The Pulling the Thread Podcast

Pulling the Threads Podcast ventures into the intricate history of early Christianity, challenging conventional narratives through a critical historical lens. Hosts Jeramiah Giehl and guest speaker David Leblanc scrutinize the scarcity of early evidence, the influence of Roman politics and culture, and the complexities of achieving objectivity in historical analysis. This episode takes a nuanced and thought-provoking journey through the origins of a major world religion. Here’s a detailed exploration of the captivating discussion and why you should delve into it.

Giehl and Leblanc kickstart the podcast by challenging the established narrative of Christianity’s origin. They delve into debates about Jesus’ existence and the reliability of the New Testament. Both speakers agree that the evolution of this religious phenomenon occurred gradually over centuries, dispelling the notion of a distinct starting point. A central point of contention is the historical accuracy of the New Testament and the existence of Jesus, offering listeners a fresh perspective on these foundational aspects. They question whether Christianity’s history is as clear-cut as commonly believed, unveiling the scarcity of evidence for early Christianity and entertaining the possibility of a later emergence.

In this episode, they contend that Judaism in the first century CE wasn’t a monolithic entity but comprised various sects with distinct beliefs and practices. This diversity becomes pivotal in understanding Christianity’s development, emphasizing that it didn’t emerge abruptly but drew from existing Jewish traditions. The assertion is made that early followers of Jesus were likely Zealots, challenging the traditional portrayal of Jesus as a peaceful messianic figure. Instead, the historical Jesus and his early followers are positioned within the Zealot movement, a Jewish group aiming to establish a Davidic kingdom through violent uprising.

Giehl underscores the historical context of Jewish-Roman wars and the destruction of the temple in shaping the trajectory of Christianity. These events create a power vacuum and trigger a struggle for legitimacy among various Jewish factions, including early Christian groups. The narrative suggests that the destruction of the Temple and subsequent revolts played a pivotal role in shaping Christian development.

Giehl argues that the portrayal of Jesus and early Christianity in later texts, particularly those associated with proto-Orthodox and Orthodox factions, is significantly influenced by mythmaking and polemic against rival groups like Jewish Christians. This highlights the role of ideological conflicts and power struggles in shaping what later became Christian orthodoxy.

The focus shifts to the profound impact of the Roman Empire on shaping Christianity. The exploration delves into how the Romans actively shaped and manipulated Christian narratives and texts to align with their agenda. Leblanc emphasizes the active control and censorship of religious texts by the Romans, suggesting a deliberate manipulation in favor of their objectives. This manipulation, as argued by Leblanc, presents a challenge in uncovering the authentic origins of Christianity, revealing a complex tapestry of religious evolution. The question arises: Were the early Christian texts tampered with? The discussion delves into the chilling reality of Roman control over religious narratives and the potential for redacted truths.

Leblanc underscores the significance of Roman censorship and control over religious texts, implying that much of our knowledge about early Christianity has been filtered through the Roman lens. He critiques the lack of transparency in early Christian publishing, drawing a contrast with modern self-publishing opportunities. The argument extends to the active suppression and redaction of non-approved religious literature by the Roman Empire, making it challenging to reconstruct the original versions. The Theodosian Code in 438 AD is introduced, highlighting its role in establishing Christianity as the official religion and suppressing other religions like Judaism and paganism.

The discussion unveils the profound influence of Greco-Roman cultural elements, starting with the Septuagint translation, in laying the groundwork for Christian assimilation and secularization. The proposed Roman influence campaign is traced back to Ptolemy’s commission of the Septuagint, challenging the commonly cited 2nd-4th centuries as its origin. The Roman Empire’s active suppression and censorship of religious texts, including those of early Christians and other groups, raise questions about the authenticity and reliability of surviving texts, including the New Testament and writings of the Church Fathers. The possibility of redaction and alterations within these texts further complicates the reconstruction of early Christian beliefs and practices.

The audience is engaged in a nuanced exploration of the parallels and distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. Going beyond a simple divide, the discussion uncovers intricate connections and distinct features, challenging oversimplified comparisons. While both religions find inspiration in similar philosophical and theological sources, the speakers highlight the unique elements defining each tradition. Navigating through the complex landscape of these intertwined belief systems, valuable insights are offered into how they coexist and diverge. Addressing the proverbial “elephant in the room,” the conversation delves into the influence of Judaism on Christianity and the points of divergence. This exploration extends to the shared roots and unique trajectories that shape these interconnected faiths. A notable contrast is drawn between the diversity of thought within early Judaism and the lack of consensus in early Christianity. The speakers posit that the development of Christianity was more chaotic and politically driven compared to the more varied landscape of early Judaism.

