An Intriguing Exploration of Christian Origins: Judaism & The Enigma of Roman Influence - Critical Exploration of Paul, Jesus & Power Struggles - Part 1: Episode 19

Pulling the Threads Podcast critically explores early Christianity, challenging conventional views. Hosts Jeramiah Giehl and David Leblanc question Jesus' existence and the reliability of the New Testament. They emphasize the gradual evolution of Christianity, dispelling the idea of a distinct origin. The episode delves into the diversity of first-century Judaism, suggesting Jesus' followers were Zealots seeking a violent uprising.

The destruction of the Temple and Roman influence become key factors in shaping Christianity. Giehl contends that later texts, influenced by proto-Orthodox and Orthodox factions, reflect mythmaking and polemic against rival groups. The Roman Empire's active role in shaping Christian narratives is discussed, highlighting censorship and manipulation of religious texts. Leblanc explores the impact of Greco-Roman culture and challenges the authenticity of surviving texts.

The podcast explores parallels and distinctions between Judaism and Christianity, emphasizing their unique elements. It addresses the influence of Judaism on Christianity and the chaotic development of early Christianity compared to varied early Judaism. The episode briefly touches on Messianic Judaism, leaving room for future exploration.

Listeners gain fresh perspectives on Christian origins, exploring Roman influence, Greco-Roman assimilation, and the interplay between Judaism and Christianity. The podcast prompts critical thinking about historical reconstruction challenges, censorship, and the complexity of these intertwined faiths. It invites reconsideration of established narratives and provides thought-provoking insights into the roots of a major world religion.

Keywords: Early Christianity, Critical Exploration, Jesus' Existence, New Testament Reliability, Evolution of Christianity, Diversity in First-century Judaism, Zealot Movement, Destruction of the Temple, Roman Influence, Proto-Orthodox and Orthodox Factions, Mythmaking and Polemic, Censorship of Religious Texts, Greco-Roman Culture, Authenticity of Texts, Parallels and Distinctions, Judaism's Influence on Christianity, Development of Early Christianity, Messianic Judaism, Roman Manipulation, Historical Reconstruction Challenges, Interplay Between Judaism and Christianity, Reconsidering Established Narratives, Thought-provoking Insights

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
All right, welcome to Welcome tothe Pulling of Threads podcast.
Today I'm doing a discussion with author David the Blank,
author of There's No Such Thing as Magic Blood.
We've had a few conversations onhere.
Used to have his own podcast. We both share some similar
background when it comes to our journey, I guess towards Judaism

(00:32):
and out of Christianity. And so today I kind of just want
to cover Christian origins. What is Judaism and some of the
theological errors of what became Christianity, Messianic
Judaism. And you know, various things
along the way. As an intro, I kind of want to

(00:54):
ask, are you familiar with the Theodosian Code?
It's called, considered a compilation of laws by the Roman
Empire under the Christian emperors published.
It's significant in the history of Christianity for a few
reasons. One, established Christianity is
the official religion of the empire and made other religions
illegal. Specifically, it's circumscribed

(01:17):
the rights of Jews. It elevated the status of
Christianity in Europe, and it applied the term of sacrilege to
apostasy, heresy, schism, Judaism, specifically, paganism
as well, and more. It prohibited the sale of Saint
relics. It is a compilation of 16 books,
and its contents were eventuallycodified into law over time

(01:38):
through various codes. Are you familiar with the
Theodosian Code at all? No, it's the first I hear of it.
And you're saying that this was instituted in the the 15th
century? No, it was published 438 Common
Area. I thought you said 1438?
OK, no, no, it's so it was a code that was published in 438

(02:01):
AD. So this post, nice scene.
And it was it was 16 books. Now, various portions of it made
its way into law eventually within the Roman Empire.
So you're not familiar with the Theodosian code.
You know something I mentioned to Doctor Price that he was he

(02:21):
was mildly familiar with how much of the Roman imperial code
making Christianity and officialstate religion and various laws
are you familiar of of the RomanCatholicism becoming the state
religion, and then how it established itself and
eradicated other sects and religion?

(02:42):
How much of that are you familiar with?
I'm pretty familiar with the history that of that process.
I just had never heard of that. I guess Magnus Opus statement of
the Church regarding what you'reyou're describing.
I do know that for instance thatit was in the in the 6th
century, I believe it was sometime in the mid 5 hundreds.

(03:02):
That or might have even been earlier than that.
I don't have the exact date, butat some point the acting Pope
made it illegal to pray the Shema.
So it probably was in the same milieu as that entire process
that you're talking about there,that that's just one aspect of
some of the stuff that happened during that period.

(03:24):
Certainly I know that post Constantine, Constantine,
really. There's a scholar that I'm
friends with. I haven't spoken to him in a
while. My son-in-law knows him quite
well, but he he wrote a book called Jesus, the God of Jesus.

(03:48):
That's the name of the book. The name of the book is the God
of Jesus and he basically he's aChristian and he researched the
development of the Trinity doctrine all the way back, you
know to the earliest points of Christianity that he could find.
And and he went through all the different, you know, movements
from modalism to Valentinism, all these different things.

(04:09):
He was a very well, well researched book debunking the
Trinity. But in the book he also did a
follow up and his follow up workis all about Constantine.
And I haven't read that book. I've read the first one but
basically it was clearly, it wasclearly an attempt by the Roman

(04:32):
Empire, as it were the rules of the Roman Empire in the later
stages of it before it crumbled to really use Christianity as a
way of governing the people. That that much I know.
But what you're talking about I this is the first I hear of it.
Yeah. So it it, I mean it, it kind of

(04:54):
lays it out in a more delineatedsuccinct thing.
And as you look at the Theodosian code, there's some
very specific things. You know, of course, declaring,
you know other things to be sacrilege was anything that
wasn't Christianity and that included Judaism now is
sacrilege. And it you know included the the

(05:15):
policies of of censorship and you know deeming, deeming people
apostasy so that then they coulderadicate them.
And so kind of to define terms before we talk about
Christianity and Messianic Judaism, I wanted to define what
I would consider Christianity and when Christianity as we know

(05:37):
it came to be, Which what I would say was the centuries long
process that the culmination of the major events are between 400
and 800 common error. There was the early seabeds, but
the seabeds, we don't have as much textual information.
We have polemics against the early Jewish Christians.

