Hidden Biblical Writings: Evidence Based Investigation Worlds First Collection w/ Matthew McWhorter

➡ The text discusses the journey of Matthew McWhorter, a former atheist and attorney, who decided to investigate the Bible and other religious texts to determine the legitimacy of Christianity. During his research, he became a believer. The text also promotes Relief Band, a device that helps alleviate nausea, and encourages listeners to take advantage of a special offer. Lastly, the text invites listeners to engage in a dialogue about McWhorter’s book, Canon Crossfire, which compiles evidence about different scriptures from the first 400 years of Christianity.
➡ The speaker discusses their journey of exploring different religious texts, particularly focusing on the Bible. They express concern about the manipulation of translations and interpretations, and the potential influence of religious cults. They also question the authenticity of the Bible and other religious texts, and the evidence supporting them. The speaker’s goal is to seek the truth, and they have compiled a book that presents all the views expressed about these texts in the first 450 years of Christianity.
➡ The text discusses the importance of applying a consistent standard when evaluating religious texts, particularly the Protestant and Catholic versions of the Bible. The author argues that many Protestant books seem to selectively use evidence to support their views, while ignoring the same evidence when it doesn’t fit their narrative. He suggests that a fair evaluation should consider all evidence, including the Catholic Apocrypha, a set of books accepted by Catholics. The author also emphasizes the need for open-mindedness and honesty in interpreting religious texts, and warns against making assumptions without seeking the truth.
➡ The text discusses the challenges of interpreting the Bible and the importance of understanding its deeper meanings. It highlights how different interpretations can lead to misunderstandings and criticisms. The text also mentions a weight loss peptide and its benefits. Lastly, it emphasizes the value of understanding the Bible in its original language and the ongoing discoveries that can change our understanding of it.
➡ The speaker discusses their spiritual journey and their belief in open-mindedness and critical thinking. They express concern about people making judgments based on incomplete information, particularly in relation to religious texts. They also emphasize the importance of seeking truth and understanding, and the need for society to focus on maximizing everyone’s flourishing. They share their experience of writing a book, using their skills as a lawyer to critically analyze religious texts, and encourage others to do the same.
➡ The speaker discusses the intersection of science and religion, suggesting that they are not separate entities but rather two ways of understanding the world. They argue that both science and history are influenced by human bias and power dynamics, and that it’s important to approach these subjects with an open but critical mind. They also mention their book, which provides a comprehensive analysis of various religious texts, aiming to broaden the conversation and provide readers with a wealth of perspectives. The speaker believes that this open-minded and investigative approach could potentially solve many global issues.

Foreign my own view to get the the heart of your question, how do we know the case for Christianity is a standard of evidence? It is saying if we have we, we’ll show that we have all this evidence. And by doing that, a skeptic should become Christian, that this is enough to prove that Christ really did rise from the dead, etc. If that’s the standard that Christians are promoting, to me, that’s a perfectly fine standard to then apply to the other books. Quick break to tell you about Relief Band. It’s an absolute game changer if you have nausea like I did when I was pregnant or so many people suffer from when they have chemotherapy, you know, cancer or, or motion sickness, whatever you have that makes you nauseous.

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And it works very fast, even before the symptoms appear sometimes. So if you want to cure your nausea fast, join the hundreds of thousands of other people who are nausea free with Relief Band. Right now. They have an exclusive offer for listeners of my show Business Game Changers. If you go to reliefband.com and use the promo code Sarah, you’ll receive 20% off plus free shipping. So go to reliefband r e L-I-E-F b a n-d.com and use the promo code SARAH to save 20% off and free shipping. Welcome to Business Game Changers. I’m Sarah Westall. I have Matthew McWhorter coming to the program.

He wrote a book called Canon Crossfire and he is an attorney or a retired attorney. And he was also an atheist and he wanted to investigate the Bible and other books of the Bible that’s not included in the scripture to make a case of whether Jesus existed or Christianity was legit or not. And in that process he came to become a believer. But the whole point of this isn’t whether he’s a believer or not. The Whole point is to talk about his process and the evidence he looked at and how he went about doing it. And it’s a great parallel discussion on how you pretty much go about anything in life trying to figure out what the truth is and having an open mind, but critical looking at the evidence and applying it to whatever truth that you’re going after.

This was a beautiful conversation and I welcome every. Whether you’re an atheist or you’re believer or you’re religious or spiritual or whatever you are, I think that you’ll enjoy this conversation because I think hits every one of us in a different way. And it can be so practical, this application can be so practical for everything that we’re dealing with now. I mean the, the fact that we have so much turmoil and division and it can be a really good start on how to heal that divide and start to bring down these walls. Not necessarily what your conclusion is on this, but the process that he used was so helpful for so many things.

And I want you to comment, I want you to share this, I want you to let me know your thoughts. Let’s have a dialogue about this. And if you are interested in getting his book, I’ll have the link below, but you can go to canoncrossfire.com it’s C A N O and you can find it there. And he, he created something new. I guess there hasn’t been anything in history done what he did. Just bringing all the evidence together, what people were saying about different scriptures early on for the first 400 years, what the Jewish people themselves said, not what the Christians said the Jewish people said, but what they said.

