The Pulling the Thread Podcast

Have you ever questioned the authenticity of the Jesus you know? What if the roots of Christianity weren’t neatly tied with a bow, but instead, a chaotic battleground of ideas? This podcast episode, “Dethroning the Mythical Jesus,” ventures into these intriguing questions, challenging conventional narratives and providing an insightful glimpse into the genuine essence of Christian origins.

The speakers introduce the concept of Jesus as a “typological figurehead,” proposing him as a symbolic character around whom diverse early Christian groups wove their narratives. Similarly, the role of Paul is portrayed as contested and evolving, suggesting that early Christians might not have been initially aware of Paul, and his significance grew later through political maneuvers and text redactions.

This podcast scrutinizes the Messianic perspective, offering critiques on key aspects such as presenting Jesus as a Jewish figure and attempts to find parallels between Jesus and rabbinic teachings.

1. Jewishness of Jesus:
   • The speakers challenge the portrayal of Jesus as a Jewish figure, asserting that he aligns more with a pagan mystery godman than a Jewish rabbi.
   • Critique is directed towards attempts to find parallels between Jesus and rabbinic teachings, emphasizing a potential misrepresentation of Judaism by the Messianic movement.
2. Hebraic Roots and Festivals:
   • The podcast questions the attempt to connect Jesus with Hebraic roots and festivals like Passover and Sukkot, pointing out flaws in these connections and emphasizing a lack of understanding of Judaism.
   • Issues related to portraying Jesus as the Passover lamb and the fulfillment of Sukkot are discussed, raising critical questions about theological coherence and historical accuracy.
3. Messianic Movement Critique:
   • Criticism is directed at the Messianic movement’s attempt to blend Christian and Jewish elements, highlighting concerns about conversion agendas and accusations of inconsistency.

The podcast then goes on to explore the “Paul within Judaism” movement, challenging traditional views and presenting Paul as a figure promoting a redefined Messianic expectation within Judaism.

1. Academic Motivations:
   • Key scholars like Mark Nanos, Paula Fredrickson, and Magnus Zetterholm are discussed as influential figures in the Paul within Judaism movement, with insights into their academic motivations.
   • Questions are raised about the historical accuracy of claims regarding Paul’s connection to the Nasi of the Sanhedrin and his potential role as a Torah savant within the Jewish tradition.

The hosts then emphasize the importance of approaching discussions on Christian origins with an open mind, free from biases and preconceived notions. They delve into the influence of the Roman Empire, the Theodosian Code, and the challenges in reconstructing early Christian beliefs.

1. Influence of the Roman Empire:
   • The impact of the Roman Empire, especially through the Theodosian Code, is dissected, revealing the intricate relationship between religious and political power during that era.
2. Challenges in Reconstructing Christian Origins:
   • Hurdles in reconstructing Christian origins, from the scarcity of historical evidence to debates surrounding Jesus’ historicity, are explored.
   • Complexities of navigating personal biases in modern scholarly interpretations add layers of difficulty to unraveling historical truths.
3. Roman Censorship and Textual Alterations:
   • The discussion delves into Roman censorship, control over religious texts, and potential redaction and alterations, complicating the task of reconstructing early Christian beliefs.

The podcast challenges the quest for the historical Jesus, advocating for a focus on the battle of ideas that shaped Christianity. It encourages listeners to question assumptions, delve into historical evidence, and consider alternative perspectives on Christian history.

In conclusion, this podcast transcript illuminates the intricate dynamics between Messianic Judaism, the Jewishness of Jesus, and the academic movement to reinterpret Paul within the Jewish tradition. Through critical examination, the speakers unravel the complex tapestry of discussions, offering a nuanced understanding of religious identity and historical interpretation. The exploration aims to reveal potential misinterpretations and deviations from historical realities, fostering a deeper comprehension of the Messianic evangelical movement’s theological claims while highlighting areas of alignment or divergence from broader historical and religious contexts.

Full Transcript

So once even early proto orthodox considered Paul to be a heretic, the early E .B. and I thought Paul was a heretic. And it wasn’t until after Marcian found his letters and then the proto orthodox decided to massage and revitalize them and then redact his letters further that all of a sudden Paul with the revival.

And so that was kind of a point I was going to get to is that our textual truant starts with Marcian’s gospel, Marcian’s finding of the epistles and then the proto orthodox redactions start appearing after this.

We don’t have we don’t have texts that exist before Marcian when it comes to gospels and epistles and the little ones are redactions of him. And therefore Marcian may have invented Paul based upon Josephus, maybe the spouter of lies that Eisenman is referring to.

But you know, there’s there’s parallels between Josephus and Paul and their their their background, the three years in the wilderness, similar platonic ideas when it comes to you know, to playing with the myth and you know, do what becomes the seabed of Christianity.

So like we don’t the textual tradition. Now I characterize what I think the early followers of Jesus were. Now when we come to the textual tradition, Marcian is, you know, yes, I would agree with the part Marcian prior priority that his came first.

I mean, you know, chicken or egg, we have his letters and then everything else that becomes Christianity is a reaction to his. So you hold his letters, the proto orthodox redaction, and then you have the catholization where they go back in again.

And it’s why it seems like three or four times, you know, Paul’s like, what’s going on? He’s changing his mind or he’s arguing against himself. And then I would consider a majority of the New Testament, even James and Jude to be Catholic documents written by Catholicists to and even Luke Max as Catholicists to assuage the image of Paul, who the orthodox and the Evianites saw as a heretic originally, but a convenient co -opt when they wanted to rewrite the history because there’s so much in his text that was great towards the influencing and manipulation.

I totally agree with everything you just said. But it brings what you just said brings home the point that I was trying to make. So let me make my final.

Good.

When we’re talking about Christian origins, in my opinion, we have to understand that, this is why I get so aggravated with the historicity, mythicist debate. Because what we’re dealing with in the development of the Christian religion is the same thing we’re dealing with in the development of Judaism, the same thing we’re dealing with in any of these ancient thought traditions.

