The Talpiot Family Tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and Biased Conjectural Emendations

This article is subject to change as I do further research! There are several aspects about the inscriptions that I need look into yet.

In 1980 a tomb was discovered in east Talpiot, a section in Jerusalem. This tomb is underneath an apartment building, this occurs in the Middle East. While building they came across it. In 1996 the BBC asked the question, “is this the burial tomb of Jesus?” and nobody gave it the time of day. However, in 2007, the Discovery Channel aired the documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” where it was claimed that two bone boxes, found in the tomb contained the bones of Jesus Christ, his wife, Mary Magdalene, and their son, Judas. What does this mean? If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, as Paul said, our faith is in vain and we of all people should be the most pitied. Therefore, this documentary requires a thorough investigation and response.

In our media saturated culture, people took this documentary seriously. Why? With 50% of college age adults, being illiterate from one degree to another, only 25% can read and understand technical writings, leaving the other 25% between the two extremes. Thus the average Christian today, when hearing about this are extremely shaken to their core. They have no clue what to do. Unfortunately, our culture, being a microwave culture doesn't have the patience to wait for a thorough scholarly response. Scholarship takes years. Since this documentary has been out, massive amounts of research has been done.

In Israel, in the 1^st Century, there were two forms of tombs. One around the Jerusalem area, and you had to be pretty wealthy to have this kind of a tomb. They would use a cave, likely they would cut the tomb out of bedrock, hence its expensive nature. Inside this kind of tomb it would be 5 or 6 feet tall, when you go down the steps and walk in. Around the edges there would be shafts called “loculi” and these would be a couple feet wide and five to six feet deep. The Jews had 24 hours to bury a person, they would take a deceased body, wash it, clothe it in linen, and then slide into one of the loculi. The dead body would be laid for roughly a year. Once the body had fully decomposed, they would go back in and all that would be left would be bones. They would then gather them up and placed inside a limestone bone box called an “ossuary”. These ossuaries are generally large enough to fit the longest bone, the femur. Sometimes they would place more than one person inside one of these boxes. 25% of the time, they would inscribe the name of the person on the side. So a name would be inscribed on the side of the ossuary a name or various names, depending on how many individuals there were in the box. They would then be placed inside a smaller chambers that would be carved into the walls of the tomb. One thing that must be remembered, these tombs are not only for an immediate family. These would be for even extended family, grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc. In this society a lot of people would die very young, you might marry up to three times. Then these people would be buried when they died in the family tomb, their children and family members too. But not only this, you would also have your servants if they didn't have anywhere to be buried. One tomb was found with 14 ossuaries and 88 skeletons, this is a serious extended family. This practice roughly existed for about one hundred years, it stopped around 66-70 A.D. During the Jewish/Roman war. There are examples of some ossuaries that go beyond by roughly 50 years.

So when they say that they found the Jesus Family Tomb, this information needs to come to mind.

In the Talpiot tomb there were a total of ten ossuaries. One ended up missing, now there are nine and out of these nine, six have names on them. This is in itself odd. But anyways, Dr. Shimon Gibson, who was one of the original excavators, says about this tomb “I would say this is a common Jewish tomb from the 1^st Century A.D. And with ossuaries that belong to the family members, and they scrolled on the sides of them family member names, and that's about it.”

: Dr. Amos Kloner, who was in Charge of the excavation of the Talpiot Tomb (Archeologist). “Generally speaking, the tomb at the time looked like a common one, an ossuary burial place. In this case, ten ossuaries, with six inscriptions.”

This is considered to be a common tomb because the names in it, were common names. Here are the names: Matthew, Maria/Mary, Mariamne/Mary, Yose/Joseph, then two of the ossuaries have the controversial inscriptions, Judah/Judas son of Jesus, and “Yeshua bar Yosef”.

The documentary sensationalizes the importance of this inscription, “...and on one of the ossuaries that was discovered in the Talpiot tomb written in Aramaic, was an astonishing name, “Yeshua bar Yosef”.

