truth to that story.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Another story he sees the ring of truth to is Jesus before Pilate, which I think is just fascinating because who are the witnesses to this conversation?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And who who is able to tell us what happened in that conversation?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess Pilate's not going to be telling that story, but the one condemned to death by Pilate is the only other source, really, for the first time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, that there could be bystanding uh Roman soldiers, some of whom may come to faith and so on.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um so yeah, I mean, uh it's it's interesting though, uh, all four gospels have the same six words on Pilate's uh mouth, which is pretty unusual for the four gospels to do that.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um the king of the Jews.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: So and so so Talmak at that point is resting in on the sort of the the words of testimony, they ring true for him um in certain ways.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But there are other parts of the gospels where he doesn't think it rings true at all.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh he he says uh he jokes in the podcast that he's gonna be the Grinch and Scrooge rolled up in one by saying that he doesn't think that the the Nativity stories, the the birth stories of Christ uh actually happened the way they unfolded.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um let's just let's just listen to to what he says, first of all, about Luke chapter two and the story of the census.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we began the last podcast with the decree from Caesar Augustus, Joseph going from Nazareth to Bethlehem with his wife Mary, who is pregnant, and they can't get room at the inn, and they uh go to presumably a cattle shed or something like that, and Jesus is born and lies in the manger, where he's later inspected by assorted shepherds, wise men, and so on.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't believe this happened?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there are all kinds of problems with it, one of which uh anyone who listened to the previous episode will immediately have picked up on, which is that Jesus was not a Roman subject, and so his father living in Nazareth did not have to pay taxes.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: The other problem is that um Joseph is having to travel to Bethlehem because that's where King David was born, he's descended from King David.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that the Romans would care about the line of descent from someone who'd lived, you know, centuries and centuries before is insane.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, surely everybody would have to be on the move saying, Where was my where was my ancestor born?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: I must go to that place immediately.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so that doesn't make sense at all.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you have to say, well, why you know, where has this story come from?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the basic thing is that biblical prophecy says that Bethlehem is where the Messiah will be born, and so therefore Jesus has to be got to Bethlehem.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as essentially it seems as basic as that.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: There are further problems with the whole, you know, with because our understanding of the Christmas narrative, it's a it's a a pooling of the two gospel accounts of of Luke and Matthew, but they don't correspond.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when is Jesus being born?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're told in one account that the wise men come to Herod's court.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Herod is anxious that a king of the Jews has been born in Bethlehem and so launches the massacre of the innocents.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um but Herod dies in 4 BC.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're also told that this census is being organized by Corinius, the governor of Syria, but Corinius is doing this in AD 8.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's absolutely impossible to square that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to square them.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he he goes pretty hard there, Peter.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's he says it's insane to think that um people would reorder their lives or that the Romans would care where Joseph's you know great-great-great-great grandfather once lived.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what would you say to that?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I would say um you've got to be careful uh to make sure you're seeing what the text is really saying.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I don't think uh the the text in Luke says that the Romans cared about Jesus' ancestry um a thousand years before.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: But when you do a a census, I mean the purpose of the ro for the Romans, for having an empire, is to squeeze uh, you know, juice out of everyone.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that they they they they've they they're in it um, you know, for for the power and the wealth, and so you've got to make sure your subjects pay up.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so that means you do a sort.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Of um doomsday book approach, and you want to register and see how much people have.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: Now, if I when when the assessors come, I can simply scarper off to the next village.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: That doesn't work at all.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so it's really important that everyone says, these are the families that live here, um, and so on.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so if someone has land, so so for instance, if if um Joseph possesses land uh um in uh Bethlehem, he would have to go back.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we do have um uh an actual source uh which I can share with you um about um uh people having uh to go back to uh their hometowns.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's it's uh a text from the year 104.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh ignore the scribble on the left, which should have a Greek font.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but here we got it's uh a text from Egypt, census by household having begun.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: It's essential that all those who are away from their gnomes, those are uh uh not not things you have in your garden sections of Egypt, be summoned to return to their own hearths so that they perform the customary business of registration and applying themselves uh to the cultivation which concerns them.