It is a collection of material that has never been put together before and it is getting a really good reviews from the entire spectrum. So again, canon crossfire.com and I’ll have the link below. And before we get into that, I also want to tell you on Substack I’ll have a preview of his book along with where to watch the show, which you’re watching it now, but you can go and look at the preview, but you can share it with others so they can get a copy of the preview and also watch this show as well. So I have a link to that below as well.

And if you’re listening to this on any platform, especially Apple, I’m trying to build up my ratings on Apple right now. I’m. I’ve been in the top 20 on business news for like eight years. They’re the only platform that hasn’t deleted me, hasn’t canceled me, and so I’m trying to now, you know, with there’s increased competition and, and people within the last five years realize how important this market is. So all the big players are putting money into it. And the business news is one of the areas that people really take seriously. And I want to keep my standings in that area because it, it’s worth something to me and being canceled off everywhere else, I, I want to maintain that it’s the one kind of gem I have.

And so I really, really appreciate if you could rate it and give me a ranking. A five. Don’t give me. My husband gave me a four because he didn’t realize it was out of five when I first started. And it was so bad back then because there was only three people that rated me. My husband, my dad, and I think my mom. And so out of three people, I had two fives and a four. I’m like, why’d you give me a four? He goes, well, I thought that was a top rating. So I’m still working my way out of that hole.

So if you can give me a five and also give me a review, I’d really appreciate it because those mean a lot on that platform and also share. Okay, let’s get into this. I really enjoyed this conversation with Matthew McWhorter. Hi, Matthew, welcome to the program. Thank you. God bless. You have an interesting background. You’re an attorney and you were an atheist. And then you decided you were going to go on this quest to understand the missing books of the Bible and redefine, and it ended up redefining my. I’m putting words in your mouth. I want you to say it on your understanding of our history and spirituality and so forth.

Can you talk a little bit about your background? And then what got you to look into go on this project that you. So, yeah, oddly enough, it involved my mother from the very beginning. She named me Matthew Mark. So that is the key is I was actually named after the Bible, but I wasn’t really raised religious. We didn’t pray to read the Bible, go to church. I didn’t understand much about religion, but I had massive medical problems late in or midlife. But I would say late in my life, but only because I’m still here. But in my 40s, I had a heart attack and cancer and survived them both.

I’m doing fine. But, you know, as it was very scary, I’m very lucky to be alive. And as a result, as I was recovering, people said, well, you know, what’s your, what’s on your bucket list? In case the end does come here soon. And honestly, it was a list of books I hadn’t read, and on the list was Matthew and Mark, and I never read them. So the oddity of my circumstance was I was not recruited by a Christian or a church. There was no person involved and no group involved. It was just. I went on Amazon and bought a box of books.

You know, there’s a Catholic Bible, a Protestant Bible, and Orthodox Bibles, for example. 3. They have different books in them. There are different translations of. Well, there are many Bibles. Right. I mean, there’s like 188 or something different, maybe more. Different translations. Yeah. And then even if you have the same translation, the different denominations and different scholars will write different commentaries on the Bible. So I bought over 100 commentaries on the Bible to help me understand what every sentence was really saying, etc. And I basically would read. So I started my name being Matthew, I start with the Gospels, and I read like chapter one of Matthew across 100 Bible commentaries and different translations and different denominations to, you know, fully understand Matthew Chapter one.

Then I would move on to chapter two. So in the, in the. Before, I want you to say what you’re going to say. But in the translations, how many different translations is there? A huge range of what they interpret it to be. Not terribly bad. Like 90% of it is close enough that like, yeah, it’s different, but it’s, it’s. You’re still getting the gist of it, you’re getting across it, etc. There are, however, some very strange translations out there. And I, again, because I just bought books, I would later find out that a couple of things I bought are basically cult books.

Yeah, there’s religious cults, right? Exactly. And they’re very active in politics and everywhere. Exactly. And there was one here, and I’m in Columbus, Ohio. So there was one in Columbus, Ohio. And I would find their books everywhere in every bookstore because people had dumped them when they left the cult. But then that meant that I picked them up years later. And I’m reading about, you know, this cult from years ago and I’m like, oh, well, that explains why this translation’s so strange. You know, for example, like, what would be in a translation that was strange? Some of them are more like paraphrases or, or so instead of giving you the quotes and the word for word type of translation, they would just summarize the thing in whatever way they wanted with.

With leaving certain things out or changing it. So you’d find all sorts of Strange things. You know, John chapter six is an interesting one if you’re, You’re a Protestant, because a certain kind of process in any way, because that’s the chapter where Jesus says, you know, I am. I am the bread, I am the wine. And so then the question is, well, what did he mean? Was that an allegory? Did he mean it literally? Etc. And you will find translations that just say flat out, this is an allegory or whatever. And it’s like, that’s not what the word said in Greek.

