Defense of the Faith - The Bible: Just a collection of myths? - Part 1

How many of you have heard something like, oh, the Bible is just full of myths and legends and fairy tales and all that kind of thing? The thing is, all those words actually have a specific meaning, and people frequently don't have clarity when they say those kinds of things. They don't have clarity on the meaning of the specific words. One of the things we'll want to begin by doing is looking at getting clarity on the front page of your handout. And you've got a handout of five pages and then a two-page supplement, color supplement, that goes along with it.

I found this really helpful because I'll find, you know, people will listen to skeptics and the skeptics will say, oh, the Bible's full of legends, myths, fairy tales, fables, and they just use all those words interchangeably. and they don't realize frequently that those words have specific meanings.

It comes out of what's known as cultural anthropology and so as we look at the first one is legend. Now the definition here is a narrative of human actions rooted in real or at least very possible history which are perceived as being in the realm of reality. A legend promotes the character of the subject historical persons into something greater than average, typical, or normal, or the term we might use is larger than life.

So we give us an example there, Robin Hood is a legend. There are a number of legends surrounding the person. Was there a real person named Robin Hood? Yes, there was. There was a real person named Robin Hood, but then various stories got built up around it. And his marksmanship, for example, with bow and arrow was one of the things that got kind of elevated larger than life.

So a legend is typically something that's either a real historical person, and then you get various things added to it, or it's at least plausible history. Yes. Yes. A lot of the Old West stuff is the character of legend, where the stories that went around were kind of greater than the person that it was based on. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, some of those names got built into legendary things. People will joke about somebody being a legend in their own time or a legend in their own mind. But a legend is either a real person and then the stories get blown up a little bit greater than that. or at least plausible history. One of them that's built into a series of jokes, I've seen them on Facebook, Pinterest, is Chuck Norris jokes.

He threw a grenade into a group of people and killed 50 people and then the grenade went off. So this would be, you know, legendary. Is there a real guy Chuck Norris? Yes. And so all these different jokes get built around in a kind of a legendary fashion where it's larger than life. You know, the reason that there's no life on Mars is Chuck Norris was there, right? Okay. Chuck Norris sits down to play chess and he says, checkmate before anybody moves, right?

So this would be legend. It's either based on a real person, or at least plausible history, and then stories develop that are kind of larger than life. Okay, so this is legend. Can you think of any others in the category of legend? So here's legend and chopping down cherry trees and things like that, right? So here's a real person, we know he's a real person, but the stories kind of get larger than life.

And something else to think about is, do you really have legends that anybody gives any credence to within the person's lifetime? Not really. We'll tell Chuck Norris jokes, and the guy's approaching something like 70, right? And we'll tell Chuck Norris jokes, but we all recognize it's a joke, right? All right, now the next one is a fable. Now, the fable is intended to pass on some kind of moral or ethical truth or principles for living or something of that sort, and Aesop's fables would fall into that category, things like the tortoise and the hare.

Does anybody really take the tortoise and the hare as serious history? No, it was never intended that way. So that's one thing, if you try to compare that to scripture, I don't think anybody writing scripture ever intended to just lay out something that was completely fabricated, historically, in order to pass on a moral or ethical truth. The Bible just does not contain that kind of thing. Okay, next one. Myth.

This is a story that has meaning in a particular culture or religion, whether perceived to be historically true or untrue. That is, if you say myth, it doesn't necessarily mean that something is just false or untrue. It doesn't automatically relate to truth. This myth is to convey ideals, explain practices, beliefs, or some natural phenomenon. So it isn't automatically something that's fabricated and false. It's to explain things to people. That's what a myth is for.

So let's take, for instance, if I look at things in the Gospels, and if I say it's myth, does that automatically mean that it's false? It doesn't, right? So when we use the word myth, people often assume that it's just something false and phony and made up, and technically, that's not necessarily the intent with the word myth. It's a misuse of it if we just smear everything as it's all false because it's myth. Okay, so what we give there as an example is Atlas. Can you think of other myths that are out there?

Yeah? Would Samson be considered that? Well, let's think about that. We're going to actually return to that in detail next week. But Samson is one that might be categorized by some people as legend. In other words, a real guy about whom stories larger than life were made up. And so that would be a good question. And we'll revisit that in detail because that is a very good question. Is the account of Samson, that's Judges 13 through 16, about four chapters there, is that legend, a real guy About whom stories were you know kind of elevated and expanded and exaggerated? Or was that true account so anyway that very good question.

