Jewish Views on Christianity & The Historical Jesus (Discussion with Rabbi Tovia Singer): Episode 9

Summary: A Thought-Provoking Conversation with Rabbi Tovia Singer Exploring the Complexities of the Jewish Perspective on Christianity, the Historical Jesus, Pauline Theology, the Challenge of Discerning Fact from Mythology, and the Importance of Understanding Historical Context. The interview explores contrasting views on the afterlife, sin, and repentance, delves into the historical Jesus and Pauline theology, and touches on the Ebionites, Marcion, and the concept of Messiah. The conversation highlights the complexity of religious history and the importance of understanding the historical context of ancient texts. Episode Description: Jeramiah Giehl and Rabbi Tovia Singer engaged in a thought-provoking Podcast interview exploring various aspects of Judaism and Christianity. Rabbi Tovia Singer discusses his personal journey of confronting missionaries and evangelism groups targeting Jews for conversion, which inspired him to dedicate himself to addressing critical accusations against Judaism. The conversation delved into offensive tactics used by some Christian groups and stressed the significance of education in effectively responding to these claims. Singer also discussed the issue of proselytizing and the responsibility of Jews to be a guiding light to others. The interview delves into the complexities of identifying the historical Jesus and the influence of Pauline theology on Christian perspectives of salvation. Singer emphasizes the use of the "criteria of embarrassment" to identify historical events in the Gospels and explores the impact of Albert Schwitzer's work on the Quest for the Historical Jesus. They also explore the Jewish and Christian beliefs about the afterlife, particularly the concept of hell, and the divergent views on what happens to a person after death in the Jewish tradition. Singer cleverly used the behavior of children to illustrate their lack of moral precepts and selfish tendencies. He drew a parallel to adults who behave childishly and are criticized for their immaturity. He then discussed King David's humble confession in Psalm 51 and how he sought forgiveness from God with a broken and contrite heart. Singer stressed that rituals and sacrifices cannot save, but rather true devotion to God and a humble heart. The conversation illuminated the differences and similarities between the two religions' perspectives on sin and repentance. It also explored the Ebionites, a group that rejected Paul's views and allegedly denied the Virgin Birth and Resurrection. The impact of Marcion on the Church and his views on Paul were also discussed, as well as the Toldot Yeshu, a compilation of unflattering anecdotes about Jesus and its influence on Jewish perception of him. Throughout the interview, the complexity and multifaceted nature of religious history emerged, including the challenge of discerning fact from mythology in ancient texts. Understanding the historical context in which these texts were written was emphasized as crucial for interpreting their true meanings. Chapters & Topics 00:07 Interview with Rabbi Tovia Singer on Let's Get Biblical and Outreach Judaism 11:21 Historical Jesus Scholarship and Pauline Theology 22:38 Contrasting Views of Afterlife in Judaism and Christianity 30:41 King David's Confession and the Broken Heart 35:33 Views on Sin and Repentance in Judaism and Christianity 40:05 The Historical Jesus and the Talmud 50:11 The Meaning of Messiah in Jewish and Christian Traditions 56:45 The Ebionites and Pauline Christianity 1:00:31 Discussion on Marcion and Toldot Yeshu 1:04:42 Monotheism vs Paganism in Ancient Near East 1:16:31 The Virgin Birth and Isaiah's Prophecies Keywords: the Apostle Paul, the Historical Jesus, Messiah, Christianity, Jews, Isaiah, Christians, Hell, Salvation, Original Sin, Replacement Theology, Tanakh, Monotheism, King David, Christian Bible, Josephus, Philo, the Ebionites, Tanakh, New Testament, Anti-Missionary, Jews for Jesus, Outreach Judaism

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
All right, on today's episode ofthe Pulling the Threats podcast,
I will be interviewing Rabbi Tovia Singer, author of Let's
Get Biblical, Why Doesn't Judaism accept the Christian
Messiah? And he's a prolific author and
he also founded Outreach Judaism.

(00:29):
And so we were going to kind of ask some questions relation to
that starting off. I kind of always want to start
off a little personal and ask about kind of your background
and why you got involved with Outreach Judaism and what
brought you to write the book. Let's get Biblical.

(00:51):
When I was a youngster, I encountered missionaries.
From evangelical groups like Jews for Jesus that were
targeting Jews for conversion. And it just I was just shocked
by that. It was shocked that I knew in

(01:11):
history the church try to convert Jews.
But I when I saw it myself for the first time, I thought, I
thought it was just unimaginableand I I felt that I had to
devote my life. To responding to the very, very
serious charges against the Jewish faith, I thought
something had to be done. I have the role there were Jews

(01:34):
were joining these groups. So I met someone who was one of
these groups when I was spendinga little time in Israel and
helping him return back to the faith of Israel was
transformative. And I.
I've since devoted my life to this, and I thought it would be
important to make this information as accessible to

(01:57):
everyone as possible. So I do these, you know, I do a
lot of broadcasting like this, which appears on YouTube
frequently and, you know, wrote books so that I can carefully
respond to very, very serious charges against the Jewish
faith. So out of that kind of rises the

(02:17):
question that I've run into whenresponding to refuting, like
Christian claims. You know, I've had people make
claims Like what, you know, oh, now you're proselytizing as a
Jew because you're defending your faith against the claims of
Christianity. How do you deal with that idea?
I mean like so if we're speakingagainst something that like you

(02:42):
said, it's been going on for hundreds, thousands of years and
then we speak on it, how do you respond to the claim that
that's, I don't know, like proselytizing is what the guy
said is kind of. See, the one thing I have no
problem with is proselytizing. The the problem I have with Jews

(03:02):
is everything but proselytizing.I mean, just spreading
information out. That's good information.
The problem is the content of Jews, Of Jesus.
I mean after all. There are health organizations
in the United States that work feverishly to convince people

(03:22):
not to smoke, and that's a good thing.
And they're proselytizing. They have a great message.
The problem I have with evangelical Christians who are
targeting Jews for conversion isreally twofold #1.
The message is terrible for Jewsto become Christians abandon
their faith, the God of Israel. To believe in a a man as God, a

(03:48):
a person in a triune godhead. To abandon the Shabbat, to
abandon the Torah, the very coreprinciples of Jewish faith.
That's the nightmare. Not the Jews.
Jesus is proselytizing, after all.
People with a great message should spread it.
Just their message is a nightmare.
The second issue I have with Jews for Jesus and groups like

(04:10):
it, and there are thousands thatare very similar, is that
they're not being forthright in the way that they convert.
Jews, for example, they don't use the word convert.
They rather use terms like become a Messianic Jew, a
completed Jew, but fell Jew. It's the most Jewish thing you
can do. So they they engage in a

(04:30):
practice that magicians engage in, and that is to deflect.
To misdirect by using the name Yeshua instead of Jesus.
How Mashiach instead of Christ become a Messianic Jew instead
of convert to Christianity. Call it a Messianic congregation
instead of a Church of this. This is a word game, right?

(04:53):
So that's also particularly offensive.
So I want to make it very clear the one issue with Jews to Jesus
that I do not have as if they'reproselytizing.
It's the content of their proselytization.
What are they spreading? That's a terrible idea. #1 #2 is
the manner in which they're converting people, and that's by

(05:17):
using deflection, by changing words but not altering the
content. So that's very, very disturbing.
And I believe the only response to that is education.
So yes, proselytizing is good aslong as the message behind it is
exceptional okay. I mean, what about the view that
historically Jews don't engage in proselytizing as much though?