But specifically Christianity, let’s talk about that. People can debate until the cows come home who Jesus was, when he lived, when the Gospels were written, who’s Peter, who’s Paul, any of this stuff.

What we have to understand is that what we have is an ongoing power struggle of ideas. Yes. That’s what’s going on in the development of the religion. That’s why we have so much debate about what came first, you know, and whose ideas were prevalent and when did this arise, and when did narcissism arise?

And everybody’s got their angle on it because they’re all trying to politic for their particular brand that they adhere to. So the idea of a historical Jesus becomes an obstacle to true discovery because the idea of a historical Jesus puts in play the notion, which is a false notion that in order for us to get to the original core Christians, we have to find the original Jesus.

I disagree with that notion. If you want to find the origins of Christianity, you’re not looking for a person, you’re looking for a set of ideas. Yeah. How did the ideas that became Orthodox Christianity become ascendant?

What was the process in which the battle was won over the ideas? How did the Trinity went out? How did the idea of, you know, how was it that Valentinianism and modalism was defeated in the Trinitarian Model One?

How was it that we ended up with Paul, who was so closely associated with Marcia? After Marcia is rejected as a heretic, how is it that Paul becomes so central to Christian doctrine when he was introduced by Marcia?

How do we have this idea that there’s four gospels when we know that there was a lot more? How do we have this idea of, you mentioned it, we have these Catholic epistles like verse and second Timothy, we have Titus and all these epistles.

I mean, anybody without half a brain can see that verse and second Timothy is talking about issues that shouldn’t even come up until the third century. We’re talking about bishops and deacons and all this stuff.

There’s no need for any of that in the 50s when Paul is writing. Like you mean to tell me that Paul is worried about this wild, huge network of believers that have to have authority over them and listen to your elders.

Like what are you talking about? There was no Christianity in Rome from Nero to persecute. So all this narrative that is accepted as mainstream, most of it is propaganda. And so we have to understand that what we’re dealing with, and you mentioned this at the very beginning of our conversation, that there was a time period that we know of that is well documented where Christianity became the ideas, let me just rephrase that, the set of ideas and values that become the Christian doctrinal position on life doesn’t really have a tendency until the fourth, fifth century.

Before that, it’s just a nonstop, often violent debate of who’s gonna win out. And who’s gonna win out is the elites that are in charge. That’s the answer to that question. So if we wanna understand the origins of the religion, we have to understand who was in charge of the culture?

Who were the major players? Who were the major moves and shakers? What was their incentive? What was their motivation? What would they have to gain? What would a phylo or a Josephus or a Flavian emperor have to do with Christianity?

What would be their incentive? What would be their ideas that they were trying to promote? So we know, for instance, as an example, and this alludes to some of the work of Valiant and Fahy, which Valiant doesn’t talk to me anymore because he doesn’t like the way I treated his punk friend Jacob Berman.

But the reality is that we have to understand that there was an incentive behind Josephus writing his antiquity of the Jews. Why was that commissioned? Because I believe personally, this is just my view, and I’m not asking anyone to share this view, this is just what I’m convinced of, that I think the only writings that we have that survived that period of the first century is the writings of Josephus.

I think all the writings of the New Testament came after 100 AD. And I personally think that most all of them came from well after 130 AD. And I think, you know, we don’t have any proof otherwise. And I know that Josephus wrote, he had to have written before he died.

So Josephus wrote after the war because he was commissioned by the emperor who had the money to publish the works. Yeah, so.

So he switched sides, you know, and he became, you know, the voice for, you know, the Roman Empire. So he served on one side and after the destruction of the temple, now he’s a propagandist for the Roman government.

Right, and Josephus, it should be pointed out, Josephus declared the emperor to be the Messiah.

Yeah.

And so did Ben Zekai, the Jewish rabbi. He declared him to be a fulfillment of prophecy. That’s right in the Talmud. So the idea that Christianity has its origins in some person is so infantile. It’s a man.

It’s intellectually infantile. It’s knuckle -drager reasoning. And the only reason people adhere to this type of reasoning is because they have a religious bias and a desire to believe it.

Yes.

Right, so once you divorce yourself from your own personal biases of belief and you look at the religion itself You realize Jesus is a typological figurehead that is the focused attention point that the inventors of the religion want you to have They want you focusing on this Jesus character When really behind the scenes it’s like the Wizard of Oz, you know, he’s pulling all the levers behind the curtain You’ve got all these machinations and political designs on the text And the text is designed to conform people’s thinking into this is what we want you to believe When I was talking to Robert Price, and he talked about this in his book, he details this in his book extensively That first Corinthians, according to the church fathers, was considered a basically a member’s handbook, if you will, for the early believers This is how they regulated behaviors.

First Corinthians was distributed everywhere Well, when you start breaking down first Corinthians, you start realizing you’ve got decades and even centuries of debated issues in that text, in that epistle Things that you’ve got the Encritites who were the, you know, the Aesthetics who believed that they were married, but they shouldn’t have sex with their spouse You’ve got that represented in the Paulina Pistols, you’ve got Gnosticism represented in the Paulina Pistols, you’ve got Church politics represented So Paul is like, he becomes the Jesus of the emerging church So you’ve got the figurehead Jesus and then you’ve got this Paul character who everybody uses for their own advantage And they keep changing his writings in order to massage the message to be consistent with the going politics of the day And this goes on for hundreds of years, hundreds of years I mean, all you gotta do is listen to, you gotta listen to, what’s his name?

I just want to blank the famous scholar, Erwin, Art Erwin, who’s a linguistic expert I don’t agree with him on everything, but, you know, he’ll come out and say that there’s over 20 ,000 scribal redactions in the New Testament that they’ve found through linguistic analysis, which means It’s 200 ,000 Oh, is it that much?

