Let There Be Answers! Episode 4, Transcript

Let There Be Answers! Episode 4 - Centre Place

Transcript:

(00:28) Hello, welcome everyone to another episode of Let There Be Answers. I'm Leandro, usually sitting behind the camera, but today together with John, I'll be your host. John, where are you? Hello. I am streaming to you live from Salt Lake City, Utah, where I have been attending the 50th annual Sunstone Symposium.

(00:59) So, this is a conference that uh it's conference for the Latter Day Saint Movement or Mormonism where all the different scholars and also it's about culture and all that kind of thing. And uh so for example, people are probably aware that there's a lot of Mormon themed TV shows and and cinema. So it's like it it has those kind of things.

(01:20) Uh there was a screening of a of a independent Mormon horror film. So that was kind of interesting. So I've been attending that uh and and I'll be back in Toronto uh tomorrow night. Nice. Well, today we have quite a few questions that um you have sent on the YouTube chat.

(01:47) We received some by email, by Facebook, and we will try to address them all as much as possible. We have a lot of questions. Uh but John, as I make sure that everything is okay with the stream, why don't you uh remind us about uh the next week and and the usual things that you do at the beginning of the lectures? Well, I want to welcome everybody to our history, theology, philosophy channel part.

(02:16) Uh today, however, we are doing the let there be answers podcast as Leandra said. And so, for the last couple weeks, people have been writing special comments and questions in uh both by sending them to us by text and email, but also by uh writing them on the different recent lectures that we've had. And so Leandro and I have been collecting all of those and getting those ready.

(02:41) And we are also uh following your chats right now on YouTube and Facebook and elsewhere. Mike is on the back end helping us out and he will be uh feeding those to us. And so part of the idea of this um is that this is an open thing where you can ask us about anything. Uh and we'll do our best. You know, you're going to also be able to stump us with some of these. I think that's fine. Um I want to tell you a little bit about next week.

(03:04) So we will have a regular lecture again next week when we are looking at the stoic Jesus. And so stoicism is one of the key uh moral ethic philos ethic uh ethical philosophies of the Greco Roman world. It's one of the ones that became extremely popular. And so famously the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher king uh who in his meditations was a had the meditations of a stoic philosopher.

(03:37) And so we're going to look at to what extent um the ethical teachings of Jesus um maybe reflected that same kind of background uh that is present in his same context of the Roman world. And then we'll also look a little bit about how uh as Christianity emerged and uh became ultimately the state religion of the Roman Empire um how that Christianity may have also co-opted some of stoicism's ethical system post Jesus.

(04:09) And so I think that'll be an exciting uh uh way to on the one hand refresh ourselves and understand a little bit about stoicism, remind ourselves about that and then also look at it uh in how it had influenced Christianity both uh the historical Jesus Jesus's Jesus in the gospels and then also Christianity.

(04:31) Thank you. And I remind everyone that we count on your support to continue to produce this content. Some of you have already uh been uh sending super chats on YouTube. Thank you so much for supporting our channel. You can also remember do it on our website centerplace.ca. And we also count on your likes to help us get noticed. Okay.

(04:53) Uh you ready, John? Yeah. I'm also I love the system that you set up here because I can actually also see the the comments in real time. And so like Darth Rama is saying, "Have I seen the Book of Mormon on Broadway?" I did see the Book of Mormon the musical when it was on I came to Toronto. Yeah.

(05:11) So anyway, so anyway, so it's nice that I can see what you're saying and I'm also for those of you on Discord, I can see you too. So here we go. So I would like to start uh with a question that I got from Phil. Phil, I know I see you in the chat. Um, Phil was asking, "Uh, I wish I I wish to know more about the level of education Jesus had.

(05:37) What languages could he speak? What languages could he read and write? And which texts was he familiar with? And how do we know these things?" And I I want to I wanted to start with this question, John. uh because I think it it has a lot to do with what we do in this channel in general because we have we explore topics and we have evidence and we try to arrive to conclusions and sometimes there's very limited evidence and then that leads us to conclusions and sometimes there are certain things that we can say and certain things that are going to be speculative and I think

(06:16) when we talk about uh the level of education that Jesus had and what languages he could read and write and those kind of things that because of the limited evidence we have is we really any any conclusion might be speculative.

(06:38) Now I'm going to try to answer that from the viewpoint of a theologian and then I would ask you to to to say your impression from the from a historical lens uh since you've you've given several lectures on the on the historical Jesus. But I want to start by saying the overwhelming scholarly consensus is that Jesus of Nazareth Nazareth uh was a historical figure, a man in living in Galilee in the first century uh of this era.

(07:13) Um the primary sources that we have are the gospels and to an extent the canonical gospels and there are other other sources that didn't make it into the the canon the New Testament. Now when you approach what Jesus did and what Jesus said as a theologian which is usually our main concern as opposed to what his educational background was. uh you immediately you find that scholars even disagree on which sayings of Jesus we can trace back all the way to the historical Jesus and what sayings might may have been added later by the the authors of these gospels to uh to make a particular theological point. It doesn't

(07:56) mean that they were lying. Um now what we might know from the primary sources that we have is that Jesus belonged to a family uh tecton uh says the gospels say the gospels which you can translate as carpenter or builder and they were in this place Nazareth which at the time was right next to this Greco Roman city that which which one of the Herods was it? I just can't keep track of all the Herods.

(08:27) Herod's Herod was expanding the this this city at the time. So while Jesus was growing up, uh this would have been a place where people would would come to work on the the amphitheater and the baths and all these facilities that Roman cities had at the time. Uh so for that kind of work, you didn't necessarily need to read and write.

(08:54) Now there there were schools uh for boys to learn how to read the Torah, but it's unclear that someone a craftsman would send their their kids to to learn to read the Torah. Uh it was probably not essential. uh we know almost for certain Jesus spoke Aramaic and because of the context he may have known a little bit of Hebrew learning Hebrew in the the synagogue or um hearing scripture.

(09:25) Uh he could have known a little bit of Greek just by just participating in this context in in Galilee in this uh Greco Roman city uh Sephorus. Uh now other than that we we can see at the sayings of Jesus in the Bible in the New Testament there's echoes of of of the Torah it he seems to be very familiar with the prophets the Psalms that are echoes parallels with with other books like proverbs and there's even echoes with Greor Roman literature.

(10:03) I in in one of the papers that I did for my seminary education, I I I did research on a saying where in in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus says uh if if they're not against whoever is not against us is for us, which apparently you can trace back to the Roman author Cicero in his in one of his speeches uh in it's it's a defense. It's like a lawyer kind of defense. And this is something that Cicero was saying to Julius Caesar.

(10:35) Now none of this neither quoting Cicero or half quoting Cicero or quoting uh the Bible the the Hebrew Bible means that Jesus actually knew how to read. Uh so that is what we can say is what's the most likely uh explanation for these sayings being attributed to Jesus echoing the Bible, Cicero and you name it is that this was part of the the culture most likely that um even Roman sayings may have been and apherisms were things that were familiar to people in Palestine at that time. I don't know, John, what else we can say about this. Yeah. No, that's a really good

(11:23) background. So, um, yeah, the it's Herod Antipus the Tetrarch. So, it's one of Herod's kids. And I know there's so many Herods, it's hard, right? So, he's called the tetrarch because he doesn't get to have he isn't given by the Roman Senate. This was a client kingdom. And he's not given the whole kingdom that his father had had.

(11:41) Instead, he's given it's like a tetrarchy is like dividing it up into fourths. And so he's given this little area Galilee and the Perea. And like you say, he's been building um uh Greo Roman cities there to be his little capitals because he doesn't have the whole he doesn't he doesn't get to control his father's capital of Cesaria or he does and he also doesn't get to control Jerusalem.

(12:06) But um so there is a uh the Galilee is a is a very kind of mixed zone. And so there are a lot of, you know, Helenism has been going on here now for, you know, more than three centuries. And so there are lots of um cities that have been refounded as Greek cities. And so right in the vicinity of this uh little Aramaic speaking uh village that Jesus is from is a big Greek city.

(12:30) So there's a lot of people who would have been bilingual and maybe even craftsmen would have had like a little bit of they would have known some Greek because that would have been what overseers or whatever that they are are telling them what to do. Um and so there so there is so just naturally there would have been some bilingualism there.

(12:49) They won't have been learning Latin uh very likely. And if to the extent that there is um some religious education going on, then that's where you're also learning some Hebrew, which is a very related language to Aramaic. And so maybe he has those. But again, the distinction here, I think that like you're saying that you're making, Landro, is between, let's say, the Jesus of the Gospels.

(13:12) So the Jesus that's described in the Gospels by the evangelists who are writing um you know, generations after the historical Jesus, they are saying that he can read. So it's very clear in the gospel of Luke, Jesus opens up a Torah scroll. He reads out of the Torah scroll and and so he can read and we and even but the but the issue is is that gospel is written in Greek. The quotation as given in the gospel of Luke is from the Septuagent.

(13:36) So it is the Greek version. Um but but but again that story may or may not have any historicity. That story could be entirely the invention and may likely be the entirely the invention of the author of the gospel of Luke. And so the so the issue is not whether Jesus can read in the gospels as you know because he can.

(13:56) But the question is, you know, when we are when we are looking at these late, you know, they're not that late, they're, you know, with an agenda, but they're not immediate eyewitness sources, right? How how do we discern? And so a minimalist, a real minimalist will say, you know, it may well be because of Jesus background that he may not have been literate. He may have only spoken um Aramaic and a little smattering of Greek.

