Transcription
You don't have to believe in Noah's Ark to be a Christian. However, you're disagreeing with Jesus, and that's never a good place to be.
Okay, so why would you disagree with Jesus? If God can create the universe out of nothing, can He do the Noah Miracle? Of course He can. Can He do the Jonah Miracle? Can He resurrect Jesus from the dead? Can He walk on water? If He can create the universe out of nothing, and even atheists are admitting the evidence that there was a beginning, one word seems to rile up Bible nerds more than any other: Nephilim. These mysterious half-human, half-spirit beings are right there in your Bible—in Genesis chapter 6.
So, who were or who are they? Also, one page later—did God really flood the entire Earth? Basically, are the first 12 chapters of Genesis and modern science simply irreconcilable?
Well, the digital apologetics MVP is here to answer your questions: Frank Turek, my brother. Welcome to "Can I Trust the Bible?"
Raj, we can trust the Bible. Thanks, good night, ladies and gentlemen, that's all we needed to know.
Uh, we have so much to get after. You know, and this is probably the subject that a lot of the people who watch this show have been most excited to talk about. But before we get into it, one question: how did—why did you become the apologetics guy? Did you personally have doubts growing up?
I was brought up in the Roman Catholic Church because I'm from New Jersey, and it's the law. But, um, I never really knew who Jesus was. After college, I went into the Navy and I met the son of a Methodist minister. I had so many questions for him. He finally said, “Look, you just need to get Josh McDowell's books, 'Evidence Demands a Verdict' and 'More Than a Carpenter.'" So I read those books and I realized by reading those books that Christianity was true.
So I came to faith through apologetics, and then many years later, after the Navy, I met Norman Geisler, who at the time was kind of the Michael Jordan of apologetics. He was starting a seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's still here: Southern Evangelical Seminary (sc.edu). Frank, you might get a scholarship.
I went there, and that's how I got into apologetics. I came to faith through apologetics and then I learned from Dr. Norman Geisler at Southern Evangelical Seminary.
You know, what you just said actually I find really interesting. We're going to get to the Nephilim—my promise—but you just said that you came to faith through apologetics. I feel like a lot of people say, “Oh, well, you can't be reasoned into faith. It's a supernatural thing.” But you just said that you kind of did come intellectually into the faith. So where's the line? Can people be convinced into the Kingdom?
Yeah, there's a difference between belief that and belief in. Belief that is evidence that God exists, that Jesus rose from the dead, that the Bible writers are telling the truth. That’s evidence. That’s apologetics. It doesn't mean we're saying we're sorry; it means we're giving evidence for what we believe.
But all the belief that in the world won't get your moral transgressions forgiven. For that, you've got to go from belief that to belief in or trust in.
And we know this in relationships. In fact, when I first met my wife—not far from where you live—I met her in San Diego. When I first met her 39 years ago, I got evidence that you would be a good wife. But all the evidence in the world didn't make her my wife. I had to take a step of trust, or a step of faith in her, to ask her to be my wife. And in a momentary lapse of judgment, she said yes.
So that's the difference between belief that and belief in. Belief that is just of the head; belief in is not only of the head but of the heart. In fact, even James talks about the fact that even the demons believe that God exists, but they tremble. Right? They know that God exists better than we do—they just don't trust in Him.
That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so let's get after it. This is a—you know, my wife and I host a Bible study, and people are like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, all the other stuff, but can we talk about the Nephilim? The Genesis 6 stuff?”
So now that I have Frank Turek on the show, let me read you four verses from Genesis chapter 6. This reads like something out of a fantasy novel. It's amazing that this is actually in the Bible. Here we go:
“When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be 120.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children with them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
So first off, Frank, who are the sons of God? Are these fallen angels? And then the Nephilim? Frank, I know that there's a lot of debate about what that actually is, but who do you think Genesis 6 is describing?
Okay, here's my best answer, Raj: I don't know.
Okay? However, there are people that are more learned than I am who've written on this. One is my co-author, Dr. Norman Geisler. Many years ago, he wrote this book—here it is—it's called "When Critics Ask." It's now called "The Big Book of Bible Difficulties." Here's what he says: he goes through several possible viewpoints on the Nephilim, but he arrives at this: that the sons of God were angels who did not keep their proper domain (Jude 6) and possessed real human beings, moving them to interbreed with the daughters of men, thus producing a superior breed, of whose offspring were giants and men of renown.