(05:42):
I don't know. The 10 commandments sound like
proselytizing God saying I am the Lord.
You God shall have no other godsbesides me.
That's how the 10 commandments opens.
The Jews are supposed to be a light to the nations.
The prophets were writing so that people would hear it.
I mean, why would we want to keep the faith of Israel a

(06:05):
secret? I want everyone to know about my
faith and I would like to address all the questions that
people have. So it's maybe it's because
Christians have gone about trying to convert people in a
way that's so that that so offensive.

(06:28):
Force the sword, being aggressive about it in and using
intimidation tactics to convert people.
I think that's what makes it so offensive, frankly.
But the role of the Jews to be alike to nations and here we're
in a predicament where Christiangroups are very specifically

(06:51):
targeting the Jewish community for conversion.
It it's. It only makes sense that someone
has to respond to these very these outrageous claims.
I certainly want to be one of those people.
I hear you on that. So I guess I wanted a classified
responding to the claims as proselytizing, but I I

(07:14):
definitely get your point on that.
I mean, being able to respond tothese claims that have been used
in antisemitic ways, replacementtheology, many of the different
things that you know and like you mentioned the use of, you
know, the sword, violence and conversion and history, forced
conversions. But yeah, I guess I I didn't

(07:37):
look at responding to these claims as proselytizing, but I
don't know, I guess. And Jews for Jesus doesn't
believe in replacement theology and not do almost any of the
missionaries trying to convert Jews.
A missionaries who try to convert to reject replacement
theology and that's what they use.
There are many of these groups that will actually weaponize

(07:59):
this because they reject replacement theology, which
means that they reject the notion that is believed in the
Roman Catholic Church, in the Orthodox Church and some
Protestant denominations that the church has replaced Israel.
So they don't believe that theseare.
For the most part, the missionaries who try to convert

(08:20):
Jews are dispensationalists who believe the Jews are still
chosen. And they actually are Marshall
that. They weaponize that.
And saying that we're different than all the other Christians
who would believe in replacementtheology, that's really a non
sequitur. The issue is seeking to convert
Jews to the Christian religion. Yeah, well, you know to me

(08:44):
though, like even though they say they reject replacement
theology, the statement completed you to me is like
there that seems like in the vein of replacement theology,
which is kind of an offensive term when they say completed.
Jew It's very offensive. It's very offensive stuff
because what it's saying is thata religious Jew who follows the

(09:06):
God of Amen, Isaac and Jacob teaching the Torah is something
else, not complete even there. Use of the term believer, like
generically, which only in theirview refers to people who belong
to their religious view, to their iteration of Christianity
is is quite offensive. Look, the Christian religion

(09:30):
could be is just very could be very offensive.
Usually in the way that it's marshaled and wheeled wielded,
it could be very, very offensive, I grant you that.
But the people with questions I want to.
But I want to get back. I want to get beyond that for
sure. Okay.
Alright, So going to ask you a couple questions, kind of about

(09:54):
like historical Jesus scholarship.
Have you read the works of like Gesa Vermesh or Hugh Schonfeld?
You know, what is your perspective of like Gesa
Vermesh's work? Jesus the Jew.

(10:14):
Look, all it's not him. It's all of the Jesus.
Scholarship on the quest for thehistorical Jesus is emerges from
the work of Albert Schweitzer, his most important.

(10:40):
Book on the quest for the historical Jesus Publisher in
1906. The idea that the historical
Jesus was a man who is really a a religious Jew and observant
Jew and he has to be understood in his own time, in his own
world. We're looking for very similar

(11:03):
to. When trying to figure out who
the real Jesus is, remember that.
You know the only stories we have about Jesus are in the
Gospels, right? There's nothing about Jesus in
terms of his life in the lettersof Paul.
There's nothing about it in the book of Acts.

(11:25):
So it's only the Gospels. The Gospels, however, are
overlaid with myths, myth on topof myth.
How do you peel that apart to try to find out, well, who is
the guy behind all that myth? How do we segregate the
information we're presented with, which is layered of layers

(11:45):
of legendary material, and discover who might the
historical Jesus be? It it really is all speculative
and the methodology of who Jesuswas is very, very difficult and
it's not a it's a very soft science.

(12:06):
The things we can say with more certainty is that there are
events in the Christian Bible that are so embarrassing, that's
very unlikely that they were invented that that criteria of
embarrassment I think is much more rigorous than the criteria

(12:29):
that other scholars use. They're using very similar to
it. Which means what would match
what would map onto an Orthodox Jew living under the Roman
Empire in the 1st century when there was no hope of any who you
could defeat the empire? But what would someone like that

(12:52):
be like? Can we in any way harvest
stories in the Christian Bible to figure out who the?
Original Jesus. It's very, very difficult to do.
Some scholars present this as something that they can be sure
of. I don't.
I don't. I'm not persuaded by that.
OK, so Rabbi Smoli Balti exploitkosher Jesus.

(13:15):
I don't know. The idea of a kosher Jesus
bothers me because I don't thinkyou at least the Christian or
Messianic version, He's you can't make him kosher.
It's not possible. What's your reaction to his his
work? Well, I've actually debated
Shmuley on this. I don't like the title of his
book. I like Shmuley.

(13:35):
I know Shmuley. You know, he's a very talented
fellow. His it's not really his ideas.
And he makes that clear in the introduction, this idea that the
original Jesus was an orthodox Jew and Paul messed it all up,
which is no question, Paul. Produced the Christianity we

(13:58):
know about his view his Christology is one was advanced
by a scholar. His name is Haima Kobe.
His book called it's called The Mythmaker.
It's a very important book. It doesn't mean I agree with
everything, but it's very well presented.
And then is that Jews really wasan Orthodox Jew who was against

(14:23):
the Empire? And then Paul A.
Now, in, in my Kobe's view, Paulwas not Jewish at all.
I don't agree with that. I knew my Kobe.
I think that, you know, it's, you know, I respect him.
I don't think that's his. I think he was a thoroughly
Hellenized Jew who is very familiar with Jewish teachings

(14:45):
and familiar with Hellenistic ideas.
And he just fused it all together.
And And what? Shmuley is advancing is that the
real historical Jews were just an Orthodox Jew and everything
about him being in the Messiah and the Christ and change of
Lord. All these things are later
mythologies that were invented by the Church.

(15:08):
And Paul really is responsible all this.
It's a lot of truth to that because Paul really is
responsible for the invention ofChristianity.
Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that.
So yeah, from what I gathered from looking at Paul's writings,
I mean, to me it looks like I'd agree with like a Hellenized

(15:29):
Jew. And his philosophy kind of goes
in the vein of like, Philo because it seems to pull on
Platonic ideas. And then Gabriel Gabriel Boca
cheeky. He has a book, a few books where
he refers to Paul in the lineageof Innokian Judaism, which is a
term he made-up. It's like apocryphal they it's

(15:53):
based in the apocryphal books from the Greek subtuigent, the
the Book of Enoch and stuff likethat.
To me it seems like Paul pulled a bunch of heresies, various
Hellenized Jewish ideas, whetherit be from Philo play, DoH and
to like what he made-up. I mean how, how would you track

(16:15):
that? Or yes, yes to all check all the
boxes. And but Paul was.
It wasn't an innovator, which means he took preexisting
Hellenized Judaism that was already there, Neoplatonic ideas
that were very, very in vogue. Paul isn't the only person

(16:35):
responsible of this. These ideas bleed their way into
the Gospels. The prologue of John, certainly.
Emerges from the thinking of theAlexandrian Jew Philo, who was a
Hellenistic Jew. So Paul merged preexisting ideas
that pulled very popular at the time.