Maybe I had the number wrong, which is even a more standard

500 ,000 textual variants in the New Testament, whereas comparatively there’s about 20 ,000 textual variants in the Tanakh.

Let me get to that because you talked about that and I didn’t get a chance to address that. You talked about the, you spent quite a bit of time talking about the differences when you start to compare the diversity of thought within early Judaism versus diversity of thought within early Christianity.

Yes, there are certainly some diverse groups in early ancient Judaism. However, as you correctly pointed out, there’s also a consensus of origins there. Now, I’m not talking about modern scholarship, I’m talking about when Deuteronomy was written around here.

I’m talking about they all have a Torah. But in Christianity, because Christianity, the history of Christianity, so I was about to mention before we had our technical difficulties, there’s a scholar named Elaine Pagels.

My son -in -law had a chance to meet her in person at the Society of Biblical Literature. Very fascinating woman, she’s very quirky. But essentially, she has a theory which I think is brilliant, I don’t know if she’s right, but she has a theory that basically the Gospels were intentionally backdated to a period that couldn’t be verified.

Yeah.

So by putting the Gospels into the period of Pontius Pilate, you have a historical figure and then you can create a fiction around that historical figure because once Jerusalem is destroyed there’s no way to verify the actors in the story.

So it’s a genius thing. Fiction writers do this all the time. How many fiction books are written around, you look at Tom Clancy novels or all these different modern writers who take real events, real people and they’ve craft a story around it that is highly believable because well this is a real person and this is a real event.

I mean you can’t verify it so you can’t follow it.

Exactly. So I bring that up only to say that it’s very clear that, and by the way, this is also true of all the major religious figures in the ancient world. This is true of Buddha, this is true of Krishna, this is true of all these different people.

None of them have even Romulus, who we believe there was a Romulus, right? But the stories surrounding Romulus and the Romulus are fantastic, they’re not real. So we have all these, this is what people do.

The last thing I’ll say, I’m sorry I went a little longer than I meant to, but so I had a chance, I was talking to Rabbi Tovia Singer, and he ended up talking about this on one of his shows with Tanak Tak, with Michael Hall, William Hall, excuse me, William Hall, who runs Tanak Tak.

So Rabbi Singer was at one time a Rabbi, the head Rabbi in India, believe it or not. So he took a job in India as the head Rabbi for the Jewish community in that part of the world. He was only there for a few years I think, but while he was there, there was this there was this Hindu guru guy, very very famous guy, who had millions of followers, he would have rallies and there’d be millions of people that would show up and there’d be miracle healings and all the same stuff you’d see in the evangelical world.

I know the laughing revival within the Pentecostal movement actually has its roots in this, in the thing, the laughing revival and healings and stuff like, I don’t even want to delve into that.

I’m not trying to, I’m just, the point I’m trying to make is that this guy ends up having a massive heart attack and he dies while Singer is there has massive heart attack, now there was all these prophecies about this guy about how he was gonna rise from the dead and how he was gonna, he was gonna revive the whole world I finally realized that that sound is coming from my headset, it’s not from you, so hopefully you can still hear me okay but this guy dies and Singer says that within a week there were women coming on public television claiming that they saw him as a risen person and saw him rise from the dead and he spoke words to them and they had things to share within a week of this guy dying so all to point out like people who say that you can’t come up with a mythical Jesus because the timeline is too soon it can happen in days, it can happen in days, so this is where I’m willing to concede like I try not to be dogmatic about my dating of the gospels because it’s certainly possible that these gospels could have been written a short time after a historical person and they could have just elaborated and embellished like crazy and now you have the legend but either way the point is that the religion develops over a period of time through the debate over ideas, it’s not like, let’s say that you and I are very close friends and you have a huge following and all of a sudden I’m out on a hike with you someday and you die on the trail and all of a sudden I see all these stories coming out about what was really going on with you and what really happened and I would say, well no, I can categorically say that all of what you’re saying is not true because I was physically there with him in person I have photos of him, here’s my photographs, here’s my transcripts of my conversations with him on Zoom like this is what he was, this is what he believed, everything you’re saying is false and everybody was like, okay, right, he’s an eyewitness testimony we don’t have any eyewitness testimony, that’s verifiable at all everything is a story and a legend and the proof of that is that none of the gospels agree with each other

Yeah, centuries and decades, there’s no consistency to the diversity of early Gospels and Epistles. There’s no… I mean, that’s why scholars only agree that he was probably baptized and died and the rest we can’t agree on.

that’s one thing like that so i interviewed at one time i interviewed jack buck who is a uh… phd candidate i think he’s got his phd now it could be wrong but he was a phd candidate studying under marcus vinson so marcus vinson is a preeminent marcian priority scholar in the world and jack buck is one of his chief students and jack buck’s specialty is iranian if i say that name right iranian um…

iranian i always said it with the wrong emphasis so one of the things he said that struck me and by the way jack buck is a christian he believes in jesus the whole thing he’s a catholic but jack buck says that one of the things that’s really interesting and he’s an expert in iranian letters uh…

which i won’t get into here but he said the earliest writings in the christian world have no knowledge of paul at all yeah what they talk about and they talk about the crucifixion they talk about jesus died and rose again that’s consistent but they don’t have anything to say about paul which is really fantastic when you consider the fact that you’ve got epistles that elude like peter eludes to the controversial writings of paul and you’ve got all this doctrine and church theology built on this guy who the earliest christians don’t know anything about and we have to go into the uh…

writings such as the homilies and the clementine recognitions and all these other things to find out anything about paul yeah and as you pointed out earlier we have it seems like in the new testament we have kind of a of a uh…

a negotiated truce especially in the book of acts between all these competing elements like you alluded to we’ve got all these different groups that have all these different particular beliefs and then later much much later there’s an attempt to try to gloss over the discrepancies and try to create a mirage of a unified front such as the trucellom council of access alleged alleged trucellom which as a jew i find incredibly unlikely yes

Yes, I yeah, I that’s a mythological account. I don’t agree. I think and you look in the the homilies I don’t think Peter and James would have ever conceded to that I don’t think that would have no the the This new Paul way that’s kind of like no hides or something.