Michael Heiser—the late, great Michael Heiser, who just died about a year ago—also had, I think, a view similar to this, that these created giants—this interaction—and there's actually been some archaeological discoveries of giants, i.e., like Goliath. I think Michael Heiser came to the conclusion, if I'm not mistaken, that this could have been one of the reasons God wanted certain tribes, if not pushed out of the land, eliminated because these were the giants. These were the Nephilim.
So it kind of ties into the verses dealing with pushing the Canaanites out of the land or annihilating the Canaanites. It's very interesting. This is completely my opinion, so do not take this as the Gospel.
Here's what I find kind of interesting: a lot of these ancient civilizations put their faith in these half-spirit beings, you know, pantheistic array from Hinduism to the Greeks. And my—what if those were based on actual beings? Suddenly, all these ancient civilizations were brilliant, and yet they worshiped these bird gods and huge Goliath-type things. It's like, well, maybe they weren't just out of their minds—maybe they were based off real people. Totally my opinion, but I think that makes sense.
Okay, you flip the page in Genesis, and it doesn't get any less strange. Let's read Genesis 6:1-17: “I’m going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has breath of life in it; everything will perish.”
So you know, I think for a lot of people the goalpost of skepticism has moved. Like, okay, you know, 200 years ago maybe the apologetics conversations would be differently. Now it's like, okay, okay, okay, maybe there was a King David, maybe there was a historic Jesus. You know what? I'll even give you maybe there was a temple in Jerusalem because the archaeology is just everywhere.
So let's move the goalpost. Now maybe the Bible hasn't changed that much because the Dead Sea Scrolls. Okay, okay, okay, but you know what? Genesis is just totally whack. There's no way that's congruent with science. So you're telling me that God killed everything and the entire planet was flooded.
Do you think that the flood of Noah is meant to be taken literally—that God killed everything and flooded the entire planet?
The reason I believe the Old Testament is true is because Jesus believed the Old Testament was true. So if you're going to ask me why I think that the first 12 chapters, or 11 chapters, of Genesis are true, it's on the authority of Jesus. And for that, then I've got to give you evidence that Jesus really was God and really did rise from the dead. We can get into that if you want.
But the bottom line is: if Jesus rose from the dead, predicted and accomplished His own resurrection from the dead, then He's God, and whatever God teaches is true. Jesus taught the entire Old Testament as the word of God and He promised the New Testament.
But Raj, the most incredible miracle in the Bible is not Noah; it's not even the resurrection of Jesus. The greatest miracle in the Bible is the first verse: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” If that verse is true, every other verse in the Bible is at least possible.
Now here's the interesting part: even atheists today are admitting the evidence for the first verse. For example, Stephen Hawking, who died about six years ago, was probably one of the top physicists in the world. When he died, even though he was an atheist, he said this: “Almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.”
In other words, he's admitting the evidence for the creation of the universe. Scientists are admitting the evidence for the creation of the universe. Now, they don't think it's God.
But Raj, let me ask you this: if space, time, and matter literally had a beginning out of nothing—which is what the atheists are admitting, and the non-atheists, the theists are admitting—if space, time, and matter literally had a beginning out of nothing, what could have created that?
Only something outside of space, time, and matter. In other words, the cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful to create the universe out of nothing, personal in order to choose to create out of nothing—because to go from a state of nothingness to a state of creation, someone had to make a choice.
Only persons can make choices. Also, the being would have to be intelligent to have a mind to make a choice. So I ask audiences all the time—I ask them, ladies and gentlemen, when you think about a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause, who do you think of? Everyone says God.
But then they'll say, “Well, how do you know it's the Christian God?” And my answer is, we don't, unless we discover that Jesus rose from the dead. Because if Jesus did predict and accomplish His own resurrection from the dead, then we can say that the same being that walked out of the tomb 1,991 years ago is the same being who created the universe from His divine nature out of nothing, and that's what the evidence shows.
So, yeah, do I believe in a flood? Of course I do—and Jesus did. But let me also say this: do you know that every ancient culture has a great flood story? Why? Because there was a great flood. That's why they all have a great flood story.
