“Can We Really Trust the Bible — and Jesus Himself?” A Conversation With Dr. Joel Muddamalle

Sometimes prayer feels natural, and sometimes it feels like the first thing to slip when life gets heavy. Not because you don't love God, but because your thoughts are racing, your heart is overwhelmed, and you don't even know where to begin. But the beautiful thing about Jesus is that He doesn't ask us to have the perfect words. He just invites us to come close. That's why we're so excited to share Come Close to Jesus, a brand new prayer book from Lisa Turkhurst, created to help you pray when you feel anxious, distracted, or unsure of what to say. And when you give a gift of any amount to Proverbs 31 Ministries, you'll help more women receive biblical encouragement right when they need it most. And as a special thank you, we'll send you a copy of Come Close to Jesus. You can find more information using the link in the show notes below. Now onto today's episode. Well, hi, friends. Thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaylee Olson, and I'm here today with my co-host, Meredith Brock. Well, hey, Kaylee. Hey. We just got done recording a fascinating and profound podcast with our friend, Dr. Joel Mutamale. And you guys, I'm really excited for you to hear it because he is going to unpack some things. Maybe you've heard it before, but this is a fresh take on how do we know Jesus is who he says he is? And did he really die? And was he resurrected? How can we know this for sure? And man, I walked away, just my faith is so bolstered. I have so much confidence in who God says he is and in his word. It's just so encouraging. Yeah, I agree. And I strategically was like for the first episode of 2026, I think as people are opening their Bibles for the first time, like I'm probably talking to someone who's like, yep, I'm a couple of days into my YouVersion plan that I've committed to it this year. And I think, and I pray that today's episode is gonna be something that can come alongside you as you're diving into God's word again, freshly this year to be like, yeah, God is who he says he is. And this is truth and it is so good. I was so encouraged by it. And Meredith, I wanted to share about how this episode really deeply supports our heart of Proverbs 31 to help women know and live the truth of God's word. And so I want to share quickly a listener testimony that we received from a woman who uses our First Five mobile app. We recently asked if users of the First Five app have increased in their knowledge of the Bible. and here's what one woman shared with us. She said, before First Five, I never got into the word very much. Now I'm in the word all the time. I love to read his word and I love to study it. First Five has given me the tools I need to read and study his word so that I can understand it. And so friends, if you don't currently have a daily Bible study habit, I wanna encourage you to download the First Five app. You just never know how the Lord can use your first five minutes a day, right? I mean, talk about your kids. So, I mean, kids using the first five. We use our first five. That's right. I got my teenagers using it. It's amazing. And so wherever you are on your Bible journey this year, we pray this episode blesses you. And let's dive in. Well, we are so excited to welcome our friend and our resident theologian and just really good all-around great guy, Dr. Joel Mutamali on the show today. Hey, Joel. Hey, how are you guys? You know what, Meredith? I'm excited because I got his last name right. Before we started recording this, we had some beef with Joel because how long have you been here with us at Proverbs? I mean, coming on almost a decade now. They're definitely in the orbit for over a decade. And Meredith, how did we pronounce Dr. Joel's last name up until about a month ago? Yeah, Mutamale. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So Joel- He has recently informed us that is not the case. I feel like I've been introduced to a new person and that's okay. We're going to switch it up. We're going to switch it up. 10 years in, it's time this time. 10 years in, it is time. When Jordan went from 23 to 45. Yeah. How'd that go for him? Not great. Here we go. I don't even know the 45, Jordan, you know, all it is is 23. It's fine. Okay. Well, Joel, you're here today because Proverbs 31 just wrote an incredible new Bible study that you were actually a part of writing called 40 Days Through the New Testament, Knowing the Savior Who Steads Our Uncertainty. And this idea of knowing the Savior who studies our uncertainty is so intriguing to me. And if I can be honest here for a moment, I have to admit there were moments where I go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I believe Jesus is who he says he is. But the Bible is really old. All of it happened a long time ago. It didn't even happen in America. So there's like the cultural difference. And I'll go, whoa, is it real? Did Jesus really, like, is everything that I believe like really, really true? And I know that it's my responsibility as a believer to do that, but sometimes it's really helpful to bring on someone we know who really knows his stuff to just go, hey, here's what I know. And I'm going to lay it down for you really quick. And I know today we don't have a whole lot of time to go really, really deep into all of the things. But Joel, I