The podcast takes an intriguing turn as Giehl expresses a profound interest in Messianic Judaism, a movement aiming to blend Jewish and Christian beliefs. Regrettably, the exploration of this complex topic is abbreviated, leaving listeners eager for a more in-depth examination in future episodes. Messianic Judaism is presented as a controversial enigma, offering a glimpse into its intricate relationship with Christianity and prompting further exploration and discussion. The podcast unpacks the role of key figures, particularly focusing on Paul and challenging the traditional portrayal of Jesus as a historical figure with a linear biography.

Why You Should Listen:

• The podcast offers fresh and critical perspectives on Christian origins, challenging traditional beliefs.
• Hosts navigate through complex topics like Roman influence and Greco-Roman assimilation, providing a comprehensive exploration.
• Listeners gain thought-provoking insights into historical reconstruction challenges, the role of censorship, and the interplay between Judaism and Christianity.

The recent episode of Pulling the Threads Podcast provides a captivating journey through Christian origins, encouraging listeners to question and explore beyond established narratives. The thought-provoking exploration into the roots of one of the world’s major religions invites a reconsideration of historical perspectives.

Full Transcript:

Welcome to the Pulling the 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 on here. He used to have his own podcast. We both share some similar background when it comes to our journey, I guess, towards Judaism and out of Christianity. And so today I kind of just want to cover Christian origins, what is Judaism and some other theological errors of what became Christianity, Messianic Judaism and various things along the way.

As an intro, I kind of want to 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 in 1438. Significant in the history of Christianity for a few reasons.

One, it established Christianity as the official religion of the empire and made other religions illegal. Specifically, it circumscribed 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 St. Relics. It is a compilation of 16 books and it’s contents were eventually codified into law over time 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 15th century?

No, it was published 438, Cominator.

I thought you said 1438, okay.

No, no. So it was a code that was published in 438 AD. So this is post -Night scene. And 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 Dr. Price that he was mildly familiar with. How much of the Roman imperial code making Christianity and official state religion and various laws are you familiar of?

Of the Roman Catholicism becoming the state religion and then how it established itself in eradicated other sects and religions. How much of that are you familiar with?

I’m pretty familiar with the history of that process. I just had never heard of that, I guess, Magnus Opus statement of the church regarding what you’re describing. I do know that, for instance, that it was in the sixth century, I believe it was, sometime in the mid -500s, or might have even been earlier than that.

I don’t have the exact date. But at some point, the acting pope made it illegal to pray the Shema. So it probably was in the same Milu as that entire process that you’re talking about there. That’s just one aspect of some of the stuff that happened during that period.

And certainly, I know that post -Constantine, Constantine really is 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 wrote a book called The God of Jesus.

That’s the name of the book. The name of the book is The God of Jesus. And he basically, he’s a Christian. And he researched the development of the Trinity doctrine all the way back to the earliest points of Christianity that he could find.

And he went through all the different movements from motorism to Valentinism, all these different things. He was a very well -researched book, Deep Dunking the Trinity. But in the book, he also did a follow -up.

And his follow -up work is all about Constantine. And I haven’t read that book. I’ve read the first one. But basically, it was clearly an attempt by the Roman Empire, as it were, the rulers 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 much I know. But what you’re talking about, this is the first I hear of it.

Yeah, so I mean it kind of lays it out in a more Delineated succinct thing and as you look at the Theodosian code there are 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 you know included the policy the policies of censorship and you know deeming deeming people a Apostasy so that then they could eradicate them and so kind of the defined terms before we talk about Christianity and Messianic Judaism I wanted to define what I would consider Christianity and when Christianity is we know it came to be which what I would say was the centuries -long process that the culmination The major events are between 400 and 800 common error There was the early seabed but the seabeds We don’t have as much textual information.

We have polemics versus against the early Jewish Christians, 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 400 we can’t say what Christianity was with a hundred percent And we can’t say what the text of the Bible they would have used is with surety We have the first complete gospel and epistles New Testament’s codus Vaticanus and Zioniticus Respectively mid -4th century And we don’t have anything before that we have fragments of epistles third and fourth century And so I would I would put Christianity Post -niscene as what we know as Christianity is really the culmination of a post -niscene thing that Became the aroma a Roman official religion and through Roman imperial power it formed what became Christianity the leadership structure of the 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 as we know it and the textual tradition as we know it as a fourth century and beyond Um and then piecing together what it came from is going to be a little bit of the question here um, but yeah, my opening question was how did you see the formation of Christianity and its main like when it became imperial power and it spread through Roman imperial power How much of that you know, are you aware of in in 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 take on that is that, I think one of the biggest points of contention in theological debates about Christian origins, unfortunately, lately from what I’ve seen, seems to center around Jesus’ 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 that it did. Because the question of origins, as you correctly stated in my opinion, the only thing we have to go by is the writings of that which is left over, which, so for instance, as an example, to a lesser degree, you have similar debates about the origins of Judaism, right?