(16:56):
In fact, the the vein within theChristian world that was
Hellenistic was the most one of the most retining iterations of
theology. That was encroaching on the
Orthodox world at the time. So yeah, very much so.

(17:17):
Paul was seeking to put that alltogether.
Paul was very successful becausethat period was a time and there
was a lot of interest in Judaism, in the empire.
People wanted to be Jewish, didn't want to keep the
commandments, not get circumcised and therefore they
were all offered them a way out or a way in, Better said.

(17:40):
I mean, you can be a Jew throughfaith in Christ rather than
keeping the commandments. And that's the basically the
whole rub of the book of Galatians.
Yeah. So yeah, that kind of brings it
to like, one of my next questions is how does the
Pauline theology get the ideas of salvation wrong?

(18:05):
And misunderstand the basis. I feel like there's a difference
between the Christian view of salvation was very personal and
the Jewish view of redemption, gay law, which is a national
redemption. Where does Paul get his
salvation message from and wheredoes he get it wrong?
OK, the tour is very clear. A person to be right back.

(18:28):
Coach Burke, who Hashem wants two things.
He wants a personal relationshipwith you.
And he wants you to be faithful to him, just like you would want
your children to be close to you, right?
After all, you love them. And two is you want your
children to walk in a proper path, to live their lives in a

(18:52):
certain way. Same thing in her marriage.
You want to have be married to someone who is loyal to you and
walks in the proper path of the sanctity of marriage as she
wants every person. To have a personal relationship
with him we have free will whichis a gift from God.
Who's ideas however are very dualistic and very much like the

(19:19):
gnostic ideas and the men the keyest ideas.
That this world was large is largely a a sinful, depraved,
broken world in which man can't really do anything to save
himself. I mean imagine living in the 1st
century. Death was was ubiquitous.
People were in pain and didn't know why.

(19:42):
Broken bodies and broken wheels.That's all you saw.
It was inexplicable. But the stars and the planets
move with precision, the idea that this world must have been
run by a demiurge, sort of a lower God.
The the God of this world, the Lord of this world really in a

(20:02):
sense, the devil and that man could do with nothing to achieve
a relationship with God. And therefore you need that
term, the Christ Jesus. That's a term that's unique to
Paul, that Christ would dwell inyou, that only through him could
you be saved. These ideas made enormous amount
of sense to the Greco Roman world and with complete nonsense

(20:25):
in light of Tana. So Paul's view was that man
can't save himself. Man is utterly lost, infected
with the original sin and his only hope for salvation is
through the Christ Jesus That was in that was a divine being,
not the Trinity divine, but a divine Christ that dwells inside

(20:47):
of you. Okay.
Yeah. So you kind of that makes sense.
There's a couple things you touched on a little bit there.
You mentioned the original sin and then you mentioned the like
the devil. So the the Jewish view of hell,
because one thing evangelists doa lot of is try to sell fire

(21:08):
insurance and you need to be safe so you don't burn in hell
for eternity. The Jewish view of the
afterlife, Guiana Sheol gone Eden, is definitely different
than what you see presented by Paul in the New Testament.
And I guess, can you contrast those those views?

(21:30):
Absolutely. The Christian Bible threatens
people with hell if they don't join their religion.
Why? Because people are terrified of
death. Mortified by it, pun intended,
people are don't know a puzzle by what happens after you die.

(21:50):
People are so frightened of death that most people cannot
contemplate their own death for more than a few seconds and
after sort of move their head away.
So, so therefore if you and I were inventing religion and we
wanted to compel peace people tojoin it, what do we do?

(22:10):
Well, we couldn't tell them thatif they were, they didn't follow
religion. It would stop raining because
after all, neither you and I cancontrol the weather.
We wouldn't tell them that they'd be thrown out of the land
because we can't control history.
So what we do is we would threaten them that they're going
to go to hell forever if they don't follow our religion, which

(22:30):
is unfalsifiable in in contrast to the weather and history,
which a person can easily test, or the fertility of your wife to
see if your wife gets pregnant or not.
That's not the kind of thing that a fake religion would
invent because you can't controlthem.

(22:50):
So the false religions always make a very big deal about
heaven and hell. Now there is a heaven and a hell
and Hitler is in hell, but the Tanach never mentions hell
directly. It does in a passing way.
It's there, but it's not in the in the threat because you can't

(23:11):
test it. You can't verify it.
Like the only time you can be sure of who goes to heaven and
who goes to hell is when it's too late, when you can't repent.
It's really silly. So what Tanak Rather does is
tell you. Look, if you if you're
unfaithful to God, your crops are just not going to grow and

(23:32):
you can actually see that you'regoing to be exiled from your
land, You'll be in lands of yourenemies far and near.
Those are things that you can actually test in history.
So Tanaq is a is devoted to teaching you how to live your
life. That's what Tanaq is there for,
to teach you how to live your life.

(23:53):
It would be silly for Tanaq to Marshall heaven and hell because
you can't examine whether dead people who have not joined your
religion went to hell or not. You can't dig up a cemetery.
The corpse is not going to be responsive.
So that's where the difference is.
Heaven and hell are not a threatin tonight because it's

(24:16):
unfalsifiable. It's mentioned very rarely
passing away in Christianity. That's the threat.
You're going to go to hell and in fact, Christians.
Who then discovered that the core tenants of the church up
false and and declare their desire to convert to Judaism.

(24:40):
The first thing they're told is you're going to go to hell.
That's the number one threat. Why?
Because you can't check it out. Well, now the idea of eternal
torment like the so Christianityand I think it comes more from
like. Mythology or something that
you're going to be tortured for eternity.

(25:04):
Because like my understanding oflike Gihanna is that there's a
period of purification and then the soul goes to Olam Haba after
that, the idea of eternal torment, where is it?
What's it say somewhere in the New Testament where the worm

(25:25):
doesn't? The fire doesn't go out and the
worm doesn't die or something like that.
Yeah. So as it turns out, when a
person dies there are a few possibilities.
These this subject is rarely, almost never, touched on in
Tanaq. It is in the town.

(25:46):
It discusses it in more deep, inmuch more detail.
So there are many people who repent to do chupa and go
straight to God, Naden to omahaba in the presence of God.
They've repented for their sins in this world.
They've suffered in this world. So they there are people who die

(26:07):
with sin. Khasfa Khaliwa.
There's only one verse in the Bible that actually addresses
this, that a person's sins can be atone for after they die.
Isaiah 22, verse 14. There are some individuals who
are so evil that nothing after they die, no suffering If they
die, cleansing if they die, could possibly help them.