asked you a couple of weeks ago to come on the show and just say, hey, can you give us some reasons that we know Jesus came, that he actually lived, that he died and that he's coming again. And so you were like, yeah, I'm ready. You gave us a little bit of a preview before we hit record. And so Joel, I'm going to turn it over to you and I can't wait for you to go into your teaching. Well, thanks, Kales. I'm super excited for this kind of conversation and a bit of teaching. But I want to start with a question that I had on a podcast a couple of years ago. And the podcast host was like, hey, Joel, if there is one thing to really shake you like in your faith, like if there's one thing that would make you really question your belief in Jesus and, you know, like what would it be? And for me, it was like kind of simple. It'd be like if Jesus wasn't real, like if there was no historical figure named Jesus. And secondarily, like these two things come together if the resurrection wasn't true. Like, right? Like if somebody procured for us today, the body, it's like game over. Yeah. Is that a fair statement? Absolutely. So I want to just start with saying, you know, from a trust standpoint, we're now rolling into 2000 plus years of the story of Jesus that has been the most prolific story. to the point where you don't even need to know or have read the Bible to know when somebody says Jesus, you have context around it. And so I want to give us just three reasons for why I truly believe that we can trust that Jesus is real. The first reason is because of internal evidence within the Bible, internal evidence within the Bible. So oftentimes when people pick up a Bible, they'll be like, oh, well, the Bible is a book. So I'm going to say something here. It's going to feel a little bit like, ooh, you kind of shattered my perspective on this. And I'm sorry in ahead of time, but I think it's going to actually help us be better Bible readers. And here's what I'm going to say. The Bible is not a book. You're like, wait a minute, Joel, wait a minute. Bible front cover, back cover, table of contents, page numbers. This thing seems like a book. Well, no, the Bible is not a book. The Bible is a library of books. And so like, if you walked into my home study and you said, hey, Joel, would you show me where all the Old Testament theology books are? I'm like, yep, bottom left because those are really thick and they'll break my shelves. They got to go on the bottom floor. New Testament, top right, historical theology in the middle. Where's your stash of Michael Jordan illustration stuff? It's like, oh, that's in the cupboard over there. I have a place to send you in my library based off of the genre. Well, the Bible is a library of books. So we're looking at 66 distinct books. This is wild, you guys, 66 books, 40 human authors, over three continents, over three languages. And we're talking over a span of some 2000 years, all being led and inspired and protected and ultimately written by the divine author, God himself, you know? And so from just like, this is a term in academics or theology just called apologetics. From just like an apologetic standpoint, it's like, how can we even just prove like the historical Jesus and the story to be true? I'm like, y'all, look at your Bibles. like this would have had to have been the most significant con game in the entire universe for people to like conspire together across thousands of years hundreds of miles of space different contents different languages all to be like hey by the way can you put in this little detail over here in the book of daniel to like talk about the coming messiah and when you do that use this specific word. And we're like, wait a minute, did they just put a bunch of things in like a little bottle that they hid in different places for people to find? They were like, well, no, of course not. And so like from an internal evidence standpoint, we need to like just look at the Bible itself. And what's really interesting is that secular scholars, so classical literalists that are not associated with like evangelical theology or biblical theology at all, they look to the Bible, They look to these documents as historical documents. They have no doubt of the historicity of the scriptures themselves. And so, like, we should be able to pull from this reality. And so, I want to give just a couple just examples of this. In Luke 24, 44, this is Jesus. And so, Jesus speaks in the New Testament and he says this. He says, he told them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. And notice what he says, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. So this is Jesus on the road to Emmaus. He's talking to these two dudes. And while he's on the road, he says, the law of Moses, which we understand as the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the prophets would have actually picked up in Joshua. So Joshua would be technically the first prophetic book. And then the prophets go all the way through Malachi. And then he adds in just in case anybody's forgetting. By the way, there's a bunch of songs in the Old Testament called the Psalms. And so the songs themselves attest to me. And so here we'd want to be like, well, Joel, fact check. Like, how do we know that? Well, look at what Isaiah 53, 12 says that the coming Messiah would be crucified with thieves. The detail. Guess what? Mark 