Many Christians were bothered by this, but the fact is, is that the name Joseph is the second most popular male name at that time. The only more common name is Simon/Simeon. There are a total of 45 ossuaries that have the name Joseph on them, 22 ossuaries have the name Jesus. What about the fact that this ossuary has “Jesus son of Joseph”. How about some statistics? Over the length of the period of ossuaries, about a hundred years, it is estimated that there were roughly 80,000 males in Jerusalem during that period of a hundred years. If one in ten of these have the name “Jesus” how many of them would have Josephs for a Father? There were roughly over 1,000 men named Jesus whose father was named Joseph. So before we even start, there is a thousand to one chance that this is Jesus' tomb. That's only if you concede several things.

15% of males were named Jesus. Mary is the most common name and there are two in the Talpiot Tomb. 1 in 4 women had the name Mary. And if you include derivatives 1 in 2 would have the name Mary.

Epigrapher, Dr. Stephen Pfann, studies the inscriptions on the hundreds of ossuaries that are held at an Israeli warehouse stated, “They've [Documentary] evaluated this from the standpoint of the common person on the street rather than according to what the common person on the street, lets say, 2,000 years ago would understand if you saw that there was a “Jesus son of Joseph”. These were very very common names and its kind of making the mountain out of a mole hill type of thing.”

In Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, there was a very small variety of names in common use. Scholars have accounted for only 16 names that made up roughly 80% of the total population of the time. All of the names found in the Talpiot tomb are on the list of the most common 16 names of the period. Maria/Mary at number 3, Yosef/Joseph at number 4, Yudah, Judah at number 5, Martha at number 9, Yeshua/Jesus at number 10, and Mattai/Matthew at number 13.

Since the ossuaries that were found in the Talpiot tomb have the most common names it is next to impossible to identify them with any one family. Because the nam

es could easily represent practically any family living at the time. To isolate the Talpiot tomb from the rest of the other 1000 tombs in and around Jerusalem, you would have to argue that the names within the Talpiot tomb were somehow unique. This is exactly what the certain film makers and authors have attempted to do, the narrator says,

“then on a fifth ossuary, they uncovered another inscription, the inscription has two parts, the second part reads, Mara. The first part is a diminutive of Mariamne”

the film then goes to the director of the film, Simcha Jacobovici talking with another gentleman, who asks,

“Let's say in this very tomb of Talpiot, the second Mary was clearly identifiable as Mary Magdalene, lets say, what would be your reaction inside this class?” the man the responds, “it would be fascinating and certainly draw much more attention and raise many more questions.”

“MAPIAMEKAIMAPA” Mary Magdalene's Ossuary Inscription

There might be two ways to read this inscription as it isn't written well.

Mary Ossuary Inscription

But is there any reason to connect this inscription with Mary Magdalene? I need to inform you, that this is my hypothesis. I am not a paleographer or an epigrapher. I emailed a gentleman that I know, who made a documentary in refutation of Discovery's documentary, from which I am getting information for some of this lecture, about my hypothesis. So I am waiting for a response on this. But I am going to present my hypothesis, which by my own estimations is probably not new since the Discovery's Documentary came out almost three years ago already.

The first part of the inscription which is “MAPIAMH”, this is only Mariamne. Dr. Stephen Pfann notes concerning this portion of the inscription, “It is no unique name, its the most common name used for the formal name for Mariam or Mary...” Dr. Amos Kloner, notes, “The connection between Mariame and Maria Magdalena is insufficient.” The word for Magdalene isn't too different in Greek, “Μαγδαληνὴ”. What about the rest, “KAIMARA” can only mean, “and Mary/Maria”. So the inscription better reads, “Mariam and Mary”. Last of all, the inscription is written in minuscule. Miniscule Greek didn't come around until centuries later.

Also, another important aspect, this Mary could be a wife of an uncle from fifty years earlier. It doesn't have to be immediate family. The Jesus in the family tomb may not have even known the two Marys.

“Yeshua Bar Yosef” Jesus son of Joseph

In “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, Simcha Jacobovici, saying,

“There are a whole bunch of unique things. Yosa, which you find in this tomb, and that specific variation of the name, you only find in the Gospel of Mark, as a brother of Jesus. Only in this tomb!”