So you have various sects within the Jewish world around the Second Temple period, which don’t necessarily in any way represent what later becomes Talmudic rabbinic Judaism. So what we have in rabbinic Judaism is a similar progression of ideas developed over hundreds of years, that we know is the Talmud.

And we have, of course, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud, and that represents hundreds of 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 the Jewish camp, you’ve got the Christian camp, and then you’ve got, I guess, for lack of a better way to say it, you’ve got the impassionate or dispassionate observers from a distance who are watching all this, which I would put like modern scholarship into that camp, trying to personalize it.

Thank you for your time. Thank you so much.

set.

historical critical method, people looking for historical archaeology trying to understand it from a local boom, it’s 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 very aware of where the conversation is today. So the conversation today is muddied by… It would be easy if we had simply, if everybody weighing in on this had no horse in the race.

But because we don’t have that problem, Christianity and Judaism continue to exist today, and so we have people weighing in from a position of bias on Christianity, right, and on Judaism, but we’re talking about Christianity here.

So the propensity, that’s the wrong word, the tendency is that people tend to debate the meaning of the text without bringing the focus of the camera lens back into a wider picture of where do we get our texts, and so obviously a lot of people do wrestle with that, but the average believer is not trying to question the veracity 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 in terms of an authoritative voice in the Roman world, to me there’s layers to this.

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 Roman Empire. So you have Jerusalem is a territory state of Rome at the time of supposedly the time of Jesus, and at that time the Jewish nation had been disenfranchised to a large degree and 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 were a colony of, for lack of a better way to put it, 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 economic control, and then they had a policy of tolerance of the religious beliefs of the territory provided they gave homage to Caesar and to the Roman rulers.

So provided you know, provided you paid your taxes and you and you worshiped Caesar, you could worship whatever 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 really, a lot of people try to do this, they try to isolate the textual evidence apart from the political and socioeconomic realities and socio -political realities of

which is very problematic.

It’s very problematic because it’s just like today, right? So without going on a rabbit trail, just to put this, what I’m trying to say in context. So for instance, I listened to a lot of podcasts. I’ve taken a particular interest in the climate issue.

So without taking sides on this and be controversial or conspiratorial, I’ve listened to a lot of top highly published experts in the field of climate science, at least four or five of them that I’ve listened to have taken strong exception to the current narrative that is being propagated by all the major world organizations, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the other government about the danger we face, regarding climate change and its origins.

Many of the top scientists in the field don’t agree with that narrative, and yet they’re being silenced and censored because of political pressure. So regardless of, I’m not trying to go on left field here with any of your listeners, I’m just trying to give an example.

If you were to go 300 years in the future, we can’t do that obviously, but if we were to go 300 years in the future, I would be interested to know the conversation that’s gonna happen when historians in the future look back on our time right now and try to make sense of why is it that these intelligent voices, why were their papers disregarded, why was their voice disregarded, what was the…

And so I think we can understand it today because we understand the environment in which we live. My suspicion, I strongly suspect this, is that I don’t think that it’s reasonable when you look back onto the Roman Empire of that time and how things, how information get propagated.

So 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 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 Hagamati corpus.

We know this from many different things that have been discovered, even the Dead Sea Scrolls, I mean, all these different discoveries that have happened in recent times have shed light upon the culture and the tenor of religious expectations of the time.

We also know, for instance, that you really can’t… I’m jumping around a little bit here, but just to answer your question, we know that there was no verifiable archaeological evidence 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 third century. That’s when you start seeing buildings, you start seeing churches that show up.

So that’s very strange, right? The Christian movement… What’s up?

Things like the Christian catacombs in Rome.

Right, 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 Marcionic priority position, is 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 130s AD.

So that’s a fact, that’s not a debatable statement. What is debated is, oh yeah, but there was a lot more that came 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 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 out by bringing that up, that if you’re going to have a intelligent discussion about Christian origins, you have to understand that like in today’s day and age, like I have my book, right?

You mentioned my book at the beginning of the podcast. So rather than go through the 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 -published 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.

Well, I’m able to do that as a working class person because we have the apparatus available in our society. Printing is mundane today, right? Like people print things all the time, they can publish things all the way, you 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 those days took a lot of money and it took connections.

You know, the Gargantuan task that was, you know, to produce and distribute on the scale that the New Testament eventually is distributed, it required government sponsorship and support.

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 that wasn’t allowed to survive by the government of the Roman Empire when it started to curate and censor. So the government of the Roman Empire, when it became the religion of the empire, they actively suppressed, destroyed, redacted, which means changed the literature that we’re working with.