(14:21) That said, you could also you can also make a a case, you know, more maximalist, you more historicity to the gospel traditions, in which case he's maybe literate in Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew, you know, but but again, it can't be known. So, it depends on it depends on your reading.

(14:39) Um, certainly like a people will say, "No, no, he read it in the in the in the Gospels." Okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that the historical Jesus did that. And since you mentioned that scene from the gospels, we also have the scene where Jesus writes something to understand in the gospel of uh of John uh in when when he's defending the woman taken in in adultery. Uh right.

(15:02) But again, it doesn't say what what language he's writing in or anything like that. So gospel doesn't even say what he wrote or or what language. And as we know the the that that little section the paracopee adultery eye or whatever it's called is that you know that is actually not original to the gospel of John. That doesn't mean it's not also an ancient source.

(15:21) It is but it's an individual free floating Christian story. It doesn't necessarily um it doesn't necessarily add much to our knowledge of the historical Jesus. So and even when we think about the education I mean do we know anything or do the gospels say anything other than the fact that he was a a disciple a student of John the Baptist? So no so that one is I think everyone would all historians would agree that that's one of the qualities of the historical Jesus that we can be sure of. But a lot of times folks will also say well Jesus is a rabbi rabbis have this

(15:55) and that and the other thing but that is all based on much later sources. So you know the gospels are much earlier than the written sources for um uh rabbitic Judaism which are you know in the second third fourth centuries and things like that looking back to the time of Jesus and other rabbitic leaders who are the the Pharisees these early um this early protorebinic movement.

(16:19) But what an actual um Jewish or Judeian man in Galilee um even one who is a a teacher a rabbi would be doing in the 30s we don't have enough evidence to say so there is a lot of speculation in this question okay let's go to the next question from rich 66 and this comes from uh in one of our videos Heraclitis permenities clashing philosophies influenced Gnosticism.

(16:53) And so Grri 66 asks, can you argue about the conception of the Virgin Mary who was not just visited like Europa uh by Zeus? So is it like a comparative mythology kind of question here, right? So this is like a um a divine divine origin story mythologically or theologically. And so um so so the the the you know Zeus and Europa this is an older story right and so this is going back to you know the the you know the the oral tradition um and mythology even be before any of those ancient Greek writings you know get written down and and those kind of myths are much more

(17:36) about um anthropomorphic fleshy embodied gods you know so Zeus is uh very humanl looking you know and he is produ you know he's it's called the rape of Europa right is the way the story is known and so we're talking about an actual uh you know actual sexual intercourse um whereas there is it's a much um the conception um that's described for example in the gospels of Matthew and Luke these the two nativity stories that we have are um they're later they're literary and they are um being written by um anonymous evangelists who are

(18:17) already Christian who have a um a high christologology and understanding of uh Jesus as God. And they're not talking about a they're certainly not talking about a physical relationship with God the Father and Mary in in any any way. And it's talking about being conceived of the Holy Spirit where at the end of this Mary remains a virgin is the idea.

(18:44) And so this is a this is again a a a sign of a divine birth but it is very expressed very differently than the earlier mythological ideas that would have been like the kind of the Greek gods. Now, but since the question here it comes in a video that is about about gnosticism, can we can we somehow connect this interaction between God and and Mary with with this nosis? So, for the Gnostics, the Gnostics are going to be way more I mean they have a there's narcissism is very broad category, right? And so they're going to

(19:20) have different perspectives, but just as a thumbnail or shortorthhand, Gnostics tend to be um very negative about the physical world and physicality. Um God uh the true God for the Gnostics is entirely spiritual and um and God's uh God's the only begotten here. Jesus uh is in fact that not a lot of gnostics are even dositist which is to say Jesus only ever seemed to be human right and so and so we would have been talking about something that is entirely spiritual or immaterial as opposed to you know any kind of physical coupling and I'll just mention that all of this is in the background of an ancient world

(20:01) that really biologically doesn't understand how um how babies are are made I mean they understand how it makes they how to do it but they don't understand how it works you So the background in the um you know like in the kind of Greek philosophical you know which natural philosophy that is to say science at the time is that um there's this idea that the that the woman is like a field and the man is planting seeds in the field.

(20:28) You know what I In other words, there is not this idea that there is that each parent is providing genetic material as we now know through um and so therefore and so therefore they don't have this idea at all you know and so it is very so all of these ancient ideas are are not based on any knowledge about how um genetics works because they didn't know.

(20:53) Now in the Gnostic conversation also um we have in the Gnostic Gospels lecture u 13 Solomon 14 asks what what's the proof that the Ebianites continued into Arabia there were no Christian tribes before during and after Islam most of the Christian tribes lived north of Arabia in the Roman Empire right So um so I think that there I think that maybe in that lecture what we're talking about here is um uh you know this this Ebianite groups are are what we've talked about as um the the early Christians who continued

(21:40) to um live Mosaic law in some way or other. That doesn't mean that they're following all of later rabbitic Judaism but they are they are keeping kosher. they are uh you know follow obeying the law of circumcision. Uh maybe they're maybe they're worshiping still on on Saturday as opposed to Sunday.

(21:58) So these are um these are a carryover what we've called sometimes the the Jamesian or Jacob in church but there are in Matthew's community for example the community that produced the Gospel of Matthew they are also seemingly still um uh living some kind of mosaic law. And so over time um that becomes uh you know an alternative Christianity that is viewed as heretical by the main line of proto orthodoxy what becomes the the Roman and Greek um the nyene Christian church and so as a over time these this group becomes marginalized and of course it's it's it's initially

(22:40) founded in Galilee and Judea you know this is where uh it originally exists and as it doesn't spread as much as the sort of Pauline gentile Christianity. It kind of stays there. And so once they are persecuted, the idea is that some of them are perhapsounded out. And so one of the evidences for that, it's not like you're like the um the questioner here has asked, well, none of the Arab none of no whole Arab tribe may be converted to this kind of Christianity. But just because not everybody did, that doesn't

(23:10) mean that there aren't some Christians, right? And so um even in the early Muslim tradition, Muhammad has relatives who are Christian. And from what we can see, for example, in traces of the Quran, it may well be that the kind of Christianity that uh Muhammad's relatives were is Ebianite Christianity.

(23:40) And so one of the sources of evidence for this is that the understanding of who Jesus is in Islam uh including um uh including some of the passages in the Quran and other hadith um seem to be indicating that the the Christianity that Muhammad was most familiar with and most exposed to may have been an Ebianite Christianity. And some more gnostic question. This one comes from the gospel of thus lecture.

(24:06) Kimaros key 5670 asks uh is there a relationship between saying 114 in the Gospel of Thomas and Luke 10:42? What are these passages? Well, so saying 114 in the Gospel of Thomas is that one that I've complained about and struggled with.

(24:34) You know, this is the one where Peter says, you know, let Mary go forth out away from us. Women aren't worthy of life. You know, so Peter is uh having a very um dismissive uh of of Mary as a female apostle or female disciple. Presumably, what's meant is the Mary Magdalene, although the Gospel of Thomas does not clarify that that's who we mean here. We just infer that that's who was meant.

(24:56) But Jesus then says, I no, that's not the way it is because I'm gonna I'm gonna make her male so that she can become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter the kingdom of heaven. And so this is expressing a protonic idea that um that part of physical existence here is that we are in a we are in a condition of division.

(25:24) that the true spiritual life of humanity is is an integrated human that is not male or female but is both male and female. And so um we've been divided into that and part of u part of retaining oneness will be for women to also become male and men male will to become whi female. In other words, so that both, you know, when when God, it says in Genesis, male and female uh created God, them humans in in God's image for Gnostics that needs a return to unity. So that's the saying 114.

(25:55) And so uh the question here is is that related to a a statement that we find in um the Gospel of Luke 10:42. And here is this is this story found only in Luke but it's a very popular story among Christians about Mary and Martha. And so they're two sisters. Jesus is uh visiting them. Uh Martha is because she's hosting.

(26:21) She's doing all this housework and have making sure uh you know to get the whole place ready. And Mary isn't helping at all. She's just sitting there listening to Jesus um you know preach and teach and so forth. And so in that verse um uh after Martha's complaint to Jesus, Jesus says to Martha, "Only one thing is needful and Mary has chosen the good part and that won't be taken from her.

(26:49) " I think it's interesting um the questioners kind of brought that together, but I don't think that these are related at all. Um I think that um this the story from Luke is about a different figure. C it's she's still named Mary. Lot everybody in the New Testament, all the women are named And this Mary is um you know this Mary is often called Mary of Bethany but is not identified as that in in this it's actually the Mary the sister of Martha uh in the Gospel of Luke and again like I say this story is only found in Luke.

(27:21) Um and so and I don't and I also I I don't think this is related because I was just describing what what Thomas means which is this uh this Gnostic idea. Um the idea that between Mary and Martha, this is a um I think that this is a a description.

(27:40) One of the reasons why I think it speaks to Christians is that this is a description uh for early Christians about um you know, church worship, which is on the one hand, we have to get all of the stuff ready to have, you know, like an in-person church service, but but potentially doing all that kind of work is not not really the point of church. you know, getting the chairs set up and all the food and so forth, whatever you're going to do. It's actually listening to the gospel.

(28:04) And so, I think that that's um I think that that's what's being said as opposed to um any any thing about wholeness kind of and and gender and things like that like gnostics have. But I think that the comparison here has to do with on on in the Gospel of Thus, it it looks like Jesus is saying something pretty horrible. Yeah. To merit like it's very misogynist.

