Steve's Upcoming Lecture

[Jason]

Steve, you mentioned on the Jan 2nd program that you'd be conducting a lecture on the reliability of the gospels in light of some modern day attacks. Will this lecture be recorded or taped? I'd love to hear this presentation because it's something that's been on my mind lately. You cover the reliability of the gospels in some of your older lectures but they might seem a bit "dated" to some since they don't specifically address some of the "newer" attacks from skeptics.

[steve]

Correct. The new popular attacks by Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code), and by Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus and Lost Christianities), as well as the popular movie Zeitgeist have required new responses to challenges that were not being raised when I taught my earlier lectures.

The three new attacks on the gospels assert 1) that the gnostic gospels are more trustworthy than our canonical gospels, but were suppressed by Constantine; 2) that the church freely changed the canonical gospels, making them unreliable in their present form; and 3) that the gospel stories of Jesus are mere copies of earlier pagan myths about Horus, Mithras, Krishna, Dionysus, etc. To cover all this material in one evening may prove to be too ambitious, and it may have to be broken into 1 or 2 additional lectures for successive visits.

I will be speaking to these issues on Friday night, January 16th, in McMinnville, OR. I intend to record (and perhaps video) the lecture(s). I also intend to use Powerpoint (which is rather unusual for me) because of the large amount of information I hope to cover.

[Jason]

Steve, that's wonderful news! How do you generally record audio for something like this? I'm assuming it's some sort of digital technology you're using now. My favorite series you've done is the life of Jesus lectures but they are painful to listen to due to the quality and perhaps age of the recordings. I want to make sure your teachings are preserved for many more generations so let us know if you have a need in that area. For many of us, it's the only solid bible teaching we get.

[steve]

I plan to record digitally. I have equipment. What I lack is an operator. I have to turn the recorder on and off, and make sure it is recording properly. This usually goes fine. On a few occasions, I have finished speaking and realized afterward I had pushed the wrong button and nothing was recorded. That shouldn't happen this time. I am usually careful.

[brody196]

Sounds great Steve!!!!

[pilgrim731]

Steve, I would be pleased to be your recording engineer for that lecture. Just send an airline ticket and I will be there!

[steve]

Hi Tom (Pilgrim),

I know how it frustrates you when I forget to hit the right button and the recording is lost. However, this time there are two brothers who have a professional video production service, who have volunteered to video the lecture as a gift to the ministry—so you will get a copy, of either the video or the audio, if you wish, to post at digitalministries.us.

[Jason]

Steve, it would be great to see this video posted! I love the audio lectures but always prefer to see the person who's speaking/teaching. Hopefully the quality is better than the videos posted on Tom's site, although I still enjoy those a great deal. Let's hear it for Steve in HD!

[pilgrim731]

That is great Steve, to have a crew to video record your lecture. I can post the video on my website video page for streaming/downloading. Looking forward to receiving the disc.

[Jess]

I don't see a time listed in the speaking schedule for the lecture tonight in McMinville. I'm guessing 7:00 p.m.? I am coming from Corvallis so it takes about an hour to get there. If anyone knows when it starts I'd appreciate confirmation. I am also guessing it is at the Mennonite church?

Thanks,

Jess