So I don’t care what name we play, we can say, well, Iranians said this, or Celtsis said that, or Marcians said that. Most of what we know of a lot of these characters come from the arguments which survive of their opponents because their writings were destroyed or lost or both.

So why did this happen? Well, it happened because Rome was a fascist state and 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 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 in all the church fathers and the vast corpus of the umbrella, if you will, of other writings which surround the New Testament, the commentaries, the 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 left with nothing but speculation as to what was the original. A perfect example of this, just to illustrate the point, for example, 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-

cool frequency

the apostle -apostle and the reason why it’s so good is because he takes a textual critical approach and he looks logically at the issues that are discussed. For example, Romans, let’s take the book of Romans, for instance, which is a core doctrinal piece for a Christian doctrine, as we understand Christianity as you pointed out.

Romans is not a letter. 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. Philemon is a letter, perhaps. Romans is not a letter.

Romans, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, 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 he’s contradicting himself all the time.

Yeah.

The Robert Price puts forth the argument

And then he says basically the opposite, you know, which is, I think speaks to the redaction within the text that, you know, you have a corpus, you have a statement, then you have the various layers of redaction.

And so you don’t have an authentic on edited later, which speaks to kind of what you talked about earlier, but I always call what I call 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 the, you know, the Greeks did come in, and they defiled the temple.

But Potolamy 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 Potolamy commissioning the Greek Septuagint, there are some alterations in the Greek Septuagint that predate the Roman Empire.

But as the Roman Empire took over the, you know, the Greek Empire, the Rome had a maybe a more benevolent like they’d accept the religion a little more and then introduce their small alterations. So, you know, I don’t want to, you know, delve too much into controversial stuff in the modern age, but the idea that they would take a, you know, the censorship, they would take the text, the religion, they would alter it.

So we look at the Greek Septuagint, there are changes. And first, so the Greek Septuagint before Christianity gets ahold of it and then adds in all of, because the Greeks of two days to the first five books that what Potolamy commissioned.

And then the rest of it, the writings and 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, 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 to influence. 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.

And it’s why you had separatist movements. When you look at the Maccabean period, you look at the, you know, because the, you know, as you know, there’s, you know, Sadducees, Pharisees, and then, you know, the other groups, the, you know, the Essians and whatnot, you have the separatist groups to say the temple is unpure, we won’t participate in impure temple.

We have the Sadducees who were very much Hellenized and they’re part of the temple, but the Essians won’t participate because they feel like it’s impure. And then the Pharisees who were the rabbis who say they go back to the Great Assembly, which, you know, before captivity, which would have been before the Maccabean period, but of course, is it oral traditions, right?

So, you know, the kind of the three main groups are kind of through that period. Of course, the diverse, you know, we talk about the diversity of Judaism and the first century. But there was, you know, when you look within the Greek Septuagint, that text, which was heavily played in the Roman Empire, and then how that played into the Platonic tradition, and how Heno theism became the rise in the Roman Empire.

So before the advent of Christianity, Heno theism, the idea of one God who is ethical played heavily in the philosophical camps of Platonic thought, because the Greek pantheon was full of God’s who backstabbed and cheated and it was very, you know, a God who is ethical had morality started to influence the philosophical camp and all this kind of Hellenism that was, you know, one, it was a they sought to influence and change the text and tradition of the Jewish people, make it more secular because Hellenization is essentially the secularization.

And in that process, it influenced not just Jewish culture, but Roman culture and Roman philosophy, which laid the foundation for what I think Paul played to, because I think he played a lot on the ideas of philo and maybe Josephus and some of the platonic thought and this is where the what was you know when I say the Greco -Roman influence campaign I would trace it back to Petola me and it’s a process over centuries of influencing towards secularization and so I want to just you know I would even like I’d back date what I’m looking at even further so when you know authors say that the New Testament was invented you know second century or fourth century there’s this groundwork of cultural assimilation for governmental dominance that starts before Christianity or the first century so and that’s kind of my response to like you brought up 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 their ideas

Well, there’s no question. Yeah, I think that’s very interesting what you’re saying about Ptolemy. I know that. So my view is this, is I think Christianity and Judaism and most of the ancient religions of the ancient world were drawing from the same pool of philosophical thought.

I always find it interesting that, you know, like, so 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 at least documented at least hundreds of years, but we find Buddhist monks have went to China.

We find shrines to Buddha in the British 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 the tale of Rome trying to abolish and destroy the druids and the ancient religions of the British Isles with their hero, who represents Jesus Christ, and you have the Christianization of the British Isles.

But before the Christians got there, there were the sun worshipers. So we know Constantine was a sun worshiper and we also know he was a Stoic. So Constantine was a big fan of Stoic philosophy because he felt, and I’m getting outside my pay grade by even discussing this, but just what I know from what I’ve learned from others who are experts on Constantine.