We'll look at that next week Yes a lot of that Let's see, let's take a look at this. A lot of that would fall in the category of legend because it's a real person larger than life. Some of it may also fall in the category of myth in terms of people trying to explain beliefs and practices and things of that sort. So I would say both legend and myth would be proper. Categorizations for those kinds of accounts and I'm familiar with what you're talking about where they have some statue crying and things like that, you know Yes, yeah people have visions and and so Yeah, those kinds of things probably legend and and myth would be Examples.

Yeah and now the last one fairy tale and Narnia would be an example of a fairy tale. C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia stories. Great stories. They're completely fabricated. The stories will go on and give a storyline, frequently including animals and creatures that are completely fictitious. Anybody seen an ant? An Ent. An Ent is this spirit tree. The spirit of the rivers and different things like that. And they go into fawns and centaurs and all these creatures that are made up.

And a lot of fairy tales deal in the realm of children's stories. Some of them will be written even for adult reading with the idea that there's an analogy. And that's the case with the Narnia stories. So there can be spiritual, moral, or ethical truth that comes out in the fairy tale. In some cases, it's rather shocking the way the fairy tales was originally written. Another thing is, fairy tales may be something, where the Narnia stories are more recent, some of them may have centuries of origin, you know, ways back.

Yeah, Stan? What about all the Greek gods and stuff, Olympus and Zeus? We're going to talk about that in here, and that's a very important one to bring up. A lot of the time frames for the accounts of different things were around the year 1200 BC. They were passed along as oral history recorded by Homer about the same time as Isaiah lived. And and so this is like the the 8th century BC So recorded that's where you have the Iliad and the Odyssey and things of that sort and then You know time you know went on Plato Thought that the a lot of the things recorded by Homer were allegories or mythological things he didn't look upon them as literal and Some of the connections we have, when the Apostle Paul went to Galatia with Barnabas, he was thought to have been Mercury, because the way it worked out was the Greek gods would have a spokesman, and that was assumed to be Mercury, and the one who was more quiet was assumed to be Zeus. So they thought, well, Paul is Mercury and Barnabas is Zeus, right?

So they would make those kind of connections. But yeah, those developed over a long period of time, and in fact, one of the very important points that comes out of your question is how long does it take for myths to develop. Very important point. And it has a lot to do with defending the historicity of scripture. So anyway, and we'll get to that. Yeah?

What is the difference between a fable and a parable? A fable is something that's completely made up And again, it may be like the tortoise and the hare. There's no way that anybody in their right mind is going to look at the tortoise and the hare as some kind of realistic, historic event. A parable means that you'll have some account that it is historically feasible. Jesus would tell, for instance, parables and intend with that to illustrate a truth. But in the parables, it was always historically feasible.

The sower went out to sow. And did everybody relate to that account? Yes, because that was actually something that people would see. A sower going out to sow. And when Jesus told about the sower going out to sow, and the four different soils, people could relate to the four different kinds of soils. So even though it's not a there's the sower and there's the soils.

Everyone could relate to that as something that was historically real or at least feasible. So Jesus' parables were never like the tortoise and the hare. They were always something historically feasible and I know of no exception to that. So it was similar in the sense that you had the idea of illustrating something or conveying a truth But different from the standpoint of the term fable is not necessarily intended to relate to anything feasible or historical. Whereas a parable, Jesus always taught with parables that were feasible or historical or ostensibly real.

Does that help? Yeah. I have one other question before we leave these terms. What about the term folklore? folklore. How does that relate to these? Yeah? I would say maybe more like a legend, like I would call Daniel Boone and Jim Boyle's folklore in that category, that they probably did exist, or the situation did exist, but it's been glorified. Okay. Yeah, Stan? Okay, they also sing ballads and stuff about folklore, characters and stuff. It would be like The Legend of Davy Crockett and Daniel Booth.

All these different ballads that we have. You bring up a good point because the term folklore is kind of an umbrella term. And if you hear that one, just kind of remember it's an umbrella term that includes all of these. relative to a specific culture. If I go to some place in rural America, they will have a collection of songs, jokes, stories, fables, myths, everything that goes along with that particular culture. And it includes, as Stan pointed out, it might include jokes, it might include songs.