I don’t think they would have ever read to that I still believe that I’m convinced they would believe in discipleship Circumcision make the as the way I that you know There is textual tradition to support that now, but I do kind of want to do a transition here though You know maybe 30 40 minutes max left, but I want to transition we’ve done some good foundation work I’m probably gonna break this into three episodes now just because of content and I think we got that I Do want to transition we’ve laid a good foundation of what Christianity how it came to be I Want to move into the modern age post Catholicization of the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire and the ideas of Christianity winning Western Europe and America the Reformation and then you know the Protestant Reformation and then the evangelical uprising in America and then now we come to our modern term And we’re gonna leave out a lot of that period just because I want to move to The jugs of my point while we lay the foundation the way I did is that now I want to talk about the messianic evangelical movement and How they get some things wrong there’s four key points that I’d like to kind of get into one the Jewishness of Jesus and how their rabbi Jesus validates their twist on Christianity and how it completely disagree with that summation that this Jewish rabbi Jesus that gives a Jewish flavor to Christianity Somehow makes things okay point one point two is the new view of Paul as you know Paul within Judaism and Gabriel Boca Cheney’s Paul with any no key and Judaism, you know like a branch of Hellenistic Essene Judaism and then how this Jesus in the festivals which I just have the hugest problem with you know Jesus as a Passover lamb is So troubling that would be the third one and the last one the messianism that co -op Cicidism the the veneration of Rabbi Menachem Snirson Yeah, and so I don’t like to talk about the problems of the messianic Jewish Jesus and how this doesn’t validate Christianity and it doesn’t validate messianic Judaism Because one part and parcel messianic Judaism by all branches of Judaism is not Judaism their veneration of a single rabbi Salvation in Jesus even even if they demote Jesus to a lesser Not a God they still believe in Paul’s Soteriology the salvation in Jesus which is not a historical Jewish There’s not the belief of a person to save your soul.

It was national redemption You know and we don’t have to really get into that as much but how do they get the Jewish Jesus wrong? How does them propagating Jewish Jesus to promote them? Fail when we look at what I just described and how we characterized early Jewish Christianity for no better term just so that people know what we’re talking about I’d call it Judaism that never went the way of Christianity would be my definition But that which became Christianity is separate from what I would have couched that as the religion that was invented formed over time So how do they get the Jewish Jesus wrong?

Start with that one then how do they get the new view of Paul wrong and at some point? I want to touch on this jude Jesus in the festivals how he could never be the Passover lamb or he doesn’t fulfill Sikot oh You know misunderstanding of God with us and then we can move into the messianism So I’d like to kind of hit as much of this as we can in the next 30 minutes or so and then I will have to

So I don’t have to go to so do you want me to just go ahead and try to tackle those or you want to

We’re committed to four points. And so let’s start with, you know, how do they get the Jewishness of Jesus wrong? And how does them promulgating the Jewishness of Jesus to promote their branch of Christianity fail to understand one, the historical Jesus, the myth making of Christianity and the Messianic movement?

right so jewishness of jesus first it’s a bit of a it’s a bit of a trap obviously if you’re selling the world that jesus was born to do he’s jewish i mean it’s the most obvious thing well jesus is jewish after all you know that that’s the obvious in road to try to get people interested in the messianic perspective well after all jesus was a jew so again the the presumption that’s false is based on the same false presumption that creates the misunderstanding of christian origins so anyone who studies church history or christian origins at any level even if they’re a believer and most people begin that way when they study this stuff they have to admit that as you correctly said the christianity that developed had a adolescent period where there was a lot of different perspectives before there was an orthodoxy the same is true in judyism there was a lot of development over a long period of time before there was a consensus of jewish orthodoxy so to try to put jesus and i’ve seen that i did this at one point i i when i was i used to study the talmud constantly looking for stories and teachings that would be reminiscent of the teachings of jesus and i would find many and i would write about them i had a blog i used to teach at a messianic synagogue i would be a guest teacher on frequent occasions and they would always love it when i would give them rabbinic talmudic parallels to jesus they would love that they would eat it up looking back on it i regret that stuff i i still have my notes from some of those studies i could send them to you the truth of the matter is that there’s a lot of explanations as to why there would be parallels to jesus’s teachings and stuff in the talmud none of them can be attributed to the fact that he was a jewish rabbi all of them have their roots in the same things that if you’ve studied the talmud if anyone listening here has studied the talmud at length or been taught the talmud through talmudic study with a rabbi or rabbi would know that the talmud they call it the sea of the talmud you don’t read the talmud or study the talmud the same way you would read the book of romans it’s it’s a dialectic it’s a conversation so even things that the rabbis today do not disagree with or condone are laid out in full view in the talmud as part of the dialectic for instance there’s a passage in sanhedrin that describes the holocaic parameters for how you are to sacrifice your children to molek believe it or not it’s shocking but it’s true that doesn’t mean that you’re ever going to find a rabbi or rabbinic organization of any denomination that is going to tell you that oh yeah well absolutely you can go ahead and sacrifice your children to molek no that’s not part of judyism but it’s in the talmud why is it in the talmud because at one point in history that was an issue that was discussed among the scholars and it’s recorded so we know that there is things in the talmud that are taught by halel in the debates between halel and shemae and shemae says this and halel says this and he you know and is always the stereotypical which is not always true but the stereotypical idea that halel was always on the side of leniency and shemae was always on the side of strictness which is not always true many times the sages sided with shemae they didn’t always side with halel but the reality is that um…

Jesus is portrayed by the messianics as being a rabbi after the school of halel

Yeah.

It’s a shell game. It’s a shell game. If you really study the character of Jesus, Jesus is another example of a pagan mystery godman. That’s what Jesus is. He’s not a rabbi, and you can try to make all these arguments, but the Messianics do.