(26:30):
I can think of a few people who would fall into that category,
and so can you. Those people are destroyed
forever, whatever that means. Because whatever these things
means, this is all metaphysical,right?
It's not the physical body, it'smetaphysical.
So we're trying to use the word,the vocabulary, the verbal of

(26:51):
our lexicon, which is really inadequate, isn't it?
So what we can do is use words that ordinarily are describe
physical things, describe metaphysical things.
So there are some people who go to the presence of Hashem and
await the resurrection immediately.

(27:12):
There are some people who must go through Gahanam where they're
cleanse for some time and then there are some people who are go
to get him forever or destroy forever.
What these words mean? It's definitely a bad thing,
right? It's definitely a bad thing to

(27:34):
go to get him either temporary or hospital forever.
Whatever it is, you have to remember if there is no
afterlife, there's no reward, punishment.
Then there's no justice in the world because it means that
there are bad people who die, who are who did fairly well, and
there are good people who die and live pretty miserable lives,

(27:56):
right? So there will be just no justice
in the world. So this is all, all justice will
be brought at the end. But again, I want to emphasize
this, Tana does not discuss thisas a threat, and very briefly
mentions it very briefly. Not for the reason of a threat,

(28:18):
because that's not what we're supposed to think about.
If you want more description, you'll find it in tomodic
literature, but there are a number of options that occur to
a person after an individual dies.
OK, well thank you for verifyingthat for me.
Now you kind of mentioned original sin and there's the

(28:38):
Christians like to use a statement and because in the
Psalms where it says I was born in iniquity and the womb I was
Psalm 51. Yeah, what?
That was about a specific personor a specific situation.
But that's not all humanity, right?
It is all humanity, or else it wouldn't be in the Bible.
It's not a. So the Psalm is written by King

(29:00):
David. Let's talk about it a little
bit. David is writing as we know
exactly who's talking about and who's talking, who's screaming,
who's crying out, and what is hesaying?
Like, why is this important? Why is this interesting?
So you ever, Did you ever hang around children for any time?
Right? Hang around, I don't know, kids,

(29:24):
little, little kids. And you have a little boy who's
three years old, and he goes over to his sister, who's
playing with her new toy, and hesmacks her over the head and
takes her toy and runs away withit.
And we're watching this as adults.
We're going, what did he do? Why did he do that to his little

(29:46):
sister? And we're just appalled.
As it turns out, children are very selfish now.
They're very cute and we are aware that they don't have the
moral precepts of the mind. They they does not mature, but
they can't share. They don't even know what that

(30:07):
means, right? And we have to slowly teach them
and change them. So when we as adults say to
someone, you're behaving like a child in our vernacular, I'll
ask you the question, is that a compliment or is it?
Is it a criticism? Right.
It's not a compliment. When we say that you're behaving

(30:28):
like children, we're saying you're not mature and you're
behaving badly. So when we're children, it's
okay to behave badly. Why?
So we don't have free will. The moral precepts of the mind
are completely undeveloped. Little children and babies can
care less about their mother when they wake her up, when they
want to be fed and changed and taken care of.

(30:50):
And they don't care about what belongs to me, to you.
And and they'll, they'll do that.
They'll beat each other up. I mean, you're watching kids and
my grandchildren, You see it allthe time.
So when we are in our youth, when we're babies, we're really
bad. Why?

(31:11):
Because we only could see our weonly care about ourselves and we
don't care about others. That's why little kids behave
that way, and that's why we don't put them in jail, right?
If our 22 year old son did that to our 20 year old daughter,
we'd really be very angry, right?

(31:31):
If your 22 year old daughter didsomething like that to your 18
year old son, you really would be very disappointed in her.
Why? Because she's an adult and she's
behaving like a child. So our starting point, King
David concedes, is exactly the same thing you find in Genesis.

(31:51):
That man is sinful from his youth.
And what's the hope? If we all were you and me?
We all behave that way when we were very little, right?
We all did. But we hopefully mature the
ideas to get to mature and then distance ourselves from that.
Now the Psalm is very given overto King David confessing that in

(32:15):
fact the only way for God to forgive you is to have a broken
and tried heart. And if you think you're going to
bring, you know, burnt offeringsand sacrifices, well, verse 16.
God is not going to delight in that.
So don't think the rituals or sacrifices are going to help
you, but it's rather the broken and tried heart.
This God will not displease justI encourage anyone to read the

(32:40):
last four passages of Psalm 51 and then God will delight in the
sacrifices of righteousness. Now why would King David be so
sensitive to this? Because he himself made terrible
mistakes in his life, very poor judgment in his life.
But when he was confronted with his sin, instead of behaving

(33:02):
like a child, he behaved like a righteous adult and said I've
sinned before the Lord. Nathan in turn in second same or
chapter 12 verse 13 said God forgave you.
So King David ultimately did notbehave like a because when you
confront children they don't care right?
When you tell 3 year old that what you just did to your sister

(33:24):
is not acceptable, they don't get it and they just keep doing
it. The the the faithful adult goes,
I made a terrible mistake and now I'm turning back to God and
his rituals that can't save me. This rather devotion to God and
the broken heart and the contrived spirit.
Look, if King David wasn't the most contrived person in

(33:45):
history, I don't know who was. He made a huge mistake in his
life, massive. But he repented for it when he
was confronted through a juridical parable by the prophet
Nathan. If that's not great, I don't
know what is, and that's the whole learning point of King
David. So I I was kind of more curious

(34:08):
about like Paul's view and the Christian view of original sin.
It seems like because Paul makeshe says like he talks about sin
and then like that the Torah made him sin.
And so I think right. What you're talking about is a
little different than his view. Paul's view is that you can't
possibly get out of it. Paul's view is that you're a

(34:30):
prisoner, you're a slave to sin.Paul's view is that when you
grow up, there's nothing you cando now in your life to atone for
your sense. There's no effort of this.
Romans 3 Romans, this is just Paul, is that you're only we're
all slaves to sin and there's nothing we can do.
Moreover, Paul says numerous places, famously in in Romans

(34:54):
Chapter 7, that when he says when he became aware of the law,
he then became aware of his own sinfulness, and therefore the
law really is there to show you that you are a Sinner and
there's nothing you could do to save yourself.

(35:14):
There's no initiative of yours to save yourself.
See? Imagine that you have a car.
I'll pretend that you. I'm sure you do, and I want to
sell you on putting in another axle on your car.
So instead of four wheels, your car now will have six wheels and
it's going to cost $10,000. And you guys know, why do I need

(35:36):
six wheels? It seems like these four wheels
are that's a real stable platform, right?
Well, that's what Paul's trying to do.
He's trying to why do you need afifth wheel?
Why do you need a 6th wheel? So he has to explain why there's
some sort of urgency for this the so Paul will argue some
that's of course that's opposed by the Torah and that is man

(35:59):
essentially is failed, not just in his youth.
See, King David is saying that aperson is a Sinner when he's a
baby when he's a child. Same thing we find in the book
of Genesis. When a person's a child, the
person is really sinful. Why are they not held
accountable? Why aren't?

(36:20):
Because they're not account. They don't have any free will.
They're they're not mature enough.
So. But what King David is not
saying is that a person continues to be sinful when
they're an adult. Every person then has free will
to escape the blandishments of Satan.
Okay. So Kane and Abel made the

(36:43):
statement that sin waits at the door.
But something to the fact that I've made you to rule over it.
Yeah, God says that to Kane. I mean so I mean he effectively
saying that you know he has the ability to I guess in from what
you're saying like as an adult that you have the ability to

(37:04):
make the choice not to sin. Whereas it feels like Christian
view of sin is like everybody's going to sin.
Like there's you don't have thatability without what Paul said
with the Christ or something. What the Tory is saying is that
sin is lying behind the door. What does that mean?