The little valley where I went to high school, and Nancy and I moved back there for a time, and I went back to the high school and taught, well I'd never do that again. Anyway, that little valley had its own culture. And that included a language within that valley, called Bootling, and it included stories of different kinds, and even songs. You ever hear, you know, Old MacDonald had a farm?

In Bootling it goes, a bald Kimmy had a region in the Dreary Zo, and on that region he had a bork in the Dreary Zo, right? So there was folklore and there were stories about different people and different people were given nicknames. And there was a guy, he's passed on now, but his name was Chipmunk. And if you said Chipmunk, everybody knew who you were talking about.

So there was a whole bunch of folklore and stories and songs and poetry and everything collecting around that. So it includes these plus more. So if you hear the term folklore, It's the collection of everything that's related to a particular culture, and it might be very specific, like in this little valley of a few thousand people, or it might be something much larger that has to do with America, or has to do with Europe, or parts of Europe. Yeah. So this is a part, you know, stories about that.

Again, whether it's real or not, the stories about that would be a part of Scottish folklore, right? Yes, and so if you hear that term, that's just, again, something to have clear in your mind, because people will throw out terms and not understand the distinctions between them at all. And it's important to get people to, okay, come down, let's understand what the terms are here, and now let's talk very specifically and see, does this really fit? Alright, now, so how does the New Testament use the word myth as our next question, since that's one of the ones here. And there's a few places where that very word is used.

Here's 1 Timothy 1.4, "...in order to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith." And the top of page 2 continues on there.

2nd Timothy 4.4, and they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

And then Titus 1.14, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

The Jews developed their own set of myths. Some of those myths included things about Abraham. A couple of them I've told here at Holly Hills, and I'll tell them quickly just to give you examples. The Jews would teach that Abraham at the last day will stand at the gate of hell to make sure no Jew ever goes in. That's one Jewish myth. It's not in the Bible, not in the Old Testament, not in the New. It's a Jewish myth.

Another one is that Abraham's father was an idol salesman. He had a shop in which he sold idols. And one day, while Abraham's father had to be away on some other task, out of the shop, he left Abraham in charge. And when his father came back, all of the idols were completely ruined and wrecked, except for one. And his father came in and just stunned and shocked. Ah! What happened? And Abraham pointed to the one that was not wrecked and said, that one did it. So this is a Jewish myth. There's nothing in the Bible that records that. But it was something that was added to the account.

So the word myth in the New Testament had a more universally negative connotation. Given that myths had a negative connotation in the New Testament, what is the likelihood that the New Testament authors, especially Paul since he is the one that uses the word, what is the likelihood that the New Testament authors would propagate myths? Not so much, right? If they look at made-up stories like that negatively, then how are they going to take made-up stories about Jesus and resurrection and things like that?

They're not going to look at that favorably. So I think that's a key thing. Here's 2 Peter 1.16. For we did not follow cleverly devised tales, muthos, myths, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. So is this made up stuff? Peter says, no. This is not made up stuff. Then, this is a key one, and this relates to a question Stan brought up. How long does it take for legends and myths to develop? And this is very important.

It used to be said that all of the New Testament was written in the second century. Many, many decades after the events that were claimed to have been recorded by the authors of the New Testament. So this would essentially mean all of the New Testament was written by people who were not eyewitnesses. That used to be the claim.

Now what has happened over time is that discoveries have been made And some of those have even been in recent years, not even just decades, but recent years. Over time, discoveries have been made of historical documents, in some cases the New Testament documents themselves, or of archaeological objects of different kinds, that have shown that the second century origin of the New Testament documents is false. So, discovery of documents and archaeological artifacts, and by the way, we're going to take also, not too long from now, time to go over a lot of those archaeological items from the New Testament and the Old, but discoveries have tended rather strongly to move the skeptical position closer and closer to taking the New Testament as historical reality. Now, again, it hasn't forced them all the way to that point yet, but let's take it for instance.

It used to be thought that the Gospel of John was written about 170 to 180 AD. Then it was found in Egypt, because Egypt has a lot of dry sand where things are preserved better. was found in Egypt a fragment of the Gospel of John, and each side had a portion of the Gospel of John dating from around, and the different groups of scholars vary, but around 125 AD. And that's called the Rylands fragment. So that 125 AD fragment forced the 170 to 180 AD date to say, nope, it can't be that late, so it's earlier.