He liked the idea of the 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 writings and the problem

Also, so back to that, yeah, no question. So that’s, you know, we’re in agreement on that. And I think when you, so what you’re, it 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 manipulate people’s minds to accept the Christian doctrine, or for that matter, many of the ideas that get propagated 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.

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 influence of 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 China and Tibet and all these monks that came over. We had, we had, we had Buddhist monks that were evangelizing in Judea a couple of hundred years before the Jesus story.

So we also know that many of the stories, and it’s shocking when you really dive into this, how much parallel there is, most of Jesus’s life is directly, I mean, I’m not talking circumstantially, directly paralleled in the story of Krishna, the story of Buddha.

And also, and you go into the ancient Roman Empire and Mithriism was high, was a very popular religion at the time that Christianity was supposedly coming on board. And you also have other sects like the Isis cult, which existed with some veracity all the way up into the sixth, seventh century in Rome.

The Isis cult was based, of course, in Egyptology. And when you go into Egyptology, if you wanna talk about the ancient origins of some of these ideas that Monotheus hold dear, Egyptology has just like Buddhism does.

Most people think Buddhism is a polytheistic, there’s many gods in Buddhism, but there’s one supreme God. And in Egypt, it was the same thing.

as a supreme god whereas Hinduism so I would date like Hinduism too.

Yeah.

I definitely would say the origins of Judaism predate Buddhism now Hinduism It may be a equivalent time period from from

Hinduism is probably the most ancient religion that we have that exists today still. There were missionaries for Hindus that went around the world. They sailed around the world. They had adherents and it comes in different names.

Like if you go into Japan or China or Korea, Buddha is known as foe. If you go into the British Isles, it’s not Buddha. Well, there is a Mahatma Buddha. 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 my only point is, I don’t want to get lost in the weeds here, to your point, is there was a very rich pool of theological and philosophical ideas that found ready acceptance in the early centuries in the Roman Empire and in Judea, as you mentioned, like the Hellenized 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, almost all of them were dying and rising savior gods. At some level, Mithra, Romulus, even Isis had the whole resurrection story with Horus and all that, a little different type of story.

But the same basic idea, and all of it ultimately seems to center around sun worship. So we know, for instance, the cross of the Christian thing. The cross is a symbol that goes way, way, way before Christianity.

Yeah, I mean, the Roman generals used to put the cross on their shields before Christianity was even an idea because it represented the sun. Thank you for watching.

Yeah, the image of the Cairo which Constantine invoked and put on his shield at the Mountvane Bridge.

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associate that was soul and victor’s whereas the two accounts the two earliest accounts refer to soul and victor’s whereas the two later accounts rewrite history and start saying that it was in the name of the cross which it was not a really

Right, exactly. So that’s a great, I’m glad you said that. That helps me cut 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 arcing towards this if we have time towards the messianic movement.

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.

When it comes to biblical scholars, I have my own opinion about that. I won’t get into that right now. But for the messianic movement, 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 the thoughts of the rabbis.

And the problem with this is that I don’t personally believe that Christianity has anything whatsoever to do with Judaism at all. At any level. 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 consensus in the first and second centuries about what Judaism 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 the centuries long development. And most of it, and this is where I do see a parallel, 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 Jewish society had been destroyed. Really if you understand what is rabbinic Judaism, the Talmud was designed to help people remain connected to their story of their people and to their religion without a temple and without a land.

Talmud is basically a diaspora, like here’s how we live without what we’re supposed to have. Yeah. 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 hearing a lot of 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 hear it. It’s not coming from me.

I mean, there’s no motion, there’s nothing here. I don’t, uh, maybe that’s your headset? I don’t know.

Oh, it could be my headset, yeah.

Before we really get into all that, I wanna lay some foundation on some things. Get some base understandings of defined terms before talking about things before so they don’t get lost in the weeds to some degree.

So I mean, in general, yes, I agree with the summation, kinda where you’re going. But I wanna say like you brought something up. Judaism, there was diversity in the first century, but I wouldn’t say that what became Christianity, you wanted to found Judaism that looked like Christianity in the fourth to eighth century.

What was that? Can you say that again?

I would say that there was a diversity of Judaism in the first century, but you wanted to have seen a Judaism in the first century that looked like Christianity in the fourth to eighth century. So I would say there was a distinction.

So sometimes people use that point to undermine Judaism and then kind of justify this later develop Christianity. So to backtrack, I wanna kind of go into the first century and talk about the Judaism in the first century and where I would place what the followers of Jesus would have been in the first century in the context there before we define Christianity and before we get into like what messy annex are and stuff like that.