(37:25):
Well, because you don't notice things that are behind the door,
the sin is not going to seek to seduce you to be a bank robber.
I'm just going to assume that's not something you would that
would appeal to you. But every person has his
weakness and sin is waiting for you.
It's seeking to tempt you, right?

(37:47):
And but and that's why the passage in Genesis chapter 4,
verse six and seven, God assurescame that in fact you can master
over sin. You have everything it takes to
take control of your life and you can destroy sin in your

(38:07):
life. There's You will never sin
unless you chose to. You can escape this all.
Right. All right.
I kind of want to go back because you've mentioned the
Talmud's view of things a few times.
I'm curious what you think of the passages in the Talmud.

(38:28):
There's ones that refer to Yeshua Hanitsori and Yeshua Ben
Bentera. I believe Hugh Scunthill he he
thinks that those refer to. The historical Jesus.
What are your view of those passages and is there a
connection to Oh so this is a very, very big, controversial

(38:52):
topic among scholars. Is the Jesus in the Talmud The
Jesus of Christianity is the same person.
There's reason to think it isn'tbecause of the timing that Jesus
in the Talmud is dated either before Christianity.
So the name Yeshua is a name that's was very, very common,

(39:16):
very popular name like Joshua. Imagine that name.
So there's the characters appeareither in the 1st century BC or
in the 2nd century. So there's reason to discount
that that's the Jesus of Christianity.
And on the other hand, it's verylikely many scholars believe

(39:40):
that it really is the Jesus of Christianity and the timelines
were changed because Christians the Christians were threatening
Jews. I think the latter is probably
more likely. I think it probably is.
The Jesus in the Talmud is probably the Jesus of
Christianity. Can't be sure and the Jesus been

(40:01):
Pantera pandera it. That seems to be a referring to
a Roman soldier who who would have slept with a married and
betrayed the woman. So, so that here's the thing, so

(40:25):
both, if that's speaking about the Jesus Christianity.
So that's very that means Jesus's human father then would
have been a Roman soldier, whichwould not affected his Jewish
identity. But it would mean that he was
born from an illicit relationship and his father was
not a Jewish man. Which would mean that both

(40:47):
according to Christian legend and Jewish legend, Jesus was not
born to a human Jewish father. The church he was had no human
father was this legend. His human father wasn't Jewish.
As it turns out, this legend that Jesus was the son of a

(41:12):
Roman soldier, Pantera, is echoed by a philosopher in the
2nd century, Kelsum, who's a very bright guy, and he opposed
the teachings of the church froma a different vantage point
altogether. His works don't survive, but

(41:34):
Origin wrote a response to his work that does survive, and
Origin seems to have copiously copied everything that Calsum
argued. And so Calsum argued that the
fact Jesus father was in a Romansoldier, which would then be
consistent with that legendary material.
We can't know for sure what the deal is.

(41:56):
And here's what's really strange.
So I thought about this for manyyears about isn't it odd that
the Christians think he was bornof a virgin and this legend
would have it that he was born to a non Jewish Roman soldier?
Is that a coincidence? And then I thought it was
unlikely. And then it it it dawned on me

(42:19):
that Joseph, the putative husband of Mary, does not appear
in early Christian writings, andhe seems to be a later
invention. He certainly introduced later.
Meaning in none of Paul's writings is Joseph the husband
of Mary ever mentioned anywhere.And more strikingly, will you

(42:44):
really would expect to find him in the Gospels.
Because after all, the gospels tells the story of or purport to
tell the story of Jesus life. So Joseph has never mentioned in
the earliest of the four gospels.
In Mark he doesn't appear anywhere.
So the first time we encounter Joseph, as in Matthew and Luke

(43:05):
and John there we find Joseph. So that seems to point to that
Joseph was put insert there for some awkward reason.
And even more striking, it's in the book of Mark.
We don't find Joseph the husbandof Mary.
Instead we find that Jesus is the Carpenter rather than

(43:29):
Joseph. So in Matthew we're told that
Joseph is the tecton, is the Carpenter or the Craftsman.
But in Mark chapter 6 verse three is Jesus, who is the
tecton, who's the Craftsman? In fact, John's excuse me, Mark
chapter 6 verse three is the only source in the Christian

(43:50):
Bible that says that Jesus was aCarpenter.
So all that is pointing in a direction that that might have
been the case. And maybe this is Cambridge,
sure, but maybe this would explain why.
Why was Jesus so angry? He was angry a lot.
Even the Gospels. He's, you know, he's portrayed

(44:10):
as someone who got angry very easily at people, and sometimes
it wasn't. It's not clear why he's so angry
at Nicodemus in chapter 3 and why.
He just seems to be a very angryperson a lot, and it seems
inexplicable at times. Very applicable people don't
believe in him, so he's angry atthem.
Sometimes it's not. It's not clear why he's so
angry. Why in Mark?

(44:32):
It depends on what reading you have.
But in one reading of Mark, he heals A leper, but he's angry.
Like what's? Why is he so?
If in fact he was the product ofan illicit marriage and
therefore status was uncertain, maybe that would explain why the
way why did he have such a rage at at Jewish leaders?

(44:58):
Could be possible this speculation?
OK, so then in the talmatic passages, one of them refers to
an issue that was crucified on the eve of Passover, I believe,
for Pat blasphemy, whereas the New Testament claims that it
would. He the placard said for the king

(45:20):
of the Jews, you know, I don't, we really probably don't know
what actually happened there. There's conflicting stories but.
He was if the stories are true was crucified and for wanting to
be king of the Jews which is mashik mean is more related to

(45:42):
King Mashik. It wasn't it wasn't like a view
of like a savior person that would save the world from sin
is. I guess the I think the Talmudic
view would be that Jesus was a false Messiah.
And no, no, definitely not that view.
No, no, no, no. There's nowhere in the town with

(46:03):
that that it's claimed that Jesus was a false Messiah.
Nowhere zero places in in From the view of the Tama, Jesus
never claimed to be the Messiah.Rather, it's a claim made for
him, which would very be very consistent with what you find in
the Christian Bible, that nobody, None of his followers
know who he is, and they don't know that he's a Messiah.

(46:27):
And we're told that Jesus asked his followers who've been around
him, who do you think I am? And they have no clue.
And when Peter finally says you're the Christ, son of the
living God, we are told in Matthew 16, for example, that
Jesus says no one could have told you this.
So now, do I believe that story is historical?

(46:49):
No, I believe it's a pushback. It's an apologetic against those
who claim that Jesus never claimed for the Messiah, which
is exactly what I'm very confident occurred.
So there is no one knew it. It was a grand mystery like in
the 1st 8 chap is a mark. It's just a mystery of who Jesus
is. So Jesus never claims to the

(47:12):
Messiah during his life because it would been so silly.
You could claim that God speaks to you like Paul said.
Like Jesus spoke to me, you either believe or don't believe
it, but the claim you're the Messiah just so ridiculous
because this is like in the year30.