15, 27, 8. it happened right so now somebody would be like well that's a random series of events Joel maybe that's just well okay Zechariah 11 different genre different book different era different time Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver not 29 not 31 for 30 pieces of Matthew 26 15 Y it happened Malachi 3 1 says that Jesus would clear the temple. Matthew 21, 12, it happened. Isaiah 43 says that Jesus would have a messenger who would prepare the way. Like, this is so wild that the Bible is not just anticipating and prophesying of the coming of Jesus, a real historical figure, but it's also saying, by the way, we'll give you the forerunner himself to the people who come before Jesus to prove this fact. And so you've got Matthew 3, 2, John the Baptist, it happened. I did a little bit of research. Some scholars have traced every prophecy regarding Jesus and have found close to 300 of them. Okay. In the Old Testament, 300 of them. Guess how many are fulfilled? All of them. Wow. Okay. So like our brains can't really comprehend the level of like, I don't have any other word for this other than miraculous. Right. But I want to do just a little math example. Let's say for the sake of my kind of skeptics out there, I'm skeptical. I tend to lean skeptic. And so it's like, okay, let's just say for the sake of probability, let's just like eight, not 300, just eight. What are the chances that Jesus could fulfill only eight of those prophecies? It would equate to one in 10 to the 17th power. If you want to do that right now, wherever you are, if it's in a safe spot or, you know, like don't get yourself hurt. But like you could write one and then you would put 17 zeros. Just writing 17, count all the way, 17 zeros. That is the probability. This would be like taking a silver dollar, if you just took a silver dollar, and you covered one silver dollar all in red, just one silver dollar. And then you covered the entire face of the great land of Texas. Wow. Texas is a big old place. That's a big state. That's a big state. And you just covered the – and you dug all the silver dollars about a foot down. And then, Mayor, I was like, hey, Mayor, you want to – let's go jump in a helicopter really quick. you get to pick Meredith wherever in the land of Texas you want to pick a spot in Texas. Austin. Austin right? Austin it's like their phrase like let's stay weird or something like that it's like Portland. Yeah that's why I picked it. Exactly. So perfect. So we're like oh we're flying over Austin we just drop you down in Austin and you just kind of walk around you know randomly and you pick a spot you stop and you say hey this is the spot and you go and you dig a foot down and you pick up the silver and guess what you picked up? The red silver dollar. This is the probability that we're talking about. And Jesus did not fulfill eight. He fulfilled all 300 of them that are verifiable. Okay, process with me really quick, because I just threw out a whole bunch of stuff for you guys. And we're just in the internal evidence, by the way. Yeah, I, what is going through my mind is the specificity. And this is, I might have made up some words here, okay? But the specificity of the Bible and the credibility, the way it's like so specific, 30 coins, you know, I'll be crucified next to thieves. It could have been murderers or it could have been, but it was down to the specific detail of what they were being crucified for. Mm-hmm. It's so, it puts me in such awe and it really bolsters my confidence in not just scripture, but in who our God is, that he pays attention to those specific details in our lives, that he is not absent or missing the details of our lives. He knows all of them and he cares about them and he is powerful enough to work within them. I know there's so many times in my life, I just recently had one of those moments where, you know, your friend or somebody sends you a random scripture and you're like, oh, okay, whatever. Maybe God wants to talk to me through that. I don't know. And then like you go to church and they're preaching on that. This literally just happened to me like last week. Yeah. And then a friend from college who I haven't talked to in forever sent me this big, long scripture of all referencing the same thing. And you know what I thought to myself? Well, that's just a coincidence. And then I had to be like, no, that's how specific our God is. Like, it just is so, it really does bolster my faith in such a, it like gives me confidence and courage to be like, no, this book is incredible. And it's so trustworthy. And our God cares about all the little details in our lives. Well, I think too, something that I struggle with a lot of times is how long it takes God to move in my own life. But I think Joel, whenever you talk about how there's, there were 300 prophecies over time, it would have had to be the biggest conspiracy theory ever because, you know, it started from the beginning and went through thousands of years before Jesus actually came. And I know there are many reasons that God took his time, but I wonder if one of the reasons he took his time is because he doesn't have to prove himself to us, but he did. And I think that like the waiting and all of that was just like another tally mark, another tally mark. Like, let me show you, let me show you, let me show you. And so while he was keeping his people