That’s what somebody’s interpreted and they’re pretending almost as if that’s it. So some of this, the translation problem that I would run into is sort of a shortcut that rather than explain it to somebody, rather than argue over it, they would just dictate the answer to any of their readers. Right. And it sort of, it, it’s that kind of thing where it’s, it’s manipulative. Right. It’s not telling you what the actual text said. It’s telling you what the guy thinks of the text. It’s very manipulative. Okay, but here’s the deal. You decided there were other books as well that were out there because I, you know.

Well, I didn’t decide that. I discovered. Yeah, that’s the wrong way to say that you discovered it. You’re just seeking the truth. Right. And I have a hard time. You know, I’m spiritual, but I don’t consider myself religious. I grew up in a Christian environment, but I like to just. I’m looking for the truth, which is what I think Jesus was all about. And that means you. The truth brings you wherever. I, you know, I’m not 100% convinced that the Bible isn’t manipulated from the beginning. How did you, you know, how did you get to the point where you trust what.

What’s in any of this? So it’s a basically an evidentiary review, which is right up my alley as a retired lawyer, was, you know, you’re looking for corroborating evidence that shows you that these are the authentic texts from the very beginning. And the case for that is generally called the case for Christ or the case for Christianity. And there’s fabulous books that give you a lot of evidence on that. However, the people who wrote those books sort of assume the modern Protestant Bible as the baseline and as given. That’s right, yeah. And they’re not quite looking at these other books.

So what happened to me when I was doing this? Again, just the oddity. I was not being brought in by a church or a person. I didn’t care which of these Bibles was, you know, the official Christian Bible. I didn’t even necessarily believe that whatever the official Christian Bible was, was true. But what I was doing was I was reviewing this case for Christ, the evidence for Christianity, and simultaneously looking into this question of what Bible am I supposed to be reading? And it was looking at those two questions at the exact same time that let me see a problem that occurs in this case for Christ where you have the Christians saying, come, come to Jesus, everybody.

All you skeptics, come, come to Jesus. Because we have all this evidence that corroborates these as the true gospels. And over here they’re saying, well, don’t pay any attention to those extra books because the evidence for them is terrible. And I’m reading them and saying, guys, it’s the same evidence. Yes. What. What are we doing here? And that is the point that I’m making in the book. So the book is called Canon Crossfire. Does the Protestant Bible blow up the case for Christianity? The blowing up portion is me saying, guys, do you realize this is the same thing? You’re criticizing the evidence that you’re using over here to prove Christianity? You’re criticizing in this other debate, the canon debate over what should be in the Bible that is kind of inarguable.

It’s easily shown. And whatever the answer is, it’s going to be a different explanation or a different story that’s going to come out of that. But it has to start with a recognition that it’s the same evidence. The second thing that occurred was because I was doing this again, I’m reviewing these two questions at the same time. I’m trying to reach an answer is I. I just wanted to know what did all the Christians of the early church ever say about these books? So. And I discovered, I. Yeah, yeah, I went all over trying to find it.

What happens is you find these books, you’ll find a Catholic book that says, well, there were these 10 fathers who said this. And you’ll find this Protestant book that says there were these 12 fathers who said this and, you know, et cetera. Guys, I want to know what everybody ever said. And that’s what a judge would say. You know, if you told me, take a father, Athanasius. If you say Athanasius said this, well, how do I know that that’s true? Well, I would ask just some basic questions. You know, if you’re a judge in a trial, you would say, well, is that the only thing he ever said, did he, Was he consistent throughout his life? Did he say this at the beginning of his life, at the end of his life? What did his peers say? What did his predecessors in Alexandria say? What did his successors in Alexandria say? These things would confirm that he’s telling the truth or show us that he’s not telling the truth.

I want to know all that. And the problem was there was no effort to collect all of these things that had ever been said and assemble them for somebody to read. I looked all over for that. It doesn’t exist. It would have been very hard before the Internet area to create it. But because, you know, it is the Internet era, it could be done. It just took a lot of work, took me years basically to assemble all of that. It is now possible through my book. You can read what everyone said in the first 450 years of Christianity about these books.

That is the new foundation of evidence for everybody to then argue whatever they want from that point. But, and you know, and I’m making my point, etc. But everybody’s got to start with the evidence. That’s the evidence. And it’s just assembled now in a convenient, user friendly fashion. Before it took a ton of work and basically everybody was talking about these topics without having done that work. And now it’s been done. So fantastic. And, and you’re doing it from a, an investigative standpoint as an attorney working a case which is as objective as you can possibly be, because that’s important is if we, if we’re really.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s my life skill. You know, it’s not like, you know, it’s not like I’m an amateur at sorting through evidence and assembling it and making sure we get all of it, etc. That is exactly what I would do. And this book is basically that it is the assemblage that a lawyer would make of all of this stuff. Explain to somebody in the shortest, simplest way we can. You know, if I were your lawyer in a giant lawsuit and we had rooms full of documents, you would be wanting me to write you a summary that got you up to speed on all of it? Well, that’s what I did, so.

Wow. Okay, so then, then how do you determine whether this, the book itself is. Is. You know, because we know we have all these books in, in modern history of just of people writing stuff. Some of it’s really good and other stuff isn’t and some is a combination. I mean, how do we know that any part is actually authentic or Good. Do you know what I’m saying? Yeah, absolutely. And it comes down, the first thing is you need a standard of proof and then you should be consistent with that standard of proof, whatever it is. And that is the conflict that I’m talking about with this crossfire is it seems so far that the Protestant books that I was reading in particular have an inconsistent standard.