(28:34) And then on the other hand in the Gospel of Luke, we have a much more positive and you know in a way even an inclusive approach to women and priesthood or the the women approaching God. Uh, and so I think that's the that's the clash that maybe this viewer is is talking about. But but maybe what you're what this this comparison tells me here is a little bit of what what happens when we take these passages completely out of context without knowing what it really what what what happened before and after.

(29:09) Oh, I totally agree, Leandro. I I think because again we we we when we read Thomas Sang 114 we we do think well that sounds terrible that sounds misogyny from our perspective but actually the I think that the the author there was actually was actually trying to be very inclusive of women and was actually uh you know so the the problem is is that antiquity people in antiquity the the baseline is so misogynistic that when you talk about um about gender uh even when you are trying to say No, no. Women should be apostles. Women should be allowed to be disciples. Women can have

(29:45) eternal life. Women can be philosophers. Um the the con the surrounding context is so bad. Uh it sometimes it sometimes is worse than if you just had kept your mouth shut. It sounds worse anymore. And nevertheless, we need to be cautious because that is that is one of the rationale that evangelical and the more conservative theologians use to try to reconcile that the bad parts of the Bible and to try to say, well, yeah, but in that context it was good or in that context this is how God spoke to people

(30:19) at the time because otherwise they couldn't they could not understand it in any other way. But regardless, it doesn't matter if you're like a conservative or more liberal uh reader of the Bible. It's you need to get the context. You can't just take a saying completely out of context like that when you make these comparisons especially.

(30:42) Okay. And then the next question is on the gospel of the Gnostic Mary Magdalene lecture. Alien London asks, "Do you think it's reasonable to say that Mary Magdalene has been deliberately discredited, presented badly, which is related to the question we were just Yeah.

(31:08) So, we talked about with Mary Magdalene um un there's so many Marys, right? And so, one of the things that happens is lots of different uh characters get conflated. So, people would like to believe that all of these people are the same." And so so Mary uh in the Mary and Martha story is also then you know Mary of Bethany.

(31:28) Mary of Bethany um you know anoints uh Jesus's feet in the Gospel of John in the Gospel of Luke an anonymous woman anoints Jesus's feet and that anonymous woman is called a sinful woman. And so um and so even though that anonymous woman who is very clearly not I mean she could have been made Mary because all the women are named Mary but we don't know that she's not um Mary Bethany she's not Mary Magdalene.

(31:55) Nevertheless by the time um we get to Pope Gregory I uh one of the a very you know very influential maybe sometimes called the first medieval man. So, one of the the this um u influential thinker, he kind of conflates these all together. And so, he's the one who says, "Well, Mary Magdalene was uh had been a sinful woman.

(32:25) " Um and so this is um and so then then the question and then and then later having having made that conflation which is not correct u later in maybe modern times that has been sometimes used to denigrate Mary Magdalene. Um so in other words here she is um she's had been given in in the Catholic church the title apostle to the apostles because in the gospel of John um she is the first uh uh disciple to see the um risen Christ and then she goes and tells the other disciples and therefore the whole point of being an apostle is to share the good news. She's

(33:00) the one who tells the apostles. So apostle to the apostles. So I don't think that pope Gregory I was trying to denigrate her in any way. I think that um within especially um a Catholic and this is protoatholic but anyway a Latin church understanding of um uh of of repentance and things like that.

(33:25) I think the idea that you had been living your life and then you are transformed and then you become an apostle is actually just fine. So it's not necessarily a source of denigration. you know, Matthew is a tax collector, so he's a, you know, has a sinful position, but then he changes his life and goes.

(33:42) So, so having that kind of a moment, you know, the Gospel of Luke actually says that um Mary Magdalene is one of the women who had been possessed of a demon or something like that that that Jesus has cast out of her. That is not denigrating her. That is um this is part of the thing where peop you know the whole idea of repent and and follow me.

(34:03) That means turn your life away from your former worldly life and now become um fully committed. And so so I don't think that it was it was ever meant that way. Um but the the whole idea that um that Mary Magdalene is a sinful woman or a prostitute is non-biblical. Um, and so in modern times it may well have been used, you know, making that, you know, might be a denigration, but it's not meant that way.

(34:32) And the question is not necessarily about if if that's how Mary Magdalene is portrayed in the gospels but you know maybe look what you're saying is probably like that's the tradition that developed in that way but not not not all tradition but I you know what I still see a lot when when you listen to to sermons when you go to a different church and you listen to a sermon there's a lot of this conflating the all the women in the Bible are just the name one woman and it's usually Mary Magdalene that everyone wear all of the sudden that's the only female character in the Bible and the mother of Jesus but then as a result we read a passage of

(35:11) scripture that doesn't really say that this woman is a sinner or this woman you know did did anything wrong and yet the preacher will assume yeah and that because she is a sinner and where does it say that in some other book of the New Testament maybe but not in this book that you're talking about today.

(35:35) So I think that's another issue that we have and in Christianity even trained uh seminarian sometimes. Well, and again, I think that part of that what you're saying there is that um so this is also reading it as a as a a seminarian as a or as a person who was trying to um to trying to read it because you're using the gospels religiously as opposed to as a historian perspective. Yeah.

(35:59) So from a historical perspective that whole idea that that story includes the detail that the the woman anointing Jesus is a sinful person I think we can say it from a from a historian perspective I would say that's a total invention of Luke. So the original source that Luke is reading from which would have been Mark doesn't include that.

(36:18) Luke has completely transformed that story completely taken it out of its original ma uh Mark and context. Luke has to totally repurposed it and in repurposing it Luke has created that detail. Um and so whether that story has any historicity or not we I wouldn't and that depends on what you're reading of Mark but but that is um but it but it it is not a historical detail.

(36:45) Question on the lecture on the gospel of Thomas and Q from Max Harden who says do we know that Q was written and not just oral tradition? So at some point or other um the sayings are written down. We know that and we know for example um that there are the the sayings are written down in the Gospel of Luke and they're written down in the Gospel of Matthew.

(37:14) So there there where we have um written sources for sure. Um prior to that moment there is an oral tradition. And so the only connection that we have of those sayings to the historical Jesus is via oral tradition because the historical Jesus did not write anything down. The eyewitnesses there are no eyewitnesses that wrote anything down. So instead what's happening is an oral tradition and that oral tradition has um made the language jump from their original language that Jesus would have been speaking in Aramaic to the language that they're written down in um when as as first we have them which is Greek. But

(37:50) the um but we know that that there we or we believe the hypothesis is that there that there is this Q source that is a literary source and the um the evidence that it's a literary source is that uh that the the literary uh dependence between um between the versions that we have in Matthew and Luke uh means that they are based on a literary source. So whether or not that's Q, you know, that that's not entirely agreed.

(38:21) That's a hypothetical. But those are being pulled from some literary source. They are not just they're they're not just like playing telephone because they're too um they're too dependent on one another. In other words, they're literally dependent. We are getting the same exact wording and that's not how the oral tradition works.

(38:40) Um, so some so both the authors of Luke and Matthew are pulling from us or or for example if if it's if we don't believe the the most commonly accepted hypothesis the Q hypothesis Luke is is for example get has Matthew in front of Luke and and Luke is using it that way but we know that there is literary dependence and so if there is a Q Q is a written source. Thank you.

(39:08) And we have a question that came in the live chat from Kinetic uh who says, "I wonder what the New Testament would look like if it wasn't for Greek thought, especially the Platonic form of good." So it's I can't imagine that it would exist. Um so it would be totally different and same thing whatever existence um any component of Judaism would have.

(39:42) So, so for example, all of second temple Judaism, you know, from, you know, from the time frame when uh the Torah itself becomes important, you know, we've looked at that. We did a lecture on when did the Torah become authoritative and we saw that it really it really took off and was really happening in the Hesmonan period, the period of the Mcabes, which is to say the Hellenistic period.

(40:09) And it is part of a response that the Judean people are having to the Hellenism. It's a reaction to that. And so if there was no Greek thought, if there if the if the Greeks if Alex if the Macedonians Alexander had not conquered um you know the Middle East, uh you know, none of this would have none of this would have happened in that way.

(40:29) So the interaction um with Judaism would have continued to be with Zorastrianism, I guess. And so Judaism itself would be totally different and it may and and I don't know that Christianity would have emerged. Christianity is completely dependent on on henistic um as we have it is completely dependent on hellenistic thought because the whole idea of of Christ as the logos Greek idea you know is um you know is coming from that uh that helanized Jewish um background right and so really what what you're what I'm hearing here is that

(41:12) all these traditions and all the all these the text that we call scripture and and the thoughts that is included there. It doesn't just develop in a vacuum but these cultures are interacting with their neighbors their their the empires that that that conquer them and so on. So really the com that there might be if you go back to to the Hebrew Bible there might be you know things that I mean we know that that you find are responses to the things that were happening with with Assyria with Babylon with Egypt and and so on.

(41:53) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can say like for example, um I think it's possible to potentially conceive of Christianity without the Romans conquering the empire, you know. So, in other words, if there had just continued to be uh you know, some kind of a hellenistic kingdom there, but but you because the the Roman layering is more recent and less important perhaps and so then we could maybe kind of prune out things.

(42:24) But I think that Christianity um because it emerges entirely out of helenized Judaism, it's like it's like such an important component of the synthesis. You just can't pull the one out and and have anything there. So, so there's another question. This one comes from the lecture. Who was John the Baptist? This is from golden lover 9803 who says, and this is also about Q.

