Hello and welcome. My name is Matt. If we didn't get a chance to meet, let me tell you real quick about myself. I was born at a very young age. Sorry, that's like one of my go-to jokes, but it's bad. I know, I know. So my name is Matt. I've been working with Doc for about 10 years now at the Institute of Biblical Defense. I did my undergrad from Liberty University in Biblical Studies. I got my master's degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Talbot School of Theology. And I did my PhD from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Theology and Apologetics. That's a lot, a lot to say. I currently teach for Liberty University. I'm an adjunct philosophy professor. I teach online for them. And I also work at Costco, so, you know, representing Costco. So I'm pretty eclectic in, you know, what I do. So who's been looking up at this title and being like, what the heck is this dude talking about? It's like we think of myth, the last thing that we want to couple with myth is New Testament reliability. Well, I wouldn't not ever call myself really a specialist or anything, but I studied a lot of mythology, specifically hero myth. And before we get started, though, I really just want to go to the Lord in prayer, and please join me. Father, in Jesus' precious name, and by the grace and mercy of your Holy Spirit, we're so thankful that we can come here, gather in your name, learn more about you, proclaim your gospel, and help learn more how to defend your faith. Thank you so much, Lord. Bless this time. I pray that your message, your truth, would be portrayed here today. I pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. So I wrote my dissertation on the connection between hero myth and natural law. And I argued that hero myth was like a type of natural law, almost akin to gravity or the harmonic tones of music. They are man-independent. coherent structures. We don't create them, we kind of recognize them and we use them for different purposes. So when I was studying hero myth, I started to notice something that we use this word myth, but we really are not quite sure what it entails. There are easily 12 different definitions I could give you for myth. And it probably wouldn't get us any closer to quite understanding what it is. But I will say this, Christianity is a myth. And that is a good thing. Now, before you yell at me as a heretic, do not think I'm supposing that myth means false. It does not mean false in any sense. I'll get exactly to what it means shortly. But there is a problem we have with defining mythology. John S. Oswald, he wrote this brilliant book. It's called The Bible Among Myths. If you think I'm smart or anything from anything I've said here, just ask me about whatever I said and I will point to you to a scholar who knows like 10 times more than me. But this dude is legit. He talks about the problem with defining mythology. There are certain things like religion. J.P. Moreland, in his book Philosophical Foundations of Christian Worldview, it was in Christianity and the Nature of Science. He spends something like 90 pages trying to define science, but not to fully define it, only to say that it's impossible to define science as being something that is completely independent from religious thought. So he spent 90 pages just saying you can't define science in a way to say it means no sort of religious or theological influence. In defining things like religion and myth, There's a problem. Our definition could be so broad that it would include things that don't make sense, or it would be so narrow that it would leave out things that should be included. So Oswald talks about this. He says basically there's two different types of definitions. There's the historical, philosophical definition, and in that you have the etymological, which is the first usage or root meaning, which is story. You have the sociological or theological definition, which is stories of significance. Literarily, which is a particular type of story. In this case, it's a heavy use of symbolism. And then the other type is phenomenological, which is a definition based on common understanding or characteristics. So let me stop real quick with that last one, the common understanding. Basically, this word, all it means is story. The most basic understanding, the earliest understanding we have of myth, it just means story. It means to convey information. Now, when we think of it as the common way, we think of it as inherently false. Somebody who lies. Somebody who tells, oh, they tell great tales. He's someone who tells these great myths. I like to think about it as, now how I said that. Myth doesn't necessarily mean false. Here, I say a myth can refer to an old wives tale that is demonstrably false. So like somebody says, hey, don't swallow your gum. If you swallow your gum, it'll remain in your digestive tract for seven years. OK, that is a demonstrably false. Myth. But there is also a myth or old wise tale that is demonstrably true. Have some tea with honey because honey helps soothe a sore throat and acts as a cough suppressant. So the basic definition just means story or it could be even like a tall tale that may or may not be true. In a general sense, Myths are associated with rare and unique people or events. The man, the myth, the legend. This thing has a myth-like status, a myth-like aura about him. It means something big. That's the common understanding of it. There is both an objective and subjective understanding of myth. The object of understanding in the most basic sense, in the most basic and technological and full, or technical, technological, technical sense, is that it is a narrative associated with a ritual. I'll explain what that is in a minute. Well, actually, my friend Josh, Josh, why don't you come up here real quick? This is, I love interaction. You know, I like to do Socratic method speaking, and I can't do it now because I don't have enough time, because Socratic method is very slow, but I love interaction. So Josh, my brother, how are you? I'm all right. He's all right. What did you do yesterday? Um, I hung out with my family. Awesome. Did you watch the Husky game at all? No. You didn't? Okay. Are you a football fan? Nope. Nope. You just hung out with your family? That was it? Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. What was, where was the myth and ritual there? Because there was one. Yes. Why? What was the myth? What was the ritual? Well, what was, which one is the myth? Which one is the ritual? Do you know? Do you know what, Whoa, one at a time people, come on. So what is the myth and which is the ritual? Yes, and why? That's the myth. So, yeah. Showing my empty hand and then placing it together to form this union. The ritual is the practice, the myth is the story behind it. Now in this case, the myth did not have to be true. Suppose that we were wrong, and some scholar comes out someday or sometime in the near future and says, no, you know what? It's not about showing you had an empty hand. It was about coming together and using your, you know, do like some hippie words, use your aura to come together. And that's where this ritual comes from. Well, it doesn't matter in that sense, because either way, it still fulfills its proper function of us greeting each other. So I say that to say, myths only need to be true if the ritual requires it and so forth. Now, with Christianity, The ultimate myth and ritual within Christianity, and I'll get to this more at the end, is the Eucharist, or the Last Supper. So when you read and you partake in the Eucharist, the Eucharist is the ritual. And the myth behind that is the resurrection. Now, according to the theology behind the ritual, does that myth need to be true in order for that ritual to make sense? Yeah. Paul wrote about this. How does some among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? For if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ is not risen and you're still in your sins. You're being baptized in the name of a dead dude. The ritual of the Eucharist, take, eat, this is my body which is broken before you, this is my blood which is poured out for the new covenant. In order for that to make sense and to happen, the myth behind it, the significant huge event, has to be true. You know what, that's one of my favorite arguments for the resurrection. is the fact that the ancient Jews changed the worship day from Saturday to Sunday. Because in their mind, that would mean in order for them to do something like that, they originally had the worship day on Saturday because of the days of creation, the creation myth found in Genesis. Now, what would cause ancient Jews who are so orthodox that they would even put stitches in their clothes, what would cause them to change the worship day, which is based on the creation of the universe, from a Saturday to Sunday? That would mean that something more mythic, something bigger, something more significant than the creation of the universe would have had to have occurred. There's one thing I can think of that can match that, and that would be the incarnation of Jesus Christ and dying on the cross for the sins of mankind. I cannot think of anything bigger. The resurrection is a myth in the sense that it is this significant, hugely important thing. I'll get into this a little bit further. I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry. I'm really excited. I love this topic. OK, so here's my definition. I spent a month going through this definition, or creating this definition. Actually, I'm really proud of it. Mythology is a system of narratives that confirms or informs, via ritual or disposition, basic and integral aspects of one's worldview to the ends of achieving various levels and kinds of transcendence. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What does that mean? OK, I'll get to it real quick. So mythology is a system of narratives. I like narratives better than stories. A story can be a myth. Yes, I'll get to that in the subjective aspects of it. But mostly it is a narrative. When I say that confirms or informs, so think of the myth of the resurrection. It informs us. what the significance of Christ or the Eucharist informs us. the significance of Christ's death on the cross. And in that, it tells us that this is a vital aspect. It says the basic or integral aspects of one world. This is the integral aspect of the Christian's worldview, is this myth that Christ was raised from the dead, the true myth. Now, all myths are trying to do this. They're trying to achieve levels and kinds of transcendence. Now, what do I mean by transcendence? In this sense, transcendence means otherworldliness. So think about it this way. Has anyone here been in a sorority or a fraternity? Yeah, maybe. Well, do you guys have like, I mean, I don't know, do you guys have like some unit or something? Do you guys have this tradition that you do that nobody else does that you say, hey, if you're going to do this? Okay, what is that? Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, most of the time they do this because they want there to be this greater level of significance around the event. We do that for all things. I mean, why do we have weddings, marriages? Why do we have rites of passage? Why do we have sweet 16 parties? Why do we have military graduations? Why do we have all those things? Because they add significance to our lives. And that significance is what we say is the otherness. that not just basic life, but something a bit greater, something bigger than ourselves. That's what I mean by that transcendence. So, a myth is a system of narratives that tells us, basically, either through a ritual or disposition. Now, the reason why I added disposition in there is because of things like parables. Now, you look at, like, some of the Jesus's parables in the New Testament. Those are definitely myths, but they're not associated with rituals, but they are associated with dispositions, in the sense that Jesus says it is good to act this way, to have this disposition of lovingness, to have the disposition of forgiveness, to have the disposition of prudence in financial matters. So, I'm going to move on. Yeah, I'll move on. There's also a subjective understanding of myth. And the subjective aspect is something momentous, something huge. So there's an objective sense of myth, and that means it's something that it's a narrative that's associated with a ritual or disposition. And then there's a subjective myth, something momentous, something huge. Now, by that definition, by those two definitions, It's impossible to consider. the Bible to not be containing myths, both in the subjective and the objective sense. Karen Armstrong, I thought this was a very good definition for the subjective definition of myth. Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives. They explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. Two types of myths. Myths of being and myths of function. I came up with these two. I spent so much time looking at this stuff, and I never found really good, succinct definitions. I actually have two different types of myths of being, or another type of myth of being, but I'm not going to talk about that because it gets a little bit confusing. But myths of being is things like a creation myth, how things came into existence. I would say Pandora's box. The idea that, you know, you open up this box and all evil came into the world and that's how the world got to the state that it's in. That is a myth of being because it explains the current state of stuff. What I found to be, and the reason why I didn't just call this creation myths and myths of function is because outside of Christianity, you don't see creation myths. It's this obscure phenomenon. Try to find an ex nihilo, like a true creation myth, outside of the Bible. If you find one, please tell me about it because I want to know about it. I have found some smaller ones, but most of the time what you see is the ancient pagans, they didn't do creation myths in the way that you see in like John 1 and in Genesis. And in fact, this is really interesting, is the creation myth found in Genesis is an ex nihilo creation myth, but it's only one verse long. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's the first creation myth, and it's just in that one verse. Then... What occurs after that is the type of creation myth that is more like a myth of function than it is an actual creation myth. Because in the ancient Near East mindset, they did not consider, in the ancient Near East mindset, like for example, let's say that there was a bike up here that didn't function, it didn't pedal. And someone came along and they fixed it so the bike could function and pedal. Once that bike went from non-functioning to functioning, in the ancient Near East mindset, that's when it was created. Because before it was purposeless, couldn't do anything. And then once it had purpose and could do things, then it began to actually exist. But as far as ex nihilo or creating out of nothing, you do not see a lot of those outside of the scriptures. Another example, like I said, falls from grace, that would be like Pandora's box. You know, Tolkien, in his Lord of the Rings series, he had three different falls from grace, three different falls. He really wanted to make sure that everybody knew that Mankind was fallen. And then the other type is myths of function. This is the reason behind the Rite of the Ritual. Why a belief system exists. Why are we doing this? Why do we salute? You know, that is a myth of function. All right, I hope this is valid. I'm 99.9% sure this is a valid argument, but I'm so bad at formal logic. But this is an argument put together. Premise one, if the Bible does not contain rituals, then it does not contain myths. Premise two, the Bible contains rituals. Conclusion, therefore, the Bible contains myths. Pretty simple. This is logically valid, deductive argument, which means in order to refute it, you have to refute premise one or premise two. But we can't. So really what this entails is the Bible contains myths. Now when I say the Bible contains myths, let me tell you that I say that as someone who holds to verbal plenary inspiration. If you're not a theology nerd, it's a very conservative view. And I hold to full inerrancy of the scriptures, that the Bible is completely without error. So I take like the most, two of the most