(06:02):
You know, before 400. We don't have a solid document
record of what Christianity was or was not.
We have to rely on the polemics of early church fathers,
documentary fragments. So honestly, before the 400 we
can't say what Christianity was with 100% surety and we can't
say what the text of the Bible they would have used is with

(06:24):
surety. We have the first complete
gospel and epistles, New Testaments CODIS, Vaticanus and
Cyaniticus respectively mid 4th century and we don't have
anything before that. We have fragments of epistles
3rd and 4th century. And so I would, I would put

(06:47):
Christianity post Nicene as whatwe know as Christianity is
really the culmination of a postNicene saying that became the
Roman official religion and through Roman imperial power it
formed what became Christianity,the leadership structure of the

(07:08):
Roman Catholic Church, the bishops and all that came from
an existing Roman governmental structure.
And even the mystery religions had the same structure, even all
the way up to the Pope at the top.
Every every bit of structure existed in Rome in the Pagan
mystery religions, not Judaism. So I would define Christianity

(07:32):
as we know it and the textual tradition as we know it as a 4th
century and beyond, and then piercing together what it came
from is going to be a little bitof the question here.
But yeah, my opening question was how did you see the
formation of Christianity and its main like when it became

(07:54):
imperial power and it spread through Roman imperial power,
How much of that you know are you aware of and what is your
take on that part? Well, certainly I'm aware of
that. I think one of the things that
to answer your question, my takeon that is that I think one of
the biggest points of contentionand theological debates about

(08:16):
Christian origins. Unfortunately lately from what
I've seen seems to center aroundJesus historicity and Jesus
mythicism, which I think unfortunately misses the point
of what you're describing. You don't have to have a
historical Jesus for this religion to take on the scope

(08:39):
that it did because the questionof of origins as you correctly
stated, in my opinion, the only thing we have to go by is the
writings of of that which is leftover which you know.
So for instance, as an example, to a lesser degree you have

(09:03):
similar debates about the origins of Judaism, right?
So you have, you have various sects within the Jewish world
around the Second Temple period which don't necessarily in any
way represent what later becomesTalmudic rabbinic Judaism.

(09:23):
So what we have in rabbinic Judaism is a similar progression
of ideas developed over hundredsof years that, you know, we know
is the Talmud, and we have, of course, the Jerusalem Talmud,
you know, the Babylonian Talmud.And that represents hundreds of

(09:44):
years of conversation and correspondence with not only
Judaism upon itself, but also its reflections upon the
developing world around it. Right.
And so unfortunately for this conversation, it's you have, you
have the Jewish camp, you've gotthe Christian camp and then

(10:05):
you've got, I guess for lack of a better way to say it, you've
got the impassionate or or dispassionate observers from a
distance who are watching all this, which I would put like
modern scholarship into that camp, you know, trying to
historical critical, what's that?
Historical critical method. People looking for historical

(10:27):
archaeology, trying to understand it from a multiple
mixed secular what can be attested and isn't just a
group's in think? I mean, what can we attest to
outside of what people thought of themselves?
Right. And so I think we can't talk
about origins without being veryaware of where the the

(10:49):
conversation is today. So the conversation today is is
muddied by it would be easy if we had simply if everybody
weighing in on this had no horsein the race.
But because we don't have that problem, well, you know,
Christianity and Judaism continue to exist today.

(11:11):
And so we have, we have people weighing in from a position of
bias on Christianity, right, Andon Judaism.
But we're talking about Christianity here.
So the propensity, that's the wrong word.
The the tendency is that people tend to debate the meaning of

(11:36):
the text without without bringing the focus of the camera
lens back into a wider picture of where do we get our text.
And so obviously a lot of peopledo wrestle with that.
But the average believer is not trying to question the veracity

(11:57):
of the text. They're simply taught that this
is our tradition and this is what we believe.
And so that muddies the water significantly, because of
course, if we get past all that,we just look at, you know, the
development of Christianity as in terms of an authoritative
voice in the Roman world. To me, there's layers to this.

(12:21):
So first of all, we have to understand the significance of
what we would call today regime change and how it impacted the
Middle East related to the RomanEmpire.
So you have Jerusalem as a territory state of Rome at the
time of supposedly the time of Jesus.

(12:42):
And at that time the Jewish nation had been disenfranchised
to a large degree. And they were, they were a
client state of Rome, and Rome had specific interest in the
region because of the resources that it provided them, you know,
So they, they were a colony of, for lack of a better way to put

(13:04):
it, they were there. The Romans had colonized Judea.
Their culture was highly influential to a lot of the
Jewish people in the region as well as others.
And you know, there was a pattern that Rome followed with
its client states, which was typically to gain military and

(13:26):
economic control. And then they had a policy of
tolerance of the religious beliefs of the of the territory
provided they they gave homage to Caesar and to the Roman
rulers. So provided, you know, provided
you paid your taxes and and you and you worshipped Caesar, you

(13:48):
could worship whatever anything else you wanted.
But just don't leave that part out.
And so I think, you know Christian origins becomes a very
contentious discussion because you you really, a lot of people
try to do this. They try to they try to isolate
the textual evidence apart from the political and socio economic
realities and socio political realities.

(14:11):
Of. My suspicion, strongly,
strongly, I strongly suspect this, is that I don't think that
it's reasonable when you look back on to the Roman Empire of
that time and how things, how information got propagated.

(14:32):
So people, most people, including biblical scholars I
would include biblical scholars in this, have no clue how
strongly the Roman Empire exerted force to control the
narrative about their own empire, about the religions they
wanted to be promoted. And we know you already alluded

(14:55):
to it. We know that there was a lot of
censorship and control of various spiritual texts of that
time that related to Christianity.
We know this from the discovery of the Hakamadi corpus.
We know this from many differentthings that have been
discovered, even the Dead Sea Scrolls.

(15:16):
I mean, all these different discoveries that have happened
in recent times have shed light upon the culture and the tenor
of of religious expectations of the time.
We also know, for instance, thatyou really can't.
I'm jumping around a little bit here, but just to answer your
question, we know that there wasno verifiable archaeological

(15:39):
evidence of of any large Christian community in the first
two centuries. We really don't see any
archaeological evidence of Christianity in Rome or in its
environs, environs until like the 3rd century.
That's when you start seeing buildings, you start seeing
churches that show up, so. That's very strange, right?

(16:02):
What's that? Things like the Christian
catacombs in Rome. Right, so so you have we know,
for instance, that this is. Again, this is one of the
reasons why, and I'm being a little tangential here, but this
is one of the reasons why I've come to the place where I'm
rather convinced of the Martianic priority position is

(16:24):
because we know for a fact this is not a debatable issue.
We know for a fact that the earliest verifiable published
gospel that was circulated was Marcion's Gospel of the Lord in
the one 30s AD. So that's a fact.
That's not a debatable statement.
What is debated is, Oh yeah, butthere was a lot more that came

(16:47):
before that, and Marcion was simply massaging what the
message was that he wanted. That's the common narrative on
Marcion was that Marcion was basically plagiarizing an
earlier proto, Luke, and and he published his own thing based on
his own agenda. But let's just put that debate
aside for a moment. I'm just trying to simply point

(17:08):
out by bringing that up that if you're going to have a
intelligent discussion about Christian origins, you have to
understand that like, like in today's day and age, like I I I
have my book, right? You mentioned my book at the
beginning of the podcast. So rather than go through the

(17:30):
arduous task of trying to find an agent and getting a
traditional publishing house to pick up my book and publish it,
I self published it. Does that mean it's not
credible? No.
The information is the information, but I self publish
it to expedite the process of getting it out there.
Because it wasn't important to me to become a famous author.
It was important to me to get the message out.