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then he goes on and explains how, you know, we know there are some people who uh can't do that because they've got work and they can get a certificate to get them out of that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so you have a text like that where um clearly within the Roman Empire, sometimes people did have to travel in order to go back to be registered um at the right uh place.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: So there are certain conditions under which that happened.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: But there's a further aspect to it, which is Luke writing his gospel, or whoever writes Luke's gospel clearly wants to be seen as reliable and is writing at a time when his audience are under the Roman Empire.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_04: They know what Roman taxation looks like.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: So if he writes a completely implausible story, uh whatever date in the first century you you put the writing, it just doesn't make any sense.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: This story has to make sense to people.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, of course you have to do that and go back to your um your your family home home to be registered.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um or and it doesn't even say that um you know everyone in the world had to go back to their uh their their uh family home.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_04: It it specifically says that uh that's what um Joseph had to do.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_04: So you all all you need to do is have a particular reason why Joseph has to do that.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: The census is for the Roman worlds, but it's Joseph who has to get back to his family ancestral home.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um I mean, and you can still have a wider thing.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_04: Then he's got another aspect um which he's concerned about, which he says, look, um the Romans are in charge of the Roman Empire, but obviously Herod uh in Judea, Herod the Great, um he has got his own kingdom, and you can't expect Roman tax guys to go into Herod's kingdom and start doing an assessment.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I think uh again, um that sounds plausible, uh, but it's it's not fully watertight.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: And so again, I'm gonna share a text with you um uh on this, uh, and this time we're gonna look at uh one of Tom's favorite authors, namely uh Tastus, uh this is Animals, Book 6, um uh section 41.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it talks about this uh group, um, just reading the text if you can see it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: At this time, the Cliti, uh tribe subject to the Cappadocian Archelaus, that's not any of the Archelaus's in the Bible, were teated to the heights of Mount Taurus because they were compelled in the Roman fashion to render an account of their revenue and to submit to tribute.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: There they defended themselves by means of the nature of the country against the king's unwarlike troops, till and then it tells you about how the proper Romans come along.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_04: Now, the what it's telling you there is this guy Archelaus clearly is a king and he's not got very good troops, and they're able to hold out for a bit, and then uh when uh the real Roman troops come along, uh then uh you know they get properly whooped.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so again, that is a clear bit of evidence is during the reign of Tiberius, where Romans do go into uh uh their areas, and I I think when you look at empires, the thought that the um overarching power just stays wholly out of uh the area of their um subject doesn't really work.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_04: And then I've got one more text to share, um, which is just about um the relationship between um Augustus and Herod.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: What we've got here is um Herod's just bumping off too many people, including his sons, um uh and Augustus gets knocked with that, and so we have um uh Antiquities uh book 16, section 290, and just look at that last line.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: The sum of his epistle, and that's the Emperor Augustus, was this.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas of old, he, that's Herod, um, sorry, uh Augustus had used him, that's Herod, as friend, he would now use him as his subject, he'd now treat him as a subject.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: So um there's a definite souring of the relationship uh between um Herod and the Emperor.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so again, the thought that um the Emperor, who we know Augustus loved measuring things, um wouldn't send any of his guys in uh in any way, um doesn't quite make sense.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_04: And again, for the for the uh text of Luke to be correct, it doesn't even have to have lots of Roman officials wandering around.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_04: It can still be um uh overseen uh uh uh by uh Romans but carried out by by Herod henchmen and and so on.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: So I just think that there are a number of things to explore here.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um certainly the the whole question of um Luke's census is is a is a great puzzle.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the what's the nature of the puzzle?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I think um part part of it is where Quirinius fits in.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_04: Quirinus is is governor from the year AD6, uh and Herod the Great is normally thought to die in 4 BC.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_04: So you've got a chronological thing, uh, you've got how how does the census happen?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: Are there other records of this census and so on?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_04: And each of those can be uh tackled in turn.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: I think sometimes what happens is something that's highly probable, like Herod died in the year 4 BC, which let's say it's a 90% probable thing, gets treated as a hundred percent uh probable.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: And I always want to make sure I'm keeping the uncertainties there.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: There are scholarly articles arguing for a different uh date of uh Herod's death, which is uh Josephus says happens before a lunar eclipse, and you've got lunar eclipses in 6, 5, 4, and 1 BC, and you know, people uh sometimes play around with that.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: The 4 BC seems to be the best date, but it's not it's not the only thing.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_04: And you've got typically with it when you're piecing things together as a uh in history, there are a number of these things, and it's not that there's only ever one way that things could be fitted together, and so sometimes people come along and you read a sort of Wikipedia article, you read a e even a scholarly book, and it can state something as an absolute certainty, and you really dig down and say that's just a um highly uh agreed conclusion, it's not um a fact.