(42:47) Apparently Pew did not mention did not mention Jesus's name when John references the one coming after him that when John the Baptist says that. So are you not putting words into the mouth of Q's author? Um this because in in your lecture John you're apparently you said that where where does Q quote Isaiah to specifically point to and mention Jesus as his forerunner.

(43:17) Well so or mentioned that he is the forerunner of Jesus. So yeah um so so you're you're right that I have made a a surmise here. This is how it's um essentially always interpreted. Uh but so so where why do I make that surmise? So so so the Q um document as it's reconstructed essentially has um has two sets of sayings.

(43:43) So there are sayings from John the Baptist at the very beginning and then there are sayings from uh Jesus and that is the whole bulk of the document. So the John the Baptist part is very small and it includes the idea that um you know the one is coming after me who and I'm not able to I'm not worthy to you know uh tie his sandals or something like that you know.

(44:11) So in other words, this idea that um that that John already in Q is being portrayed not as the historical John the Baptist would have but as as a um a post Jesus Christian understanding of John the Baptist how Christians have understanded understood John the Baptist. In other words, that John is is saying in this state in this queue saying that he's subordinated to and like you say, I'm surmising subordinated to Jesus.

(44:35) Um but he he's saying he's subordinated to somebody but but but I'm I am making that but what what actually what we do have is that immediately following that in the Q document um uh there is all the Jesus sayings and so the implication is that it's the one who's coming after him or who comes after him in the document is all the Jesus sayings and the international Q pro project that is done the most to rec uh to reconstruct all of this They also believe that between the um between the John sayings and the Jesus sayings, there is a a part that

(45:12) has been so distorted by uh Luke and Matthew that we can't reconstruct but nevertheless um would have been about a baptism moment where John baptizes Jesus. And so all they can all they have been able to reconstruct of that is words Jesus John baptized heaven opened spirit upon him son you know and so that's how the um that's how the uh uh the Q project tries to reconstruct that fragment.

(45:43) So in other words, they they're saying is there is some kind of a um a story of John baptizing Jesus and maybe the spirit coming upon uh Jesus fall but descending upon Jesus but um but you're correct that I have made a surmise there. It's the surmise that is I think everyone universally makes usually thank you and we have a question that comes from the live chat with a super chat. Thank you so much, Zorak 1997.

(46:12) Uh, who asks, "Some second temple apocalypists believed in a judgment day and rising of the dead. Jesus knew that John the Baptist was executed and he could now be a target. Might Jesus have predicted his death and rising and influenced in this way ideas about his resurrection." And I think I would I would like to hear your your your answer to this question because I find it very related to to the fir the opening question in this in this let there be answers about what we know and what we can conclude about and so I I I wonder what what do you have to say

(46:58) about this John? Right. So, so it's difficult to try to try to to try to reconstruct if that would have happened. So, it's a matter of deciding um deciding what which you know what statements go back to the historical Jesus. Did the historical Jesus actually predict his death and his rising or um or because all of these um all of the writings we have are already um written by Christians who've already come to believe that um that the purpose that Jesus they all know that Jesus was executed and they all have come to believe um that he rose actually there's

(47:44) not nothing for that in um in there's very little anyway in Q that talks about that the Q source is not as as interested in worrying about uh the resurrection of Jesus but the other sources uh the other early writings Mark and the other gospel writers far. Um, and so my uh my personal um tendency I I tend to always error kind of on the side of more minimalism and and hanging as close to the sources as I can. I just mentioned I just admitted in the last one of these questions that I I did make that one surmise that John is

(48:21) talking about Jesus coming after him which which is not precisely what the source said. Um, and so it has to be have a little bit of surmise. But I tend to think that um I tend to think that uh that Jesus's execution is unexpected and that the um that the idea that that his later followers um the proto movement that that becomes Christianity um that that that is where um that they became very um um they came to believe in his resurrection after they began having visions of him being resurrected. and that and that therefore the

(49:00) predictions are then retroactively inserted as opposed to something that he he believed. Um there is defin I mean so definitely um this movement includes apocalypticists. Uh Bart Urman um absolutely presents uh Jesus himself as a failed apocalyptic prophet.

(49:26) Um the sayings of John that we have um present him as an apocalypticist. certainly the um uh the author of Mark is an apocalypticist. Um that said, just because you're, you know, you believe in um a uh a day of judgment and you believe the end in the end of the world and you believe in a literal resurrection, that doesn't necessarily mean that Jesus was predicting that he would be resurrected in this way.

(49:50) So right but my my point to related to the you know what what we can know about Jesus is is this is one of those questions it's like okay but do we know that Jesus ever spoke about his um the his the historical Jesus did did he ever talk about the possibility that he was going to get executed because his teacher John the Baptist had been executed and again is it's speculative to to say that he would have said that, but even more so to to say to talk about the possibility that he the historical Jesus actually talked about his resurrection and yet we have to look at this context where like judgment day,

(50:38) apocalypticism and resurrection of the death where beliefs were developments in in in Jewish religion that that were happening and that may have all all these things associated the way that people associated all these ideas to Jesus may have come later and that might be a much more plausible way of explaining you know what was inserted what we today read in the gospels.

(51:06) Yeah. Exactly. And and the reason why I tend to think that so so that this would be a later one. So, one of the things that when when when something is really important in Christianity but doesn't immediately seem to have necessarily been important in the in the time frame of the living historical person, um then that is one of those criteria where you sort of say, well, you can see why Christians would make this up because it's important to them. Whereas if it's a thing that is not part of Christianity, you know, why would they make that up? In other words, it's

(51:35) actually an embarrassment to Christian understanding of things. Then that has more that criterion maybe means it more likely to date back to the historical Jesus since they're unlikely to make it up. And the and the reason why I I'm I'm more likely to dispute, you know, to might personally discount this one is because there are um indications in places like Q, like I say, which is where that this is not the prediction that Jesus has, but rather that the um in the Q saying source. Um, I think that they're seeing Jesus and John as

(52:06) prophets who who have uh sealed their prophecy in blood as opposed to um seeing them as a guy who dies and is going to get resurrected and then another guy who dies and gets resurrected because I think that in that case John we don't really have that for John. Uh it's a special thing that we have for Jesus among in Christ the later Christian understanding.

(52:29) But that said, if you are more of a maximalist and you want to say that more and more and more of the sayings actually go back to the historical Jesus, then maybe that maybe that's how you could start to make the argument. So let's move on. We have two questions from the lecture, the ethics of Jesus. Uh story time.

(52:53) Jesus asks, "Is it possible that Mark is pointing to the incident in Ezra when Mark has Jesus say what God has put together, let no one separate?" And to give you a little bit of background, this is from Ezra 10 uh verse 10 that where Ezra or Ezra the priest arose and said to the people and and and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the strange wives and and then later on in Ezra we read the sons of G um the sons of Jesus, the son of Josec and his brethren Messiah and Elazar and Jerob and Gadalia.

(53:33) and they pledged themselves to put away their wives. So is this is this what Mark is pointing at when uh when when he says what God has put together, let no one separate. So that's an interesting idea. I mean, I like I like the um the thinking here that um uh that I guess it was story time Jesus has brought up.

(54:02) Um because because by the way I I find um the I'm I'm I'm on not on team Ezra. So I think that Ezra in wanting to um create this new idea and understanding of um of a pure bloodline where we're not going to we're not going to accept um Moabites or other people of the land into um into our congregation. Um uh I'm that's in opposition to contemporaries as we've said in the lecture where we where we did a lecture about Ezra versus Ruth where the author of Ruth kind of contemporaneously to Ezra is actually saying no in fact in fact uh David himself is the descendant of of a

(54:43) Moabitete. And so and so this would be an example of um seeing Jesus as on team Ruth and not on team Ezra, which I think is true. So I think Jesus is on team Ruth and not on team Ezra and and so is Leandro. But I don't think um I don't actually think that that's what u this pronouncement is talking about.

(55:08) I mean in some sense there's a it's not specifically talking about this incident anyway. I think it's it's definitely talking about um the um tradition of Jewish law that as it exists in second temple Judaism which allows for a relatively easy divorce um when for a man to put off you know to divorce his wife and often leave them uh therefore destitute.

(55:33) And so I think Jesus is responding to that historical incident and saying there's a lot of um there's a lot of uh uh injustice that happens uh you know when women and you know who've been cast away uh are now economically you know immediately impoverished. They don't have the capacity to um take care of themselves and their children and things like that.

(55:52) And so I think that um that's what Jesus is reacting to in his immediate context. I think that if it he was actually um yelling at at Ezra the way I sometimes do, I think he would he would quote Ezra specifically um like the way he does.

(56:08) You've heard it said an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth, but I say, in other words, he'll quote and he'll he'll redo. And so I think he's actually responding to his immediate context as opposed to looking back at what was being done 400 years earlier. Okay, we have another question on the ethics of Jesus. First, a very important question that comes also from Zorak.

(56:30) Is Leandra wearing a cheer uh cheer bear t-shirt from Care Bears. You know what that is? But no, this is this is You don't know the Care Bears, Leandro? I do know the Care Bears, but I don't know the shirt. No, this is just a Toronto shirt. Okay. Toronto. Okay. The other question on the ethics of Jesus is from Dan Talman 53:45 who says um so not challenging the point that you made in this lecture John um but this uh viewer is curious as to why it is assumed that the sinful woman in Luke 7 was a prostitute.