They make these arguments, oh no, no, no, Jesus. You know, if you strip away the virgin birth, and you strip away all these doctors that are highly problematic to the Jewish world, and we should be clear, and you haven’t said this, but for the audience, if they don’t know, 90% of the Messianic world believes in core Christian evangelical doctrine.

Yes, they do. Right, it’s a very small percentage of the Messianic world that actually adheres to Jewish teaching, or follows authentic Jewish practices. They’re a very, very small group. It’s really just a huge, and when you think about it, I’ll just make this comment as a wrap up to my statement on this.

For people who have become disillusioned with their church, or the shallowness of their religious life, the idea of exploring the depths of the Jewish Jesus is incredibly appealing to a lot of people.

It’s the idea that I’m going to know, in fact, the famous organization, First Rouss -e -Sion, they have what they call a tour club, where they sign people up, and you get involved in these small groups, and you have a facilitator, and they go through these modules, where they go through the partial cycle with the eyes of, what do we see Jesus in this, in the partial cycle?

All of it, their motto is get to know Jesus better. So with the mantra of, you’re gonna get to know Jesus better, if you can understand him from a hebraic perspective, that’s the idea. But what they’re doing is they’re not getting to know Jesus better at all.

All they’re doing is they’re reinventing the Jesus of their imagination to fit their new fantasy. That’s all they’re doing. They’re taking a hodgepodge of their evangelical background, and they’re mixing it with what little knowledge they have.

These people are famous, they’ll go to the Habad website, and they’ll try to navigate the Habad website, because Habad is very messianic, and they’ll talk, they’ll get all these teachings about Messiah, and we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but a lot of these people, they love this stuff.

They love it because it gives them a sense of validation that they’ve gone, and most of them are very triumphalistic in their attitude. Like, we’re a deeper Christian than the average Christian. Average evangelical Christianity is very shallow, but we’re going deep because we’re getting to the roots of what Jesus was really like according to the people that he’s associated with.

And there’s all this excitement about, we’re gonna support Israel, and we’re gonna support the rabbis, we’re gonna fight anti -Semitism, we’re gonna do all these really wonderful, well -worthy things, and yet they have nothing to do with Jesus, and people should know that most messianic organizations, the vast majority of messianic organizations that are out there are expressly dedicated to trying to convert Jews into becoming Christians.

That’s their goal. Once you know that, you realize that this is a sham, this is a farce, it’s not real. It’s an evangelical ploy.

Jelicalism, you know the term that comes to mind for me is wolf and sheep’s clothing You know, it’s what Rabbi Kara Sarah Shapiro and her book on Messianic Judaism She was a reformed Jew refers to as cross -dressing gentiles You know my experience with Dr.

Raymond Ganden Jewish voice and King Seminary The you know the Gentiles encourage dressing up is more orthodox to convert, you know, yes Jews But you know and so let’s touch on first he break roots and then the alleged orthodox from You know, so the Hebrew roots, you know the tabernacle Jesus fills the tabernacle Jesus fulfills the festivals Somehow he’s the Passover lamb and he’s also Sukkot There’s a problem with this because well, how does a man become a lamb?

How to you know each man was given wants to live and then the judgment no man, you know a father can’t die for his son You know son can’t die for his father like Failure to understand Judaism Jesus can’t fulfill the festivals and he can’t be a Passover lamb Which doesn’t take away the sins of the world despite you know in Judaism You know Christianity is gonna say one thing, but you know Judaism Passover lamb didn’t take away the sins of the world So if you become like, you know, he doesn’t fulfill the festivals in the

Let me go further if I can interrupt you for one second. Let’s now transition to the Passover lamb thing, right? Not only does the Passover lamb not take away the sins of the world It doesn’t take away the sins of anyone.

It doesn’t deal with sin So the idea so this is one of the biggest fallacies that exists Is the idea that Jesus represents the blood put in the lintel of the doorpost by the Hebrews in Egypt? on a fundamental level It’s it’s a misunderstanding of the story.

It’s a false Christian teaching first of all Jesus is the typology of this of the of the blood of the lentils the truth of the matter is that the curse according to the Torah was against the firstborn and People who are Jewish were to put the blood of the lintel of their doorposts to identify them as Jewish that their firstborn wouldn’t die So any conceptually any Jewish family in Egypt that didn’t obey Moses’s edict their firstborn child would die So People don’t understand that in the Jewish world according to Jewish teaching There were Egyptians that also put blood on their lintel in post so that their oldest children wouldn’t die And those Egyptians went out with the Jews in the Exodus It wasn’t simply just the Hebrews So of course Christians will say well that just proves the universal self.

No, there’s no salvation message in the Passover event The Passover event was a solemn event That was it was like people are dying around us and we’re just being spared this is but the idea was Of course, I don’t believe it was a historical event, but that’s neither here nor there But the reality is that Christian doctrine tries to appropriate the blood in the Passover story as Representative of the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world There are no Jewish people who were saved Quote unquote by obeying this injunction.

They were simply spared the death of the firstborn Yeah, so it’s a completely false analogy to begin with that the other thing that they do is They conflate the Passover story with Yom Kippur with the sacrifice of Yom Kippur One of the things this is even more egregious in my opinion is that how a Messianic Christian Participate in the Yom Kippur ceremony Yeah, and the Rosh Hashanah ceremony which happens, you know seven to ten days previous Right so in Judaism We all know that there is blood all over the worship system the cult worship system has blood everywhere But most people do not know that there is not a single Offering in the Levitical system with deals which deals with intentional sin Not one there’s not one sacrifice that deals with willful sin The only remedy for sin in Judaism is repentance and change and A heartfelt return to God.

That’s the teaching of Judaism is that you return to God and he blesses you and restores you That’s the whole point. It’s not about sacrifice The sacrifices about cleansing the temple Yeah, yes, that’s why if there’s people people never think to ask the question like how can Judaism still exist today If there’s no temple don’t they realize that Jesus fulfilled it.