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, what was interesting is hearing, I can't remember whether it is Tom or Dom on on the um uh podcast talking about how um Luke's gospel was almost certainly written towards the end of the first century.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, well, there isn't actually a shred of solid evidence for that.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um lots of people may agree that, but lots of people agreeing things doesn't make them true.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_04: So I just think that um, you know, it's important for people to take a holistic look and uh realize uh the uh case for the New Testament uh can be made.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there are even uh you know views that Josephus makes mistakes, well, he does make mistakes sometimes, uh, but may have in this particular situation of what are his sources, what's he trying to show, all sorts of things.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um there there are just permutations that you can imagine.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, I'm I'm not gonna give you an exact date for the year of Jesus' birth, and uh it's a subject of ongoing interest to me to try and you know find out more.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think a Christian believer who has a positive view of the um New Testament needs to settle on one particular model and solution.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think it's necessary.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um well is it is it the case that um if this is uh a census under Quirinius, that Luke is the the sole source for this particular census?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh again, if it it depends what it means by under um Quirinius.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_04: So um uh Josephus has a uh a census uh under Quirinus, and and you know you get a a nice rebellion uh uh at that stage where I say nice, I mean people don't like having their goods assessed because they they know where where that's leading, but that happens um seems to happen, let's say, AD6 onwards.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um so one of the um one historian, um Sabine Hubner, who's uh in Switzerland, has proposed that um this is an earlier census when Quirinius is not the governor of Syria, he's simply the procurator, the guy in charge of the money bit.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so I'm not saying that's uh that that's correct, I'm just saying that there are there's more than one possibility, there's more than one way of translating things.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I may you know vacillate even, um and that's okay.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And like how common is it for us to um to consider the ancient events as fairly certain, even though only one source attests to it?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um maybe just with one source it it you don't get so many cases, but I I think there there is a uh I guess it does happen uh with uh I mean think things like Herod's death and a lot of this period where you really just have Josephus plus you get coins, but coins don't tell you a story, they they need to be fitted around other things.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um so you do end up sometimes just having one source.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_04: I suppose with the destruction of Jerusalem uh under um under the Romans in the year 70, uh then Josephus in his Jewish war is really the main source.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, you've got the Arch of Titus, you can go and see it in um in Rome, you you you can get other things, but in terms of the description of the detail of it, um obviously the uh the event that the it is is widely attested, but the the detail of the event it it's often uh just Josephus.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um of course the Romans make coins about how Judea has been captured and things like that at that stage.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: So there are lots of um other sorts of sources.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's uh turn to the issue with uh how it harmonizes with Matthew.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um how how do you put together the timeline?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, Luke is all about the angels and the shepherds, and Matthew has got the wise men coming from the East.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how how do those two events kind of fit together chronologically?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think it it's very interesting, uh again, um backing up a bit, uh in this um a common model uh of of the way people explain the gospels uh, you know, um in in scholarship, Matthew and Luke don't know each other.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um and they they so they've they've got these independent uh reports, and that's interesting because they both have Jesus born in Bethlehem, uh, they both have visitors, they both have a genealogy.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I would say that uh, well, I mean you could obviously add some things together in that you can have wise men come or magi and you can have uh shepherds come.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um you could put the bit in Matthew um a little bit later.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_04: They don't um uh the wise men don't have to rock up on on the the night of of um of the birth.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: You've got one area where they they sort of subtly agree, and that is uh about um Joseph in Matthew is looking to uh divorce his fiancee, and um he's um as it he then he changed his mind.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um and he um why does he change his mind?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_04: Well in Matthew's gospel because an angels appear to him.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_04: Now what's interesting is that in the genealogies between Matthew and Luke, um Joseph has two different fathers.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, one's called James and one's calls Eli.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_04: Well, which is it?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_04: But you could well imagine that if someone is a um engaged and they in this traditional society, and then their wife, uh their fiancee is pregnant, uh, and uh, you know, dad doesn't really uh approve of this.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh then when he says, I'm gonna go go through and and marry her, because an angels appear to me, he says, you know, you're not my son anymore.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so that sort of thing uh can happen.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_04: There's a little bit on just the timing of when um Mary goes off almost straight away after hearing from the angel in Luke's gospel for three months and with with her pregnant relative Elizabeth.