(47:33):
Like you're what? There's nothing here that you
know that'll be like me living in Jerusalem claiming that I'm
the, you know, the president of Malaysia.
It just doesn't make any sense. So, and in fact it's very rare,
if ever, that she's ever claims to be the Messiah.
He affirms it with the Samaritanwoman and in the Matthew 16 type

(47:58):
of passage. So it's sort of backhanded, but
he doesn't walk around going on the Messiah, on the Messiah and
the talmodic view. Again, very important, we don't
know if the Jesus in the town, what is the Jesus Christianity.
And there's good reason not to think it's the same person.
That's a very fair position to hold.

(48:21):
So we are going If so, if the Jesus of the Tom is the Jesus of
Christianity, it's never says that he was held accountable for
claiming the side. Rather, it was just his lousy
character, awful character and and because of his relationship

(48:43):
to Jewish leaders, but never that he was the Messiah.
OK, how did the Appalachian and Messiah get attached to him, and
how does he stand up to the Jewish view of what a Messiah
would be? Think about this for a moment.
In Tanakh, the Messiah is never called the Messiah.

(49:06):
OK, but now Tanakh is closed. The cannon is closed in the
beginning of the Persian Empire,meaning in the beginning of the
building of the Second Temple. So there in the entire Second
Temple period, there is no Davida king, nothing.

(49:29):
The priesthood was there, but it's it didn't have the you
remember two men. There are many features of the
priesthood that were present andbut most germane.
There was no descend of David that sat on the throne of David
during the time. So the only the next Davidic

(49:50):
king that anyone can hope for was the one who would be the
Messiah, the final Davidic king.Right.
So the word Messiah came to me. It it changed.
Internaca meant any Jewish leader or even a non Jew.
But then over 500 years, from the time the first time was

(50:11):
destroyed until the 1st century when the second time was going
to be destroyed, that the meaning of that word became
saturated with the idea that this is the final king and the
savior of the Jewish people willbring about the end of any
empire. Having a sovereignty over us,

(50:33):
you follow. So the word changes conventional
meaning. So in biblical times, if
someone's Messiah, they wouldn'tknow who you're referring to.
It doesn't mean there isn't a Messiah, but he's just one of
thousands of people who could rightfully have that name.
So this is very important to realize that the the words

(50:55):
change meaning. It's not that one is wrong or
one is right. By time we get to the 1st
century, the word mashia now hasthe now conveys the meaning that
you're bringing about the redemption.
The final redemption with the empire would come to an end when
sin would come to end. When the injustice comes to end,

(51:16):
you follow. So at that time, if you have
somebody who people think is thegreatest person ever lived and
he's bringing about sedation, you'd call him the mashia.
Now what then develops the idea that he is that person.
So they're not. When Christian early Christians

(51:37):
are calling Jesus the Messiah, they don't mean it in the way of
Tana. They mean that he is the Savior.
He's the person that brings misery to an end, sin to an end,
the completion of prophecy. They don't.
And of course it bear, you know,Jesus life and more importantly,
death. There's no resemblance at all to
anything in Tana, but they're using the word, you know, and in

(52:01):
fact, in the English vernacular,you know, a person who's imagine
you're driving in the middle of the night and your car breaks
down, and then you're walking onthe highway with a with a car
that doesn't work. And there are people around you
at 4:00 in the morning who are unsavory characters who want to

(52:22):
harm you. And then somebody just stops his
car out of nowhere, doesn't knowyou, and just chases away all
the people who want to harm you and then helps you fix your car.
You might go, gosh, you're my Messiah, your heaven sent.
What you mean is the guy saved your life, but you've been using

(52:43):
these terms, so these terms justbecome more flexible and that's
how the Christians would adopt it.
Yeah, that makes sense. Seems like, I mean the view was
that the machine was basically going to establish the Kingdom

(53:04):
of David. You know disposed Roman rule
would have been the 1st century view.
But Paul's view was more like that Christ became like saving
your soul thing. It was.
It was definitely a different change, right.
Right. But but I think you, I think
it's unintended. But actually what you said was

(53:25):
very accurate. In Paul's view, the Messiah
would save you from your sins. Romans Chapter 11, verse 24
through 26. But in Tanaka's view you save
yourself from your sins by repenting and then the Messiah
comes to you. Isaiah 59, verse 20, that's

(53:48):
exactly correct. In Christianity, in the view of
the church, man is drowning and he can't do anything to save
himself. He's born in a state of
destruction and there's nothing you can do.
And you can see why Christian issuch an attractive religion like
there are One third of the worldbelongs to this religion because

(54:10):
people frequently feel like thatlife is out of control and
there's nothing I can do to savemyself.
So you can imagine how fertile the ground is and was for such a
message that there's actually nothing you do to save yourself.
You're a Sinner. You're lost, You're hopeless.
And then there's a savior. Remember the flexibility of

(54:32):
language. And he is the only person who
can save you from your miserable, sinful state.
Exactly. Okay, kind of want to circle
back on a couple things. You mentioned Paul and early on
I think you had made statements about his views and how he kind

(54:55):
of brought them together. I had a couple thoughts and
questions kind of related to that.
You seem pretty versed in kind of New Testament and I guess the
probably like the parting of ways and when Christianity the
birthing of Christianity there. I don't know if you're familiar

(55:16):
it was a. I guess legends of a group that
follow the Ebianites, and they referred to Paul as a heretic
and rejected all his views. Like they they allegedly didn't
believe in virgin birth and resurrection and all that other
stuff that became Christianity, part of the whole Pauline.
Christianity. Yeah.

(55:38):
What do you make of, I guess, those those groups, those
legends about them? And then the view, I guess, of
Paul is a heretic. And like I would question, like
I've seen people question whether he converted to
Christianity or found another way to try to influence people
to hell. And I that's a different topic.

(55:58):
So let's just stay with the Ebonite.
The Ebonites are very real now. Nothing of the Ebonites
survived. Nothing, nothing of they wrote,
survived, no one copied what they wrote.
Everything we know about them over from their enemies, from
their opponents. But it's very clear in Paul's
letters that there were people running around saying that Paul

(56:19):
was a fake because Paul is arguing against this constantly.
Paul's effort in his letters is to demonstrate that his
opponents who did not subscribe to Paul's Christology, who
believe that you had to keep themiss vote, had to keep the
Torah, they really were there. Paul is fighting them at every
turn to Ebonites. We know about them.

(56:43):
The patristic fathers wrote about them and why will we trust
them? Well, because I don't don't
trust about everything. But they wouldn't make this up.
The these people are the very people that pulled the spies who
who carried a false gospel. In Paul's view, they were called
every nights, probably. Sure.

(57:04):
Why didn't their writing survive?
Because no one wanted to copy it, but we really know about
them because they survive in thewritings of their enemies that
the copiers describes did not ifthey had a choice between
copying the letters of pull or copying the letter the writings

(57:24):
of his opponent. So that's a nobrainer.
So the every nights are very, very real.
They they're probably a very early iteration of Christianity
and they're the very group that comes into view.
And for example Acts chapter 15 who held that people non Jews
who want to become they didn't call them Christians for sure

(57:48):
they wouldn't have called them that but who just say people who
want to become Christians they have to keep the commandments
and get circumcised. That's what Acts 15 is all
about. They've a very real group and
this is the very group that Pauldefeated.
When I say defeated, it's it's on the pole was smarter or
greater. He had a much more interesting
message. I mean you don't have to keep

(58:09):
commandments that would be attractive.
But it's the it's Paul's view that gained traction in Rome
ultimately where the Christian authority mattered.
And when Rome decided when the people of import in the early
church decided that we like whatpause to say rather than the

(58:31):
ever nights, well that was it. You know Paul wins, everybody
else loses. They liked his message more.
So Paul becomes the the, the proto orthodox and his opponents
become the heresy. Yeah, I think Marcian played a
big role in promoting Paul and in the proto.