(57:14) uh and he mentions that uh they mentioned that the parallel stories in Mark 14, Matthew 26, and John 12 don't even describe this woman as sinful. And I think we we talked a little bit about this already. Uh what else can we add? So, so yeah, so we we did mention this before. So like um uh uh Dan Talman here is saying um these do not the parallel stories including Mark which is an earlier story than Luke but the parallel in Matthew and and this is what a rare one rare one where the um where we also have a parallel story in John. None of them

(57:51) have this detail of the woman being sinful. Which is why I said in the earlier question that to my way of thinking therefore this um this uh idea that the woman is sinful at all is simply an invention of the author of Luke who has taken this story and has completely repurposed it compared to the other gospels.

(58:14) So the other gospels are all using this story in order to um in order it's right before uh the time it's right it kicks off in the gospel of John the um the passion story. So what's happening is is that the woman who is not sinful is anointing Jesus witherary ointments anderary oils to indicate Jesus's impending death and resurrection. And that's what that that's for.

(58:40) the author of Luke um has pulled that story out of that, put it into a completely different earlier context and is set it in the home of a guy named um Simon the Pharisee and and the story is is used instead to be a um a story about hospitality and and so and also about inclusion. So that Jesus is perfectly um this this rich guy who has has brought um Jesus allowed him to have dinner with him.

(59:11) Um he is noticing that Jesus is allowing this sinful woman to do this anointing thing when when he and he thinks that means Jesus can't be a prophet because Jesus if you were a prophet he would know who this woman is. But Jesus is saying no I know who this woman is but I don't cast sinners out. In other words, all of the things that you've all all are finding sinful and you're causing them to exclude people from the congregation, that's not how things are supposed to work in in my ministry. And so, uh, and so it is a completely repurposed story. The idea that the woman is sinful is the creation

(59:42) of the author of Luke. And to your point though, that and when I when I just immediately started saying then a prostitute there, it doesn't have to be a prostitute. That's a surmise. You know, that's just the most most common idea of what the sin would be for a woman. But, um, you know, I mean, when I used the example before of a sinful person, a sinful man might well have been like a tax collector or someone who is, you know, in the eyes of the the local not keeping kosher in whatever way. Um, this could be the the sinful

(1:00:15) woman is not not likely to be a tax collector, but let's say she could be an adulterer or something like that. In other words, there could have been any number of other things uh that that isn't that. But it's a as a shorthand as the author of Luke has just created this detail anyway.

(1:00:35) Um I think it's all right to I mean that's just a surmise sinful in some way. So maybe prostitute but doesn't have to be. That's a good point. There's another question on this lecture on the ethics of Jesus from as above so below. Why? And we're now entering into the the deep theological question segment.

(1:01:02) Why do people believe that Jesus is God? Is it because in the Old Testament when they use the term Lord, they mean God and the New Testament when they use Lord, they are referring to Jesus. Jesus prayed to his father in heaven. So he can't pray to himself. Right. Yeah. So we have had a bunch of lectures on the trinity and how complicated this is.

(1:01:28) And so and so one of the um you know one of the arguments that uh I don't know sometimes Aryans make uh so so if you were an Aryan Christian and you and you were talking to a modalist monarchist Christian you would say Jesus prays to the father in the garden you know so therefore um your idea as a modalist as a modalist monarchist that that which is to say um that God simply appears in three different forms or modes.

(1:02:04) God is the father in one context, God is Jesus in another context, God is the spirit, but the spirit is the father. Jesus is the father, the father is the spirit. That's modalism. That argument that you've just made about Jesus praying to the father makes it like, well, that seems pretty silly then, right? because Jesus in multiple places prays to the father.

(1:02:24) Um and so Aryans get are able to get through that very easily because in for in Aryanism Jesus is a is a fully distinct God from God the father and specifically Jesus is um is a finite God. The first God created by God with the big G. Right? So, so in Aryanism ultimately Jesus is a little G god uh as opposed to the big G god.

(1:02:56) And so then and so then they don't have any problem with that the little G god praying to God because you know and again Jesus is the first of um of all creation and is and is so much more important than everything else that's created but is there nevertheless less by infinity than the infinite God.

(1:03:16) So the complexity becomes um the trinity which is we've had that's why we've had whole bunches of lectures on it. So so the father is God, Jesus is God, the spirit is God but Jesus is not the father. So therefore when uh as a as a distinct personage when Jesus prays to the father Jesus is not praying to Jesus Jesus is praying to a you know the distinct being and entity. And that's that's the and that's a paradox.

(1:03:43) It's a logical conundrum that is u uh but it's it it doesn't mean that Jesus is praying to himself. So, and I wonder if a little bit of what what um we're asking here is about the language use. Yes. uh asab so below asks about the term for lord or god that is used in the in the old and and new testament but it's it's even more complicated than that.

(1:04:17) So if you if you read the Hebrew Bible in in Hebrew or at least a Hebrew Bible that has the names the original names of God, it's not as simple as what what you're saying here because it's it's more like you know when when when you see the word Lord and in in some translations you will see it in all caps. L O R D in in English all caps.

(1:04:38) That means that the word that you have in in the Hebrew original is the tetra grammaton that we pronounce Yahweh. And usually when you see the word God is the word Elohim which is plural of L which just means God. But also um it it is something that happened in in Westsmitic languages that the word that the name of gods eventually become like a a common noun to mean to mean god or to mean uh lord right yeah and so we have a bunch of um like the the I mean the word you know the word lord is adoni right and so that's why we have a god like adonis

(1:05:24) that is a middle eastern god that makes his way into Greek the Greek mythology and there's a name that is a lone word from that meaning lord and so but but I I do think that in this case that uh in terms of that term about lord and that confusion there that as above as below who asked this question is making a point because because this is part of Paul's development of a very high christologology very early on and so and so Paul's testimony is that you must believe that Jesus is Lord And by that Jesus, he means that Jesus

(1:06:01) is um is the this logos this uh the God's the the God's present made manifest in the world. So the glory of God, the wisdom of God, the word of God. So the the uh Yahweh the tetetrogrammaton god the source which can't be seen or or felt in the world but nevertheless god's logos can be god's which is to say anywhere where you see evidence of the creator in the in the world that according to Paul you must believe is Jesus and so that is why um you know there's that lord you know that's why Jesus is lord in the new testament so all All right. Uh let's we have another

(1:06:46) what if question. Okay. But you have to answer, John. You can't speculate. Okay. Okay. What if the Roman Empire had actually relapsed into paganism after Constantine and now someone uh asks um in relationship to this question, Mr. city. I often wonder what if my own country, Germany, would look like if I if it had never been Christianized.

(1:07:19) Would we still worship the ancient gods and have our sacred trees in the middle of the village? Yeah. So, when you go back in time and do a counterfactual, the problem is that things don't there's not just one switch and then nothing ever changes after the one thing happens. And so let's say um uh most of lots of Germans actually Christianized before um they actually entered the Roman Empire.

(1:07:48) they beca they there were um Christian missionaries who specifically converted most of them to Aryanism we were just talking about while the um while the empire itself made nine Christianity its religion and so there and so that was happening but let's say they didn't get converted and the Roman Empire itself under Julian had created this what I called like a state religion of paganism so I would say that that uh world religion of that has its pagan mythology and and the forms and the names of God nevertheless becomes kind of a monotheist philosophical religion anyway that would look very much like Christianity even though we would have names like Zeus and and Hera

(1:08:23) and things like that so you wouldn't pray to St. Sebastian or St. Mary or something like that. You could pray to Hera or Aphrodite or something like that, but you'd still understand there's like one source, whether it's the Stoic God or the Neoplatonic God. It nevertheless would be very similar to how Christianity works.

(1:08:47) So what I would say that would happen for the uh the Germans are you know you could continue to have you could have a a religion that could have emerged like that and it sort of would look like like Hinduism does where Hinduism has become kind of a world religion that has maintained its understanding of you know like old gods and that continues to be part of the mythology and understanding even while a kind of sophisticate you know more sophisticated world religion in some cases described by adherence as monotheist in that there's one source even if there's millions of divine beings that emanate from that source in Hinduism. So you could look like that

(1:09:20) and you could still have maintained those German gods. But the other thing that could have happened is anything could happen. So let's say um let's say there's a a step people like the the Avars, the Huns, the Mongols, somebody like that who becomes um maybe they become Manakis or maybe they become Buddhists, you know the because because Central Asian people became Manatees and Central Asian people became Buddhists and let's say because of history's all changed now um you know those guys one of those guys conquered Germany. Well, then you could have been forcibly Buddha Buddhist made Buddhists, you know, or or

(1:09:57) manakis or something like that. So, you know, it's it's we don't know what would have happened. Yeah. And you also have the opposite like sometimes you might uh convert but you keep most of your traditions that that you had in all the tra that the native traditions continue and are reinterpreted uh for in the new context of the of the new religion. And I can think of that like I'm from South America.

(1:10:28) There's there's many cases where the Virgin Mary is associated with Patchamama which is like a Indian goddess uh and there there are hymns to this goddess and it's reframed as as the veneration of Mary. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So lots of um lots of these different traditions live on.

(1:10:53) And so and so at the one the one thing that um you know I think that a lot of times when people look back on you know on this side of the enlightenment especially on this side of the Victorian era um they they associate Christianity with all kinds of ills that especially includes um uh being prudish about sex and things like that. And and and I think that that could have happened anyway.