(17:52):
Well, I'm able to do that as a working class person because we
have the apparatus available in our society.
Printing is is mundane today, right?
Like people print things all thetime.
They can publish things all. We can publish things on the
Internet. So publishing a paper or
publishing outside of a peer review process, publishing
something is no big deal today. Publishing something back in

(18:16):
those days took a lot of money, and it took connections.
You know the gargantuan task that was, you know, to just to
produce and distribute on the scale that the New Testament
eventually is distributed. It required government
sponsorship and support, at least connections.

(18:38):
At least connections. I'm talking about this because
of your comments at the beginning.
Most people, I don't think, realize that there's nothing
that survives today outside of what's been discovered post
empire. There's nothing that survives
today that we can reference thatwasn't allowed to survive by the

(19:01):
government of the Roman Empire when it started to curate and
censor what it so the governmentof the Roman Empire when it when
it became the religion of the empire they actively suppressed
destroyed redacted which means changed the literature that

(19:23):
we're working with. So I don't care what name we
play. We can say, well Iranian said
this or Celsius said that or Marcy and said that.
Most of what we know of a lot ofthese characters come from the
arguments which survive of theiropponents.
Yeah, because their writings were destroyed or lost or both.

(19:44):
So why did this happen? What happened?
Because Rome was a fascist stateand they didn't think twice
about burning literature that they felt was not consistent
with what they wanted people to read.
Once the church became a Roman entity, it's now a government
apparatus. Therefore the messaging must be

(20:05):
controlled. So I don't care if you're going
back 300 years, 200 years, 100 years, 50 years, all of what we
have. In the New Testament, and all of
what we have, and all the ChurchFathers and the and the the vast
corpus of the umbrella, if you will, of other writings which
surround the New Testament. The commentaries, the

(20:25):
apologetics, the rebuttals, everything else, they all exist
in this vacuum of Roman censorship, and whatever has
leaked through is combed over and we're we're left with
nothing but speculation as to what was the original a perfect
example of this. Just to illustrate the point,

(20:47):
For example, I I found one of the most helpful books I ever
read because I was always fascinated with Paul.
I found Robert Price's book on Paul to be the best of all that
I read. Now, of course, the colossal
apostle, and the reason why it'sso good is because he he takes a

(21:09):
textual critical approach and helooks logically at the issues
that are discussed. For example, Romans.
Let's take the The Book of Romans for instance, which is a
core doctrinal piece for Christian doctrine.
As we understand Christianity. As you pointed out, Romans is

(21:31):
not an it's not a letter like it's it's falsely attributed as
a letter. Romans is not a letter.
Romans is a treatise. A letter is one page of a
paragraph. Like Titus is a letter right?
Philemon is a letter. Perhaps Romans is not a letter.
Romans, Romans. First Corinthians, Hebrews.

(21:54):
All of these texts that we have in the New Testament are very
carefully contrived doctrinal statement type documents, and
they're very confusing. So like one of the things that
Paul gets confused, he confuses people because it sounds like

(22:14):
he's contradicting himself all the time.
Robert Price puts forth the argument.
Around and then he says basically the opposite, you
know, which is I think speaks tothe the redaction.
Within the text that you know. You have a corpus, you have a
statement, then you have the various layers of redaction.

(22:34):
And so you don't have an authentic unedited letter which
speaks to kind of what you talked about earlier.
But I always call what I call the the Roman influence campaign
or what I'll expand in my current definition Greco Roman
influence campaign because I would, I'm starting to kind of

(22:57):
the the, you know, the Greeks did come in and they defiled the
temple, but Ptolemy still commissioned the Greek
Septuagint. And I think that the cultural
assimilation didn't just start with the Romans, but it started
with the Greeks. So with Ptolemy commissioning

(23:18):
the Greek Septuagint, there is some alterations in the Greek
Septuagint that predate the Roman Empire.
But as the Roman Empire took over the, you know the the Greek
empire that Rome had a maybe a more benevolent like they'd
accept the religion a little more and then introduce their
their small alteration. So you know, I don't want to you

(23:41):
know delve too much into controversial stuff in in the
modern age. But the idea that they would
take a, you know, the the censorship, they would take the
text, the religion, they would alter it.
So we look at the Greek Septuagint, there are changes
and 1st so the Greek Septuagint before Christianity gets a hold

(24:02):
of it and then adds in all of, because the Greek Septuagints,
the first five books that what Ptolemy commissioned and then
the rest of it, the the writingsand the prophetic work.
A lot of those that become part of what the Christian Bible is
based upon was produced in the Christian period and also
included the Apocrypha. But I would say that there was,

(24:26):
you know, to translate as delight as why, You know, Jewish
people read the text in Hebrew. When you have the power to
translate, you have the power toinfluence.
And so making little changes to the Greek Septuagint set the
groundwork for what they did with the New Testament.
So that it already started with the Greek Septuagint, that there
was changes made when it was translated to Greek.

(24:50):
And it's why you had separatist movements.
When you look at the Maccabean period, you look at the you know
with the because the you know asyou know the you know Sadducees,
Pharisees and then you know the other groups, the you know the
essings and whatnot. You have the separatist groups
to say the temple is on pure. We won't participate in impure
temple. We have the Sadducees who were

(25:12):
very much Hellenized and they'repart of the temple, but the the
essings won't participate because they feel like it's
impure. And then the Pharisees, who are
the Rabbis, who say they go backto the great assembly, which you
know, before captivity, which would have been before the
Maccabean period. But of course it's oral
traditions, right. So the, you know, the kind of

(25:34):
the three main groups are are kind of through that period.
Of course the diverse you know, we talk about the diversity of
Judaism in the 1st century. But there was, you know when you
look within the Greek Septuagint, that text which was
heavily played in the the Roman Empire and then how that played

(25:57):
into the Platonic tradition and how Hanotheism began to rise in
the Roman Empire. So before the event of
Christianity, Hanotheism, the idea of one God who is ethical
played heavily in the the philosophical camps of Platonic
thought because the Greek pantheon it was full of gods who

(26:18):
backstabbed and cheated and it was very you know, tumult was
very human kind of thing. And the idea of a God who is
ethical. Had morality started to
influence the philosophical campand all this kind of Hellenism,
that was, you know, one. It was a they sought to
influence and change the the text and tradition of the Jewish
people, make it more secular because Hellenization is

(26:42):
essentially the secularization. And in that process it
influenced not just Jewish culture but Roman culture and
Roman philosophy, which laid thefoundation for what I think Paul
played to 'cause I think he played a lot on the ideas of
Philo and maybe Josephus and some of the Platonic thought.