No Jesus didn’t fulfill anything If the temple was so critical to the existence of Jewish belief Then it wouldn’t have survived the death the destruction of the temple That’s not the case Judaism does not rely upon animal sacrifice for atonement to God period not only that If if the Passover go back to Passover for a second if the Passover lamb Was so critical for the health of the Jewish soul Why is that?

Practice in Exodus not duplicated today all around the world You don’t see any Jews putting blood on their doorposts anywhere in the world not in Jerusalem or anywhere else Why because it has nothing to do with the health of the Jewish soul It was a plague It was a it was an act of obedience during a plague in a foreign land It has his time in place.

It’s commemorated in Jewish culture and history and religion It has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul. All right, so but back to the young kabor thing. So I remember Standing in a messianic synagogue We went through the whole Rosh Hashanah thing, right?

Now, it’s very fascinating because as you know in Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah is, people always think that Yom Kippur is the judgment, yes. But really it happens at Rosh Hashanah. So Rosh Hashanah, the blowing of the shofar, is supposed to silence the objections of the enemy, of the Hasatan, so that the people can have an uninterrupted audience with their king in order to have their soul restored.

And it’s during the period of Rosh Hashanah where the judgment is rendered. And then at Yom Kippur, your fate is sealed for the following year. That’s Jewish tradition. Most people don’t know that. There’s very few Christians that have ever experienced or even know about the Rosh Hashanah ceremony.

Even though it’s in the Bible. Christians don’t talk about it, they don’t teach about it. If you believe that there is relevance to the Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, to what we call the High Holidays. So the High Holidays of the Jewish year culminate in Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

I have been, as you have been, in liberal synagogues where you have Jews who don’t even attend synagogue all year long, and on Rosh Hashanah, they will pack the joint out because they know the family is being called together.

They go there because it’s the time for the family to be called to account. Not because of any of their faith, or any of them do have faith, any of them don’t have faith, but they’re still there. They’re there because they’re part of the tribe.

That’s part of the family, it’s the ritual. So if you believe that Jesus is your atonement, if you believe that you are rectified to God by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, there is no world in which you should be participating in Yom Kippur, whether you’re Jewish or not.

Because if you’re Jewish, you realize that the salvation of my soul is not up to an individual. I’m part of a tribe, and in Judaism, every Jew’s soul goes back to Sinai, and we’re all part of the same soul, we’re all sparks of the same root.

And so every Jew that has ever lived for all of time, according to Jewish theology, and I don’t care if you’re part of the reform movement, the conservative movement, the orthodox movement, the Hasidic movement, your soul was considered to have been present at Sinai.

You don’t get saved. You are part of a tribe. It’s not a salvation religion. So this mixture of messianic evangelical ideas with Jewish practice is the true definition of an abomination, it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t exist.

You have to choose one. If you’re either following Christianity or you’re following Judaism, Judaism has no need for Jesus, and Christianity has no need for Jewish ritual. Period. And if you’re trying to mix the two because you think you’re connecting with the Hebraic original Jesus, this is why I have such an issue with people fighting over historicity.

Because you’re missing the whole point of the religion. Jesus is a figurehead representing a set of ideas. He has nothing to do with Judaism. Nothing to do with Sukkot. You mentioned Sukkot. Nothing, Sukkot is a ritual of the Exodus.

It is a festival. Now, the argument is made even by the Nohahai teachers, the rabbis, that Sukkot is the only festival of all the Jewish rituals that does have the world in mind. It has the goyim in mind also, as well as the Jews, but not in the context of salvation and certainly not in the context of Jesus.

Has nothing to do with Jesus at all. Unless you buy the hogwash that Jesus was a misunderstood, Hasidic, Habad rabbi that would have worn a black suit with white shirts and zinzied in the first century, which is, you know, they have, most people don’t understand how anachronistic, the messianic Hasidic Jesus is, because the Hasidic movement doesn’t exist until the 18th century.

Well, it starts in the 14th century, but really, I mean, when you talk about Habad and the Breslov movement, all that stuff, that’s all post -Isaac Loria. That’s all, you know, we can get into that if you want.

I don’t know if I’m jumping ahead of you.

not today, not today. But, but yes, um, yeah, so I mean,

We get fired up about this, so I apologize to your audience. I get a little fired up.

We got 15 minutes max. I wanna agree with something you were saying, Tehalim, the Psalm says, if you do what’s right, you’ll be forgiven. Therefore, if I do what’s right, even at Roche Shoshana, where we apologize to our brothers and sisters for the things we’ve done in the previous year, the repentance doing right, and the sacrifices unnecessary.

So failure to understand, and then trying to put Jesus in these festivals, isn’t, it fails to understand Judaism, and therefore, it totally has a faulty foundation, which we’ve kind of talked about some of that.

The Hebraic roots, you know, I want to try to do the last two points if possible, because we’ve kind of touched on the Hebraic roots. According to Judaism, Jesus is an irrelevant, marginal Jew, and historically, he has no place really in Judaism.

Now Christianity that has belief in Judaism is something that Jews would wrestle with, but that’s another issue. Moving past the Hebrew roots to the, you know,

I’m not gonna answer that question. Do you want me to deal with that? I never dealt with that. Do you want me to quickly address that?

At

I forgot to mention that because that’s something I glossed over. It’s important for your audience to understand, if you haven’t already educated them about this, that Hebrew roots has to be carefully distinguished from the Messianic Jewish movement.

They are separate movements. Hebrew roots is a cult. Hebrew roots is a misappropriation of certain Jewish practices from the perspective of Christian rebellion. Hebrew roots is mostly made up of people who have rejected the mainstream church and they read the Bible and they try to just take on whatever is written in the text of the Bible.

They’re going to start doing that. If it tells us, you know, I have to, so you’ll see Hebrew roots people, they’ll be tying strings to their belt loops and they’ll be, you know, blowing shofar every five minutes.