conservative views you can have on the nature of the Bible, but yet I'm still, by definition, have to admit that the Bible contains myths. All right, now here's where it starts getting fun. Why the Bible is similar to other myths. I have a series of reasons why. Dr. Fernandez, first of all, I didn't know that he was speaking on the Jesus Myth Hypothesis the first night. He was here yesterday. And so now I feel really dumb, because it's like, you know, you have Michael Jordan teaching, like, how to shoot a jump shot, and then me coming through as Matt Coombe trying to shoot a jump shot, teaching you how to shoot a jump shot. It's like, oh, yeah, stick with the Michael Jordan. But yeah, so Dr. Fernandez is a tough act to follow. But why, now, oh, so here's where I was going with that. He does such a good, he does such a, I've heard that talk before, and I still took notes on it. But Doc does a really good job of explaining that so much of the similarities that we see are superficial. Well, I want to explain where that superficiality comes from. And it is a little bit more than purely superficial, but the bottom line is, Doc's thesis is true. The ancient Jews did not bow down to anybody, and they did not give up their beliefs easily, and they are not likely to follow these pagan myths. So why are there similarities? Number one, the monomyth. Do you know what that is? There's two senses to the monomyth. One, there's a sense of a desire for transcendence. existential angst we all have. There's something more out there. I mean, the ultimate example of this I can think of is Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, staring off into those twin setting suns, and he looks off at the distance, and I remember as a child, I knew what Luke was feeling. He was there and he wanted something more. He wanted to adventure. He wanted to go out. He wanted his life to be greater than it was. That was that desire for transcendence. The other sense of the monomyth is what's called the hero's journey. This was made popular by Joseph Campbell, Hero of a Thousand Faces. He's also the reason why Star Wars is known. Because, well, in George Lucas, in an interview, he refers to Joseph Campbell as Joe Campbell. So that's the level at which he knew this guy. So because of him, we have Star Wars. Now the hero's journey is a series of steps that all heroes go on. And it's universal. It's found everywhere. I wrote my dissertation and I added a few steps to the hero's journey and then I implanted Jesus and I showed how Jesus was the best possible hero. My thesis was Jesus is the best possible hero because he solved the biggest possible problem, which was death. And because he was also, you know, God in his penchant for drama, he says, alright, so I'm going to show you how Jesus is not only the best possible hero because he solves the biggest possible problem, but I'm going to show how he fulfills each of these stages of the hero's journey to create this supreme hero. Also why there are similarities, the marring of the gospel, the first preaching of the gospel, Genesis 3. Demons know that story, and I actually think, and this is not something I totally have fleshed out here, but I think that a lot, or some of the ancient myths were specific attempts by demons to try to mar the gospel story because they knew it. They said, listen, we know that there's going to be a hero. We know that the hero is going to slay this monster, but in doing so is going to be damaged. And so you see these stories pop up that are you can see that they're almost trying to fulfill this prophecy, but do it in a marring, in dark or an unrighteous way. I messed up on that one. Oh, so that's the ontological or human independent structure of story itself, is what that is. Also, the reason why they're similar too, God proving himself superior. In ancient Greek, in ancient Greece, they have a thing called Xenia. And what that is, is it's a guest host relationship. Now Zeus was supposed to be like the ruler of this. And so he referred to himself as the Lord of Hosts because he is the ultimate person who's in charge of ensuring the guest-host relationship throughout the entire world. Well, Yahweh comes on the scene and says, you know what, Zeus, I fit that title way better than you do, so I'm going to take that title from you, boom, I'm the Lord of Hosts. But now we look back at that later and we say, oh my gosh, the ancient Jews, they stole from the Greeks, look at them, they gave this title of Lord of Hosts and they gave it to Yahweh when originally it was supposed to be for Zeus. Like no, God is more fitting of that title than this false finite God is. And so God says, I'm going to take that title. That's another reason why there's similarities. Other ones, ancient Near East culture. I don't have time to get into all of these. This is pretty fascinating. Myth and worldview. Why the Bible is dissimilar to other myths. The worldview behind the myth is quite important. Not only is the myth the explanation of the right, it is at the same time, in part at least, the explanation of the God. To primitive minds, it is of such transcendent importance to get the ritual exactly right, for the slightest deviation will ruin everything. The worshipers will not proceed one step without authority. And who is their authority? Well, the oldest tribesman within his memory. And so the tradition goes back and back, but it must end somewhere. And it ends at a thousand instances show an imaginary