(58:53):
Orthodox like latched on to him.Big time, at least.
Yeah, me, Marcian. Marcian's impact on the church
is very significant, although he's ruled as a heresy.
But his view, the 2nd century Christian theologian, his view

(59:14):
and the importance that he places on Paul had an enormous
impact on the church. Marcian, who was viewed as
someone who was complete heretic, had a massive impact on
the church, much more so than even canonical books in a New
Testament for sure. Yeah.

(59:36):
So I I was reading something youhad done an interview with the
Doctor, Robert Price recently the the forward to he had
translated the The Book of SimonMagus and he kind of relates
Paul to Simon Magus as potentially an appellation for
him. The Tell Do Yeshu talks about

(01:00:00):
that. That polemic work with Tell Do
Yeshu talks about Simon Magus. Do you see a connection between
Simon Magus and Paul? It can be.
It's it's it's layer and layer and layer and layer mythology
and it's very hard to to be ableto unpeel this piece and find

(01:00:25):
out who are who is really intended here really is very,
very difficult. That's something that that's
something that Robert holds. It's not it's not my view, but I
understand, just like there are people who think that the
Flavian dynasty invented Jesus. You know, I know why they think

(01:00:46):
that. I don't know.
You know, I have a different view than that.
But whatever you know, can't be sure.
Hard to say. What what is your view of the
the work tell the issue and in the the the view of like Jesus
and and stuff within there so told us the issue is a very old
book and it's a it's a compilation of unflattering

(01:01:08):
things about Jesus. It's not an authoritative work
and it's not monolithic means it's been produced in many, many
languages and they're different.So it's sort of legendary
material about Jesus. Some of it has its roots in, in

(01:01:30):
legitimate sources, in Kazal, inthe Tomwood, some that does not.
And I think it's a mixture of everything.
Yeah, it is what it's supposed to be.
It's an it's an. I'll use the term.
It's noncanonical, meaning it's not an authoritative work of the

(01:01:51):
Jewish people. It had an enormous impact on the
way Jews thought about Jesus, and it contains material about
Jesus that's unflattering. And some of it is consistent
with Talmudic stories about Jesus.
Is it the same Jesus? Maybe so.

(01:02:14):
We're getting into a highly speculative area.
Okay. Yeah, I would.
I had like two more questions here.
I guess I wanted to ask. And then unless you really need
to go right now, go ahead. Go ahead.
So the the next one was Paul andChristianity, their elevation of
Jesus to God in a divine being or whatever.

(01:02:38):
You know, they try to use like Genesis one let us make man in
her own image and some other passages.
And there was. There was a book on the two
powers heresy you know where there was like a I guess there
was a discarded A rejected view of a second power.

(01:02:58):
How do you deal with the that the I guess the let us make got
man in her own image and the Christian views where they tried
to deify Jesus. As it turns out, Paul never
touches Genesis 126 men in the view of the Torah is binary.

(01:03:19):
He's both made-up of the clay, the dust of the earth like other
creatures. As it turns out, we have
literally made-up of Stardust, and he also possesses the spirit
of God which is breathed into him.
Genesis chapter 2. He's both.
He's the only creature like that.

(01:03:41):
That means angels are metaphysical, but they're not
physical. Animals are only physical, but
have no neshamma, have no soul. God, when creating men just 126
summons both. He summons both the earth and

(01:04:02):
the angels, or what the angels are made of, and produces men.
That's why it's let us make men in our image.
Christians are an enviable predicament because they're
trying to produce holly theism from Tana, and Tana is not a

(01:04:23):
fertile ground for that is unsupportive of that.
So they marshal such ambiguous text.
And Genesis 126, unless you're familiar with the context, it's
going to get past you. We see later on in Genesis 322,
later only two chapters later, where God again is addressing

(01:04:44):
angels and says that if man eatsfrom the tree of life, he'll
become like one of us saying phrase.
So man is binary. That's why only the angels are
summoned for the creation of man.
They're not summoned for the creation of light to the
creation of earth. Animals, other animals, None of

(01:05:10):
that. Only man, because man is both.
But that's not in the Christian Bible.
The academic world is is different.
The academic world, the secular academic world, has a a problem.
There's a little, maybe a littlecomplicated.
I'll try to make it simple. Monotheism, while today makes a

(01:05:33):
lot of sense because we know thescience, we know it's all the
same stuff. In the ancient world, it was
nonsense. And as it turns out, no one but
the Jews were monotheists. No one was.
Monotheism was exclusively a, we'll call it a Jewish domain.

(01:05:55):
In the ancient world, during theFirst Temple, there were no
monotheists except for the Jews.Now, secular scholars, meaning
historians, they've got a problem.
I mean, if they don't bring God into this, they have to explain
how did the Jews happen to stumble on monotheism?

(01:06:19):
Do you follow? So from our view, the trajectory
is very simple. Adam wasn't monotheist, Noah
wasn't monotheist. But as time went on, the
monotheism was corrupted. And then people started placing
devices or intermediates betweenGod and man, because God is

(01:06:44):
inaccessible. You follow.
So what happened is that monotheism was the first
iteration of theism. That's how it all began.
And then it man corrupted that fellow.
But for the secular world, that's nontheistic.
This is troubling because it would have been the

(01:07:05):
counterintuitive for people to believe in one God first.
Why? Because things just seem
different. You know?
The planets moved with perfect, with perfects was synchronized
perfectly. Water just seemed very different

(01:07:27):
than fire. Gold seemed very different than
charcoal. Just everything seemed
different. People died for no apparent
reason. People were in pain for
inexplicable reasons of some women were able to conceive and
others were not, and some died on the birthing stool.
None that no people, mostly in Angelo, died of infections in

(01:07:51):
their teeth. People didn't know that, so it
seemed like they were just all these forces all over the place.
They were gods who were in competing with each other.
We can loosely call this a dualistic world, Dualistic.
That means it was a good power. That's like the good God, and
the God of this world was the demiurge.

(01:08:13):
This is this is really Neoplatonic thinking, but it's
not like it came out of nowhere.So the secular academic world
would seek always seeks. There's not.
Siegel's invention always seeks to explain that the Israelites
were originally pagans. And then monotheism was just

(01:08:36):
this anomaly that suddenly emerged and it took hold and
somehow at some and secular. His scholars argue over this of
when this happened, this happened 3000 years ago, 2 1/2
thousand years. And they can't get straight

(01:08:57):
because they're they're basically, they start with the
premise that it was invented andthe question is when.
Who invented it? When was it invented?
Was invented 3300 years ago in the Bronze Age, Late middle.
They they're all over the place on this.
But here's what's key is that ithad to have been invented.
Why? Because, as I said to you,

(01:09:19):
monotheism could not have come first if there's no God.
Why? Because it didn't make sense.
Now we know that hydrogen is themost plentiful element in the
universe. They didn't know that.
They didn't know what hydrogen was.
People didn't know what oxygen was 1000 years ago.
They know any of these things. They know what microbiology.
They didn't understand any of this.