Well, that's actually an interesting point, which is this: a lot of the pushback would be, “Okay, okay, okay, maybe there was some sort of flood-type deal,” but there's 200 or so accounts around the ancient world of a flood. So the actual pushback, ironically, is, “Well, why should I trust Moses's account of the flood? Why should I trust the biblical account of the flood when there's older, more ancient accounts of that exact story? Why is your version true? Why should I—" to put it bluntly—"trust the Bible?”
Well, first of all, again, it's on the authority of Jesus. If Jesus rose from the dead, then He's God, and whatever God teaches is true. Come on.
But secondly, you don't have to believe in Noah's Ark to be a Christian. However, you're disagreeing with Jesus, and that's never a good place to be.
Okay, so why would you disagree with Jesus? If God can create the universe out of nothing, can He do the Noah Miracle? Of course He can. Can He do the Jonah Miracle? Of course He can. Can He resurrect Jesus from the dead? Of course He can. Can He walk on water? Of course He can. If He can create the universe out of nothing and even atheists are admitting the evidence that there was a beginning, there's a beginning. There’s got to be a beginner.
You said that absolutely brilliantly. Do you think there is a revival of sorts happening in the scientific community? I see some of these debates online, and again, the goalposts have been moved where you see these ardent atheists that are becoming more theist or agnostic, saying things like, "Well, maybe Darwin wasn't all right. Maybe macroevolution isn't the way."
Maybe the fine-tuning of the universe starts to scream of a Creator. Are you seeing that there's at least a skepticism happening in the scientific community that atheism is the only logical conclusion?
Yeah, that's why Stephen wrote the book "The Return of the God Hypothesis," which I'm going through right now and doing some more research because the best explanation for why the universe came into existence, why the universe is fine-tuned, and why life came into existence is because there's an intelligence beyond all of it. That intelligence is what created and sustains the universe.
Yes, you're a Christian—it’s because if you want to be reasonable about it, you believe in cause and effect. You believe that every effect has a cause. In fact, when people ask me, “How do I know that God exists?” I say, “I know God by His effects.”
Come on! If there's a creation, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause—a Creator. If there's design in the universe and design in life, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause—a designer. If there's a moral law written on my heart, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause—a moral lawgiver. If this universe is orderly where we can detect reliable cause and effect, I'm reasoning back to some kind of orderer.
If there's evidence a man predicted and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause. What could have caused somebody to rise from the dead?
Right? Even if you think you've had some sort of personal experience with God, Raj, you're doing the same thing. You're saying that the personal experience—or say the answered prayer—is an effect, and you're reasoning back to that cause of that effect; you're saying, “Oh, the cause is God.”
You're always reasoning from effect back to cause. That's what scientists do. Science is a search for causes. And so, as a Christian, you're being most consistent because you're following every effect back to a cause.
Yeah. Now, of course people are going to ask, “Well, what caused God?” The answer is no one caused God because He’s the uncaused cause. I mean, if He created time—which He did—He’s outside of time. If you’re outside of time, do you have a beginning? No. Which means you don’t have a cause. You’re the uncaused first cause.
Well, that's why I think there are some words that for some reason scare some Christians, but when I hear the term "Big Bang," I'm like, guys, this is Genesis 1:1—bam! “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” To me, science screams of a Creator. It's not even just hidden anymore.
But we were talking about the Nephilim, which is kind of one of those fun Bible study mysteries. Let's go to another Bible study talking point, which is about Noah, sort of. So in Matthew 24, you will read this: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark.”
Stop right there for a minute, please.
Hey, stop right there.
Yes, sir, just for a second. Does Jesus think this really happened?
Come on! Of course He does. Yep. He's not telling a parable here. He thinks that Noah in the Ark is historical, not hysterical. So on Jesus’s authority, I’m going with Him on Noah and the Ark.
I love that—that’s so good, brother.
To finish it out, it says, “And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
So, not to put you on the spot, but are we in the days of Noah from this perspective, the coming of the Son of Man? Are we approaching these days?
We don't know. Well, we are approaching, but we don't know if we're there yet, because the next verse, 42, says, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” You don't know. He’s going to come like a thief in the night, and I think God wants us to keep watch and not know the specific time, day, or hour.
I mean, if we—suppose, Raj, we were to be able to figure out from the Bible that, say, Jesus was going to come back in 2034, say, 10 years from now. Would that change our behavior today?