So I really define Judaism in the first century and contrast it from what later becomes, for sure, Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, there’s the foundation. There are some core things in Judaism though that all branches of Judaism share and one is the Torah or the Chumash.

And it’s to the level that one, they study, believe the Torah, the Chumash, the verse five books for say the Sadducees would have been more like carats today, I would say, if you were to, you know give it a classification, rabbis.

So I would just interrupt you. I would put the car rice bowl in line with the Samaritans.

Okay, well, but we can get into those definitions. And then the Pharisees would have been the seedbed for rabbis and then you have, you know, for sure, what the Essenes or, you know, more separatist groups, the Zephyns who were more of a violent, they were a political violent active version of the Essenes because they wanted to supplant and establish their messianic king.

And then the Paganistic Jews, which I would put the Sadducees in that Malay. And yes, there was 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 core, you know, narrative myth that all, you know, there’s a diversity of, you know, application. Now there are some of the, you know, the Hellenistic branches that blended Merkaba mysticism and Platonic thought.

You have the Essenes who, through ritual purity, felt like their ritual purity essentially took the place of temple sacrifice. They didn’t participate in the temple because it was on pure. So there’s a diversity of Hellenistic influenced by the Platonic thought.

You have, you know, influences from mysticism within the Hellenistic branch. You have Essenes who have their own ascetic mysticism, which I would put those in two different categories. And then you have, of course, the Sadducees, which were part of the ruling elites connected to the Roman leadership, but also part of the temple.

And then the Pharisees, which were more like the teachers of the people. But there’s a diverse, yes, there’s a diversity of first century Judaism and diverging, you know. You have the Hellenists who they engage in Platonic thought and, you know, Merkaba mysticism.

And I feel like they share some of the same texts looking at Inokian literature that you’ll find within the Essenes. Now, as far as Pauline Christianity, I see them coming out of the Hellenists who, you know, looked at some of the same Inokian texts, the Platonic thought, some of the mysticism, but different than the mysticism of the Essenes per se.

But in the first 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 Sea Scrolls, the Peshirim and, you know, 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 texts to find support for a later developed tradition.

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 savior of mankind.

So even with all the diversity of Judaism, they would have agreed Mashiach is to help establish national identity, the kingdom of David, a soul savior. Let me pause for one second. Hold on. So there was a diversity of Judaism in first century.

And I’ve seen that by Christian apologists. 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 fourth century and the first century, which I would not say exists, which I want to get to later, not now, not yet.

But the diversity of Judaism in the first century still would agree that they wanted a king to establish national identity for the Jewish people and a Davidic king and a pure temple worship. Even the Essenes would have agreed that if there was a pure temple, they’d participate.

Now I don’t know if the Hellenists would have bought into, you know, that 100%. But, you know, the 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, well, Israeli -centric Judaism, those within the land that were not overly Hellenized, they’re focused would have been the first five books 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 writings, and stuff. Turn her up, you want some?

Second, like the car rights, for instance, what we know as the car rights today, would not have ascribed with any of that.

Mm.

They had no interest in a Davidic game. They didn’t feel like that.

They’re all later, so I mean, you can’t superimpose them in the first century.

But even then at that time I mean ever since the split kingdom There was a whole section of that ended up, you know what we call the lost tribes They didn’t adhere to it. So the to 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 ancient semites that would identify with Israel So there’s a lot of

I mean, even the Samaritans have their own pentatops. They have their own five books. Oh yeah, absolutely. They have different interpretations. The focus would have been the first five books though. So I’m not trying to say.

track you I’m just

Yeah, no. Well, yeah, but still, the first five books would have been a major consensus.

Sure.

Period. Like even the Samaritans who they would say that there’s a different mountain, a different temple, you know, that they focus on a different, you know, Jerusalem isn’t the center for the Samaritans, but they still have a Pentateuch, a first five books, their own version.

But still the first five books would have been central. And for a majority, a majority, especially in the first century in Israel and Judea 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 so much the Hellenized Jews and those outside.

And I would not place, and I would say that the Essians are a group we found a record of, but they aren’t central to the Jerusalem in the area 100 percent that Christianity came out of. So there are these outlier groups, the Hellenized and the Essians and the Samaritans, 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, you know, I think when it comes to now trying to piece together what happens. Now, two major events you mentioned kind 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, the 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 people, you’re destroying the people in the land.

And then again, the Barcopa Revolt, 133, we’re going to do that again when we destroy the text in the tradition. So we don’t have a good authentic record of that period. Now I want to catch what I think, and I’m going to start to catch what I’m referring to.

Just to mention, all we do have is we have the government sponsor.

Your voice dropped out. What did you do with your mic? 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 you to I could barely hear you.

About now.

Um

Still bad.