(01:09:40):
So therefore monotheism seems tohave been in the ancient world
from the vantage point of the nontheistic world as a kind of a
breakaway, sort of a just this unusual breakaway from what
everyone else thought. And if that's the case, you then

(01:10:02):
want to find traces of that in Tanache.
Follow. You want to find traces of that.
You want forensic, you want to find some forensic evidence of
this in the hero Bible that willreflect A Pagan beginning.
It's very critical. It was a little sophisticated.
So what they do then is they look in the Hebrew Bible when

(01:10:25):
angels are called God in Tanaka just the way it is.
People are not familiar with Tanaka.
They don't know any of this. And in fact all the powers in
the world are called Al. All them are.
They're all called Al. And LO, him.
The the name of him for the trueGod means that all the powers
really come from one source. But even angels and judges and

(01:10:49):
prophets are called God and Tanash.
Now if you know this, you're notgoing to get messed up because
you understand the context. You speak Hebrew, but the vast,
very few people really speak Hebrew.
Even the people called scholars,unless they're they're Old
Testament scholar, they don't speak Hebrew.
Very rare. Very, very rare.
So this becomes the standard fare in scholarship that, Oh

(01:11:15):
yeah, all these references to powers that must be a unveiled
reference to really the originalIsraelite gods that came from
the Canaanites. And people who are atheists love
this stuff. They're all over this stuff.

(01:11:36):
So all you have to do in the scholarly world, like if you
want to, it is also in the scholarly world, in the biblical
scholarly world, in order to make a name for yourself, you
have to say something that's nottraditional, that's not
orthodox, Because if you say anything that's traditional,
then it's not striking and you're nobody, you're nothing.

(01:11:58):
But if you say something that's revolutionary, that's new, your
book gets published and your ideas get taught, and you, you
get interviewed. So there's an incentive in the
academic world to say stuff likethis.
So if I were a part of this world, all I have to do is look
in the Hebrew Bible for references to God in the plural,

(01:12:20):
powers in the plural. And if you're not familiar with
what you're doing, or you are, it doesn't make a difference.
You can then make the case that the original Israelites were in
fact pagans who adopted ideas from the canonites, and then in
somebody at some stage king of idea that there's one God and

(01:12:42):
that became the theory that everyone went with and the other
ideas fell away. That's really where it all comes
from. Okay, that was a good breakdown
of the book, right? That was a very good.
That's if if if you the viewer, that's what I just said, you now
understand what's really going on.
There's a competing there's two competing ideas, and that is the

(01:13:05):
second academic world. A priori believes that the the
tribe of the Jews were pagans and believe what the canonites
believe. But somehow monotheism was an
evolutionary process where something emerged and it somehow
became an advantage and the other things fell away.

(01:13:28):
That's exactly. That's how they view it from the
view of the religious community is no monotheism was the
original and paganism was the breaking was the bastardization
of a true belief That's really and today and I say this to you
guys in the academic world if you want to get published, if

(01:13:49):
you want to get published go with the idea that the shooties
and really began Pagan and find things for it in the text and
you that's where you get your interviews in New York Times
will write all about you. Really very simple all.
Right. Yeah.
The the study of ancient Near East is is interesting for sure

(01:14:11):
but so I know your time was short the so kind of the last
question that I wanted to ask you and it was something you
kind of touched on earlier on you know you mentioned I guess
the. The virgin birth.
And there's the passage in Isaiah that the New Testament

(01:14:33):
uses the wrong word where it's alma for child versus they they
translate it. You know, virgin shall give
birth, the virgin shall conceive.
I wanted to ask about like that passage And then the other one.
That's right. Kind of easy for you to answer
is Isaiah 53. What were those two passages
referring to? That Let's not Let's pick one or

(01:14:55):
the other, because that that's just a tremendous amount.
They're not related to each other.
Pick one. Well, the the virgin shall
conceive. Since you know, you're right.
So two books in the Christian Bible claim that Jesus was born
to a virgin, Matthew and Luke. Each of them use a different

(01:15:16):
literary device and a different plot device to persuade their
readers that in fact their Messiah was miraculously
conceived. Matthew, as Matthew does in
other places, alters the Jewish scriptures in order to make it
appear crystal logical. In the case of Matthew 123, he

(01:15:40):
alters Isaiah 714. Isaiah is speaking to Akha, the
Devida king who lived during theAssyrian empire 2700 years ago,
who was in a pickle. He, he, the northern Kingdom of
Israel and Syria sought to destroy him and Isaiah gives him

(01:16:01):
a sign and the sign was his own wife's, Isaiah's own wife's
child. The key was the child.
It's immediate. It's the child is the woman is
already pregnant and she's goingto have a child.
And before the child matures forhe knows to reject evil and she
was good. These two kings, that is with
sin. Who is the king of Syria and

(01:16:25):
Pekah Benramayahu, who is the king of the northern Kingdom,
Israel. They'll be destroyed.
Matthew alters the text of Isaiah 714 to read Behold a
Virgin. So the word virgin is not in the
original Hebrew, rather says a young woman.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive,or actually says her is with

(01:16:48):
Charles and will be her son, andthey will call his name
Emmanuel. Mary never called him that, so
she changes that as well. Rips out of context.
So what Matthew does is he rips a passage out of context,
changes the words of the passage, and he suddenly
produces a message, seemingly Christological message.

(01:17:09):
If you read in the Christian Bible that a woman miraculously
conceives, as it turns out the conception was not miraculous
and exception wasn't the sign. Look at Isaiah 15 and 16 verse
Chapter 7. It's before the child knows to
reject evil when she was good, these two kingdoms will be

(01:17:29):
destroyed. It's not the conception rather
the maturity of the child. Same thing in Isaiah chapter 8
verse 2-3 and four where it's the same child but a different
name cause the different parent names it.
In Isaiah 714, the mother names the child and Isaiah 8.
It's Isaiah that names a child and Isaiah makes a plane that

(01:17:50):
had sexual intercourse with his wife and does that in order to
convey wasn't miraculous conception and and and So what
we see there and Matthew does 11times where he produces
fulfillment citations. We see there explicitly how
Matthew alters the Jewish scriptures to make it appear

(01:18:11):
crystallological. It was Thank you so much for
having me on your broadcast. I really enjoyed joining you
here this evening. Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate you. It was very informative.
And so, I guess, is it, how can people follow you, stay in
contact with you? And do you have any last words?

(01:18:33):
Website isoutreachjudaism.org. Say that again, outreach
Judaism, not org. And a good place to find me is
on on YouTube. Just look up my name Tovia
Singer. There are quite a few videos.
They're very large channel and I'd love you to join and like

(01:18:55):
and subscribe and that's what people could join me.
So the website Outreach Judaism and the YouTube channel, that
would be very useful. All right.
And thank you again so much for inviting me to join me on your
show. Oh.
Yeah. Thank you very much and I
appreciate you for taking the time and I've been following
your material for quite a while.So I appreciate you for taking

(01:19:17):
the time and. Thank you.
You have a good evening, all right.
Hello.