(27:04):
And this is where the, what was,you know, when I say the Greco
Roman influence campaign, I would trace it back to the
Ptolemy. And it's a process over
centuries of influencing towardssecularization.
And and so I want to just, you know, I I would even like I

(27:24):
backdate what I'm looking at even further.
So when, you know, authors say that the New Testament was
invented, you know, 2nd century or 4th century, there's this
groundwork of cultural assimilation for governmental
dominance that starts before Christianity or the 1st century.

(27:48):
So and and that's kind of my response to like you brought up
the the government influence upon the textual tradition
because really they had the the power to produce and distribute
and therefore they can also censor and decide that the ones
they want disseminated and not burnt are the ones that support

(28:09):
their ideas. Well, there's no question.
Yeah, I I think that's very interesting what you're saying
about Ptolemy. I I know that.
So my view is this is I, I thinkChristianity and Judaism and
most of the ancient religions ofthe ancient world, we're drawing
from the same pool of philosophical thought.

(28:32):
I always find it interesting that, you know, like, like, so
let me, let me narrow that down,that statement we have, for
instance, thousands of years before Judaism.
We have Buddhists, we have the followers of Krishna and we have

(28:54):
at least documented at least hundreds of years, but fully we
find Buddhist monks have went toChina.
We find shrines to Buddha in theBritish Isles before Rome got
there. We find in fact that's largely
what Rome was. Once Rome Christianized and they
went to the British Isles. When you look at the story of
King Arthur, King Arthur as we understand it today largely is

(29:19):
the tale of Rome trying to abolish and destroy the Druids
and the ancient religions of theBritish Isles with their hero
who represents Jesus Christ. And you have the
Christianization of the British Isles.
But but there, but before the Christians got there, there were

(29:42):
the sun worshippers. So we know Constantine was a sun
worshipper and we also know he was a Stoic.
So Constantine was a big fan of Stoic philosophy because he
felt, and I'm I'm getting outside my pay grade by even
discussing this, but just what Iknow from what I've you know
learned from others who are experts on Constantine.

(30:02):
He liked the idea of the, you know, to serve your country, be
a good citizen, be a good moral person ethos of Stoicism.
He felt it was a good model for obedient Roman citizens, and so
he liked Christianity. You find the stoicism in Paul's

(30:26):
writings and the problem? Absolutely.
Well, so, so back to that. Yeah, no, no question.
So that's, you know, we're in agreement on that.
And I think when you So what you're what sounds to me like
what you're saying, I would synopsize like this that it's
not like there was a conspiracy to come up with texts that would

(30:49):
manipulate people's minds to accept the Christian doctrine or
for that matter, many of the ideas that get propagate because
even Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talks about Jewish Gnosticism in the
early centuries and how it influenced.
We know that Zoroastrianism heavily influenced the rabbis,

(31:10):
the whole idea of heaven and hell and angels and demons and
all that that was absent in ancient Judaism.
That comes in with the influenceof Zoroastrianism and the
Persians. So where did the Persians get
it? Well, the Persians got it from
the east, they got it from the from the from China and Tibet.
And all these monks that came over, we had, we had, we had

(31:31):
Buddhist monks that were evangelizing in Judea a couple
of 100 years before the Jesus story.
So we also know that many of thestories, and it's shocking when
you really dive into this, how much parallel there is Most of
Jesus's life is directly, I meanI'm not talking circumstantially
directly paralleled in the storyof Krishna, the story of Buddha

(31:58):
and also and and and you go intothe ancient Roman Empire and
Mithraism was high was a very popular religion at the time
that Christianity was supposedlycoming on board.
And you also have other sects like the Isis cult which existed
with some veracity all the way up into the 6th, 7th century in
Rome. The ISIS cult was based, of

(32:18):
course in Egyptology. And when you go into Egyptology,
if you want to talk the talk about the ancient origins of
some of these ideas that Monophius hold dear, Egyptology
has just like, just like Buddhism does.
Most people think Buddhism is a polytheistic.
There's many gods in Buddhism, but there's one supreme God.

(32:40):
And in Egypt it was the same thing.
As a supreme God whereas Hinduism.
So I would date like 2500 years ago.
I definitely would say the origins of Judaism predate
Buddhism. Now Hinduism it may be

(33:01):
equivalent time period from. From Buddhism, yes, but not
Hinduism. Yeah, Hinduism goes Hinduism is
probably the most ancient religion that we have that
exists today. Still there were there were
missionaries for Hindus that went around the world.
They sailed around the world. They had, they had adherents and
and it comes in different names like if you go into like Japan

(33:24):
or China or Korea. Buddha is known as Pho FO.
If you go into the British Isles, it's known as not Buddha.
It's not Buddha it's the well there is there is a Mahatma
Buddha. But I don't want to get into
that because that's not the topic of this conversation.
But I'm just trying to say that there were Angel.

(33:46):
My only point is I don't want toget lost in the weeds here is to
your point is there was a there was a very rich pool of
theological and philosophical ideas that found ready
acceptance in the early centuries in the Roman Empire

(34:07):
and in Judea as you mentioned, like the Hellenize movement,
there's a lot of these ideas that were very readily accepted
already. All of the ancient God men that
existed in the ancient religions, they almost all of
them were dying and rising savior gods at some level,

(34:27):
Mithra, Romulus, even ISIS has the had the whole resurrection
story with Horus and all that. You know, a little different
type story but the same basic idea and all of it ultimately
seems to center around sun worship.
So we know for instance that like for instance the cross of
the Christian thing, right? The cross is a symbol that goes

(34:52):
way, way, way before Christianity.
Yeah, I mean, the Roman generalsused to put the cross on their
Shields before Christianity was even an idea because it
represented the sun. Yeah, by the image of the Cairo
which Constantine you know you know invoked and put on his

(35:12):
Shields at mountain bridge or Melvain right.
Exactly. And associate that was sold
Invictus, whereas the two accounts, the two earliest
accounts refer to soul Invictus,whereas the two later accounts
rewrite history and start sayingthat it was in the name of the

(35:35):
cross which it was not a writtenright.
Exactly. So that that's a great, I'm glad
you said that that that helps mecut to the chase here a little
bit. That's what I was driving at.
Is that so? The idea of a Christianity
evolving. So my contention is this, this
is my big pet peeve and I know we're we're arcing towards this
if we have time towards the messianic movement.