(1:11:16) I've talked about that in terms of the philosophical paganism had already been going down that route in the Roman Empire and and and again the fact that um the fact that Christianity you like hit that way in the modern era under the Victorian era that doesn't necessarily have to have I mean anything could have happened once you once you go back and fiddle with history as of the year 400 right so okay one more question about theology deep theology from Aryanism versus the Trinity from Bisto 993.

(1:11:53) If God is incomprehensible and the trinity is complicated, then is everyone talking about the same trinity? If the father is greater than the son like Jesus said, does not not imply a distinction. If Jesus will be seen sitting at the right hand of God, does that not also imply a distinction? And I I have to add here because so fastball flakes ask uh any tips or hints for how I can enter a discussion about the trinity while avoiding immediate heresy.

(1:12:33) Just just take that diagram, you know, the the diagram that I I always reproduce. This is the only way you can avoid heresy. So you you write deus you put that in the middle and and then you write you know est deus estious deis est spiritu sancti and then you write spiritu sanctus known estious potter known as felius felious known as spiritu sancti.

(1:13:02) It's a lot of Latin but anyway the father is not the son and so forth. That's how you that's how you avoid it. If you want to do anything else where you say, "Well, it's like a three-leaf clover or you say it's like a river that has a has a headwaters of or it's like water that is sometimes vapor and sometimes ice and sometimes liquid." No, none of those things.

(1:13:21) Those are all heresies. Anyway, so no for this question um uh in terms of this complexity of it, you know, so yes, uh the we you're making an argument bestow from from scriptural references, right? So you're saying Jesus says in the gospel of John that uh the father is superior to him. um the a lot of the different references we have Jesus sitting at the right hand of the father um which doesn't necessarily imply subordination the way the other one does. You also were quoting from Proverbs where we have that um where we

(1:13:57) have that this idea that's embedded in the wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Bible that gave us that idea of the logos where where wisdom incarnate is speaking in the book of proverbs and says um uh I was with you know the creator at the beginning I was the first of his creations.

(1:14:17) So that that certainly that proverbs part informs and was used by aryens. So Aryans are able to say look look at proverbs if uh if Christ is holy wisdom Christ or wisdom says here that um that she was created at the um you know at the very first of God's creation and is therefore subordinated.

(1:14:40) Uh and so so the problem would be um trying to make our disperate biblical texts um let's say more authoritative than the philosophical idea or the theological idea. And so in point of fact actually the theology is more important and then you and then everybody once you have made your theological once you've decided and then you then you then you fit all your Bible verses to to fit it you know and so because the Bible's contradictory so you can't you can't um you can't just do it based on the Bible. So how do how do nine Christians get away from Jesus saying that the father

(1:15:12) is superior? Well, they say that's true be in the sense that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. And so the father who is divine in all aspects is superior to uh the only begotten to the logos because in in in terms of the human component but that doesn't mean that overall the person of Christ the person of the logos is inferior to uh the creator in any way but merely the human part. Now that that that apologetic answer may not be that you may not like that.

(1:15:50) You may not say, "Oh, that's very satisfying, John. You've you've gotten your way out of that." But that's how nine Christians get out of it in terms of trying to reconcile one of the contradictory Bible verses to um their own theological idea. I mean, if you're if you're going to be an Aryan, there's other things that that also don't work.

(1:16:06) If you're going to be a modalist, there's things that don't work because the Bible has written by people who don't have one idea in mind. Um and and you later have to kind of piece it all together. You have to get your to your idea and then you try to make the Bible fit it. That's my view. I agree. It's complicated.

(1:16:30) I would So you're not going to The end is not going to become a a virgin to heresy by trying to explain the trinity. Okay, let's go. Let's move on. Uh do you want me to read this one? So in the lecture as Yahweh became God, other gods became angels. Is that a lecture? That's a short. That was Oh, that's a short. Okay. Um uh Ezim G95 says, "I wonder uh why they called him the storm god first. I guess from the g great flood.

(1:17:02) Why did they call Yahweh the storm god first?" Yeah. But it's not it's not because of the the story of of the flood that it's just you have to remember that we are in this part of the world that uh where the water yeah there there's the ocean there but like the like the water that you can use for crops for is is very scarce and so the rains that happen at the end of the summer is what brings life to to these areas.

(1:17:38) So, uh, a storm god is is not just like a second secondass kind of god, but is is a very important role because it basically is is the god of of life because it's the it's the god that at the end of the drought of the summer brings alive that the the the water that the rains that make possible the like the growth of vegetation and and crops.

(1:18:02) Now in the in the library that we got from Ugarit which is this site this Canaanite site from that was destroyed in 1200 BCE more or less that is in in the coast of modern day Syria. We get these stories of the Canaanite god Baal where he is called the the writer on the clouds. Baal. It's an epithet just like a title of a god.

(1:18:38) uh because Baal is the God that brings the reigns to to this whole region of of Canaan, you know, from from from Syria to down to to, you know, modern day Israel, Palestine. And in the in a lot of Psalms, Yahweh, the God of Israel, receives the same epithet, the same title. Uh Psalm 68 says, "Sing to uh go to God, to Elohim, sing praises to his name.

(1:19:06) Lift up a song to him who writes upon the clouds." And there are many um many other psalms where this this idea that the God of Israel is a God that rides on the clouds is is very present in many psalms. And this is also something that if you read them the the flawed version that we get from the epic of Gilgamesh, the the Mesopotamian god Hadad or Hadad also it's it's in a more graphic description of of the god riding on the clouds and bringing the rains that that flawed the the whole earth with some uh there's additional descriptions I think of the chariot and and the his assistance and things.

(1:19:54) But this is like a very common uh motif in the mythologies of of the ancient near east because of how important reigns are in in this area. Um so this is why the association is is is not a mistake but it's just it's theological. It's it's cosmological in nature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think like we're saying here also, Andrea, is that this is one of those, you know, signs or holdovers, an epithet that is actually drawn from this earlier earlier religious era when, you know, where where Yahweh is emerging out of a um a a

(1:20:35) pagan, what we might call pagan, a polytheistic pantheon. And um and as we've talked about it in a bunch of the different lectures, Yah as as Yahweh as they pairing down the uh the pantheon smaller and smaller and eventually become you know monolitist and hentheist and ultimately monotheists that Yahweh merges with the god L. So that the Yahweh and L become the same.

(1:21:02) But then in terms of uh things like Baal and Hadad and so forth that Yahweh steals all of their things that they do instead of fully merging. I would say an an appropriation of the domain of other gods. But again, that's very that's very common like even Yeah, of course. Yeah.

(1:21:24) When that happens, I mean obviously like Apollo steals stuff from Helios, right? as as as the as a more popular god eclipses the previous things, it doesn't mean that uh uh it doesn't mean that it doesn't go away. The story is still and the titles are still um liked. They're just applied to the new. And I guess something that is is not obvious in the Bible is that we the Bible is not explicit about these things, how Yahweh takes over the powers or the domains of other gods.

(1:21:54) But there's this constant uh struggle especially like when when we get to the Deuteronomic history of just making sure that Israelites only worship Yahweh. And in doing so sometimes where you have these this this kind of wrestling to see, you know, whose god is more powerful to prove that the only god is is is Yahweh.

(1:22:19) and and um where whereas other mythologies like Mesopotamian mythology you have a very explicit case of like Inana for example going around and claiming I'm going to claim the sky I'm going to claim the the underworld so it it's more explicit about that whereas in Israel at least what we have in the Bible you know comes from a later period when already Yahweh is established as as this the the most important god of the pantheon or the the only god of this monolith kind of system. But nevertheless, this echoes of older religions are still there and that

(1:23:00) that's very clear especially in the psalms. Very good. So uh another question Kimmer Zubski asks in the in the lecture what are angels asks is it possible to reconcile Mark 12:25 with Genesis 6:2. So that part of Mark it says when uh for when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.

(1:23:32) Whereas that passage, that famous passage in Genesis is uh the sons of God saw that the daughters of men are fair and they took wives for themselves of all they chose. So we have um what we the sons of God which we later understand to be angels actually taking wives and yet the angels in Mark are not doing that according to Jesus. How do you reconcile that Andra? Yeah.

(1:24:00) And this is again like the kind of thing that do we have to reconcile? reconcile is something that at least in my experience is something that like more the more conservative and or as you say the more maximalist uh interpreters or readers of the Bible do because of this issue that you approach the Bible as the actual inherent word of God.

(1:24:28) So everything that the Bible that is that you read in the Bible has to make sense as a unity. But is in fact these are texts that are written by completely different authors and completely different time periods and complet in in different parts. You know the these places were written in different places.

(1:24:53) um these these passages and the authors are talking about something completely different like the concern and here my understanding of what what's happening here in in Mark is that Mark is talking about what how the the resurrection of the dead will be. So humans in this new form of existence will be more like angels and angels at least in this understanding are these beings that are beyond gender.

(1:25:29) So they don't need to get married and and and procreate because they're they're beyond that. They're eternal and they're and they're like we were talking about with the gnostics, they are unity as opposed to divided gender. And this is and this is an idea of angel that is much later than anything that existed when the author the source texts for Genesis are being written here.