They say, well, you know, look at all of our evidence over here for the Gospels, but then ignore this exact same evidence over here. That can’t continue. Right. That doesn’t work. So that element of a consistent standard, you know, will basically determine the answer. But the question is what is the standard? I mean, it’s entirely possible for someone to look at this and say I reject all the books. It is, you know, I’m that my book deals with what are called the Catholic Apocrypha. So it’s a particular set of books that the Catholics accept and I’m showing the evidence for them.

I would say that a consistent standard of evidence would accept those books. You don’t have to agree with me, but that, that’s my view. I’m not sure what other consistent standards there would be to divide these things. I can sort of see my a way to see a couple of these books being included, but not others, etc. But it’s got to be something that somebody establishes that’s a consistent standard. My own view, to get to the heart of your question, how do we know the case for Christianity is a standard of evidence? It is saying if we have, we will show that we have all this evidence and by doing that a skeptic should become Christian, that this is enough to prove that Christ really did rise from the dead.

Etc. If that’s the standard that Christians are promoting, to me that’s a perfectly fine standard to then apply to the other books. And that’s the point that I’m making. But it again, how people sort their way through all of this, I leave that to the reader. But you know, whatever it is, you got to be honest about it. And part of honesty is being consistent and judging. You know things fairly well. And no matter what you’re looking at, if you just make assumptions and you don’t actually seek the truth, then you’ll just be living in a delusion no matter what.

Even something as sacred as your, your spiritual beliefs. And that is a point that again, all of these books trying to prove Christianity make is as a skeptic, well, you should be open minded. You should be, not just judge things based on your own presupposition that, you know, the dead, Jesus couldn’t be risen from the dead, etc. Fair enough. But then you have to do the same on your own. You know, when your own beliefs, you’re trying to prove your own beliefs, such as what is the true and correct Bible. You shouldn’t be judging from a presupposition.

You should be looking at the evidence. Well, interesting. When I was growing up, the, we had family priests and my, my family was pretty religious in the Episcopal Church. My mom’s a Eucharistic minister. And I mean, you know, so we were. And I had to acolyte every weekend, so I was always there. But the interesting thing is that the family priests we had, because they, they had the church priests, but then they had a family priest too, where they would do study and things. And they didn’t use the, the books of the Bible that much. They went outside the, and looked at other scriptures and other things that were written.

I mean, that’s what they did, which was kind of something I remember growing up is they just looked at things differently. Yeah. Night. So one of the things that’s happened when I’ve gone out and talked to people about my book and, and convince people to read them, they are fascinated by these stories. What, what, what’s actually in the books. As I say, they’re called the Catholic Apocrypha of the Catholic Deuterocan. And these particular books, you know, they’ll tell a story of say, Susanna or Judith or Tobit. I’ve been amazed how interested Protestants who had not been exposed to those books have become because they start to see the connections between that book and what they’re reading in the, in their own New Testament Scriptures.

Throughout these Bible commentaries, as I say, I had over a hundred of them, Protestant Bible commentaries. I pulled out all the times that those commentaries tell me that the New Testament is referring to, to one of these books. And so I’m showing people that connection. And that is an element of their scriptures that if they’ve not really thought about it, they, they didn’t recognize where things came from and how it all relates. But it is fairly clear. Again, you got to be a consistent, honest standard. But if you claim that Jesus Christ was foretold in the Old Testament, I mean, he’s not mentioned by name, he’s alluded to by the Old Testament.

You have to apply the same thing. You know, when these books of the New Testament were alluding back to these books, it’s fairly clear and provable that the New Testament is referring to these extra books. And that element of how that should, you know, whether you consider them scripture or not is a separate question. But that there’s something being said in a message that’s being conveyed in the original document that you might not understand correctly if you didn’t realize that he’s actually alluding to this other work. You know, it’s a mind changing, thought changing process to realize how those interconnections apply and how that works.

Well, it’s like a legal case. If you are referring to something in a legal case, it can completely change the entire case. Absolutely. Extra document and, you know, even jokes about the Simpsons or references from Shakespeare or whatever. I mean, you know, in your own. In our own culture, any of those things add an element of understanding that you’re lacking if you didn’t get the joke right or if you didn’t recognize that that came from Shakespeare or what, you know, what is the guy really referring to when he said those words? And anyway, it’s. It’s been interesting to me how excited Protestants have been to read the stories and see that stuff and develop a better understanding of their own scriptures.

Well, and I think the more I understand this is why I call myself spiritual and not religious is because the more I understand the world and science and just how frequency works and everything else, I start to see all of that in a different light. And that they were the description. And I. And I also like to look at just what Jesus said, not necessarily everybody’s interpretation of what Jesus was. And because. Because that gives you a different look at really what’s going on as well. So that for me, it’s a lifelong quest and it. And I don’t like the fact that people read this stuff and then turn off their brain and then read it literally.