I don’t know, your 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. Let me look at something here.

I don’t know, all I did was adjust my little microphone.

Nope, nope, that’s not what I want.

How’s this? Is that better?

I don’t know. I’m curious if we should

Let’s pause it and figure it out.

Yeah, yeah, there’s parts.

I think I’m having a wa-

All right, so yeah, a little technical difficulty, but let me pick up where I was. So, first century, we had the two main events. Are you picking me up?

Yeah, I hear you perfectly.

Okay, I just saw your hand. Okay, so yeah, so here’s where I would situate what the historical Jesus, which divorced this from what we’re gonna 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, Eisenmann or Tabor and others. In my own personal research, I would place, even my recent conversations with Dr. 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 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 David king.

And I don’t know, I don’t think I believe that Jesus was to be the king. But, you know, from my studies 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 gonna get into this a little bit before kind of passing the mic, but I see evidence for an early, and then James may have, you know, took it over after he went away, but I would place them as part of what ended up with the battle of Masada, the destruction there that led to the destruction of the temple, but I would place the early followers of the James Jesus movement as part of the zealot branch of the Essings who wanted to violently overthrow.

And we have no records, 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, and when it talks about at the Barcocpa revolt, they refused to participate because their revolt in 70 failed.

And that is why they were made fun of at the Barcocpa revolt because they had started to transition to what became rabbinic Judaism, a post -temple religion. And so my view of the historical Jesus before the myth -making of Christianity was they were zealots who fought for national identity David king, and failed.

Now, and this follows the polemics, and I’m gonna 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, Nazarenes, Ebnites, Corinthians, there was like four, five, six.

Like a lot of their polemics was against Jewish Christian groups. The proto -Orthodox and Orthodox, their main adversaries before there was Jewish Christian groups in that believed in Shabbat, Kosher conversion.

We can get into the elements of that. Hold on, let me double check and make sure that we are recording. Yes, we’re recording. Okay, good. So 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.

But because it became Christianity, it couches things for most people to understand. So I would say, and for me, and like even the last time I talked to Dr. Price, 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 agree that the teacher of righteousness was a James -time character, the spouter of lies was a Paul -type character.

But I don’t believe they’re the same, I believe they’re similar. When we get into the Clementine literature, Secret Epistle of James, Epistle of Peter to James, what I see, is a Judaism that teaches the textual tradition of the, because they talk about passing the scrolls, the initiation according to Moses, the 70 elders, because we know of the tradition.

So this is the rabbinic tradition, very pier -kay -a -vote kind of stuff. There’s a Judaism, there’s a Judaism that’s very Jewish, and then they believe you must be 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, we’ll talk about the later Ebeonites, but the early Ebeonites believed Jesus was a prophet calling for the end of temple sacrifice, and that he was cut off, but they didn’t believe he was risen, savior.

He was born of Joseph, not a virgin. And then later, I’d say in the second to fifth century, we see a gnostic influence, Ebeonites rising, and you see the Nazarenes, who I’d say split off with them. Now the Nazarenes, I put there, they’re splitting with the Ebeonites around 90, common error, and I believe that’s when the institution of the prayer of the manim is put in the synagogues, and it’s why Christians in the Talmud are called Nazarenes, and that there was a split between the Ebeonites and the Nazarenes.

Now we have records of the Ebeonites from ancient synagogues up to the eighth century, at least in polemic works, and then they disappear. Maybe they just stayed Jewish, who knows, but there’s no definitive where they go.

There’s echoes here and there, the authors that trace them to 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 textual transmission around the first 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 -Nostic Ebeonites, because the D .D .K., I’d say like fourth to fifth century, Nostic influences, Nagamadi Library, where it has the writings of James and Peter that vary Nostic, those aren’t early first century works.

So I would say that there was definitely this Nostic branch who started to adopt Pauline ideas, though we know there were early Ebeonites who saw him as a heretic and rejected the Pauline epistles. So that’s where I see the early Jesus movement, and I’ll give you a chance to answer to that, but now if we are to move into the invention of Christianity, we go second century, and our textual tradition starts with, as you’ve mentioned, Marcy.

Before we get there, what do you make of, I guess my summation of the early Jesus movement, connection to the zealots, destruction of the temple, pre -mythmaking of Christianity,

Yeah.

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 about the Minim prayer, the 19th benediction in the Shimonahashire, it’s well known that there was 18 benedictions and the 19th was added.

Yeah. And it was against the Minim, you know, there was the Minim text. It was the cursing of the, probably you’ll want to phrase it. Now, if you talk to rabbis, 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.

No.

Right, and that’s the Jewish position on that. But I think what you say is very interesting as far as the break that happened in 90 AD. 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 that we have, as we discuss these ideas of Christian origins, it’s probably worth us reiterating this, that we’re discussing it in the context that what is commonly understood as Christianity today is post 400, 500 AD.

