Answering the toughest questions about my book! 

This was a great interview! Thanks for posting Mike!

Thank you for this. I am do grateful for Mike's integrity and scholarship. I don't read much but am persuaded to buy the book on the strength of this interview

FYI - the first objection starts around 35 min, and than about an hour in they get to the objections proper , if you are familiar with the book and wanna skip to them

Ask Licona about all the added angelic encounters found only in Luke-Acts compared with the other Gospels. For instance there are the Lukan stories of the father of John the Baptist, and also the mother of Jesus, who each meet and converse with an angel, and both end with Zechariah and Mary singing a song. (Luke the musical), and a whole host of angels show up for some shepherds and make a brief melodic announcement. Couldn’t such angelic encounter stories have been made to make the story of Jesus’ birth seem more “spectacular” much like the addition of the earthquake and raising of many saints tale found at Matthew’s end, and which Licona admits was probably made up? It sure looks like Luke was seeking to outdo Matthew’s birth narrative by adding not just one miraculous birth story but a second one concerning the miracles accompanying the birth of John the Baptist. In similar fashion compare Luke’s two angels at the tomb compared with Mark’s young man or Matthew’s single angel at the tomb. Luke seems to have lots more angels and conversations with angels to his Gospel. Moreover, in Acts we see the Lukan story of two angels repeated in Luke’s ascension narrative, which seems like the ascension narrative is merely a folkloric doublet. And only Luke-Acts features a narrative story about exactly how Jesus allegedly ascended vertically to reach heaven. It has the same two angels from Luke’s empty tomb scene, who once again ask a question, and also the scene features Lukan ways of speaking out into the angel’s mouths. Makes one consider the lack of historicity of the story. I delve deeply into the question here twitter.com/edwardtbabinski/status/1530051149302210561 Licona is known for doubting the historicity of the lines in Matthew about “tombs were opened and many saints were raised,” but does he explain why the author of Matthew strives to make it look historical right down to how they rewrote Mark’s story? In other words, compare the reactions of Mark’s lone Centurion with Matthew’s “Centurion and those with him”: Mark, says: "And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, Surely this man was the Son of God! (NIV)" But Matthew says: "When the centurion AND THOSE WITH HIM saw the EARTHQUAKE AND ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED [the opening of tombs and raising of many saints] they were terrified, and exclaimed [in harmony?], 'Surely he was the Son of God!'" (NIV) So Matthew depicts the centurion along with those with him all “seeing” the “earthquake and all that had happened” (apparently including the earthquake, graves being opened and many saints being raised) and “they were terrified.” GMark depicts no earthquake (only Matthew mentions an earthquake, in fact two, which means his story lay on doubly shaky ground), nor does Mark mention tombs opening, saints rising,, and mentions nothing about the soldiers all being terrified. Mark only mentions a lone centurion standing “there in front of Jesus,” reacting to “his cry” and seeing “how he died.” In fact the lines in Matthew that mention the earthquake, tombs opening, saints rising, and terrified soldiers, are very brief and tucked in between lines in Mark that speak of far less terrifying matters that Matthew appears to have simply repeated from Mark. Also ask Licona about how the denial of the historicity of the many raised saints story in Matthew also calls into question Matthew’s similar story of a second group of terrified soldiers encountering an earthquake and seeing something frighteningly supernatural that Matthew says happened three days later at the tomb of Jesus with an earthquake, a bright angel who comes down from heaven who tolls away the stone, sits on it, and publicly announces Jesus has been raised. Sounds like.a mythical folkloric doublet in Matthew, just as like Luke’s mythical folkloric doublet in which Luke added a second miraculous birth story, that of John the Baptist. It looks like questions regarding historical authenticity are connected to more than just the “many raised saints tall tale,” found only in Matthew, and such questions keep coming regardless of attempts to explain them as mere literary techniques. Especially since making up miracle stories also was a literary technique to make one’s hero appear superior compared with the rest, especially in death one might add since stories of beloved rabbis abound regarding miracles connected with their deaths or even after their deaths, along with an increasing number of ascension stories about people from Roman Emperors to Moses arose prior to stories about Jesus’ ascension. Also, Jesus was allegedly the final eschatological prophet prior to judgment day, and had to compete with emperor worship, so why wouldn’t his followers depict him and his birth and life as extra spectacular? Even linguistically and typologically modeling Jesus’ miracle stories upon earlier ones concerning Moses, Elijah and Elijah? And not too long before Jesus’ day we read that the authors of the Dead Sea Scroll and other intertestamental works were likewise expecting a final battle and judgment day after which the world would be permanently set right. This was a widespread literary genre prior to Jesus’ day. Read about the sea change in Jewish religious beliefs that took place during the inter-testamental period in books like these: 1. Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World by Philip Jenkins, which discusses the sea change in beliefs between testaments. a) New ideas of the afterlife, angels and demons grew to prominence;. b) An evil figure(s) became “god of this world;” c) The hope of a singular final messiah, final judgment day and resurrection arose. A lot happened during the intertestamental period, some of which appears in the Catholic Bible, but none of which appears in the modern day Protestant Bible. 2. In God's Time: The Bible and the Future by Craig C. Hill, is an excellent introduction to the inter-testamental period and the rise of apocalyptic. 3. Several chapters in The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark.

Im so glad that I am Orthodox because all this talk about inerrancy is so irrelevant lol. Mike, I respect you and your scholarship, but it sucks that you are forced to twist and turn around the definition of inerrancy to say the Bible is inerrant just so you aren't disinvited from Evangelical conferences. I just don't see why anyone remains an Evangelical anymore with the internet allowing everyone to research any tradition they would like. Heck, several of my Evangelical friends have remained Protestant but just became Anglo-Catholic or Confessional Lutheran or something along that line. Why is this not a live option for you and other Evangelical scholars?