waiting, it wasn't just because he had to come at the right time. The right time that Jesus came was so that he could stack all of those years so that we could look back and go, oh yeah, like, of course, of course he is who he says he is. And like, we are beneficiaries of what they had to wait so long for. And that's really cool to think about. Yeah. And you know, what I think is so, again, incredible about the scriptures is it's pointing to Jesus, but it's also giving us all this other historical information because it's like, well, just in case you're wondering, here's an example, Nahum 1, 8 through 10, so the prophet Nahum, he prophesied the flood, look at the detail of this, the flooding of Nineveh, right? The flooding of Nineveh. So Nineveh, at its height, it had a hundred foot inner wall, 50 feet thick towers, over 200 feet high, over 15, this was a significant place, 15 gates, 150 foot wide moat over a seven mile circumference at its height, right? 663 BC. 51 years later, entire thing's gone. Wow. Just like literally like it's almost like Marvel snap and then like the people are gone. It's like that's kind of what – and so wild. This is so wild. Archaeologists have found the location, okay, of ancient Nineveh and have determined that it collapsed in the rainy month. And the highest probability of this collapse is a flood because of the overflowing of the Tigris River. Wow. What? I mean exactly, right? So this is like internal evidence. And like you guys, if we did like a seminary course and like I sat down and we would do weeks, we would do days of this, right? So I'm just giving you like the highlight reel of this. So this will actually be the connection point into external evidence because sometimes what happens is people will be like, well, great. But I don't trust the Bible. I just don't trust the Bible. To which I'd be like, cool. I think that is a fair question and skepticism that as Christians we should just be able to address because if you can't trust the Bible, and we're saying the Bible is the reason why we can trust that there was a historical figure named Jesus. It's like, hey, we need some help here. So once again, I'm just going to go back to the point that the Bible itself is trusted by secular classical historicists as reliable literature, right? And one of the most important ones are the Gospels, the three synoptic, technically the three synoptic Gospels. There is a New Testament scholar. His name is Dr. Craig Keener, brilliant man. Craig wrote an entire book called Christobiography. The book is about this thick. It's massive. It's like a foot long, you know. And it's all about, and Craig's thesis is, that we ought to read Matthew, Mark, and Luke as a kind of ancient biography. And so what is this biography about? Jesus. That's what Matthew, Mark, and Luke are. They're all about. I disconnect John because John often in academic circles is referred to more of a theological reading book. So it doesn't fit the category of Christobiography. It's still there and still doing some very important things. But again, this is external evidence. So external secular scholars, when they're – this is so wild. When they're studying a historical figure like Caesar, guess what they look at in order to make sense of the biographies that were written of Caesar, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Wow. Hey, friends. I'm pausing today's episode because I want to ask you a question. Have you ever sat down to pray and just felt stuck? You want to connect with God. You really do. but your mind is spinning, your emotions feel tangled, and the words just won't come. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe scripture steps in and gives us the words we need to pray, especially when life feels overwhelming. Here's what one listener shared with us recently. I've been walking through one of the hardest seasons of my life, and this ministry keeps reminding me that God is still near. Even when I don't know what to pray, I feel like I'm being guided back to him. Friend, that's exactly why we're inviting you to experience Come Close to Jesus, a powerful new prayer book from Lisa Turkhurst filled with scripture-shaped prayers for real life moments. And when you give today, you're helping reach more women who are searching for hope, for truth, and a steady place to land. As our thank you, you'll receive Come Close to Jesus with your gift of any amount. You can find more information using the link in the show notes below. Now, back to today's episode. Okay, think about this. Jesus, Jesus born to nobodies, to Mary and Joseph, running for his daggum life, all the way through the, right? And like, ends up in a cave, most likely, is born in, like, in Podunk, Bethlehem. Like, what is going on? Caesar, like king of really the known world of the time, massive orchestras and people celebrating his reign and his inauguration, right? So you have these two enigmatic figures, one not even known at all. His name is Jesus, born in Podunk out in the woods, basically. And then you have like the most, I'm trying to think about like today, what would be the most example? It would be like a royal wedding, you know? Or it would be like, I don't know, the Kardashians coming in. And it's like everybody cares about it. It would just be like this figure, Michael Jordan, making another return. It would be that kind of thing. And all the