divine founder of the right who becomes the center of the myth. Basically what this is saying is if you want to know What that myth is about, you must know the theology behind it. You must know the worldview behind it. And one thing we'll see here is the intent and content of the New Testament and Old Testament is altogether dissimilar to the intent and content of the ancient Near East myths or any other myths. I don't have time, this is originally another talk altogether, but I have 20 points. I'll read it to you. I have 20 points here of why the Bible is dissimilar to other myths. These are crucial theological and worldview topics. So basically what I'm saying is the New Testament and the Bible itself is much different than any of these other myths, and it's primarily because of the differences of their theology and their worldview. Almost every cult and world religion is dissimilar from Christianity in this way. You have polytheism, the existence of many gods, versus monotheism, the existence of one god. You have story versus history. Now, no one who followed any of these ancient Near East myths None of them actually thought that they were following these gods or that they were serving these gods. They were these obscure notions that they followed for these different reasons, for these different benefits, whereas with the Bible, if you really want to consider it, is a history of The bloodline of Christ and God's interacting with humanity. It's history. It's not just a story. You have obscene rituals versus wholesome rituals. Augustine, what is it in... Oh, Doc's not here. I think it was City of God. Augustine, like, he goes off and explains one of these ancient rituals, and it was just so perverse and just—you know, like, Paul was dealing with the Corinthian church. At the Corinthian church, he had temple—he was dealing with temple prostitutes that would literally have sex with people as their form of serving their God. That was their ritual in worshiping their God. Well, what type of rituals do we have in Christianity? We have baptism, marriage, the Eucharist. These are all wholesome. They're much different. You have miracles for personal gain versus miracles for the glory of God. You have descriptive ethics versus prescriptive ethics. Now, what I mean by that is, in these stories, These gods would do these horrible things, but you wouldn't want your followers to do those same things. So they're not saying, do likewise. They're saying, this is just what we did. Whereas in the New Testament, you have the opposite. You have Jesus says, no, be like me. You have Paul saying, hey, do as I do as I imitate Christ. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. The difference between descriptive and prescriptive ethics. You have a low view of humanity versus a high view of humanity. A lot of the ancient Near East myths and the pagan mystery religions, they thought that the human body was bad. These points should probably be together, but you have the God-human hybrid. Wait, how do I do that laser thing again? Shoot. Oh, yeah. Boom. Okay. God-human hybrid versus fully God and fully human. The ancient myths that had to do with God's incarnate, they were not fully God, nor were they fully man. They were these obscure hybrids, whereas Jesus was like, no, there's nothing wrong with being human. Being human is good. I can be fully human and fully God. You don't see that anywhere, not even any hints of anything close to that in the ancient Near East. Rationality is discouraged versus rationality being encouraged. Christianity, even today amongst religions, how many religions do you know of that actively command their followers to test the truth claims? Test the claims to see if they're from God. Love the Lord with all of your mind. It's our duty to love the Lord with our intellect. You don't see that encouraged anywhere else. A chaotic universe versus a rational universe. Inconsistent epistemology versus consistent epistemology. What I mean, I'm not going to get into that. That's basically the transcendental argument, if you want to look up that later. But all of the ancient world. They all thought that the universe was just chaotic and wild in nature. This is why the earliest scientists were Christians. The founders of modern science, Bacon, Pascal, and, oh, what's the other dude I was going to say? Francis Bacon, I don't know, I don't remember. But they were Christians. And the reason why that they developed the techniques found in modern science was because they were like, our universe is rational. If it's rational, it must contain normative laws. So therefore, we can use those normative laws to know things about that universe. Eternal matter versus finite matter. All the ancient world, they thought that the universe was eternally old, whereas with the Bible it says no, matter is finite, only God is eternal. You have actual creation myths versus just myths of being. Oops, those are the wrong ways around. Icons versus iconoclasm. What was the dude's name? I wasn't even going to talk about him, but then I just decided at the last minute. He was the inkling. He was an inkling. G.K. Chesterton. That was it. G.K. Chesterton, in his book, he talks about that in the ancient world, Eventually, all sort of symbols of gods would eventually become phallic, because everyone's desire was for wealth. But in the ancient world, wealth was seen by how big your family is. So everyone wanted fertility gods, and so fertility gods eventually