Dr. John Bergsma

But we can also get, you know, very far back in testimony in the fathers and in popular literature.

There's like a popular...

It's called transitus literature, which was like popular stories about the blessed mother being transferred to heaven that go back very far into the early period.

What's interesting though, Matt, is if you put the emphasis on the other foot and say, try to find evidence of doubt or try to find evidence of a rejection of the doctrine of the assumption,

you'll find that the case for rejection of it is weaker than the case for it, okay?

So if you put the burden of proof on the other side and say, okay, produce historical evidence that the early Christians didn't believe this or that they rejected it or that they doubted it,

And then your evidence is much later and much weaker than the evidence for the belief and for the trust.

Yeah.

So that's just something to help people maybe who are struggling with this.

Right, right.

Revelation 12, for example, is often brought forward.

You know, you have this heavenly woman whose body seems to be in the heavens, you know, and she's portrayed as giving birth to Jesus, and the only woman in Scripture who births Jesus is Mary.

And there's a transition from the end of Revelation 11 into the beginning of Revelation 12 where the Ark of the Covenant is revealed, but then it's not described.

Instead, what is described is this woman.

So, she appears to be the Ark of the New Covenant who's already in heaven.

Now, folks can push back on that, but I think it's a provocative understanding, and I think...

you know, ultimately it's correct.

Although I'm not sure you could slam down, you know, uh, not a slam dunk.

It's not a slam dunk argument, but you know, in general, in, um,

it may be, Matt, that we should have begun with talking about the problem of binding ourselves only to what is explicitly in scripture.