spotlights are there. But then off on the side there just this little tiny thing that happens that nobody even cares about right Did you know that when it comes to ancient biographies that the only person who comes close to the amount of writings of ancient biographies that are like Caesar and in fact probably increased beyond Caesar is Jesus Wow. Jesus. So when secular historicists have to study about Caesar and ancient writings and biographies, they are forced to look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Wow. Interesting. So just again, for a little bit of context around this, the oldest existing biography of a guy like Alexander the Great are from people like Plutarch and another guy named Herian. And they come in the late first and second centuries. But the problem here is Alexander the Great, he died in 323 BC. we're talking hundreds of years after the death of alexander the great that historical biographies are written about him and nobody has any issues like they're like oh yeah absolutely we can trust this we can verify this is verifiable evidence right caesar you're looking at about the same thing you're looking at a hundred or so years you know maybe a little bit closer 60 to 80 years You know what we have with Jesus? 30? 30 years. First hand. First hand. The epistles actually, the Pauline epistles actually are the ones that are the earliest tradition that we have for this. And so it's kind of interesting. The letters of Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and 1 Thessalonians were all written at the latest in the 40s. At the latest in the 40s. James may be as early as the 30s. Jesus died in 30 or 33 AD. So if the epistles are the latest in the 40s or 50s, you're looking at a spread of, I don't know, 15 to 25 years of the death of Jesus till the first writings of Jesus. And then when you bring in the Gospels, you're talking about a time period of at the latest 40s to the 60s. So think about this. In 1 Corinthians 15, 1, when Paul is writing, and this is one of the earliest writings, actually before the Synoptic Gospels. He says this, now brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you, important words, received and on which you have taken your stand for what you have, important word, received, important phrase, I passed on. So the words received and I passed on were technical terms that were used in the Greek language that were leveraged and utilized by Paul to describe a kind of oral tradition that was memorized and carried on through generations. We have such easy, like right now, Kales, you're just writing on your pen and paper and taking it, right? We forget how much of a significant blessing that is for us today to have. In the ancient world, only the elite would have that ability and they would have to really weigh out the cost of writing anything down. So this means that the oral, like the verbal reputation, significance of Jesus had spread throughout the known world in such a way that the gospels themselves and the letters were written. And so much so that these biographies were actually connected to other ancient biographies of other people. So again, external evidence. Today we have 5,700 and it's growing every day. So like as of the latest kind of like compiled number, 5,700 handwritten Greek, so only New Testament manuscripts that have been uncovered. Okay. If we compared this to other ancient writings, anybody doubt Homer and the Iliad, by the way? Do you ever, anybody doubt that Homer wrote the Iliad? I haven't thought about it in a long time. Okay. That in itself, that in itself is proof. It's like 11th grade. I don't know anything about it. And then you'll be like, I'm not quite sure did Homer. Right. So did you know that we have about 650 manuscripts fragmented of Homer? Euripides, the tragedies, we have about 330. Josephus' works, which are widely renowned and known, 55. Tacitus, we've got 20. Herodotus, again, very significant, eight. How many do we have for the New Testament? Over 5,700. Wow. So from an external evidence standpoint, if you stack the evidence, if we're to be honest, and I really do care about honesty and humility. If we care about our honesty and humility, we would have to say if we have a lot of concern about the reliability of the gospels, which are a testimony to the witness of Jesus, you better have the same amount of anxiety and questions about Homer, about Herodotus, about Shakespeare. I mean, that's who we're talking about here. We're talking about significantly more evidence for the historical Jesus in the gospels and in the writings of these manuscripts. And every manuscript that comes out could basically be like, oh, here's the one that's going to prove that the whole thing is false. Okay. Really, really important detail. Textual critics, those that are not even like Christians, many textual critics are not even Christians. They say that we can reconstruct somewhat up to 97% of the New Testament beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. Wow. 97%. Okay. And the errors or inconsistencies never deal with major doctrinal issues. It's words that are repeated, it's phrases, it's translation issues, it's damaging, but it never deals with a doubt of the resurrection of Christ. So internal evidence, the Bible itself, external evidence, all these other manuscripts, all these other archaeological information. I mean, every