Dr. Amos Kloner, in response to this noted, “There were...at least two other ossuaries, on which the name “Yeshua bar Yosef” were found...during the 20^th Century. One of them was found in 1945, the headlines of the newspapers were half of the page, “got the remains of the family of Jesus were found by a Jewish archeologist in Jerusalem etc. But I am not surprised at all because these are the most common names.”

Dr. Stephen Pfann, “The name Yose, being the informal form of Joseph, is not unique to this tomb. The name Yose is found on many other ossuaries.”

Two other ossuaries that were found in the Talpiot tomb bear the name Jesus, first, “Jesus son of Joseph” and “Judah son of Jesus”. Which probably means that there is a lineage here. But this disqualifies it from being the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was ever married or had children. This is mere conjecture on the part of the Documentary.

Dr. Stephan Pfann at this point remarks, “the inscriptions that are on these ossuaries, of course are not at all what they [Documentary] pro-ported them to be...those misinterpretations were used by the film makers to try to support a theory that is untenable, that this is the family tomb of Jesus.”

Dr. Amos Kloner, “I believe that this burial chamber has nothing to do with the family from Nazareth.”

Dr. Shimon Gibson, “During the making of this television documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, the director asked me very openly, do I think this is the tomb of Jesus, is the Talpiot tomb, the family tomb of Jesus, and my answer was, no.”

Jesus

There are issues even with the name “Jesus” that appear on the boxes. There are only three possibilities for immediate family relationships, Judah, Jesus, and Joseph. That's only if we can read the name “Jesus”. There is a lot of dispute over this since the name is scribbled and people think that they're other names. But if there's no Jesus, then there's no story. Also, there could be more than one Jesus in the tomb.

DNA

As I mentioned at the outset of this lecture, I mentioned the BBC broadcast. When the producers of “The Tomb of Jesus” were asked why they were doing this, they said basically, yeah this was done but no one paid attention to it, but now we have DNA! And in our culture science is god. Again, there were 10 ossuaries, 6 with names. But whenever Jews discover ossuaries, they believe in the resurrection of the body, they immediately remove the bones and rebury them. So eight of the ten ossuaries had been emptied. Two of the ossuaries had debris that could be tested. Those two, “Jesus son of Joseph” and “Mariamne” one of the Marys. What was the result? They could only do mitochondrial DNA, they can't do Nuclear DNA, so they can't do a DNA finger print, they can only tell if there are common mothers. Conclusion: No Match. So what do the producers say, “HA! They must have been married.” But in reality it shows nothing. Whenever two people aren't related, it always means that they're married.

Presuppositions and Consistency

The Talpiot tomb cannot be Jesus of Nazareth, for one essential reason... The Bible is true. This may sound irrational but I would expound on this point by stating that, without God's revelation of Himself, we could not reason about anything. For example, if we did not have a ruler, would it make sense for people to be talking about measurements? One must have a standard by which he can appeal to, in order to make sound judgments. Therefore man's reason is founded in his faith, a faith that says that there is a point of reference by which I can appeal to. Faith, however is only as good as that which it is placed in. Men, therefore must borrow from the Christian worldview in order to place their faith in an idol. The triune God by necessity exists, thus the death, burial, and resurrection by necessity occurred.

The Canon of Scripture and an Ice Cream Christianity

It is my desire to hit this topic from two angles, and try to do so at the same time. Specifically from a Historical perspective and from a Theological perspective. This topic is not easy as it involves so many details. But I will do my best.

To rehash a little, why is this specific topic important today? As we noted before, liberal scholars today are trying to push back the Gnostic texts in order to create this multiplicity of Christian texts. This then allows for a development of a revised understanding of Christianity, in which the unique claims of orthodox Christianity end up being weakened, therefore making it appear as if the primitive church was purely arbitrary in its choosing of texts and doctrine. Our culture today WANTS a diverse and pluralistic approach to religion, most of all a pluralistic approach to Jesus himself. However if we stand back a bit we realize that this has nothing to do with the truthfulness of Christianity. But as post-moderns, truth is relativised and certainty is unattainable, so, truth is not important. We end up with a “do what makes you fee

l good culture.”