Recently it was discovered, and the study is still being done, that a fragment of the Gospel of Mark from the first century has been found. And Daniel Wallace leaked that, he wasn't supposed to, but anyway he did. So more on that will come out once the study is complete. So that was one.

Another one, it used to be said up to a few years ago, and this was emphatically stated, there were absolutely no real physical synagogues in Israel during the life of Christ. So every reference in the Gospels and in the book of Acts to a synagogue in Israel is made up. As of the discovery of the synagogue at Magdala, dated from the coins on the floor, That contention is now proven false. There were synagogues in Israel during Jesus' time.

So that's another point where the tendency of discovery has been in the direction of looking upon the New Testament documents as genuine, not made up at some later point in time and then read back as if they were from an earlier time. So that's been a key thing. One of the things, and you had asked about this, Stan, it's on the bottom of page two.

The Greek myths are all that's left of the ancient Greek religion. About 1200 BCE, the residents of what we would call Greece and Asia Minor shared a common belief in a group of deities that came to be known as the Olympians. So here are these group of deities.

The deities were much more human-like, and it was also centered around Mount Olympus. And by the way, our New Years, you know how we do all this celebration and everything about the New Years, what that came from was The idea that the gods would get together around the new year and plan things for the next year, and you'd want to get the gods favorable. You'd want to get them in your favor as they're making plans, right? So you do various things to try to get the gods attention and make them think well of you.

So here are the Greek myths. The ancient texts we call Greek myths are mostly from the period known as classical Greece, about 500 BCE. Stories behind the myths are often from a much earlier time, but written versions don't exist before classical times. So here's the issue. About 1200 is the time when a lot of these things were set. Oh, by the way, the connection to the New Testament.

Troas, you read about that in the book of Acts? Troas was one of the places that Paul and some of his companions went. It's only about four miles from there is Troy. Troy was the story of the Trojan horse, right? They put the horse loaded with soldiers up as a gift. So anyway, that's one of the myths, if you will, that developed. But it took centuries for that to actually get down, get recorded. We have documents recording that.

The oldest myths can be traced to three main sources, Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric hymns, about 800 BCE, which is beginning around the time of the life of Isaiah, roughly. That means that by the time they were written down, these works had survived 400 years of additions, subtractions, and mutations to finally become, top of page three, versions we now call authentic. The Greek myths are our window into the distant past, a view of a world that existed only in the mind of the Greek poets, but in the hearts of the humble and long-suffering natives of ancient Greece. So how long does it take a myth to develop? Centuries. It takes centuries for myths to develop.

What if I were to tell you, when I was a kid, I used to call up Dwight Eisenhower on the phone, on my cell phone, all the time. I'd just call him daily. He and I would chat. Now, why are you likely not to believe me if I were to say something like that?

Pardon? Okay, one, how do you know there are no cell phones? Because we know when they were invented. Yeah, okay. One thing is, this next week you turn 63 years old, right? And so one thing is, is there a number of people in this room who were around during that time, and they would say, hey, Dwight Eisenhower didn't chat with you on a cell phone. He certainly didn't take time to chat with some little kid. So it's within memory of a number of people. It's within memory of a number of people who are in this room. And so you would say, no, I'm not going to swallow that.

There's several things wrong with that story. Several things wrong with that story. And that's one reason why you have to have more time to develop a myth. If you have people around who can say, then it's not going to develop. It's not going to be swallowed. Nobody's going to Have that if if you have people around you can say no, that's not real when Paul the Apostle wrote down 1st Corinthians 15 that Jesus appeared to this one and this one and this one and even 500 people at a time He says and most of those are around Would it be possible for most of those who around to come and say hey that didn't happen Yes, because there were people around he couldn't get away with it if it were phony But something after centuries go by, then you can start to develop myths because you don't have people around who are there to say yes or no as to something being true or false. It takes time to develop myths.