Yes, and did not exist in the first century.

Right, so that’s a really important thing to remind ourselves as we discuss this, because all these different elements that you’re bringing forth are all way before that. So I think a lot of times people take umbrage with these types of conversations because their understanding of Christianity is after there was a complete parting of all the ways as it were, and rabbinic Judaism and Christianity had gone completely in separate directions.

That’s one thing that comes to mind 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 and I have both read his book, James the Brother of Jesus, which we both recommend, it’s a long read, 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 that the traditional dating of the scrolls is inaccurate, and he has a platform, we should mention, he has a platform 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 knows the scrolls, he’s viewed the fragments, he’s studied them, he was granted access that most people never had.

So Eisenman is an expert on the scrolls. But 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 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 speculated, and we can’t say anything more than that, but it is, it was speculation based on his study of the text and of the various other writings, such as the Clementine traditions, that Paul is none other than the wicked liar pointed out in the scrolls.

What you said that was interesting to me, and I put that all in subtext to what I’m about to say, is it’s possible that Eisenman could be wrong on both accounts, and yet correct about the philosophical ideas that were germinating through the period.

points.

Right, I think that’s what you were 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 wicked liar, and yet even being incorrect, he could be absolutely correct as to the tension within the growing movement and what the various controversies were.

And I do believe he was accurate about that, right? And that’s kind of what you’re illustrating. So I do find that to be a very interesting analysis. I guess, I don’t take exception to anything you’re saying as far as disagreeing with it or whatever.

I tend to think that, so if I could give a much shorter synopsis than what you gave just to move the conversation along, so I’m not bogging you down, but a shorter synopsis of my take on the development of Christianity is I think all of these things are true.

All of these developments in the ancient world, in Judea and in Rome are all true. However, I think that what happened is that as time went on, I think that Jesus’ character as a story, the Jesus Christ that is known as the founder of Christianity, the one that Christians adore and worship and is nothing other than a recharacterization of an ancient mythological pagan story.

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 he’s the morning star and he’s the alpha and the omega and all this other stuff.

He has no beginning and no end. These are all motifs that existed long before any of these things we’re talking about 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 always this need that people have to try to understand the mystery of it all. Like why am I here, et cetera 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 figure, you know what we say in Hebrew, a Messiah, savior or Messiah, which 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.

Except it’s not and where is it not? Well, in the parts of the Jewish population that we’re embracing the pagan world around them, the Christian idea of a redeemer figure was very consistent with whatever all their neighbors believed.

They all believed in this type of a person, whether it’s 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 so well.

It’s an interesting video of a laugh.

Right, and so Judaism, ancient Judaism, like the idea, for instance, I had, well, let me save that. Let me save the comment I was about to make because you’re gonna get to it eventually. I don’t wanna muddy the waters here.

But so I very excellently put 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 first century for those in the land of Judea.

Right.

Hellenistic 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 we run out of time.

We’ll see, we’ll see.

Yeah, when we start getting into the Hasidic, Kabbalistic conceptions of Mashiach, that has to be dealt with because that’s the Mashiach that the Messianics claim to. But in terms of Jewish law,

We’ll circle back to them.

Yeah, we will. The sources are very clear that there’s certain jobs that a messianic candidate must fulfill or they are disqualified as being the Messiah. Jesus doesn’t fulfill any of them. No, not one.

So the character Jesus is why I have such an issue with people that want to die on the hill of Jesus historicity. 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 out the virgin birth, they’re willing to throw out the ascension, they’re willing to throw out all the later Christian claims about this Godman. But they violently cling to this idea that there was a guy back there somewhere and he’s just lost in the pages 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. What’s the point of a historical Jesus then?

If all you’re doing, my favorite on this, 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. If Clark Kent wasn’t really Superman, who the heck is interested in Clark Kent?

Nobody’s interested in Clark Kent, the Wild Man and News reporter. And all these Jesus historicities

It’s never been about a Clark Kent or a single rabbi. Judaism’s never been about one rabbi, one Clark Kent.

Correct, exactly. But the people who want to desperately try to connect Jesus to ancient Judaism are always, they’re always willing to make all these concessions because they want to distance themselves from Christianity, you know, because they, you know, 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 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 with an itinerant preacher in Judea. It has everything to do with the self -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 Pauls of the world, whoever Paul was or if 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 have had cut and paste and scissor marks and stitch points all over them.

We have very little core Paul if there is any. And none of it existed in the earliest church records don’t have any Paul. We don’t know of Paul except until after Marcian supposedly discovers his letters.

So, and we know that the Gnostics considered Paul to be a founder of their movement. Yes.