Yeah. And so that to me is probably the literal translation and the literal behavior. And then being very judgmental to others based on your literal view of it without understanding context turns me off to religion, being honest, because I think they miss the whole point of what this is all about. And so I’m trying to find that nut of what it’s about. And I think that the fact that you went outside the boundaries to learn about this is what’s so intriguing to me. Yeah, it’s funny because what you’re describing is somewhat the opposite of what I my thought.

You know, you want. When I want to get back to what Jesus said, I read 100 people’s view. Yeah. Yeah. In order to sort of surround that nut and get back to the, the core element, right? And then the second thing I would say is just my entire background is interpreting contracts and fighting with lawyers over how to interpret a contract, etc. The idea that there is only one way to read something is so contrary to everything I have ever learned or dealt with. And you know, they, when I read a lot of Bible scholarship and this isn’t just the fundamentalists, you know, the literal interpretation, you’ll get the exact same thing from skeptics, the skeptical scholars writing things.

Well, this sentence says this, therefore that like dude, if you can’t, if you’re not able to interpret that sentence three different ways, you just need a better lawyer. Like go hire somebody to, to help you interpret things. Like, you know, there are multiple interpretations of everything. And so the, the proofs that people try and you know, like you said, you could see that on the fundamental side, I saw it throughout when I was doing this case for Christ. But you know, people will say, to give it one example, Pilate’s robe, I think it is that is described in two different colors.

One is red and one is purple, I think in two different gospels, etc. And people, you’ll find these skeptical opponents saying, well that’s an inconsistency that shows that the two people aren’t there. Like, have you ever sat around listening to two women discuss a third woman’s outfit and debating what the color is? You know, I mean, like this is a normal human conversation, you know, a normal human discrepancy that would occur. And yet you find these people saying the only way to interpret that is as an inconsistency that disproves both of the accounts. Like that’s crazy.

And seeing some of that in the allegedly skeptical criticisms of the Bible was actually to me kind of an eye opening experience of how shallow some of that criticism really is because it is based on just one interpretation of a sentence and that makes no sense. Exactly. I think the best conversation I had growing up was with this priest who left the Catholic Church and it was kind of non denominational. I was in college and I just happened to be at some place and he was there and we ended up having couple hour conversation about the church and things.

And I still remember it to this day because he talked about how the problem with the Bible and with religion is and with written word is that there’s. And I’m going to try to articulate the way he did because I’m not going to do as good a job is that the Bible is it’s difficult with written word to share and show people what the true meaning is. And he said that’s the reason Jesus never wrote it it down, anything down, because he wanted to show it by how he behaved. You know, just lived it and showed people through living and experience.

And then people tried to describe that in written word, which is almost impossible to do and it’s almost impossible to interpret it and understand it, you know, based on our human limitations. And that’s why he lived it, to show it. And that was profound for me when he told me that Just a short break from the program to share with you an amazing peptide to help you lose weight. It’s stronger than Ozempic and why it’s because it not only reduces your appetite but it also burns fat. These other GLP1s on the market, they do not burn fat, they just reduce your appetite.

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It is easy and straightforward. Go to sarah wessel.com under shop or use the link below and remember to use coupon code Sarah. Yeah, absolutely. And that that’s the concept of Jesus as the word of God, right? That it’s not the word written down, it’s the person as the word. You know, that we find in John’s gospel. And it like you said to me, the fact that there’s four gospels and I can read four different views of Jesus, the fact that there’s all These different commentaries was, it was, it was part of trying to get to the real person.

Because if I wanted to know about you personally, I’m sure I could ask, you know, your neighbor and I’d get one view of you. I could ask, you know, your family, sorts of views of me. Exactly. And, and who’s the real person? The answer is it’s none of these descriptions. Right. It’s a piece of all of them. Everybody’s got a little bit of it, but the whole thing’s got to be brought together. And anyway, that was a part of my journey was again, I started out, I knew so little about religion and Christianity etc, but like to find out that the Gospels were four different accounts to a lawyer, that is actually comforting because we, we know what eyewitness testimony looks like and it’s kind of a mess and it contradicts itself etc, because that’s how human beings are.

So when we see the little discrepancies between John’s Gospel and Mark’s gospel, that doesn’t bother us as a sign that the either of them’s not true. I mean it doesn’t prove that it’s true either. That’s a, that’s another step. But that initial, well, gee, I got two different versions of the same story. Like, you know, my God, every family reunion I’ve ever been at involves one half of my family screaming at the other half of my family because they can’t remember the historical event they’re screaming about in quite the same way. Like, I mean, that’s just normal stuff that happens when two people see the same thing.

They see different things because it’s got filtered through their own eyes. That’s right. And that’s the difficulty when it gets back to that conversation of just the written word itself and human beings and our ability to even comprehend without experiencing it. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, people will. My journey to Christianity was very intellectual because I’m an intellectual book reader type person. So I don’t have the sort of psychological, emotional epiphany, etc. Type story. That’s not really how it is. But I did have the growing awareness that what I was reading has a deeper meaning and a, a, a, an experiential component to it of, you know, realizing that the Bible is explaining the world in a way that I think is better than all the other descriptions I’ve had for, you know, I read plenty of science, philosophy, psychology, etc, but things that I read in the Bible gave me a better understanding of why our world is so broken why people have the struggles that they have, etc, then I felt that I was getting in those other, other elements.