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: She then comes back.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_04: So again, you've got um that period when um she's away and then she's gonna come back and show us pregnant.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: So you you could fit those things together.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but uh I suppose there's one other difference that you've got, and that is that Matthew has Joseph and Mary and Jesus going down to Egypt.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_04: Luke doesn't have anything about that, uh they just shoot off back to Nazareth.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you know, again, it depends if you allow pracy, if you allow for the fact that sometimes people can legitimately summarize and miss out something, and and sometimes you shorten a story.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: So if people want to ask how my wife Catherine and I met, I've got a short version and a long version.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_04: And if I mention a particular thing, I'm gonna have to do the long version to explain it all.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, I've got the short version we just met in Belgium, and then it was all very simple.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, otherwise, it's gonna get more complicated.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes it can be like that.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it it seems to me like you're approaching this this issue with a a kind of a prior assumption that the gospels are largely trustworthy, such that um initial difficulties that you don't know the answers to, you're you're just happy to to hold that at arm's length and and and be agnostic about some of the details.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if if someone is a a fan of the Rest is history podcast and they're they're sort of they've followed the Tom Holland arguments that on the macro details, the gospels kind of fit the ancient world, but they're just not sure about whether any of this Christmas stuff happened.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what would you say to give somebody confidence that Matthew and Luke, let's deal with them, Matthew and Luke are worth trusting.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean I'd I'd certainly uh give the advice that I'm sure um uh Tom himself would give, uh, which is to read the gospels.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_04: They're only about nine hours long to read all four of them.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so that that's a good starting point.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I think um in them you will see plenty of signs of reliability.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I think you can have individual things within a system which don't have a lot of probability um in themselves, but when you look at the evidence as a whole, you see there's more reason to believe them.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's what we've got.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you've got to look at the the package of Christianity as a whole, how much it explains the person of Jesus, all these sort of things together.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that gives you a lot of uh reason to think, yeah, this holds together, and then we've got some problems.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_04: And um the question of the census in Quirinius, uh uh with under Quirinius um in Luke chapter two is I would say, and a lot of people would agree, the toughest historical problem in the New Testament.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so that that's that's as tough as it gets, it doesn't get any tougher, but it's it's not that it can't possibly be solved at all.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_04: So I'd almost want to use that as a sort of outer barrier and say everything else has has got uh more going for it.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um you could have contradictions of the level that said Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea and he was born in um Alexandria in Egypt.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, no, you you can't put those two together.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um so that's where we just don't have that level of difficulty in in the texts.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um the the the um the difficulties you have are more like the sort of puzzles you'll get on Christmas Day as some of your presents.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they're things that you know uh might keep your mind uh ticking dur during the uh you know the king's speech or whatever.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so well let's let's take what Tom has said positively about the the genius of Jesus.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh he he's very much in tune there with um some of your own arguments, Peter, that you you you've often given that you know who who is responsible for this genius?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's probably not Peter, James and John.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um when you see that so press into why why should we why should we A believe that Jesus has such genius and then what do you see as the implications for that?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_04: So one of the ones uh that that that Tom picks up on um uh is is the whole question of um Jesus's alleged saying, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God's.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_04: Now this this is a uh belong belong to God.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean that's an amazing thing when people say, should we, as devout Jews, sort of trying to boycott Rome, um uh pay our tax over to the Romans?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, if you say no, you're uh um stirring rebellion, if you say yes, you're just caved in.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um and Jesus gives this um very balanced answer, um, but also it's a brilliant answer because if Caesar's head is on the coin, um it's also from a Jewish perspective, and I think it's right, every human is in the image of God.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_04: They they bear uh God's mark on them, and so giving to God the things that are gods means giving your whole self.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um and it's very pithy, it's very memorable.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_04: Almost anyone who's heard it um can remember it.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um and uh it's that sort of thing, so that alongside judge not that you be not judged, whatever measure you use on others will be used on you, or do unto others what you have them do to you.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_04: And and all of these different sayings, plus the brilliant stories, you say, well, if these things don't come from Jesus, they come from the gospel writers, um, you have to make those gospel writers into super geniuses who give away their credit to others.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: So that's pretty implausible.