just, they looked like phallics. You know, they looked like, yeah. So God's like, listen, I am not like these gods. My theology is nothing like them. Who I am is nothing like them. Do not try to put an image of me and don't try to degrade me. He's like, I am the immaterial everlasting God. Do not reduce me to some stupid image. But every other god in the ancient world, they had to have those icons. We talked about before, hidden or debased rituals versus open and pure rituals. We're going to talk about the idea of the hidden at the end for our last point. Magic words versus prayer. You know, Jesus said, and when you pray, you should not use vain repetitions as the heathens do. Well, why did the heathens use vain repetitions? Well, because their God, all they knew was to say these prayers. They were like, rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. And then the food doesn't appear, and they're like, wait a second, rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. The food's supposed to appear once I say that. And so that's why they would just start chanting these things over and over again, because that's all they knew what to do. Whereas with prayer, is you're actually communing with the living God. And he says, don't come to me with these vain repetitions. He said, come to me with these actual prayers and these thought-out requests. Self-indulgence versus self-denial. And then this is the point here, and this is what we're going to talk about for the last like 10 minutes we got, is hidden knowledge and ritual versus open knowledge and ritual. Hidden knowledge versus open knowledge. The fullness of Christianity is perfectly and completely known. The most sacred ritual of Christianity is the Eucharist. Now, it's interesting to note is I come across people and they say, hey, Christianity stole from the mystery religions. It's like, how do you know that? They're literally called the mystery religions. We don't know their rituals. The only way you could know their rituals is you had to drink the Kool-Aid. You had to show up. I mean, you look at like Scientology. If you want to know the deep secrets of Scientology, you got to get in there. I don't know how many levels there are. John, you know I... Who's the guy? Oh, it was... Yeah, but they have like, you know, 21 levels, and if you want to know the deepest, deepest stuff, you have to commit more and more, and you have to know more and more, and you have to give more and more money. I was a really good friend of mine who, she's Latter-day Saint, and she was telling me about how she wanted to go and partake in the ritual that you could only do inside of the temple. And that she went before her bishop and the president and she beseeched them. She said, please, can I please partake in this ritual? And they told her no. And they said, you know, you haven't proven yourself to be loyal enough to do this. And she said that she was so hurt by that and she was crying. And she said, even the bishops started crying. And she said, I wanted to participate in this beautiful ritual. The beautiful ritual of Christianity is not hidden. It's right here. It says, this do in remembrance of me. I remember before Christ saved me, I went to church. It was at Silverdome Baptist Church, now Grace Point Church. And I sat down, and I looked up, and I saw that it said, this due in remembrance of me. And I thought, okay, someone's not doing their job because I don't know who they're talking about. It's about Jesus. The most sacred, rite and ritual of Christianity is our most public one. It was in, well, I still say it's all four Gospels. Really, you only see it spelled out in the Synoptic Gospels, but you also see it in 1 Corinthians. And John, he makes a lot of Eucharistic-type statements, like Jesus saying, I am the bread of life. His theology is the Eucharist. That is the fullness of Christianity right here, and it's out in public, and it's saying, here, this is it. We're not trying to hide anything. We're not trying to get you to drink this Kool-Aid. We're saying the fullness of Christianity is right here. It's in the Eucharist. Christianity is a myth, but it is the true myth. Christ satisfies within man every aspect that causes him to seek transcendence, to seek and make myths. Let me say this about the trueness, what I mean by the true myth. When I did my dissertation defense, my chair told me to prepare a presentation and to say, give a reason why you chose this topic of hero myth. And the first slide after my title page was a picture of Luke Skywalker holding a lightsaber. Because that was the reason why I got into hero myth. Because as a kid, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. But I was enough of a realist to know that I could never be Luke Skywalker. So in my mind, I wanted to just do something as cool and significant as him. And I had a whole section on Star Wars in my dissertation. I felt horrible because I had to just eviscerate the moral philosophy behind it. It was a sad moment. It proves my point at what I'm getting at for true myth. Think about the final confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. He'd been so reluctant to face Darth Vader because it was his dad, and he loved his dad, he didn't want to have to kill him. And they had fought, and they had gone back and forth, and Luke had gone into hiding because he was like, I'm about to unleash, I don't want to kill my father, and so he was hiding, and Vader starts egging him