Yeah, probably. We might live it up for like nine and a half years and just say, you know, as long as I stay alive, I'll be all right. Then I'll give my life to the Lord, you know, a few months out. Right? That would change negatively our behavior.
I think He’s keeping it in this manner, in kind of an unknown, mysterious manner, that He’s not going to reveal when He’s coming back to us for a good reason—by the way, the same reason that people didn't know exactly when the Messiah was going to come the first time.
In fact, Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 2, where he basically says that these things have been veiled because if they weren't, the powers of this world never would have crucified the Lord of Glory. In other words, if they knew Jesus was the Messiah, if they knew He was coming back, they wouldn't have completed what Jesus needed them to complete, which was basically His sacrifice on the cross for our benefit, because that would have been their defeat. They didn't know it.
It's only—by the way, this is why so many of the biblical prophecies from the Old Testament become much clearer after Jesus has come rather than before. Because you see, the New Testament gives you the box top of the jigsaw puzzle that the Old Testament is.
When you get the box top, you go, “Oh, now I see how Micah 5:2 fits. Oh, now I see how Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9 and Isaiah 9 and all these Old Testament prophecies fit into predicting Jesus.” We didn't see it until He came. In fact, the scriptures even say that after He came, we didn't know what was going on. Then we went and searched the scriptures to see how He fulfilled all these things.
You know, before we even got started, I took a minute sincerely to thank you for what you do. You stand up in front of crowds of skeptics, of haters, and you put yourself out there as the kind of public defender of the Bible.
So again, I want to encourage you that what you are doing is so valuable, so important, so crucial. But when you're on those stages and you're just being shot all these accusations, I think it's kind of a parallel to what my friend here might be experiencing on campus or in their workspace, where they're like, they're the weird Christian guy, right? Or gal. And they're getting all of these accusations, and it's like, “Yo, I’ll have to get back to you. I don’t—it’s too much.”
But it seems like—and correct me if I'm wrong—you always seem to know what to say. And if my friend here is watching, what advice would you give if they want to be able to defend the Bible, defend scripture, defend Yeshua, but they're overwhelmed by the prospect of putting themselves out there like you have?
I think the key to dealing with questions and objections is to always, always ask questions back that uncover the assumptions behind the question.
Mmm. So, for example, suppose someone were to say, “I can't believe the Bible because it's been changed throughout the centuries.” Don't go into a dissertation as to why it hasn't been. Ask them for evidence as to why they think it has been. Because the assumption is it's been changed throughout the centuries.
Well, do they know that? Ask them, “What do you mean by that?” and “How did you come to that conclusion?” What evidence do you have for that position? Have you studied the manuscript evidence for yourself?
Again, guarantee you, the person's not going to say, “Well, yeah, no, just last night I was up reading a book about the Byzantine line of manuscripts.” Right? Nobody's going to say that. What people have done most of the time is they've assembled a worldview built on slogans, and they don't even know if the slogan is true. They couldn't defend it if asked, but they like the slogan.
So you ask them to defend the slogan: “What evidence do you have for that position?” Or, like suppose someone says, “I can't believe in a good God because there's too much evil in the world.” Don't go into a dissertation as to why God can exist with evil. Simply ask them, “What do you mean by evil?”
That's good.
They're not going to be able to actually define evil unless they reference a standard of good. But as soon as they reference the standard of good, they're back to God, because evil does not exist unless good exists. But good can only exist in an objective way if God exists.
So, evil doesn't disprove God. Evil actually shows God does exist. Evil may prove there's a devil out there, but it does not disprove God.
That's so helpful. That's so helpful. I couldn't applaud you enough in the idea that it's not usually the question; it’s actually a stumbling block that’s in the back that’s actually preventing them from seeing Yeshua for who He really is.
But then the question comes like this: okay, what about people who have heard the arguments? Alex O'Connor, who seems like a great guy, by the way, you know, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris—all these famous atheists—they've heard every argument under the sun a million times over, and yet they haven't been convinced into the Kingdom.
There seems to be—come on, Alex O'Connor, if you're watching this, buddy, hey, you seem like a really nice English guy. Let's grab some tea one day. But dude, I'm praying for you, man. I think you’re close.
Anyway, back to the question: what do you think prevents someone who has heard the arguments from having that experience where they say, “Yes, Jesus, you are Lord”?