If somebody tells you, oh, well the Bible is just full of myths, you say, wait a minute, let's get specific here. When did this happen? And increasingly, by the way, the evidence is pointing to Christ was crucified on April 3rd, 33 A.D. That date. Which would have meant he was resurrected on April 5th, 33 A.D. If Peter is They're telling people within a couple of months after the supposed events, June, July, August 33 A.D., if he's around saying, hey, Jesus was raised, somebody could come along and say, no, he didn't. Let's go visit the tomb. See, there's the stone. See, let's roll it away. There's the body.

No. But did anybody do that? No. They couldn't deny it. As the evidence continues to point towards the New Testament documents being a genuine record of what took place, the idea of myths and made-up tales has less and less viability. It doesn't fly. Because you've got people around who could say, that's not how it happened. That's not how it happened. Okay.

We've got another issue here in the middle of page 3. We have the question, is the New Testament written in mythological form? One of the things that happens with myth is it tends to get disconnected from history and sometimes even disconnected from certain places and locations and geography. It also gets disconnected from the kind of thing where people are investigating it, where people are testifying, this is what I saw, this is what I heard. So let's look at Luke 1, 1-4. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you've been taught."

Does that sound to you like someone who's writing a myth? It sounds like somebody who's trying to make sure it doesn't get in the category. That's right. In other words, he's checking out the facts. He doesn't want everything checked out. Now, let's ask another question.

Is Luke claiming to be an eyewitness? No. As he writes the Gospel of Luke, he is not claiming to be an eyewitness. From chapters 16 through about 22 of the book of Acts, he does start using us and we and things like that. So of those things, he appears to be an eyewitness. But in the Gospel of Luke itself, he does not claim to be an eyewitness. What does he claim to have done? He claims to have checked out sources carefully, and talked to eyewitnesses. So he's inquired of eyewitnesses, he doesn't claim to be an eyewitness, so he tells you what his position is, and he tells you the level of care that he's taken to get the truth.

So now let's look at Acts 2.22-25 and 29-33. Here is Peter speaking on the day of Pentecost. This is just short of two months after Christ was resurrected. Men of Israel, listen to these words.

Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles, attested to who? You. You have seen it. by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst. So Peter is making testimony repeatedly to you guys have seen it. Now, if this is bogus, what are these guys going to stand up and say? Peter! You're lying! That's not how it happened. But you don't hear any of that.

Just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death just since it was impossible for him to be held in its power.

And having been there, it would have taken maybe 10 or 15 minutes from where they were to take the whole group over to the tomb and over to the cross. Get them over there. Here's the spot. There's the tomb. He could have done that if anybody had objected.

But we have no record that anybody did. Verse 29, Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day in the southwestern part of Jerusalem. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, the place of the dead, nor did his flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses."

Care to object? Let's just take a little walk. Just take a little walk, only take 10-15 minutes. I'll go over there. We'll head over there and you can point out the body still in the tomb. I think it's still there. We'll all take a look. How did they react on that day? Yeah. How many were saved that day? 3,000 saved that day. How many objectors spoke up? We have no record of any.

Again, it would have been a 10-15 minute walk. It would have been able to go right over the spot. Here's where it was crucified. Here's the spot. We all saw where it was. Here's the tomb right nearby. A couple hundred feet away at most. And probably to 500 amongst that group. Could well have been.

Let's look at the top of page 4. 1 John 1, 1-4 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father. and with His Son Jesus Christ, these things we write so that our joy may be made complete." It's like Clint Eastwood, make my joy complete. Mythological patterns in first century Judaism is the next one.

One of the things about myths, in order to get it across, is You have to have people willing to go along with it. So the question is, were the disciples ready and willing to go along with the myth? If it was a myth that Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. Were the disciples, or anybody hanging around them, ready and willing to go along with the myth?

Here we have ten disciples. Jesus comes into this room with locked doors. He comes into the room. He appears to the ten. They're stunned. You've got Thomas, who then gets told by the ten, We've seen Christ resurrected! And what does Thomas say? Oh yeah, of course!

Right? doesn't believe ten of the guys he's spent the last several years with. He won't believe ten witnesses. The Jewish standard of testimony is two or three. That's out of the law. Two or three is good enough for Jewish testimony. He says, I don't believe ten. Unless I witness it myself, uh-uh. The Lord waits a week later It appears to Thomas, and Thomas, my Lord and my God. Jesus had four half-brothers, James being the eldest of those four.