Why else might this be important? Dr. James R. White notes, “There has never been a period of time...in the history of the world where there has been more incredibly false information circulating concerning the history, the nature, and teaching of the Bible.” (Dr. James R. White, How We Got the Bible mp3, 00:46) I would add that this even includes the body of Christ. We'd expect liberals, atheists, agnostics, and skeptics to use the most naturalistic methods in their study of the Bible and view it as nothing more than a piece of ancient literature. But what about other religions that have extra revelation? Such as: Joseph Smith and the Mormons with their BOM, D&C, and POGP, Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Scientists with their Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures? What about Muhammad and Islam with their Qur'an and Haddith, What about the Masons and their Rituals? What about Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah's Witnesses with their Watchtower and Awake! Magazines and literature? What about Sung Myung Moon and the Moonies with their Divine Principle? What about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology with Dianetics? What about the Popes and the Church of Rome with their traditions? What about Witness Lee and the Local Church with their Recovery Version of the Bible with their teachings? And what about Ellen G. White and the Seventh Day Adventists an

d her books? All these religions are competing and claiming to have latter day revelation and they all say that its true. Is the Bible is closed or not?

The Nature of the Bible

The Christianity of the New Testament, is a Christianity that is firmly rooted in History. We have God invading time-space history as a human being. Today, the culture at large if they haven't already, they are trying to divorce Christianity from its historical roots.

I frequently ask people what books they are reading and they normally respond with something along these lines, “you mean besides the Bible?” when I press them further, they usually end up saying something to the extent of, “I only read the Bible, because that's all I need.” There is a sense in which, yes, the Bible is sufficient in itself, but generally, this kind of statement is grossly misconstrued and made out of an ignorance of History and God's working through men in History.

The Bible is comprised of 66 boo

ks, written by about 40 different authors, over a period of about 1,500 years. The dates of each book, some of which are merely educated guesses. Pentateuch 1440 B.C., which is an approximate date of the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan. This assumes a Mosaic authorship of this material. Joshua and Judges, follows a period down to around 1000 B.C. Psalms and Proverbs cover David and periods of time after David and Solomon, so roughly 800 B.C. Certain of the Psalms maybe as late as 500 B.C. Isaiah, around 700 B.C. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, around at the latest 500 B.C. 1^st and 2^nd Kings, 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles, and the Minor Prophets ending around 400 B.C.

Then you have a period of silence between 400 B.C. And the coming of Christ. You have the Gospels and Acts, roughly 70 A.D. Gospels and Acts between 50-70 A.D. The Pauline Corpus, 64 A.D. Give or take a couple years before or after. General Epistles, Hebrews, 66 A.D. Revelation is difficult to date but anywhere between 65 and 95 A.D.

No matter how you take it, the Old Testament was written between a span of 1,100 years and the New Testament over a span of 55 years. Yes, people love to play with these numbers, roughly 80% of scholars today deny Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, even the Pauline authorship of Ephesians and the Pastoral epistles is r

ejected by most today. The assumptions of these scholars always is that you don't have anything supernatural going on here. You've got to explain all of this in naturalistic terms and then put the Bible on the same level as every other religious book. Is there any evidence for these claims, not at all. It's all prepositional.

What about the Canon? Bruce Shelley, notes concerning the Bible,

“The word for the special place these books occupy in Christianity is canon. The term from the Greek language originally meant “a measuring rod” or, as we might say, “a ruler.” It was a standard for judging something straight. So the idea transferred to a list of books that constituted the standard or “rule” of the churches. These were the books read publicly in the congregations because they had a special authority of God upon them. (John 10:33; Luke 24:44).” (Bruce L. Shelley, Church History In Plain Language, pp.58,59)

Who determined what books ended up in this collection?

First of all, the primary authority to which me must recognize here is Jesus Christ. If He is Lord, if He is God, then I think his opinion is the best. Shelley continues to state,

"Since the first Christians were all Jews, Christianity was never without a canon, or as we say, Scripture, Jesus himself clearly accepted the Old Testament as God's word to man. “Scripture cannot be broken,” he said. “Everything written about me in the law of Moses

and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (Ibid)

Jesus looked to the Old Testament Scriptures as the very Word of God. He accepted the Cannon that was His at that time there in Palestine. If that's the case, then how did the Old Testament Canon come into existence? Josephus tells us that 200 years before Christ, the Palestinian Canon of 39 books was fixed. No miracles attended this process, but it was obviously guided by God Himself. In fact Flavius Josephus in his work, “Against Apion 1:8” and in the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, that God had stopped giving revelation at this point. We don't have any golden indexes wrapped in blue silk that say, “these are the 39 books.” Nor were there any votes taken, yet when the Lord Jesus comes, He never has to correct anyone about what is and is not Scripture. So how did it happen? God simply lead His people.