Because it's not always a matter of the head; it's often a matter of the heart. Right? Some people don't want it to be true.
That's true. I don't know the hearts of these men. I do know that Richard Dawkins has revealed basically that he probably wouldn't believe even if Jesus was who He said He is.
Well, certainly Peter Atkins has said that. Let me say that Peter Atkins, who’s a similar kind of atheist, was once asked, you know, “What kind of evidence would convince you? Like, if Jesus were to come to you and appear to you, would you believe then?” He'd say, “No, I’d go see my psychiatrist. I’d chalk it up to madness.”
Right? He’s not just an atheist; he’s what we call an anti-theist. He doesn’t want Christianity to be true. And Richard Dawkins probably is close to that. Christopher Hitchens described himself that way, whom I’ve had a couple of debates with on our YouTube channel.
You can see. Lawrence Krauss has said the same thing. So, I always ask people the question: if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?
Yeah.
And a lot of times people will say, “No.” It’s not a head problem; it’s a heart problem. They don't want it to be true.
Well, Frank, you are just a wealth of information. We're going to have to have you back. But one kind of final question—and you can take it however you want—and we kind of give people the opportunity to riff on the last question, which is this: let's say my friend here is watching, and again they’re like sort of cool with the archaeological argument—they’re like sort of vibing with the trustworthiness of scripture—they're like kind of okay with, you know, some of the more tangible things.
But when it comes to the scientific reliability of scripture, specifically the first 12 chapters of Genesis, with Jonah being swallowed by a whale, they're like, “Dude, come on! The sun standing still? The Red Sea parting? These are scientific impossibilities.”
But you know what? Let me hear you out. Last question: what would you say to my friend here who has a scientific hang-up from believing that this is the word of God?
I would be asking him questions as to why he thinks that the Bible somehow is in contradiction with science. It is true that some interpretations of the Bible and some interpretations of the natural world are at odds, but they're not at odds. Those are just interpretations.
So you’d have to talk about what particular aspect. First of all, the Bible's not a scientific textbook. It's not describing things in scientific terms; it's describing things in observational, everyday terms.
In fact, the Bible talks about the sun rising and the sun setting, right? But it's not really rising and setting—at least, it looks that way, but we’re turning, not the sun. We say the sun's moving, right? The sun's not really moving, but I guarantee you, if you watch the news tonight, the meteorologist is going to say, “You know, sunrise tomorrow at 6:41.”
He's not going to say, “Earth rotation will become apparent at 6:41.”
Wow, that’s a really good point.
It's just speaking in everyday language. And so, I would have to go point by point, and I would make the—as I do in the book "Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case." We have a whole chapter on science.
In that chapter, Raj, the title of the chapter is, "Science Doesn't Say Anything; Scientists Do." And why do I say that? Because all data needs to be gathered, and all data needs to be interpreted. And who does that? Scientists do that.
So it depends on how you're interpreting, first of all, the Bible and how you're interpreting the natural world to say there's a contradiction. There is no contradiction between God's general revelation and God's special revelation, which is the Bible.
There is contradiction between some interpretations of those things, but there's no contradiction understood properly. And I would say to a non-theist, “How do you explain that we actually can do science? Why is the world so orderly? Why can our brains ascertain truths outside of our skulls and draw conclusions about the real world outside of our skulls?”
This isn't the product of just molecules bumping around against each other. This is the product of intelligent activity.
Yep. In fact, John Lennox put it this way, Raj: at the end of the day, there are only two worldviews: either matter gave rise to mind, or mind gave rise to matter. When you go all the way back to the beginning, you'll see that mind gave rise to matter.
This is why John starts his gospel echoing Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word—the logos, the logic.” In the beginning, in other words, was the mind, and the mind brought matter into existence. That's the ultimate truth about the Christian worldview: there's a mind who brought all this into existence and keeps it in existence. That's why we can do science.
Frank, you are a legend! You are brilliant. Thank you so much again. Be encouraged that what you are doing on your YouTube channel, when you're speaking, we are all behind you just applauding what God is doing in and through you, my brother.
Thanks, Raj. Have your folks go check us out. We're at crossexamined.org, crossexamined.org. Our YouTube channel is two words, "Cross Examined." We also have a podcast called "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist," and a TV show by the same name. So check all that out.
Frank, thank you, my brother.
Thanks, Raj. God bless.