And it’s a combination of sort of the evidence for Christianity plus all of that that coalesces into one view. Right. If I didn’t find the evidence, you know, Christianity could have been a wonderful story. If I didn’t find the evidence, I wouldn’t believe it. But at the same time the evidence isn’t enough. Like that just sort of opens the door to this philosophical worldview change that comes with Christian beliefs. Well, I have a friend who grew up in a monastery and she knows nine different languages and she tells me that understanding things in different languages is really important because what we see just in English is just a snapshot, just a slice of what is really out there.

So what you did. Yeah, so now I’m bringing a whole nother dimension to this. Yeah. And I, I often when I was reading these commentaries and stuff, I, I kind of wish we would just go back like this is the Bible in Greek, let’s all just learn some basic Greek so we could follow that and then all of this discussion would be about the interpretation instead. What it looks like when you’re reading an English language Bible is that’s the real words that the guy said 2,000 years ago. And then we discuss it like that. Those are not the real worlds.

The guy said those are the English words. And as we were talking before, they could be manipulatively translated by somebody with an agenda trying to show you something. It’s, it’s, it’s freaky just seeing how all that gets discussed and debated and presented well. And then there’s books in other languages that haven’t even been translated. Oh yeah, absolutely. So I was, yeah. And so some of my, you know, what I did is collect the scholarship of people who know how to read Greek. Right. So I’m, I’m pulling together what they are giving me. So I was looking at, at different translations whenever I could.

But for other books I was looking at a translation that wasn’t available 30 years ago. Like it had only recently been translated into English. Etc. So it’s, it was interesting how, you know, every year in 1840 and in 1940 and 2040, people will write a book about the Bible and what it means. But like we have more information with each one of those and it’s interesting to see the gaps and the way that people, you were saying before about judgmental interpretations, etc, but you would also see judgmental things about the science or the history or you know what, everyone had said anything.

Yeah, exactly. But you would in this context you will find a very, a shockingly conclusive answer given to people when the science didn’t hold up. Right. So like you’re looking at something from 1930 and somebody’s commenting on the Bible or you know, whatever Genesis and the Egyptians and this, that well like 30 years later we found something in a hole in the desert and now we know differently but people are making very conclusive opinions in 1930 as if the science was fully known, you know, as if the history was fully established and we knew everything at that time.

We don’t know even all of that stuff. That’s right. And that’s kind of where I’m at. That’s why I say I’m spiritual and not religious because I see too many assumptions and judgmental behaviors based on an incomplete data set if you will and not thinking broader enough. I can’t tell you how many people who are very Christian who believe that the Bible is the only written word that’s worth looking at. And I just growing up and I knowing and like you were saying that Bible’s referring to all these other things. Just having that viewpoint to me seems close minded and I think that’s the anti behavior that was taught.

I mean truth is much broader than that and you have to be much more open minded and critically thinking to have that kind of a stance on something. Right. That’s mine. Yeah, I’ve, you know, I’ve only recently entered the online world. Right. So I’m on Twitter now with the book etc and you get some odd comments for people or stuff but it’s. They could be judgmental without even having read the whole Bible apparently or not remembering the whole Bible. But they’ll quote one thing, it’s like well the Bible said the opposite right over here, you know, that sort of thing can be kind of shocking.

And I would say, I don’t know it. Our whole culture, it’s not Christians, it’s not a complaint about religious people etc, but our whole culture at this point it involves people making claims without the slightest supporting evidence, without googling anything. They’re told something they like and that’s it. They don’t Google it. They don’t. Well Google isn’t even something to trust right now. Right, Exactly. But at least they only prop up the top paying people. Totally. But it’s at least a start. Like it’s at least something you can do in five seconds and just say oh well that’s stupid, you know, or Whatever, like it’s something.

And what we find in our society is people don’t do anything. And that’s, I, I don’t know, I find it crazy. That’s why I have whittled it down to a basic thing Jesus was about. I’ve come to this thing because I think if you look at everything through this lens, Jesus was about how do you maximize everyone flourishing and you start with yourself and your family first and you just operate that way because that is love, that is society being the best it can be. We all have all sorts of different interpretations and meanings and how you go about doing that and what works best.

But I think it all kind of boils down to that nut. And that’s kind of what I’ve come to the conclusion of and that’s how I live my life. And then all, and then being completely open minded, trying and critically thinking at the same time, trying to figure out what the truth is on everything and not being afraid to ask the questions, being fearful to ask a question about anything is actually really oppressive and suppression, you know, you’re oppressing people if you’re afraid to ask the question. Questions aren’t harmful, it’s the suppressing the answers that’s harmful.

Exactly. And that’s, as I say, that’s the spirit of the entire case for Christ is what we ask of everybody else in the world. You know, we feel that we can prove it if everyone’s open minded and willing to ask questions and willing to, willing to consider things. It is kind of shocking though, as you say, sometimes you encounter people who once they’ve made their decision, they close their mind back down and are not willing to open, open up their minds, etc. That it, you know, there’s, that’s not really what the Bible’s about. That’s not what as I say, the case for Christ is about.