Whereas Messianic Judaism as an organized movement has governing bodies to it. There are different bodies. So basically Messianic Judaism is largely split up between people that came out of the Charismatic movement versus people that came out of the Baptist or more conservative parts of Christianity and their fellowships, the tenor of their fellowship is reflective of their back room.

So in Messianic synagogues and in Hebrew root congregations where they come from Charismatic backgrounds, you’re going to see a lot of the Charismatic elements that you would normally find like in an Assemblies of God or what have you, people speaking in tongues, dancing around, waving flags around and you’re going to see all this same stuff because that’s what they know, that’s what they’re comfortable with and they just appropriate it to the Jewish thing.

Whereas people that come from a more conservative bent tend to be a little bit more scholarly, they tend to be more interested in the study of the text and they’re less interested in the experiential elements and they’re more interested in really immersing themselves into the philosophical tradition.

And it’s from that side of Messianic Judaism that you find most of the people who leave it and convert to Judaism because when they get involved, you and I I think probably are in that camp, where we got involved in the study.

And as we studied, we studied ourselves out of the Christian thing and we found ourselves more attracted to Judaism. So that’s that’s a very small percentage though of the Messianic Jewish world and within that world.

So in Hebrew roots, you’ve got people and I forget his name now, but there’s this famous TV personality. Maybe he’s dead now, but he used to dress up like a prophet and he had all these crazy gaudy clothes and he would be very flamboyant and he was a former pastor and he would he had a very popular following.

I forget his name. And then like from the Messianic Jewish world, one of the more prominent organizations is First Fruits of Zion, which they’ve had a very business like and strategic way that they’ve entered the market.

Their base is mostly Baptist, Southern Baptist. And but they are they are all missionary. And that’s the thing I wanted to point out is that whether it’s Hebrew roots or whether it’s Messianic Jewish movements, all of them, whether more subtly than others, they all seek to proselytize Jews because they believe that they are part of the original Jesus movement that is trying to recapture original Christianity.

And that’s why this conversation is relevant. And that’s I just wanted to make that point.

Oh, no, that’s a great point. And kind of touches where it was going next, but before we fully delve in, we kind of talked about what was wrong with the Jewishness of Jesus and how they get the Jewishness wrong.

And if he existed, that whole festival Passover thing just fails. All right, so the next place that Messianics go that this new view of Paul trying to put Paul within the rabbinic Jewish tradition and it’s halakha and it’s pesharim and it’s midrash.

And Paul is Jewish and therefore Christianity is a midrash that became, you know, out of Paul’s writing, which, oh my God, that’s the worst thing ever. So basically you embrace, you embrace Platonianism, Mithraism, deification, salvation, because you touched on salvation for Jews as communal, it’s the entire nation, not an individual.

Salvation according to Christianity is very personal and follows the practices of Roman conversion to paganism, not any ever recorded history of conversion to Judaism before Christianity. The salvation process of Christianity follows Roman tradition.

But the making of Paul is Jewish now and a pesharim and a midrash and, oh my God, that’s…

I like to speak on that so let me just quickly say because this will cut right to the chase so Several years ago my son -in -law Brian Who was a published scholar? He attended the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, which happens every year SPL and he attended as the roommate of Mark Nannos So Mark Nannos is the spearhead scholar Which heads up the Paul within Judaism movement?

There’s other scholars as well that have gotten on board since him But he was the primary scholar that started it all and his seminal work Which was an edited collection of essays by various people including himself was called Paul within Judaism this This was a fringe form of Pauline scholarship that began to take take off a bit other scholars of notes such as Paula Fredrickson Magnus Zetterholm and others All of which by the way our atheists Started championing this as well as an exciting new branch of Pauline scholarship when they’re all looking for something new Anyway, so this is like exciting for them to delve into I Happen to know for a fact so Mark Nannos who is the most prominent scholar in the Paul within Judaism field and the FFZ crowd They just like basically worship this guy.

I know him personally my son -in -law knows it much better than I do As I said he ruined with him Mark Nannos is a liberal Jew Who was a former businessman who took upon Pauline studies and his original work?

The irony of Galatians I Was his initial and he wrote another one on Romans which is very convoluted, but at any rate His whole point was to try to mitigate Christian amputees anti -Semitism. So Mark Nannos’s idea was if you could re -contextualize Paul as a as a Hellenized Jew who was advocating to his brethren a Reconception of Messianic expectations And and couch Paul in the Milu of an of a Jew arguing with other Jews essentially That if Christians could embrace this idea Rather than the traditional narrative that Paul was denouncing the law denouncing Jewish Exceptionalism denouncing Jewish practice strict observance of kosher for Gentile that Paul was advocating From within Judaism not against Judaism essentially that his idea was that if that idea could propagate And he could make an argument for it That it would help to reverse Many centuries of Christian persecution of the Jewish people that was his entire motivation A noble goal He doesn’t believe any of it

I mean it’s like secular Hebrew -rudism though. It’s the Hebrew -rudism for the secular mind.

So like if you’re an atheist or if you’re a secular Jew and your goal is the health of your community Mark Nados doesn’t care about The arguments within Christianity about doctrine He doesn’t care about any of that stuff.

He’s not a Christian. He has no intention of becoming one There are actually Messianic Christians out there my son -in -law went to a conference by Messianics He was invited to it or Mark Nados was invited to speak and They were just like gushing over him like people in the audience were like you’ve changed my life By helping me embrace Judaism and Christianity together You’ve made all the dots connect and Mark walks off the stage and he talks to my son -in -law I’m not advocating Messianic Judaism.

I’m not advocating Jesus like that’s not his position Another one Paula Frederickson She’s as far as I know she’s a professor at Vanderbilt. Maybe she’s moved on. She used to be at Boston University Brilliant Scott She doesn’t believe any of this stuff.