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it doesn't really make sense of the Gospels because you've got at least five sorts of material in the Gospels.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_04: You've got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but you've got things only in Matthew, things only in Luke, things that overlap between Matthew and Luke, things where they overlap with Mark, things that are in John, and all sorts of other combinations.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_04: And basically, when you try and do the hypothesis that this one came first and then those other ones come later, usually it it runs out of steam in explaining things.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_04: It will explain one lot, but then there's another lot you're getting stuck with.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_04: And just saying Jesus is the one who came up with these brilliant ideas, that makes sense.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um, otherwise, you have to say, Well, did Matthew come up with the golden rule and Luke copied it, but Luke came up with the story of the Good Samaritan?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it just it it starts becoming um so much more complex than saying there is this one brilliant guy, Jesus, whose um disciples recorded um what he said.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so give us give us reasons to believe that the followers have faithfully recorded that genius.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because you you might you might think that there's the genius, Jesus, but are we really meant to trust Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think you you also have certain speech patterns.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_04: So, for instance, there's a certain tendency to ask questions, obviously, lots of people ask questions, um, but to ask counter questions.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_04: So you get Jesus asking counter questions in Matthew and in Luke, but different ones.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_04: Or you get um different stories in Matthew and Luke, both ending thus and then with a conclusion, or you get different uh stories in Matthew and Luke saying it was necessary that, or so you what you get is certain uh speech patterns, and I can give you a lot more of these, where um saying one copies the other doesn't really um do justice, doesn't really explain what you've got in text.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: So, what I can find in the paragraph.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Is different parables in different gospels, but the same sort of use of the Old Testament.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: Now we know the parables are a particularly Palestinian thing, and there is a tendency not to use when rabbis say parables, not to use scriptural allusions in the main body of the parable.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_04: And yet we can see that consistently in different parables in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: So again, it makes more sense that they go back to one creative mind.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: You've got a certain um fingerprint like you would have with an artist or composer.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, some people can hear the difference between Haydn and Mozart.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you get those sort of hallmarks, um, and um that that's going on with Jesus as well in his words.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what what seems to me um to be so persuasive is that okay, you've got the genius of Jesus in his teaching layered on top of that, and this is something that Tom also agrees with, you've got the self-understanding of Jesus as somebody um who's not just an eschatological preacher of the end times, but he is the judge and he he is the king of the kingdom.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so you've got extraordinary sort of self-understanding, which he then persuades others to adopt, even in the light of his godforsaken execution.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a condemned criminal that thinks of himself as the king of the kingdom and he persuades others to think that they are the king of the kingdom.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then for the last two thousand years, things have unfolded such that, oh, it turns out that his kingdom has grown, like a mustard seed, you know, growing into the largest plant or like yeast working its way through through the dough.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those coincidences, at some point you you think something.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and but the woman who said he deed he said it would never be forgotten, well, she hasn't been forgotten and and and so on, yeah.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah, you got lots of those.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's that's very helpful.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so Peter, you've got this book coming out next year on the genius of of Jesus Genius of Jesus, what the gospels reveal about the world's greatest teacher.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and what what do you hope for that book?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I hope that uh those uh yeah, uh people will uh see uh that there's evidence of Jesus' genius in his words.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um there's a certain tendency amongst Christians to say, well, we we know he's God, therefore he's clever.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um I'm saying you can actually get that from the text itself, and that's something also that people who aren't Christians um can have presented to them and and and should be able to see um that this is really very smart stuff, and that demands an explanation.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a short book, but uh I'm excited about it.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for spending time with us, Peter, and happy Christmas.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you well, there we go.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: I hope you enjoyed that episode.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's also available as a video, of course, on our podcast YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash at the speaklife podcast, with an at symbol there, like you'd use in an email address.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_03: And we have another video that we've released on our main channel.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: If you go to youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia, Glenn does his own personal reaction to the two rest is history episodes.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: So feel free to go and check those out.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you very much for listening.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: Our next podcast episode will be kind of a recap of what's happened in Speak Life in 2022.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_03: So we look forward to bringing you that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: In the meantime, God bless, catch you next time.