(35:57):
One of my big pet peeves with the reason why I make a point of
saying I'm a mythicist is not because I really care whether
Jesus existed or not, but it seems to be incredibly important
to certain groups of people whenit comes to biblical scholars.
I have my own opinion about that.
I will get into that right now. But for the messianic movement,

(36:22):
it is so critical for them to believe in a Jesus who was a
rabbi who walked the earth and taught these wonderful cool
things. And they love to make all these
parallels with Talmudic thought and their thoughts of the
rabbis. And the problem with this is
that I don't personally believe that Christianity has anything

(36:44):
whatsoever to do with Judaism atall, at any level.
I don't think, I don't think it connects to Christianity
whatsoever. I mean to Judaism whatsoever.
Excuse me. So especially once you
understand that Judaism was far from a, that was far from
consensus in the 1st and 2nd centuries about what Judaism

(37:06):
was. What is Judaism like today?
When we talk about Judaism, we think about the rabbis, we think
about synagogue, we think about the Temple, we think about the
Talmud, we think about the rich tradition of Jewish philosophy.
But that's that's the centuries long development and most of it.
And this is where where I do seea parallel.

(37:28):
Here's where I see a parallel between Judaism and Christianity
is Talmudic. Judaism and Christianity both
developed side by side in an environment in which the origins
of the story could not be verified.
So by the time the Talmud was being written, the Temple and

(37:50):
Jewish society had been destroyed.
So really, if you understand what what is, what is rabbinic
Judaism? The Talmud was designed to help
people remain connected to theirstory, of their people into
their religion, without a templeand without a land.
Talbot Talbot is basically a diaspora, Like, here's how we

(38:13):
live without what we're supposedto have, right?
And so all of Judaism today exists in that perpetuity of a
diaspora existence. Christianity, by the same token.
I think it's really convenient. I always think it's really
convenient. I'm just hearing a lot of

(38:35):
background noise, Jeremy. I don't know if it's coming from
your end or not, but it sounds like somebody's playing bongo
drums in the background. I.
Don't hear not my end at. All you don't hear it.
I hear it. I don't know what it is.
It's not coming from me. I mean, there's no motion.
There's nothing here. I don't.
Maybe. Maybe it's your headset.
I don't know. Oh, it.

(38:56):
Could be my headset. Yeah, I'll be.
Let me try to. Before we really get into all
that, I want to lay some foundation on some things, get
some peace understandings of defined terms before talking
about things before, so they don't get lost in the weeds to
to some degree. So I mean in in general, yes, I

(39:17):
agree with the summation kind ofwhere you're going.
But I want to say like you brought something up, Judaism,
there was diversity in the 1st century, but I wouldn't say that
what became Christianity, you wanted to found Judaism that
looked like Christianity in the 4th to 8th century.
What was that? Can you say that again?

(39:38):
I would say that there was a diversity of Judaism in the 1st
century, but you wanted to have seen a Judaism in the 1st
century that looks like Christianity in the 4th to 8th
century. So I would say it was a
distinction. So sometimes people use that
point to undermine Judaism and then say it kind of justify this

(39:59):
later developed Christianity. So, so to backtrack, I want to
kind of go into the 1st century and talk about the Judaism in
the 1st century and where I would place what the followers
of Jesus would have been in the 1st century in the context there
before we define Christianity and before we get into like what

(40:19):
Messianics are and stuff like that.
So I really define Judaism in the 1st century.
And to contrast it from what later becomes, you know for
sure, Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, that there's the
foundation. There are some core things in
Judaism though, that all branches of Judaism share.

(40:40):
And one is the Torah or the Humash.
And it's to the level that one they study believe the Torah,
the Humash diversified books forsay the Sadducees would have
been more like carites today. I would say if you were to you
know give it a classification Rabbis, they I would put, I
would just. To interrupt you, I would put

(41:00):
the carites more in line with the Samaritans.
OK, well, but we can get into those definitions.
And then the Pharisees would have been the seed bed for
rabbis. And then you have, you know for
sure what the the Essenes or youknow more separatist groups, the
Zets, who were more of a violent, they were a political

(41:23):
violent active version of the Essenes because they wanted to
supplant and establish their messianic king.
And then Mystic Jews, which I I would put the Sadducees in that
Malay. And yes, there's a diversity of
Judaism, but there's still the five first books of the Torah
that they all shared in common. So there's a, there's a core,

(41:46):
you know, narrative myth that all you know, there's a
diversity of we, you know, application.
Now there are some of the, you know, the Hellenistic branches
that blended Merkabah mysticism and Platonic thought.
You have the essence who the ritual purity felt like.
Their ritual purity essentially took the place of Temple

(42:08):
sacrifice. They didn't participate in the
temple because it was on pure. So there's a diversity of
Hellenistic influenced by the influenced by the Platonic
thought you have. You know it influences from
mysticism within the Hellenisticbranch.
You have Essenes who have their own ascetic mysticism, which I
would put those in two differentcategories.

(42:32):
And then you have, of course, the the Sadducees, which are
part of the ruling elite connected to the Roman
leadership, but also part of theTemple, and then the Pharisees,
which were more like the teachers of the people.
But there's a diverse, yes, there's a diversity of 1st
century Judaism and diverging, you know, you have the Hellenist

(42:54):
who they engage in Platonic thought in in, you know,
Merkabah mysticism. And I feel like they share some
of the same text looking at Enochian literature that you'll
find within the the essence. Now as far as Pauline
Christianity, I see them coming out of the Hellenist who, you

(43:15):
know, looked at some of the sameEnochian texts, the Platonic
thought, some of the mysticism, but different than the mysticism
of the Essenes per SE. But in the 1st century, yes,
there's a diversity of Judaism and there may be echoes of
things later, like, you know, people talk about in the Dead

(43:38):
Sea Scrolls, the Peshiram, and you know, the the commentaries
on Isaiah and Ezekiel and stuff like that.
That may look similar to what later was used to develop
Christianity, the ice of Jesus, the hopping through text to find
support for a later developed tradition.

(43:59):
But all of this diversity of Judaism, I wanted the still the
idea of King Mashiach in the would have been a king who rules
physically in Jerusalem, not a savior.
The idea of redemption was national redemption, not a
similar of mankind. So even with all the diversity

(44:22):
of Judaism, they would have agreed.
Mashik is to help establish national identity.
The Kingdom of David a a soul savior.
Let me pause for one second. Hold on.
Yeah, yeah, so, so there was a diversity of Judaism in 1st

(44:45):
century, and I've seen that by Christian apologist.
Why is my hold on? Let me turn my video on.
Boom. So I've seen that used by
Christian apologists to almost make it sound like there was a
Christianity like we know it in the 4th, 8th century.
In the 1st century, which I would not say exists, which I
want to get to later. Not now, Not yet.