Most people make a mistake concerning the Canonization of Scripture. They usually take the position that the recognition of Scripture, made it Scripture. The books of the Bible didn't become the Word of God because the church decided the

y were, the book of the Bible are the Word of God intrinsically because of who ultimately wrote it and the church merely recognized them as being so. They did not create the Bible, they merely recognized it. This is an important distinction especially when talking to Roman Catholics.

We have these 39 books coming together over a period of 200 years, by the people of God, nothing miraculous, to the human eye it looks simply like a process of time, and yet, it has the stamp of approval of Jesus Christ. If that is how the Old Testament comes into existence, that is over a period of time, not attended by miracles, but by God's people lead by God to recognize God's Word. Then that tells a lot about how the New Testament would later be formed.

Once we get to the fourth century and we begin to move towards the solidification of the canon with Athanasius, which was a process that we can trace its emergence from the end of the second century. The canonization is something that the early church engaged in very carefully.

In the first lecture I gave, I mentioned four other canon lists, one of which is called the Muratorian fragment. This list demonstrates an important factor. That the majority of the New Testament that we already have, was already recognized by at least 170 A.D. There is some debate about how it should be translated at one point there is the possib

ility that both of the letters of Peter are referred to but we just can't tell. What we do have already, at this period of time, that we have to remember is that these books were being hand copied. They spread fast but it still took time. There's going to be a period of time taken between a book that is in one particular area becoming popular in another area, just between the time it takes to copy books and transport them. But in A.D. 170 we have the 4 Gospels, Acts, the 13 Pauline Letters, which circulated as one body extremely early, as early as the writing of 2^nd Peter. Then there was Jude, 1^st & 2^nd John, and the Revelation. Leaving Hebrews and possibly both letters of Peter, depending upon the translation, as well as James outside the list. Three books not yet listed this early. If we have in view the entire Bible as we have it now, what does this mean? This means that by the end of the 2^nd Century, in this specific location, the entire 39 books of the O.T., The Gospels and Acts is another 15%, The Pauline Corpus 7%. 97% of your Bible is already established. These books are not authoritative because they are placed in a list. These books are authoritative because of who wrote them.

Historically, even though these books were accepted as Scripture, there were two principal events that occurred in the Second Century that pushed the Church to officially define the Canon and to close the Canon.

Marcion-

Bruce Shelley states,

“Given enough time the churches...probably would have drawn up a list of canonical Christian writings. But certain events forced the hand of the churches.

About A.D. 140 a wealthy and much-traveled shipowner from Sinope on the Black Sea came to Rome. His name was Marcion. Although the son of a bishop, Marcion fell under the spell of the gnostic teacher Cerdo, who believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. The God of the Old Testament, he said, was unknowable; the Christian God had been revealed. The Old Testament God was sheer justice; whereas the God of the New Covenant was loving and gracious.

Marcion developed Cerdo's distinction. He held tha

t the Old Testament God was full of wrath and the author of evil. This God, he said was only concerned for the Jewish people. He was prepared to destroy all other people. In contrast, the Christian's God was a God of grace and love for all, who disclosed himself in Jesus Christ, his Son.

Because he believed that the God of the Old Testament loved the Jews exclusively, Marcion rejected the entire Old Testament and also those New Covenant writings that he thought favored Jewish readers—for example Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews. He also rejected other Christian writings that appeared to him to compromise his own views, including the Pastoral Letters (1^st and 2^nd Timothy and Titus). So he was left with only a mutilated version of Luke's Gospel (omitting the nativity stories) and then letters of Paul. The Apostle to the Gentiles, it seems, was the only apostle who did not corrupt the gospel of Jesus.”

And if Marcion forced the Church to list a canon, Montanus forced the church to close the canon.