time we find more manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls is a significant one. And all of this is proving the case for Christ. C.S. Lewis has maybe one of my favorite phrases. He says, if we're to be consistent, we have to think of Jesus as either a liar or a lunatic or he's Lord. You don't get to pick and choose. You don't get to say, oh, he's just a really good dude that hung out. Well, what good dude runs around saying that he's the son of God, that is going to bring in the kingdom of God, that is going to cast out demons, that is going to see, like, you just can't, we can't be logical people. We have to either say if he was a real historical person, which we've made the case for, then he, we have to come to a decision on who he is. Liar, lunatic, or Lord. Okay. Before we get to social evidence, thoughts? I think what, for me, whenever you said the cost of writing down, I don't think about how often I write and how easy it is. But sometimes I have this view whenever I open up a book like Galatians, the letter to the Galatians, the letter to the church in Ephesus. I'll just be like, oh, yeah, like a pen pal. But that's the context that I have. But I think that that's so helpful to go back to the historical context when you said it was costly to write something down. Instead of just hearing it, somebody had to decide, like, this is going to cost a lot of my resources. This better be important. And it was. But we don't think like that today. But it's helpful to have that. It adds so much validity. For sure. I mean, I just think the world that we live in right now, the Western information saturated, quick and fast, I can get an answer for this right now. I can Google that person's name and figure out who they are. Um, it is so hard for us to understand, to really grasp the validity of everything that you just said. Yeah. Because even we don't even really have, unless we've really studied this, Joel, we really don't even have the context to understand. You rambled off all of those guys' names that have manuscripts that are connected to them. Okay. Eight manuscripts of whoever. Yeah. Um, for me and Kaylee, we're sitting here going. okay yeah but what does that really mean yeah and then you put that next to how many of over 700 probably 6 000 by now that's wild like we barely even have the context to understand that my mind goes to like y'all ain't nobody sitting around writing a story about me like there's nobody that's like man i need to write down the way that meredith brock has lived her life, how she came into this world, how she conducted herself in it, the things that she taught us while she was here. I do not have one singular person who wants to do that for me. I just want you to know. And I'm not saying that to cry me a river. I'm just saying this was to your point, Joel. This was a man, not really. He was a man, but he was God, born in a manger, lived his life. And it was so significant that people wrote it down and they talked about it and they protected these ancient texts and they rewrote them 5,700 times to be able to make sure that it circulated. Nobody's doing that for me. And so the significance of him as a figure, if we were just to talk about him as a human being, that is significant. Yeah. I mean, this is so good because it really dovetails now into the last one. And notice up until now, I've not gotten into, Meredith, you kind of, you know, nodded into that. It's like, Joel, up until now, you've been talking about the historical figure of Jesus, and it's very intentional. Because I want to make the case that we have a real person named Jesus, which like, honestly, like secular, again, secular historians, this is not even a conversation with them. Now, the deity of Christ. Okay? Once again, I go to this Lewis quote. you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time. You can't just be like, oh, Jesus is a good dude, lived a great life, and then just ignore everything else. And here's the biggest, so here's the last one. It's social evidence. And I would paraphrase or characterize this as a simple thing. Truth always prevails. Truth always prevails. The true story always makes its way out. and I can think of no greater reason for you and I to be able to trust in Jesus believe that he did come in the incarnation and have confidence in his assurance today that he will return not as suffering servant but as conquering king other than the simple fact that already today 2000 years later we're still talking about him and it does not matter if you're talking about him positively or negatively or you're trying to deny him or trying to disprove his existence the simple fact that you're spending mental intellectual energy to try to disprove a man who lived 2000 years ago is evidence in my book of the validity of his presence now we have to get to this last question of the truth prevails show me the body I need somebody to show me the body and for 2000 years nobody there have been theories right there have been theories of why we can let me just list off a couple of these theories A couple of the theories is that it called the swoon theory That Jesus on the cross fell asleep and then revived and woke up in the tomb. By the way, this theory, like all the Romans would be so offended right now. They'd be like, are you joking? Are you playing with me right now? Do you not know that the Romans