It's not every day that the millions of listeners who tune in to the most successful talk-radio show of all time hear two brothers discussing the evidence for the Christian faith.
One was the iconic host, the other a lawyer, political commentator and former skeptic who has become a devout Christian.
The focus was David Limbaugh's new book, "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel," which probes "the reliability of the Bible, biblical prophecy, the various philosophical proofs of God, the arguments for the possibility of miracles and all that stuff."
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Rush Limbaugh explained to his audience it's "probably the book" his brother "was intended to write his whole life."
"This is the one he's been building up to."
David Limbaugh said studying the Bible and evidence for Christianity will certainly strengthen the faith of a believer, but it can also transform a "nonbeliever to a believer."
"The Bible's the Word of God; give it a chance, it will shock your socks off," he said. "It will knock your pants off.
"I know I sound like a nerd," he said. "I'm not one of these charismatic type of Christians, but I firmly believe the Bible is the Word of God; and I'm excited about it, and I want to be contagious in my enthusiasm for the Bible to inspire a like interest in other people so that they can explore it and receive the life-changing benefits that I have received."
Responding to his brother's declaration of faith, Rush Limbaugh said: "All of that is true, folks. I've grown up with my brother, obviously, and I'm familiar with this quest of his. He can barely contain his excitement over all this, and he just wants to share it."
David Limbaugh said he was prompted to examine the claims of his faith when an old high school friend said "he didn't believe a rational person could believe in Christianity."
His immediate response to his friend, he said, probably "failed to even marshal much evidence at all."
"So I resolved after that that I'd do a better job. I'd study this stuff, get it on my mind," David Limbaugh said.
As a former skeptic, he explained, "I can relate to those who are currently skeptics perhaps better than a pastor or a trained theologian."
He said the book intentionally includes his "own spiritual journey."
"I was a skeptic and I wanted to trace how I evolved from doubter to believer, and I also structured the book that way."
He said he writes about his "a-ha moments," which "drew me into Christianity."
"Some of the attractive teachings, Jesus' teachings and biblical teachings -- I call them 'the paradoxical teachings' -- they seem counter-intuitive, but they are so true once you study them and dig down deeper," he said.
"I wanted to share these teachings to people because I think the Bible serves as its own apologetic -- that if you'll just give the Bible and theology a chance, you won't even need these other formal methods in classical apologetics."
The book addresses common questions, such as why a good God allows bad things to happen.
"The Bible tells us that He created us in His image," David Limbaugh said. "That means to me that He created us as intelligent beings, as distinct from all other creatures. He gave us, I believe, free will. Some of the hardcore Calvinists out there might disagree, but I'm fully acknowledging God's sovereignty and His control of the universe," he said. "But I believe that He created us to have a special, intimate relationship, a spiritual relationship with Him, and that would not have been possible had He created us as automatons, as robots.
"We have to have some free will in order to be capable of having love. You can't command someone to have love in the genuine sense. So He created us with free will, and with that, creating us that way opened up the possibility that we would sin."
He said the evidence for the Bible's reliability is abundant.
"Christianity is based on the physical facts of the resurrection. And, by the way, it's not just that they say this in the Bible reliably; we have proof of that. When the Bible stands up, when subjected to the textual criticism, compared to any other ancient book, that it is more accurate, that it comes down to us exactly as it was written. Any scrivener's errors over the 2,000 years or over the years we see do not affect the substance.
"So we have more copies, more New Testament copies, 5,800 copies, existing copies and some 19,300 in other languages of the New Testament, not as many for the Old Testament. But after the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery, an amazing amount. We don't have anything like that for the other ancient Greek and Roman documents. Most of them there's only 10 or 20 copies. 'The Iliad,' you have 1,800, which is less than 10 percent, and yet everybody accepts those as accurate."