(45:06):
But the diversity of Judaism in the 1st century still would
agree that they wanted a king toestablish national identity for
the Jewish people, and a Davidicking and a pure temple worship.
Even the Essenes would have agreed that if there was a pure
temple, they'd participate. I don't know if the Hellenist
would have bought into you know that 100%, but you know the the

(45:29):
Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots.
I would say that they wanted a Messianic king to physically
establish national identity and a Davidic king that that would
have been an agreement, you know, bar none except for maybe,
you know the Hellenized Jews, which that might have been a
different situation altogether. But for a majority of what we

(45:52):
Israeli centric Judaism, those within the land that we're not
overly Hellenized, they their their focus would have been the
first five books, you know, whether direct application or
commentary of application. And then they want a king to
establish national identity. And then you have groups that,
to varying degrees, would focus on the prophetic books, the

(46:16):
writings and stuff to interrupt.For one second, like the carites
for instance. What we know is the carites
today would not have ascribed toany of that.
They had no interest in a Davidic king.
Oh yeah. They're a later development
though, so I mean you can't superimpose them in the 1st
century. No, but even at that time, I
mean ever since the split Kingdom it was a whole section

(46:39):
of that ended up you know what we call the lost tribes, they
didn't adhere to. So the so Judaism based on
Judah, so a Jew is someone who follows the the Davidic vision,
if you will, whereas a Hebrew could be referred to any of the

(47:00):
ancient Semites that would identify with Israel.
So there's a lot of. I mean, even the Samaritans have
their own Pentateuch. They have their own five books,
absolutely. They have different terms still.
Still, the focus would have beenthe first five books, though.
So I'm trying. To sidetrack you, I'm just.
Yeah, I know there's well, yeah.But still the the first five

(47:21):
books would have been a major consensus.
Sure. Period.
Like even the Samaritans who that they're, they would say
that there's a different mountain, a different temple.
You know that they they focus ona different you know Jerusalem
isn't the Center for the Samaritans but they still have a
pensatouk, a first five books, their own version but still the

(47:41):
first five books would have beencentral and for a majority a
majority, especially in the 1st century in Israel and Judea and
and in the area where Christianity comes out of still
temple centric Judaism with a Davidic king would have been
pretty central to Israel, not somuch the Hellenized Jews and

(48:03):
those outside. And I would not place.
And I would say that the Essenesare a group we found a record
of, but they aren't central to the Jerusalem in the area 100%
that Christianity came out of. So there are these outlier
groups, the Hellenize and the Essenes and the Samaritans.

(48:25):
But when it comes to the melee of Jerusalem centric because you
know Jesus went to the temple, you know within the tradition
that developed. So I I, you know I would focus
on Jerusalem centric when it comes to now trying to piece
together what happens now, two major events you mentioned kind

(48:49):
of in passing and I'd add a third and we don't have like
we've talked, we don't have the records So 70 AD, destruction of
the temple, the burning and the raising of the temple mound
would include destruction of government structures document
and text. It would be a raising of the of

(49:10):
the people If you're destroying the people in the land.
And then again the Barcopa Revolt 133, we're we're going to
do that again when we destroy the text and the tradition so we
don't have a good authentic record of that period.
Now I want to couch what I think, and I'm going to start to
couch what I do. Just to just to mention all we

(49:31):
do have is we have the government sponsored.
Your Your voice dropped out. What did you do with your mic,
Brent? There we go.
Can. You hear?
Me. I don't know.
Your voice went really, really low all of a sudden.
Really. When you touched it, like all of
a sudden I went from hearing youtill I could barely hear you.
How? About now.
Still bad. I don't know your your your

(49:52):
volume just went really low. Really.
Hold on a minute. Let me.
Let's figure that out because I don't know why that would
happen. It looks like it's still working
on my end. Can you hear me?
I can hear you. It's almost like you went from
speaker mode to headset mode or something.

(50:15):
Let me let me look at something here.
I don't know why. All I did was adjust my little
microphone. Whoa.
Nope, that's not what I want. How's this?
Is that better? I don't know.
I'm curious if we should. Just pause it and figure it out.
Yeah, yeah. Let's let's pause.

(50:35):
I think I'm having a walk. All right.
So yeah, a little technical difficulty, but let me pick up
where it was. So 1st century, we had the two
main events. Are you picking me up?
Yeah, I. Hear you perfectly.
OK, I just saw your hand. OK, so yeah, so where would I?

(50:57):
Here's where I would situate what the historical Jesus which
divorced this from what we're going to talk about, how
Christianity invented itself or became to self identify.
I would put, you know, maybe drawing on the works of various
you know, Eisenman and Sabor andothers I in my own personal

(51:20):
research, I would place even my recent conversations with Doctor
Price. I would place the early
followers of Jesus within the Zealot movement.
I would put James and whoever Jesus was as part of those
seeking to establish a Kingly dynasty in Israel pre the

(51:44):
destruction of the temple. This is why I believe that Peter
and James are cut off in 66 before 70, but they were part of
a violent uprising to establish a Davidic king.
And I don't, I don't know. I don't think I believe that
Jesus was to be the king. But, you know, from my studies

(52:05):
of that period of time, the early Ebeonites may have seen
Jesus simply as a prophet calling for an end of temple
sacrifice, who wasn't resurrected, who wasn't born of
a virgin, who had a physical Father Joseph.
And I'm going to get into this alittle bit, but before kind of
passing the mic. But I I see evidence for an

(52:30):
early and then James May have, you know, took an over after he
went away. But I would place them as part
of what ended up with the battleof Masada, the destruction there
that led to the destruction of the Temple.
But I would place the early followers of the James Jesus

(52:51):
movement as part of the Zealot branch of the Essenes who wanted
to violently overthrow and we have no record so we cannot
disprove this. But it's very hard to prove
because of the records. Now I say that and I think there
is evidence when we look at the polemics in it and when it talks
about at the Barkoka revolt, they refused to participate

(53:14):
because their revolt in 70 failed.
And that is why they were made fun of at the Barkoka revolt
because they were, they had started to transition to what
became Rabbinic Judaism, a post temple religion.
And so my view of the historicalJesus before the myth making of

(53:34):
Christianity was they were zealots who fought for national
identity, Davidic king and failed.
Now and this follows the polemics and I'm going to hit
some points real quick, the polemics of the early church
fathers, the big one that the majority of the groups they were
polemic again were various Jewish Christian groups,

(53:55):
Nazarenes, Ebeonites, Corinthians.
There was like 456 like a lot oftheir polemics was against
Jewish Christian groups. The the proto Orthodox and
Orthodox their main adversaries before there was Jewish
Christian groups in that believed in Shabbat kosher you

(54:17):
know conversion we can get into the the the elements of that
hold on. Let me double check and make
sure that we are recording. Yes we're recording.
So the main the main adversary of the early church father was
the Jewish we say Jewish Christians but Christians really
not the term to use for them butit's because it became