They did not believe in Jesus, John chapter 7. They did not believe in Jesus and even encouraged him to step into a situation in which he would get killed. They really didn't like him. They did not believe in him until Jesus appeared to James, 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus appeared to James, and then James and the other three brothers were believing. And their presence with the rest of the apostles is recorded in Acts chapter 1, along with Mary. Last mention of Mary.

They were converted and they not only were skeptical like Thomas, but they wanted him dead and they hated him. So not only just disbelieving, they were extremely antagonistic and then swung around to believe. What you have here also is Were the Jews expecting someone like Christ? Not just the disciples. Were the Jews expecting someone like Christ to come? First of all, was there universal belief in a Messiah? No. And who did not believe in a Messiah? The Sadducees didn't believe in a Messiah.

So that was part one. So you only had the Pharisees. is the primary group holding out for a Messiah. The ones having any significant influence. So you've got the Pharisees holding out for a Messiah. What kind of a Messiah were they looking for? Yes, somebody to come in in a military political move. And was that Jesus?

No. Furthermore, the Pharisees all thought that if When the Messiah comes, He's going to love us. He's going to love us because we're the greatest. And we're the ones that are pointing everybody towards the Messiah and the Scriptures and all that. And so when the Messiah comes, He's going to love us.

Did Jesus talk in nice, kindly, warm ways with the Pharisees? Not so much. Matthew 23 spent the whole chapter, woe to the Pharisees, right? and calling them blind five times. So the Pharisees were not really inclined to embrace Jesus on several counts.

Jesus does not come as this military political guy. He doesn't come in the skies like they read in Daniel, right? He doesn't come floating out of the skies. He doesn't have this military political approach at all. He's got a band of fishermen that maybe have fishing knives or something. And that's about it. But it doesn't fit. So absolutely no one, not the disciples, none of the Jews, had an expectation that would fit with the myth, so it's claimed, that Christ died for our sins, was buried and resurrected. Absolutely no one was in sync with that.

So how are you going to sell a myth to people who don't want it? Got any myth salesmen among us here? And this is really another aspect. To sell a myth, to have a myth get accepted and absorbed, there has to be a cultural embracing of it. You can't go into something entirely contrary to the culture and have it accepted. It will be rejected and fall flat on its face.

There were no proponents, zero proponents from any record that we have for what Jesus did when he died and was buried and resurrected. Nobody Zero were in favor of embracing that story Anybody who was convinced of it had to be convinced essentially against their expectation and will And and there are no exceptions to that Not not among the secular Jews not among the Romans not among the disciples Not one person was an exception So, categorically, there was no background for embracing the Christ myth. None. Also, it didn't glorify any of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or even the disciples. There was no glorification of people who would pass on the message. Let's think about it.

What's the payback for anybody There is no payback for anybody. Does this make Peter look good? For Peter to insist on what he did, what's ultimately going to be the price he'll pay? With his life. There is no payback for anyone to accept this. This is going to be costly for the disciples, for them to press it. and to continue to insist upon it, nobody gets any benefit in terms of being well-liked, money, anything, from embracing this. Nobody was expecting it. Nobody has any motivation for embracing this if it's not true. Now, we've run out of time. Let me just point out some things. The rest of there, you may have heard stories of copying pagan myths of different kinds. We've got six points on that. And the other thing that we have is a color handout that connects biblical accounts with myths and legends. that developed later.

Example, the wise men, how many were there? The myth says three, and even has three different names, and even says that they're from different ethnic groups. That's almost certainly wrong. They were almost certainly of Persian background. We have no idea how many there were, nor what their names are. Those all developed later, centuries later, at least three centuries later. And sometimes many centuries later, the various myths developed about the wise men.

The original historical account has good founding. It says in Luke that they were the Magoi, excuse me, in Matthew, they were the Magoi. And when you look at the Greek Old Testament, Daniel was the head of the Magoi. Same word. And so they were a Persian Babylonian background, historically. They very likely got the idea that there was a Messiah from Daniel, and that was passed on by tradition.

That connects very well, historically. But all these other things about there being exactly three and what their names were and all that's mythology. All that's been added to what was the biblical historical account. It took centuries for that to take place.

Now we're running way past. Somebody pray and finish up. Lord, we do thank you for what is clear here. We thank you for clarity of understanding. And we just thank you for the truth of your word that we can stand upon it and trust and rely upon it because it is you who inspired it. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.