on. And he says, oh, sister, you have a sister. Well, if you're not going to join the dark side, maybe she will. And then Luke snapped. And with a fury, he unleashed his lightsaber. And he starts just doing these monster blows. And you see for the first time in three movies, Darth Vader getting toppled and getting backed into a corner. And as Luke is about to strike down his own dad, he stops and he turns around to the emperor and he says, listen, I am never going to join you. I am a father. I am a Jedi like my father before me. And he threw down his lightsaber. And Emperor says, so be it, Jedi. And he starts shooting this lightning at Luke. And as Luke is lying on the ground, writhing in pain, he calls out to his dad. He says, please help me. Please. And Vader, he looks at his son, and he looks at this man who corrupted and lied to him. And he, for the first time in however long, recaptures some humanity. And he's able to go over and he takes the emperor and he throws him down the shaft. And then he's able to have this moment with Luke. And he says to Luke, he says, Luke, help me take this mask off. He says, I want to look at you. I want to read to you from the novelization of this. During this time, it says that Vader was thinking about his wife, Padme, and he thought about his old master, Obi-Wan. And it says, this is what Vader was thinking. This boy had pulled him from that pit. How? With this act, the boy was good. The boy was good and the boy had come from him. So there must have been good in him too. He smiled up at his son and for the first time loved him. and for the first time in many long years, loved himself again. What I mean by Christianity is the true myth is that feeling that you're sensing that I'm feeling now as I'm explaining this event. That idea of redemption, of hope, The trueness of that feeling can only really be found in one place, and that is in Jesus Christ. For in due time, when we were still without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. And we think about when we watch these movies. My dad, he loved the movie Rocky. And we all have these movies that we watch and we love, and we love the justice, and we love the hero triumphing over the villain. Jesus Christ is the true sense of that. His incarnation is the true myth. It is the ultimately transcendent and massive event that changed everything. Christianity is the true myth. I say this in closing. The myth and ritual of the New Testament, the ritual of the Eucharist, why it's significant, It represents a ritual that can be historically verified, i.e. the Eucharist. It represents a myth that can be historically verified, i.e. the Resurrection. It represents the earliest Christian teachings, 1 Corinthians 15. Doc talked about that yesterday. It says, For I declare unto you that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. He's buried in Rose again on the third day as according to the Scripture. Now, 1 Corinthians is written about 52 AD. That's where Paul's account of the Eucharist comes in. So you have an early Eucharistic account, and then not only that, you have a high Christology that's early. By high Christology, I mean a teaching that Jesus Christ is Lord, because that passage I just quoted you from 1 Corinthians 15, that's actually an ancient creed, and that dates back to about within one year of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is the true myth. We know that through myth and ritual, because of how significant an event is, we know that these events are unlikely to be forgotten. So because of the significance of the incarnation resurrection of Christ, and because that it is a myth, we realize that through that, The fullness of who Christ is, is not only verified in us through that significance, but can be externally verified through these other factors. I think we're out of time, but maybe ask like a couple questions or no. Can we do a couple questions? Okay, any other questions? I know there's a lot of information. I was only going for a half hour, so I was only 20 minutes over. So, that's good for me. That's really good for me. I only did 18 slides, okay? So, any questions real quick? I know there's a lot of information, but any questions? I do have a question. Could you reiterate the definition that you reported? I mean, even me, I will still be like, oh, that's just a myth. So even I will still say sometimes that myth means false. But any scholar who, if they've looked at this subject and they look at these definitions, they know that there is a technical and objective definition for a myth. And like I said, the most technical definition for a myth that's also the most basic is simply a narrative that includes a ritual. So that would be accepted by really anyone who studies it. I don't know of anyone who would deny that. So that would be the definition that everyone would have to accept. I don't know any reason why someone could deny that definition. Doctor? Ah, see. Yeah. Yeah, and I agree. Like I said, I will use myth in that sense sometimes, too. I'm like, oh, that's a myth. But I'm saying in the true technical sense, you know, we have to think of it in that way. But yeah, Doc's right. We do have to, you know, because in, you know, what does the scripture say? It says don't follow mindless philosophies. But, you know, Doc's a philosopher. So is Doc living in sin? No. Because what he studies is not a mindless philosophy. Alright, any other questions? Alright, thanks guys. God bless you.