(54:39):
Christianity. It couches things for most
people to understand. So I would say and for me and
like even the last time I talkedto Doctor Price, he's he leans
towards the Zealot hypothesis. For me.
I think that they were zealots and that we don't have that
record. Now I disagree with Eisenman but

(54:59):
agree that you know the Teacher of Righteousness was a James
time character, the Spouter of Lies was a Paul type character.
But I don't know if that I don'tbelieve they're the same.
I believe they're similar. When we get into the Clementine
literature, The Secret Epistle of James, Epistle Peter to
James, what I see is a Judaism that teaches the textual

(55:25):
tradition of the because they talk about passing the scrolls,
the initiation according to Moses, the the 70 elders.
You know, because we know of thetradition.
So this is the rabbinic tradition, very pure K of oak
kind of stuff. There's a Judaism, There's a
Judaism that's very Jewish and then they believe you must be

(55:47):
circumcised, tested for a six year period and go through
mikvah and a communal meal and then you become part of this
group. And this is a textual tradition
of a group that believed that. From what I read about this,
we'll talk about the later Eveeonites.
But the early Eveeonites believed Jesus was a prophet
calling for the end of temple sacrifice and and that he was

(56:10):
cut off. But they didn't believe he was
risen savior. He was born of Joseph, not a
virgin, you know. And then later I'd say in the
2nd to 5th century, we see a Gnostic influence, Evianites
rising. And you see the Nazarenes, who
I'd say split off with them. Now, the Nazarenes, I put that
there, they're splitting with Evianites, around 90 common

(56:33):
error. And I believe that's when the
institution of the prayer of theMenem is put in the synagogues.
And it's why Christians in the Talmud are called Nazarenes, and
that there was a split between the Ebionites and the Nazarenes.
Now we have records that the Ebionites remained in synagogues
up to the 8th century at least, you know, in polemic works.
I mean, you know, and then they disappear, like maybe they just

(56:54):
stayed Jewish, who knows? But there's no definitive where
they go. There's echoes here and there,
the authors that trace them liketo the Cathars and stuff like
that. But any of that is pure
speculation. But to couch to what I think and
what I'm trying to say here is that there was an early core
group who stuck with the textualtransmission around the first

(57:17):
five books and the initiation according to Moses.
Now I put the historical James Jesus, whoever may have been
there, yes or no, not 100% within that core group of the
pre Gnostic Ebionites because you know the DDK, I'd say like
4th or 5th century Gnostic influences Nag Hammadi Library

(57:41):
where it has you know the writings of James and Peter that
very Gnostic, those aren't early1st century works.
So I would say that there was definitely this Gnostic branch
who started to adopt Pauline ideas, though we know there were
early evenites that saw him as aheretic and rejected the Pauline
epistles. So that's where I see the early

(58:05):
Jesus movement and and I'll giveyou a chance to to answer to
that. But now if we are to move into
the invention of Christianity, we go 2nd century and our
textual tradition starts with asyou mentioned Marcy, before we
get there, what do you make of Iguess my summation of the early

(58:29):
Jesus movement connection to thezealots?
You know destruction of the temple pre myth making of
Christianity. Yeah, you make of like my
summation of that. There's a couple of points that
struck me as you were going through that that I thought were
really good. For instance, like you talk

(58:51):
about the Minim Prayer, the 19thBenediction and the Shimona
Ashrae. It's well known that there was
18 Benedictions and the 19th wasadded.
Yeah. And it was against the Minim.
You know, that was the Minim text.
It was the the, the, the cursingof the oh, you want to phrase
it. Now, if you talk to rabbis,

(59:13):
they'll tell you based on the sources that that wasn't
directly a denouncement of Christians, it was a
denouncement of heretics in general.
Right. And that's, that's the Jewish
position on that. Right.
But I think what you say is veryinteresting as far as the the

(59:34):
break, you know that happened in90AD.
I think what you're saying sounds extremely plausible and
it of course would support what the rabbis say about it.
But of course it's a little bit of a it's a little bit of a
Mississippi two step with that because.
But it speaks to what you said originally which is the idea

(59:56):
that we have as we discussed these ideas of Christian
origins. It's probably worth us
reiterating this that we're discussing.
That in the context that what iscommonly understood as
Christianity Today is post 4500 AD.
Yes, and did not exist in. The 4th century, right.

(01:00:17):
So that's a really important thing to remind ourselves as we
discussed this, because all these different elements that
you're bringing forth are all way before that.
So I think, I think a lot of times people take umbrage with
these types of conversations because their their
understanding of Christianity isis after there was a complete

(01:00:39):
parting of all the ways as it were and rabbinic Judaism and
Christianity had gone completelyin separate directions.
That's one thing that comes to mind as as you go through that.
Another thing you mentioned which I thought was quite
interesting, it gave me a thought.
You mentioned Eisenman and how he brings up, and I know you

(01:01:01):
know, you and I both read his book James the Brother of Jesus,
which we both recommend. It's a it's a long read.
It's a it's a slog. But at any rate, he does talk
about, of course, you know, we should probably reveal to the
audience, for those who aren't familiar, that Eisenman believes

(01:01:23):
that the traditional dating of the scrolls is inaccurate.
And he has a he has a platform. We should mention he has a
platform to to say this because he's one of the world's experts
on the scrolls. He was instrumental in getting
it brought forth to public viewing.
He fought for that, whereas the Vatican wanted to lock it up and
throw away the key. So he he knows the scrolls, he's

(01:01:46):
viewed the fragments, he's studied them, he he was granted
access that most people never had.
So Eisemann is an expert on the scrolls, but his his one of his
big controversial claims, which caused a lot of controversy in
the scholarly world, was the idea that the Dead Sea Scrolls
are wrongly dated to two to three centuries before the

(01:02:09):
destruction of the Temple. And Eisenman believed that the
scrolls are contemporary with that time period.
And he also believed, as you alluded to, that the Paul of the
New Testament, he he speculated and we can't say anything more
than that's what it is. It was speculation based on his
study of the text and of the various other writings such as

(01:02:30):
the the Clementine traditions and that Paul is none other than
the wicked Liar pointed out in the scrolls.
Well, what you said that was interesting to me and I I put
that all as subtext to what I'm about to say is it's possible

(01:02:50):
that Eisenman could be wrong on both accounts and yet correct
about the philosophical ideas that were germinating through
the period. Yeah, that's my point.
Right. And I think that's what he was
saying is that he could be completely wrong with the dating
of the scrolls, that the consensus could be accurate, and
he could be completely wrong about fingering Paul as the

(01:03:12):
wicked liar. And yet even being incorrect, he
could be absolutely correct as to the tension within the
growing movement and what the the various controversies were
and I do believe he was accurateabout that.
Right. And that's kind of what you're
illustrating. So I I I do find that to be a
very interesting analysis. I guess I don't take exception

(01:03:37):
to anything you're saying as faras you know disagreeing with it
or whatever. I I tend to think that so if if
I could give of a much shorter synopsis than what you gave,
just to move the conversation along.
So I'm not logging you down. But a short a shorter synopsis

(01:03:57):
of my take on the development ofChristianity is I think all of
these things are true. All of these developments in the
ancient world and in Judea and in Rome are all true.
However, I think that what happened is that as time went

(01:04:18):
on, I think the Jesus character as a story, the Jesus Christ
that is known as the founder of Christianity, the one that
Christians adore and worship andis nothing other than a
recharacterization of an ancientmythological Pagan story.