(1:25:51) And this uh the the author here of Genesis is in fact probably echo you know this is actually this um they're pulling an echo from when the sons of L what we later understand to be angels but uh the sons of L are actually being demoted from being other gods and gods with a little G um actually do I mean as we know in from other paganism they actually do inter you know breed you know come down to earth and run around and and find daughters and rape them and do those kind of things and so that's certainly not what angels do in the conception of uh you know by the time we get to uh Christianity in Mark

(1:26:28) but it is something that that pagan gods do which is what the echo here is of the much earlier Genesis writer um before we have that later conception of what an angel is and that is you know now that you mentioned that that's a really interesting point because we do have in in the book of Deuteronomy the mention of the sons of L as this council of of the supreme god L.

(1:26:59) And Yahweh is one of these gods who is given Israel as his domain. But then later like all these other sons of L are demoted and in the text then uh Yahweh is is the one that takes takes precedence. But as you say, this the idea of sons of God um sons of L goes all the way back to Canaanite religion because the god L had 70 sons because he had a he was a very um very masculine, very powerful god and so his wife Asher apparently gave birth to 70 gods.

(1:27:45) But mostly it doesn't mean that. No, it means that uh the council of the god L had some something like 70 something gods and this is what what the word originally meant in this religion of of Canaan that is is being echoed here in this story of Genesis 6 which is it's part of what what is called traditionally and the primeval stories is that even the most I would say the most conservative readers and the most uh conservative evangelical theologians understand or will say is not history.

(1:28:28) That's why there's not a a lot of anxiety about reconciling this with with later parts of the Bible because it's understood that everything from creation all the way to to Noah is the primeval story or the the how to Yeah. But I think I think that you're I think you're giving a lot of benefit of the doubt to the the most conservative or whatever.

(1:28:55) The serious the let's say the serious All serious. All serious that will try to make sense still that with Abraham we we can actually find like a core of historicity which always drives me crazy when we start seeking for the core of historicity but they stop at Abraham usually. Yeah. They understand this is this is mythology. Yes. Okay. Very good.

(1:29:26) Okay. Okay, now this is for you, John, because this is about the documentary hypothesis versus the supplementary hypothesis from Yoshi Yahoo. What chapters do you think the second uh second John author added in? You John put in the and this is like something that it's it's it's referencing one of one of your slides, but you put it like in in in pink um at the beginning.

(1:29:55) Um, so do you think that there's this part the the prologue that was written by the redactor, are you calling the the prologue unsophisticated? Um, so, so even though Lando, even though this um, this comment was on the lecture about the documentary hypothesis versus the supplementary hypothesis, I probably had this I probably had this slide as a throwaway slide in that because I was probably talking about how um, how we have the Gospel of John. Um, this is about the Gospel of John. So, so probably what I was doing is I was

(1:30:32) showing how we have um um different ways that a text forms. And so the documentary hypothesis, the supplementary hypothesis are are the different ways that scholars have reconstructed how the Torah is formed. The Pentatuk, the five books attributed to Moses.

(1:30:53) And so I there's the different charts that might explain where the the Yahwist source, the Elohist source if there is one, the priestly source and etc. you know how they came together either through redaction or uh through by supplement as one is completely supplements the next and so forth. So that's what the lecture was about. But I was probably trying to show that okay well we know that that um that there is a a supplementing going on in the Gospel of John because it may well have um we definitely know that there's a final uh addition that happens where the where there's a last chapter. So the gospel

(1:31:30) ends and then somebody else has added something to the end. Uh and so and so I was probably using that as an example and then I probably put this chart that I had from the the Gospel of John lecture that we've done on the science gospel that will have shown an early uh thing of a of a science gospel uh that is then expanded by um the first John author John one and then and then there's a later author John 2 that is less sophisticated.

(1:32:02) And so in looking at that chart with that I didn't explain it. I would say to ya Yoshi Yahu go to our whole um signs gospel lecture because you know and the John gospel lectures because I'll explain it in bigger details. So you were saying that um I'm calling according to my chart the prologue of the gospel of John. This is this incredible story.

(1:32:19) In the beginning was the word the logos and the word was with God and the word was God. Um this is is very very sophisticated. You're saying, "Oh, it's ridiculous if I think the prologue is not sophisticated." No, the prologue is very sophisticated.

(1:32:37) What I'm saying in the chart is not that the ch that the prologue is written by John 2, but rather that the prologue may well some scholars think is a a freestanding independent document like the book of generations would be in the in the in the Torah. something that that the redactor has inserted or that may have been a pre-existing source like the science gospel that uh that John one is working from.

(1:33:05) So in other words, there's some kind of sometimes people think that this is this hymn of the logos is its own document. This John 1, this prologue and that's all that chart was saying. It's not saying that this is the unsophisticated John 2 edits. And so if you're asking what what are the examples of the John 2 edits? So, um I was saying like in in in what we now have is John chapter 3, Jesus is talking to uh uh Nicodemus, a Jewish elder, and he's talking to him about the need to be born again.

(1:33:34) And Nicodemus immediately t interprets that literally, and says, "How could you possibly be born again? Can you can you literally walk up and into your mother's womb?" And so, that's absurd. And so Jesus says in the text that we have it that no no you have to be born of water and the spirit. And so a bunch of uh scholars have said well that maybe that of water is actually an insertion because what Jesus is meaning to say is you this is a spiritual thing but but the later writer John 2 is very aware of formula you know being born again in for him is baptism. And so they've added water and the spirit in order to um in

(1:34:15) order to explain a Christian understanding in their community, but it mars what John 1 is trying to say that this is an entirely spiritual understanding about being born again and brings it back into the physical by adding this word water.

(1:34:33) And so that's what I was saying as an example of like an unsophisticated edit if that is the case. In other words, if there is a a John 1 and a John 2, it's not saying by any means like you're you're concerned Yoshi Yahoo that I was saying that the prologue is unsophisticated. Absolutely not. Thank you.

(1:34:52) And let's let's jump to uh a question on since we're talking about the Gospels and not about the documentary hypothesis. Let's let's talk about who wrote the Gospels. Um okay. So the mad professor asks, "What I have never understood is how they picked these four gospels and rejected the others, but never bothered to resolve all the contradictions between and even within the gospels.

(1:35:19) So why go halfway and leave all these question marks?" So is it they were deliberately trying to to offer different versions of these stories? Yeah. So it is it is interesting. It's interesting that this happened uh mad professor you know so um you know if the if the documentary hypothesis for the Torah is is correct in other words if that is how the Torah is formed what's happened here is a redactor has taken four different contradictory sources and blended them all together by in some cases cutting up a completely one whole um creation story you know we're putting

(1:36:00) a creation story from the one and put it right next to a second creation story or taking the Noah story and slicing it up into pieces and and using one side by side with the other one. And so one of the question you may be asking is okay well let's say we had four these four gospels that are viewed by early Christians as authoritative.

(1:36:24) Why didn't some early Christian cut them all up and put them together and make a harmony of the gospel? So, it's just one book that includes, you know, like all the details from uh what we now think of as, you know, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. And so, that's certainly something that could have happened, but it didn't.

(1:36:41) Um, and as you're asking, well, what there were all these other gospels that didn't get included. Um, some of the early ones include the Gospel of Thomas and and apparently al as well. Um, you know, we know that the Ebianites, the Jewish Christians had their own versions. There's other gospels that we have fragments of that seem very early and and yet also distinct that didn't make it in.

(1:37:04) Um, in terms of how did they pick those four? So, what the reason why we have all these different gospels is each of the different um Christian communities will have had their own gospel that they were using uh or that there's the one that they're kind of working from. And so I think in a lot of cases they they would have been using multiple gospels but um but but different ones are using different ones that they that they like.

(1:37:28) And so it's really our friend u of Leon this really important protoethodox uh leader. This guy who he's he's our friend in the sense that we went to Leon and we found out a lot about him. He is one of the um most influential early Christian writers of the second century who um is busily deciding what is left in and I'm sorry what gets in and what is left out and he's the one that argues no we should have uh four gospels and we should have the four that we have now now have and we shouldn't have any of the other ones.

(1:38:00) So he's the one who really convinces everybody. he's able to um I think he's able to make that case by um you know by saying kind of four is kind of a a magic number in a way and also by um taking one of the visions from revelation and and that is what attributes each of the gospels to you know the different uh visionary animals around the throne of God.

(1:38:25) So the the winged lion, the the the winged uh bull, the or cow, the winged uh eagle, and the winged guy. Uh and those are the ones that get attached to those ideas. Um so it's really ineas that popularized that idea. And by that time, I guess people all had access to them enough that no one had sufficient authority to simply create a harmony of the gospels and bring it all together into one.

(1:38:50) Although throughout history, Christians have tried to do that. Thank you. It's who knew I he did a lot of things. um you know so I think one of the reasons why he did that is so he he lives in Gaul right um but he comes from uh western Anatolia what's now Turkey and he comes from a part of the Christian tradition that includes the gospel of John and as we know very well the gospel of John is is actually very very different from the other gospels and so uh and so I think that there were lots of contemporary Christians that

(1:39:34) might have been very content to just use Matthew and to throw them all throw the others away or in some cases like the Marcianites and so to just use Luke and throw the other ones away. But I think um I think that because of the community that Irenaeus comes from, he wants to say no, no, no, we have to keep all this John stuff. It's really important.

(1:39:53) And so and so he has to make a a special intellectual argument to hold on to all of them. Would that have been because of his uh fights, arguments against gnostics and other heretic or what was becoming heresies? I I think he had to I think he had to work really hard.

(1:40:18) I think one of the reasons why he's fighting Gnostics, well, one, because there's a bunch of gnostics in Gaul, you know, and so he's there worrying about it. But I think that one of the reasons why um why he's fighting it is because the gospel of John is the most protonic of the of the gospels that made it in.