actually did not invent the cross? They perfected the cross. They learned. And so the famous movie, Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, I remember the first time I saw it and I started sobbing. Because of the historical portrayal of it, I had a college professor once who went through kind of the process of crucifixion. And basically, I'm going to try to say this without it getting too graphic, but basically the methodology of the Roman soldiers was not the Indiana Jones whip. It's like you whip and then you go backwards. it was a kind of scaling that was happening so that you go cross body over leaned back and then you dragged across and so the point was you have the muscles and the sinews I think the stat you might need to fact check me on this but I believe from what I remember it was like 7 out of 10 people never made it out of the crucifixion because when they stood up there was nothing left to hold them basically together so this is Jesus you want to tell me That Jesus endured that, makes it to the cross, lifted up on the cross, that he just passed out. Nah, miss me with that, right? Okay, the next one is the hallucination theory. That the disciples saw what they wanted. But here's the problem. You have hundreds of people with the same hallucination. Right, right. Hundreds of people. So I've never done drugs, don't ever plan to do drugs. I've got some friends who have done some weird stuff. Thank you for making this confession. It's important. It's important to lay it out. So they have told me, though, it's like you do some of these like hallucinatives, like you're all in a group and you do it. Ain't nobody having the same experience. Right. That is interesting. So you're trying to this is the insanity of it. You're trying to prove to me that this was not true because everybody hallucinated. It takes more faith to believe that. Then it does to just. OK. And then here's here's the next one. the stolen body theory again, like just come on. The stone was so significantly massive that there's just no way on God's green earth that they would have been able to do that. This is my favorite one, you guys. This is my favorite one. So this is like, you'll find it in scholarship. Like people write scholarly essays on this. The twin theory. This is so good. Never heard this one before. No, I haven't either. Fill me in. Yeah, you remember Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen? You know, like, right? Okay, so Jesus had a hidden twin, y'all. and they hid him for years and years and years in the hiding, just in case something happened to this Jesus. And so at the cross, when Jesus died, he really did die, but he had a twin who was hiding in the background and they just replaced Jesus. Wow. Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So, I mean, like, come on. And so that looks like the historical necessity of the resurrection. One, the burial. Two, the empty tomb. Three, the post-mortem experiences. This might be the most important one. The disciples' belief in the resurrection. 12 appearance of Jesus. The first 11 occur over the first 40 days of the crucifixion. Jesus appears to women and women can testify about this. In the ancient world, this actually really mattered. I read a thing when I was preparing for this that said, I thought it was so true. It's like, you know what? Nobody dies for a lie. Nobody dies for a lie. But for a truth, for a real truth that you're committed to, you may give your life not you must you may give your life we have 12 disciples 11 of which historically have all given like so it's like this is the social evidence that today there's a quote I believe it's from N.T. Wright history and faith are respectively the left and right feet of Christianity history and faith it is not faith that is void of truth and it's not history that is void of the miraculous and the supernatural. It is history and faith that are the right and left feet of Christianity, which is why you and I can stand tall. It's why we can have confident assurance of who Jesus is, what Jesus said he was going to do, and why we believe with confident assurance that he will return as the conquering king of heaven and earth. Praise God. Truly. I mean, when I think about that, it could bring me to tears just because I think, wow, our God, the creator of the universe, sent his son and arranged all of that because he loves us so deeply and desires a real relationship with us. the one that was supposed to be in the garden, that he walks with us completely unobstructed, free of any obstacles, pure and complete knowing of one another. That's what he longs for. And he arranged all of that to get to you, to get back to the garden. So good. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. I know. I think I have like one question to kind of summarize it up. And I don't know if you have one. No, I just am over here and all. I am too. I am too, Joel. And I'm thinking about our listeners and we know most of them are churchgoers. They're believers. Like this stuff isn't necessarily new to them. But I think a lot of them might find themselves in our camp, Meredith or Joel, even you, studying and head knowledge versus heart knowledge. How, even in your world as a theologian, how do you move it from your head to your heart? How do you allow this knowledge to stir your faith? What does that look like for you? How does it actually grow your faith and not just this bank that you have to pull from? Yeah, I was telling Meredith about this. I don't know that I have the right answer. I have a story about it. I found myself in Oxford like a month ago and historic place in this place where Lewis converted from an atheist to a Christian on a walk with J.R. Tolkien. I mean, can you imagine walking around Oxford and seeing them? Sounds wild. And so I'm there, get an incredible opportunity to spend some time with New Testament scholar N.T. Wright and get done. And I ended up walking through this church and the church is called St. Aldate's Church. And the pastor there, the name they use is Rector, the same Stephen Foster. He made this small little comment. It's like, no big deal for him. And he's like, for a thousand years, this church, every time people have opened up the word of God, we've all stood. And so he invited us all to stand. I'm like, a thousand. And I stood and I had opened up the Bible word in Isaiah 53. And I was like, a thousand years? And I began to think about like the students and us. And like, I began to just think like lives that have walked through for a thousand years. And they've encountered the risen Christ through the words of scripture, through each other, through the spirit of God indwelling in his people, comforted in seasons of tragedy, celebrating seasons of joy, like for a thousand years, you know? And you guys have heard me say this before, a theology that is unlivable is absolutely unhelpful. And so, like, how do we do this? It's like we have to connect it back to the people. That all of this is about a people. And the people are made in the likeness and image of God. And Jesus cared about his disciples. Like he cared about his story being on the lips of his people. He cared about, you know, his, I mean, the simple thing, like he's on the cross and he's about to die. And the only people that are at the foot of the cross are women and John. And with his last words, he looks at John and he says, hey, John, would you take care of my mom? Are we like, like he could have given any, like, oh, by the way, here's an addendum to the Sermon on the Mount. oh by the way one last thing one last like really really quick don't forget any any like one of the last things is like hey man i love my mom john i love you would you love my mom she's losing her son the world gains the eternal son of god she's losing her son john would you love my mom i'm like okay that's it that's how we i think we have to to go there you know and allow our hearts to be impacted by the love of the gospel. And so, yeah, I don't know that I have a clean, neat answer to it other than just like, man, we stand in a tradition of people that have lived this, believed it, that have died for it. And what a great joy that we get to participate in that. Yeah, absolutely. I think too, as we get to learn from people like you or just whenever you have, when you're sitting in the company of somebody, you see it on Instagram or you're just sitting next to them, they're fired up about something. A lot of times it is knowledge or it could be new revelation, but then it fires you up, you know, and it stirs your faith in a way that goes, oh, that's cool. They said it now. I want to learn more. Um, I think this podcast episode today is a great example of that, but, um, Joel, something I so appreciate about you and the way that you steward your social media accounts and even your sub stack is you humbly make what you learn accessible to other people. And I want to highlight that really quickly. Like we get the benefit of having you on speed dial. You know, I just the other day texted Joel and was like, what do you think about this? But I realized not everybody has that, but I also don't know that everybody knows that your resources are just so wildly accessible. And so I have linked your Instagram account and your sub stack, which is free. And you have like bite-sized theology. And I just feel like, guys, if you're listening and you just want your hands on information, like subscribe, right, fill your inbox with good things, fill your feed with good things. And so those are linked for you in the show notes below. And if today's episode has made you go, gosh, I want to learn more, then I really want to encourage you to download our free First Five mobile app. Whether you're just beginning your faith journey or looking for a way to deepen your understanding, consider our First Five app as a tool you can use daily to grow your faith with confidence. Guys, it takes just a couple minutes. And let me tell you, I'm living real life with some teenagers right now. And this is a tool that I have made my teenagers download on their phones because it is a way, and I'm not kidding you, I make them read it on the drive to school in the morning, just this morning, because it's such an easy way for people, for you to start your day in the word of God with clear, credible, biblical teaching. So go grab it. All you have to do is just download it from any app store. Super easy. And then you can know you're getting good, reliable teaching from the Word of God. So great. And get your teenagers to do it too. It's fun. It's a great way to torture them on the way to school. Okay. That's all for us today, friends at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it really does change everything.