(01:04:43):
Because the Jesus story that we're taught, you know, this guy
that is the Son of God that defeats death and rises again
and you know, and and he's the morning star and he's the Alpha
and the Omega and all this otherstuff, you know, he's has no
beginning and no end. These are all motifs that
existed long before any of thesethings we're talking about.

(01:05:06):
And they've always existed. As long as human history has
been recorded, there has always been a desire for people to put
up a hero that represents their mediation between death and the
everlasting and that which we don't understand.
So there's there's always this need that people have to try to

(01:05:29):
understand the mystery of it all, like why am I here,
etcetera and so forth. Right.
And to go back to something you said earlier so that I'm being
consistent with what you're saying, you're absolutely
correct. So a lot of people don't
realize, Christians especially, that the idea of a savior

(01:05:50):
figure, you know what what you could say in Hebrew?
A Mashiach, A savior, A Messiah,which the, you know, the Greeks
and Romans took directly from the Septuagint and from Jewish
tradition is wildly different, as you pointed out excellently
from the Jewish conception. Accept.

(01:06:13):
It's not. And where is it not?
Well, in the in the parts of theJewish population that we're
embracing the Pagan world aroundthem.
The Christian idea of a Redeemerfigure was very consistent with
whatever all their neighbors believed.
They all believed in this type of a person, whether it's

(01:06:34):
Mithra, whether it's Zoroastra, whether it's Krishna, whether
it's Buddha, whether it's, you know, as we go down on all these
different figures that all represent the same thing, they
represent the salvation, right. And and so Judaism, ancient
Judaism, like, like the idea forinstance, I I had, well, let me

(01:06:57):
save that. Let me save the comment I was
about to make because you're going to get to it eventually.
I don't want to muddy the watershere, but so I very excellently
put that that in Judaism, Mashiach is really a military
political leader. Yes.
That's what he is, that's what he is, and it's important.
To point out in the 1st century,four of those in the land of

(01:07:20):
Judea, right? The Jews may not have felt
exactly the same way, though. Well, this is where it gets
complicated. And this is going to we have to
put a pin in this idea right here because this when we get
into the messianic thing, if we get into it in this conversation
or if it's a follow up one if werun.
Out of time. We'll see.
We'll see. Yeah, when we start getting into

(01:07:42):
the Hasidic kabbalistic conceptions of Mashiach, yeah,
there's there that has to be dealt with because that's that's
the hit the Mashiach that the Messianics cling to.
But in terms of Jewish law, we'll circle back.
To them. Yeah, we will.
The the sources are very clear that there's certain jobs that a

(01:08:07):
Messianic candidate must fulfillor they are disqualified as
being the Messiah. Jesus doesn't fulfill any of
them. No, not.
One so the character Jesus. This is why I have such an issue
with people that want to die on the hill of Jesus historicity.

(01:08:27):
Because they're trying to contend for a Jewish guy who had
these pure values and was a great preacher, and he was a
leader and he had all these wonderful ideas.
And they're willing to throw outthe virgin birth.
They're willing to throw out theascension, they're willing to
throw out all the later Christian claims about this God
man. But they but they violently

(01:08:50):
cling to this idea that there was a guy back there somewhere
and he's just lost in the page of the New Testament and all the
redactions and everything. Well, my argument is always what
would be the point of that? Because even if there was this
guy back there called Jesus, he's still not the Messiah
according to Jewish expectations.

(01:09:12):
Yeah, so. What's the point of a historical
Jesus, then? If all you're doing, and my
favorite, my favorite on this, you know I'll quote him again.
Robert Price has the great analogy.
Nobody's interested in Clark Kent except in relation to the
fact that he's secretly Superman.

(01:09:34):
If Clark Kent wasn't really Superman, who the heck is
interested in Clark Kent? Nobody's interested in Clark
Kent, the mild mannered news reporter and all these Jesus.
About a Clark Kent or a single Rabbi.
Judaism's never been about 1 Rabbi when Clark Kent.
Correct. Exactly.
And but the but the but the people who want to desperately

(01:09:57):
try to connect Jesus to ancient Judaism are always, they're
always willing to make all theseconcessions because they want to
distance themselves from Christianity.
You know, because they, you know, Oh yeah, Christianity
became Pagan and it added all this other stuff like the Easter
story and everything. Yeah, we all understand that.
But if you strip Jesus of the New Testament down to just being

(01:10:18):
some itinerant preacher wandering around gaining
followers, you've just completely circumcised.
And worse than that, you've castrated the entire religion of
Christianity. You've made Jesus irrelevant.
So the idea is the religion of Christianity has nothing to do

(01:10:40):
with an itinerant preacher in Judea.
It has everything to do with theself-interest of the various
groups vying for power, for the thought of the people.
Yeah. And so that's where the door is
opened to the Paul's of the world, Whoever Paul was, or if

(01:11:01):
he even existed, whoever wrote in Paul's name, which is largely
what we have today. We have a bunch of documents
written in Paul's name that havehad cut and paste and scissor
Marks and stitch points all overthem.
We have very little core Paul, if there is any and none of it,
none of it existed in the earliest church records don't

(01:11:23):
have any Paul. We don't know of Paul except
until after Marcian supposedly discovers his letters.
Yeah, that's what so. And we know that the Gnostics
considered Paul to be a founder of their movement.
Yeah, so once even early proto orthodox considered Paul to be a
heretic. The early Ebionites thought Paul

(01:11:46):
was a heretic, and it wasn't until after Marcion found his
letters. And then the proto orthodox
decided to massage and revitalize them and then redact
his letters further that all of a sudden Paul did the revival.
Well, this was another excellentpodcast with author David
LeBlanc. We got into some really good

(01:12:07):
topics. It did kind of run a little bit
long, so I ended up cutting it into pieces.
So thanks for tuning into this first part and make sure you
tune in next week for the secondpart.
And you know, for everybody following, make sure you like
and subscribe, you know, TuneIn and Jesus the Jew within
judaism.com, the Facebook group and YouTube.

(01:12:28):
And stay in touch for further episodes.