And it’s not how we should live. Well, I think it’s opposite of what that was teaching because in every field, like medicine for example, they, they believe a paradigm and then they close it down and then actually they create a lot of harm that way because they’re not looking at better new ways of thinking about things that could save a lot of lives or make things much better for everyone. And I mean that’s just one field happens in every field. That’s why advancements come from outside the field because you look at things from a fresh paradigm and you’re able to see things differently.

And so I, I, and I think that is the essence of seeking for, for truth, seeking for understanding. And I think that’s one of the main messages behind all this. Right. And there’s a reason for it because it gets back to the nut that’s maximizing everybody flourishing. Yeah. And I, to be honest, that’s exactly what my book is. I’m not a scholar, don’t pretend to be a scholar. All I did was read what the scholars wrote and say, guys, this is a conflict and start assembling all this stuff for them to look at. Like this is a book for people who understand Christianity and all these arguments to use.

But in order to do that I had to be an outsider, I had to read their stuff. And you know, I have, I’m the one with the skills of, you know, remembering what I read four weeks ago and putting them together, etc, that, you know, that comes from a lifetime as a lawyer of sorting through evidence and finding connections and disconnects, etc. And I hope scholars look at my book and say, well that’s an improvement on the scholarship, but I am an outsider. So trying to get the word out and try, try to work on it, but that is exactly what I hope is occurring here, that a fresh set of eyes with a different skill set can point something out that everybody can see and now build off of that.

You’re not going in with a bias. And that is what’s so refreshing and interesting about your situation is you’re going in. Well, you might have had a bias. You went in with a bias. Like I’m going to be critical of everything because I don’t believe anything. Believe it. Exactly. I don’t believe it. So I’m going to be critical of everything. And that’s your bias, which is to me, that’s not necessarily a bad bias, but it, it’s a bad bias if it shuts down your ability to question. Right, exactly. So if you didn’t allow that to happen, then, then it’s wonderful.

Lawyers have a little bit of an advantage in that, in that we argue both sides of every case, you know, and you’re always open minded to what the judge is going to rule, which might not be what you rule. So like forces you to be. Because you’re like, exactly. We’re not going to deal with this. A hole. Yeah, exactly. There’s certain structural things that sort of maybe give you a little bit advantage of being slightly more open minded than others, but it’s a basic human failing. We all run into that. The key is just we got to drudge things fairly and consistently and you you force yourself to do it.

And if you force yourself to do it, it’s an eye opening experience in some cases. Now the other thing I got to ask you is how much of this process, I mean, you’ve had, you had a spiritual journey essentially writing this, this. I, I, I think you would agree, but how much of it is you wanting there to be this to be true versus, I mean, because the most, a lot of us just want that, it feels better for it to be true. And that’s the conversation I’ve had with so many people. But it’s just not who I am.

I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like, I, to me, I, you know, they’re like, well, you went through a near death experience. You this, that, like, I didn’t care. Like we, you know, we all die sometime. I like it, just turn the page, whatever. And you know, well, what did you think would happen? You, like, I assumed I would disappear, that you die and it’s all over, like, and I still didn’t care. I don’t, you know, and it’s just, it’s a, I don’t know, I’m an odd person. But it was not all of that sort of emotional drive to it.

Instead that came later. It came as I was reading the Bible and like, wait a minute, there might be more out there, there might be more meaning here, there might be more. That was sort of a discovery much more than a compulsion that I started with. For me, the science, you know, because I’m a science person and I also grew up in this. I kind of am a weird duck too, I think. And you know, the more I dive into advanced science and physics and things, the more that actually explains Christian or spirituality. Like I’ve, I’ve interviewed Sherry Edwards, who can hear hundreds of times better than an average person, and she tells me, at the moment of death and the moment of life, there’s a light that goes into us.

She hears, she hears like a matrix. It’s really an interesting, you gotta listen to her story. And she’s been studied by multiple military labs and she’s an amazing person. But she says at the moment, moment of life and the moment of death, there’s a light or there’s something that goes in and out of us and it’s a frequency or it’s a life force or something that starts to explain that, you know, Jesus was risen. I mean, you know, I mean, there’s so many things that you can, as you start to investigate more, that you can Start explaining this.

And I think that spirituality, they say science and religion is totally separate things. I don’t think so. I mean I, and I also don’t think science is not spiritual. I think science is only what we understand at any one moment in time and we might not be smart enough to actually understand everything. And that’s exactly the experience I had from reading the Bible and getting into this stuff etc. Is like you just, you sort of assume that science is enough to explain it because you hear this all the time and you, you know, I was a science fiction reader.

Etc, that’s. Most science fiction authors are anti religious. Etc. You kind of, you pick up that stuff in our culture and then all of a sudden you start looking at other things. It’s like, well wait a minute, this doesn’t explain any, you know, it explains a piece of the universe, but not the universe. Etc. And even just basic, as I was saying earlier, basic history has changed so much. We find things in the desert this, that, that are different. And so I have started. It’s just an odd little collection I have. But it’s all the books in which there was a fight between science and religion with the scientists saying, you’re so stupid, you’re so stupid.