It’s just a profession for her Magnus Zetterholme Another famous scholar that he’s peace. He’s he wrote I think one or two essays in the Paul within Judaism book The reason I’m saying all this is because these are the people that these Messianic Jewish people are championing and saying we have an unauthority that Paul was a observant Jewish man and that Jesus was an observant Jewish man and that they are promoting rabbinic Jewish principles here and The people who are writing the scholarship that they are quoting don’t believe it Yeah, it’s a it’s just it’s People don’t understand the world of academia

To give a stream analogy that that’ll make a point But it’s like the black guy that shows up at the KKK meeting and starts saying all the things that they like and they’re like It must be true

Right, exactly. It’s a crude analogy, but yeah, it works. And so the problem is, so let me let me deal with the core claims quickly. I won’t take a lot of time on this, but now that I’ve debunked the source of the information, not that I’ve debunked it.

I don’t want to say it that way. I’m not debunking their scholarship. Their scholarship is great. But when I say their scholarship is great, it doesn’t mean that I agree with it. It means that they’ve done a great job researching and trying to come up with an argument.

There’s some very eloquent arguments that are made for it. I’m not going to deny that. I’ve read the books, but ultimately it doesn’t hold water because the reality is that, so first of all, Paul is from Tarsus.

Try to find in Jewish sources any connection to the ancient Jewish world and the city of Tarsus, which was, by the way, a place where the only thing that was of significance in Tarsus was that there was no Jewish community there.

So for these people to claim that Paul was a potential… I’ve heard it claimed that Paul was the heir apparent to the Nasi of the Sanhedrin. And people don’t know what the Nasi was. A Nasi is a Jewish term for the head of the Sanhedrin.

People’s claim that Paul, people in the messianic world, claimed that Paul was an inheritor. He was an heir apparent to be… he was a savant. He was a Talmud, not a Talmud, but a Torah savant of the oral tradition.

He was in line to be the Nasi. If that were true, then we would have records of him in the Jewish tradition, like we do for all other great sages of the Jewish tradition. Paul is unknown in the Jewish tradition.

Answer the early Christians too. Right.

the whole notion of Paul within Judaism. Okay, so what do you do with Galatians? So Mark Nantos wrote the irony of Galatians. And then he wrote another book about Romans. So Mark Nantos has a fame, and I’ll just talk about him because he’s the one I’m most familiar with.

I’ve also read Fragrance and the other ones, but I’m most familiar with Nantos. I’ve had personal correspondence with him. So in Romans, in fact, he personally sent me his original paper that he published on, that ended up becoming incorporated into his book.

He sent it to me and I have it. I have it down in my office. I don’t have an office, but down in my bookcase. He sent it to me, I have it in a three -ring binder. So the whole argument is based on word play in the Greek.

Talking about, of course, with Romans 11 through 13, or it was at nine through 11, I forget. The part of Romans where it talks about, Israel has been cut off for a season and will be grafted back in and who are you to boast who has been grafted into the original branch?

Don’t you boast against it? Oh, we have to wrap up, okay. So anyway, let me wrap up. Let me cut to the chase. You guys can research that on your own. But the whole, the very controversial passage in Romans that deals with Israel being partially hardened.

So that is a passage that Mark Daniels took particular umbrage with because he viewed Matthew 27, which is the whole, or is it Matthew 25 where it talks about let his blood curse be upon us and all of our children and Matthew.

He viewed that verse and he also viewed the passage in Romans where it talks about Israel being partially hardened but in the end they will all be saved. That those are the cortex that the church has used throughout the centuries to persecute and justify the pogroms and the persecutions of Jews.

That they’re in rebellion, they need to repent and until they repent, anything we do to them is justified because they’re in rebellion against God. That’s been the traditional position of the church.

So that was his whole thing. So the whole Paul within Judaism movement is designed to try to mitigate that. Let me make one last point. There’s another guy by the name of Rabbi Kinzer. Rabbi Kinzer is a Jewish Christian who is a very good man, good man, very humble man.

He has great relationships with the cardinals of the Vatican. Mark Kinzer was instrumental in the formation of the relatively recent document, which was an update of the Catholic position on the Jews.

And it’s very controversial, the evangelicals all hated it. The position that the Jews have a relationship with God outside of Jesus. No, start that. Yes, and Mark Kinzer wrote a book called Post -Missionary Messianic Judaism, an argument to justify Messianic Judaism apart from evangelical proselytizing efforts.

The problem with his theory is Judaism already has a solution to that problem. It’s called the Seven Noahide Laws. You don’t need to go through any kind of solution to try to justify Jews not accepting Jesus.

Judaism never requires anybody to believe and become Jewish. Judaism simply says be a righteous person and everyone can have a place with God. That’s what Judaism teaches.

Yeah, and on that note, I do have to bring it to an end and we can get a little more into this a little further. We covered a lot. This is this was a good a good talk. I got to do the call of my kids now so I can’t really continue this right now.

But we covered some good points and we’re at a good spot. You want to say last last words real quick.

uh… just i i just want to say express my appreciation for you jeremiah because of the work you try to do uh… i think it’s coming from a good heart good place uh… place of inquiry uh… genuine uh…

desire to try to connect dots and help people understand i don’t think you have an axe to grind i don’t ever sense that you’re trying to to get at a certain group of people or try to try to get revenge at anybody you truly have a good heart and that’s why i want to participate in this with you and i think uh…

i hope that uh… i hope that your work continues to find success and and and keep being a great dad to your kids i love i love your public

All right, great. Well, I appreciate you and it was good and insightful. And yeah, we’ll go ahead and wrap on that. And we’ll come back on some of this. We were getting into some good stuff, but this went wrong.

And you know, we’re gonna- You can break it up if you have to, yeah.

Bye.

So anyways, I appreciate you and for everybody following make sure you like and subscribe. You know tune in at Jesus the Jew within Judaism .com the Facebook group in YouTube and stay in touch for further episodes.