Montanus-

Montanus' teachings came about from a secularization of the church. The lines of distinction between the world and the church were blurring. So, sometime between 156 A.D. And 172 A.D. Montanus appeared in Asia Minor. He came with a demand for a higher standard and a greater discipline and a sharper separation of the church from the world. If he had stopped there, he would have done nothing but good. However, he and his two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla, went about prophesying in the name of the Spirit, and foretelling the speedy second coming of Christ. This in itself was not new. However, in contrast, these spoke in a state as though their personalities were suspended while the Spirit spoke through them. Montanus was convinced that he and his prophetess were the God-given instruments of revelation. With that Montanus' super-spirituality went too far. Montanus started insisting that opposition to the new prophecy was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and this caused churches to split. So the church had to act. Montanus' doctrine suggested that the Old Testament period was past, and that the New Testament period centered on Jesus, had ended. Montanus claimed the right to move past Christ and the Apostles, thus the Spirit could override important elements of the Gospel. Montanus denied that God's decisive and normative revelation had occurred in Jesus. Because of all of this, the church had to define all Christian worship, teaching, and life center in Christ and the apostolic witnesses. Free utterance of the Spirit would not guarantee that. The best way to make the original apostolic writings as uniquely authoritative. Therefore creating a standard by which doctrine and practice could be judged.

The church was basically forced to define its standard, and it developed four rules for determining the eligibility of a text. I am combining two.

Four Rules

First and Second were: Apistolicity/Antiquity, was the text written by an apostle or someone affiliated with an apostle? And how old are they?

As I mentioned last week, there were other works that the early church considered as orthodox and even read them in the church. The Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache(also called The Teaching of the Apostles), and 1^st & 2^nd Clement. These were not canonized because they were not written by an apostle or anyone affiliated by an apostle. Also, when you have the Muratorian Canon list, which is the second earliest canon list we have in the second century. It talks about the Shepherd of Hermas and it says this thing is orthodox, go ahead and read it. Just don't read it in church because its of recent vintage. So, even though these texts don't pass the other two, they weren't added because they weren't old enough.

Third was: Catholicity, was it a text that was widely accepted by the churches? The gnostic texts absolutely fail this test.

Fourth was: Orthodoxy, does the text comport with the teachings that we already see in the Scriptures? The gnostic texts also obviously fail this rule as well.

What about the claim that a bunch of men got together and voted on what would be in the New Testament and what books wouldn't? And if a book received a certain percentage of the vote it was in, even if it was by a hair. This is simply untrue. They were recognized over a period of time.

The Apocrypha

What about the Apocrypha? The Apocrypha is a collection of books that is found in the Roman Catholic canon, in the Old Testament. These are a set of books that were written during the inter-testamental period. That is, between 400 B.C. And the time of Christ. They are predominately historical with a bit of theology mixed in. The apocryphal books were not recognized as being authoritative by the Palestinian Jews at any time. None of the New Testament writers ever quote from these books beginning with, “it is written” or “the Scriptures say”. However, they were accepted in North Africa. Primarily because of the influence of the LXX which had the Apocryphal books in it. None of the Jews in North Africa spoke Hebrew any longer. Thus, this is why Augustine of Hippo accepted them as Scripture. However, Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate didn't. Jerome traveled to Bethlehem and learned Hebrew. When he did he realized that that the apocryphal books had never been in the Palestinian canon. When he looked into the historical reasons why not, he came to the conclusion that they shouldn't have either. However, when doing his translation, was forced to translate the apocrypha and add them to the Scriptures at the end. The apocrypha, however remained questionable until many years later during the Protestant Reformation when all of the Reformers are completely rejecting these books. In response to the Protestant Reformation, and the Protestant canon of Scripture, which was the same canon that was found in Palestine. The Roman Catholics convened the Council of Trent, and makes a direct decree, that the apocrypha is Scripture.

This area also touches on the Reliability of the New Testament as we saw three weeks ago, and exactly how God preserved His Word.

I am indebted greatly for the information contained in the body of this text to Dr. James R. White's works, "Scripture Alone" and the lecture, "How Did We Get the Bible?", also Dr. Daniel Wallace and Dr. Darrell Bock's D.T.S. radio interviews.