This is the facts in which the science was wrong. So 30 years later the science reversed itself or did something different. Like I have a nice wonderful collection of books you can read of scientists telling you how stupid religion was. The religion’s still here. The science is gone because. Yeah, that, that, but that happens on all, every area of life where they close themselves off. Exactly. And that’s why, you know, and that’s what I try to do with my, my channel and everything that I do is documenting or understanding change. And you have to be, have an open but critical mind.

You can’t just accept something without some kind of data behind it. Right, exactly. It’s a standard of proof. It’s. I’m open to everything, but everything gets judged correctly. You know, if you’re just open minded, you’ll believe anything. So you gotta, yeah, you can’t do that. But then you even look at history and you go, well wait a minute, a lot of history is just written by whoever wants to be in power. And if even like our maps, the way our maps were drawn out, we’re on purpose to make certain areas look bigger and on top of other areas.

I mean, you know, like it’s infamous that the, the way that put the Europe on top and Africa on bottom was because they wanted to have that power dynamic. And then they also made Africa look smaller when in reality it’s freaking massive. Yeah, enormous. Exactly. And I mean, you know, those are a couple examples, but there’s just everything had an agenda. Everything that was ever created, et cetera, was created by a human being, a flawed person who saw the world one way. And whether they expressly were trying to purpose, you know, had an express purpose in mind or they just culturally were blind, there’s something going on in everything that you’re dealing with.

And you got to sort through all of that stuff. And that’s, as I say, go back to the Bible and interpreting it. That’s why I loved having 100 commentaries, was you get 100 different views, you think you might be getting closer to the reality, but if you only read one or you only read a couple, you’re only getting two tiny little perspectives on the question, not the full entire panoply. Well, I think that’s, that’s awesome. And, and because you, you’re using everything you possibly can, it would even create another dimension to get interpretations based on modern cultures.

Yeah. At the time. You know what I’m saying? Exactly. Yeah. But you can’t, we don’t have that. And so you got to go with whatever you have. But it’s such a wonderful work of that. It’s new. And so the other thing is you’re creating, you’ve created something new which hopefully will broaden the conversation. It’s an odd thing because it, I didn’t do anything, I just assembled it. But it is creative. Once you’ve assembled it, it now exists and it is a way for people to get access to the information they didn’t have before. And I like said my main thing, my book’s been read by people of all different faiths and no faith, etc.

Everyone has loved the book. Nothing but five star reviews. It is a simple evidentiary analysis as we just walk through it together. And you know, I have my opinions, but you’re entitled to yours and that’s that. So no one’s been offended by it. Everyone’s like it. It’s just, I wanted to know what did everybody ever say about this? And I wanted to find out all the ways that Protestant scholars thought that these books were referred to in the Bible. And I assemble all that and I give it to people. But here’s the third thing. Those are my two prongs of my analysis.

The third one, it’s a minor piece of the 500 pages of evidence that I’m giving. But I bought the Jewish Study Bible. I wanted to know what the Jews say about these books. And it is amazing how many people don’t realize what the Jews say they’re reading. What Christians claim the Jews say versus what the Jews say. That’s interesting too. That’s included in your book. Yeah, exactly. And I, you know, I’m stealing it from the Jewish Study Bible. You could also buy that Bible and read it yourself. But at the point is most Christians are not actually reading what the Jews say about the Jews, they’re reading what Christians say about the Jews.

And you know, I just was curious, well, what, what do the Jews say about this? I mean not that that’s the answer or anything, it’s just everyone should have that as a data point when you’re thinking is what does the Jewish scholarship say? Oh, this is excellent. That’s, I mean this is how we need to approach almost everything right now. And just having this kind of approach, maybe it would solve a lot of our worldwide problems. I think this every day. And I also remind myself it’s never going to happen. But yeah, exactly like I started started ground zero with no assumptions investigated and explore upwards.

And in my case, as I say, it was just easy because I wasn’t religious. So I came to this not believing anything. So it was fairly easy to, you know, be open minded and want to go pursue this again. Maybe not easy, it took a, a retired lawyer with time and interest on his hands. But I, I did it in that spirit because of my background. I, I, you know, I feel almost like it was divinely inspired in a way. That’s why God kept me alive, was so that somebody would be there to do this work for him and get it out there.

But it’s now that I’ve done it, I hope everybody will mooch off of it because as you say, isn’t that really what we tell everyone to do on every major question? And here we are in one of the most fundamental questions of Christianity and it doesn’t seem like anybody did it. So that’s awesome. Okay, where can they get a copy of your book? So my website is Canon Crossfire and it’s Canon of Scripture. So it’s C A N o n not two ends in the middle there. Canoncrossfire.com I have a free preview of the book for anybody who’s interested.

Links everywhere. There’s you know, a Kindle version available on Amazon. I’ve actually also there’s an audiobook, large print edition. You know, I have friends who have trouble reading etc. So I did everything I could to make it as accessible for people as possible. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation. God bless. Thank you. Sa.
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