(1:40:37) And so I think that there were a lot of other uh contemporaries, protoorthodox contemporaries of Aronyaeus that are probably saying, you know, all these things that we hear about in in John, this could lead us to doism. This could lead us to nasticism because again, the the the Jesus in the gospel of John is so much uh has a so much higher christologology is so much more least less human passionate, you know, it is very different from from Mark, right? We have a question that came in the lecture.

(1:41:10) Why Paul's church is one? And I think uh do those vult uh is a little confused because apparently in this lecture you said that Paul had a feud with James, but um this viewer says that they only had like a like a brief situation that was reconciled and that um so you're the the fact that you're talking about a feud is um he they don't know where you're getting this information and I I I get the sense that they are um saying that you're making this this is this an assumption an incorrect assumption that you're making here right and so specifically he says that

(1:41:52) the book of acts talks all about the situation and it's very minor and and easily reconciled um but again deis vult the problem here is that you're reading the texts, you know, as a Christian that considers all the texts authoritative and not as a historian. And so, Acts is late. Uh, and Acts contradicts Paul.

(1:42:18) Uh, Paul himself is an eyewitness of the fight between him and somebody, including fights that he has directly with Peter and James. Uh, and what what he has to say, what Paul has to say contradicts what Acts says. And so yes, definitely by the time the author of Acts, the author of Luke, Acts is writing, um the whole thing is kind of over and it's um that author seems to be wanting to write this to minimize that and they successfully have convinced you that it was not a big deal, you know, but that doesn't mean that Acts has um you know is Acts has any more historicity than Luke has. And we've already we've already argued because we have um we already have you

(1:42:59) know we have John and Mark and Matthew in order to test against Luke to see um how much uh you know the problems of of reading Luke as if though Luke had a lot of historicity. Acts unfortunately we don't have more acts and so people tend to rely on it a lot even though um just but unfortunately we can't read we don't have anything else to read it against.

(1:43:25) The only thing we have to read it against is the other writings of the New Testament, including especially the writings of Paul. And so, as somebody who tries to stay really close to the sources that are really close to the time period, I absolutely I preference what Paul says, you know, 100 times over whatever anything that exists in Acts. And Paul uh describes very directly a fight that he has specifically with Peter.

(1:43:53) um and this uh uh arguments that he has with James and he talks in even more a lot about other enemies. And in that lecture I made the case why those other unnamed enemies are in fact actually um representatives who have certificates from James's church that are saying that they that they are real apostles.

(1:44:17) And then the people um in Paul's churches that he's planted himself are saying you don't have a certificate like this. And so and so I'm um there is some surmise that's happening there. That's that's the surmise that I'm making which is that as Paul is talking about other enemies um um that those enemies sound a lot like they're coming from the Jamesian church.

(1:44:38) We can't say that for sure, but we do know that Paul is having a a bigger fight with James and Peter than Acts makes it out to be. So, Acts can be discounted in that way. Thank you. And there's we have two lectures uh no two lectures, two question on one lecture. How Zoroastrian is Judeo Christianity. First uh big thanks ask why does this lecture John start at the second temple? Well um so Zoroastrianism is the world religion that emerged you know that emerged out of the per out of Persia.

(1:45:17) So it's a Persian religion and then um as Persia then becomes the first great world empire in the west um uh the the Persian emperors while not imposing their religion on everybody they nevertheless patronize Zoroastrianism and so Zoroastrianism has all kinds of influence. Um so what is that period? It's the second temple period.

(1:45:43) So the second temple in Judaism um is built uh with the permission of and potentially the command of the Persian emperor. It is built in the Persian Empire. So uh yeah yehood uh you know Judah is at that point a little province within a subprovince within the cetrapy of the Persian Empire. uh and all of the officials like like Ezra uh the priest who are um who are and um what's his name? Nehemiah.

(1:46:15) Um these are official they're Jewish but they're Jewish Persian officials. They're officials of the Persian Empire. So, so um I'm starting the lecture with the second temple and the second temple period because um this is a Persian period and because Zoroastrianism is the Persian religion um that's the important moment of the context you know so it would be the same thing when when I'm talking about how um how Greek is Judeo-Christianity you know I there's Greek influence still already during the Persian period but it really gets going

(1:46:47) obviously once Alexander conquers the Persian Empire and the whole place becomes helenized. Right? So that's why I picked that. Now the other question comes from Lie Macki 8434. Did Zoroastrian religion come out of Ur at the same time that the Abrahamic religions came out of Ur and so Abraham went west.

(1:47:19) But then whoever was the the patriarch of Zorastrinism Zorastra is that the idea or uh another question is so did the the religion of Akenatan can can we so I guess there's two questions here there that's one question then the next question is like the religion of Akenatan the the pharaoh Akenatan is it something that we can link to the Abrahamic religions Yeah. So, so Lee Macki, you got it. You got it backwards because you're reading the Bible as history.

(1:47:51) So, the Bible Genesis says that Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldes, but Abraham uh is not a historical figure. Abraham uh Abraham is a legendary mythic figure. the reli the Abrahamic religions uh uh are emerging later as opposed to Zoroastrianism and the Akenatan religion which are going to be the earlier ones.

(1:48:15) Zoroaster does not come from Ur. Um what's happening in Ur is what would have been just you know regular Mesopotamian paganism. Um it certainly has a um it has a relationship to Canaanite paganism which is what um Israelite religion which is initially pagan comes out of but um but it's not because of any transmission of a character Abraham.

(1:48:44) What's happening is after you already have um Israelite, an Israelite religion that has legendary figures like Abraham, a myth of Abraham coming from the east um uh is created because the people in um lesser Syria, Palestine, Judea, Israel, that area is are are aware that there are two great centers of thought around them. There's Mesopotamia and there's Egypt.

(1:49:07) And so they create um uh essentially legendary stories about how ideas and people came from those two places. So you have the Exodus myth and you have the Abraham myth. Um but there's not um anyway it's not those are myths to explain their religion later as opposed to a historical how it's happening as a historical spread.

(1:49:33) And certainly Zoroastra is also not coming from um he is a Persian figure and he's coming emerges out of from Persia. in terms of Akenatan as well. So he's an Egyptian and he's getting his ideas natively in Egypt. And you can see here the the the problem when we start trying to arrive at at at these uh comparisons between different religions when when we take the text of one of them as as history and then we get we we start just going backwards. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

(1:50:05) We have uh a question that came on Facebook from Ellen Young who asks, "Where does the tradition of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit come from? Is there a Greek or Canaanite tradition of the triad of the triad gods?" I mean, I guess again we have two questions here.

(1:50:30) One, where does the the tradition of the Holy Spirit come from? And then now when we think about the Holy Spirit as part of the Christian Trinity, is there any um any parallels that we can that we can see in in the Canaanite or in the Greek traditions? So there are biblical references to uh the spirit of God in the Hebrew Bible. And so uh one of the places where that where that exists is um you know in the creation story from the priestly source in Genesis.

(1:51:06) And so as uh uh God is in creation saying let there be light we see that the spirit of God hovers over the waters of chaos, right? And so um and so there is so there there are there are references to this and so later on as people are attempting to understand God the Hebrew Bible is already authoritative for them.

(1:51:32) And so and so it's coming I think it's coming from there as opposed to um I don't know that it's I don't think that it's coming from a tradition of triad gods. I think that um I think that by the time you already by the time the trinity is being formed, there is already um enough references to both the father to Christ and then there's also to the references to the spirit in texts that are being viewed as authoritative by Christians that um that this has to be reconciled as opposed to um wanting to get to the number three. I don't know if you have any other thoughts about where those come from Leandro at the beginning. Yeah, there's

(1:52:11) so definitely in the as you say in the story of creation we we get the Elohim uh that is the the spirit or the breath of God that is uh at the beginning in this role of helping creation happen, helping uh creation come out of this the void, the the the chaos. Uh in Canaanite tradition you have the once again talking about these epitths.

(1:52:52) One of the epitths of the goddess Asher who is the consort of L is something like she who hovers over the surface of the sea. And uh this image of the spirit that is like or like breath or like a wind that is hovering over the surface of chaos is suggest there's a it's very suggestive the connection between that and and this idea of asher as as this the same kind of of cosmological uh role uh because the sea is is seen in in Canaanite tradition as as as a primeval force as chaos. One of the two the other one is is death.

(1:53:36) So remember it's like the on one side you have the sea and on the other side you have the desert. Those are two perimeal forces that you have to wrestle with and Asher is the one that that helps L um conquer these not not conquer but bring or order out of the um of the chaos. Uh but then in terms of the triads it's no I don't I think it's it's a different kind of concept like because you do have like these there's l baal anat or sometimes uh l asher aat who are like this triad of of the um in this Canaanite religion

(1:54:19) depending on what what city you go to and and the same thing is true in in the Greek world there might be three gods like Zeus, Athena, Apollo, who are the main gods of your city, but it doesn't mean that they're some kind of a trinity in the Christian sense. These are distinct gods, right? Um, should we turn to live chat questions? I think we have to.

(1:54:45) Oh my god, it's 900 pm. So, let's first of all say thank you to those of you who have uh helped the channel with your super chats tonight with JM, Phil, Fire, Ever Living, Don Milland, um Daniel, uh Seda, and also I think it was we had Zorak.

(1:55:09) So, thank you very much for supporting the channels and remember you can also do that on our website centerplace.ca. Okay, let's go to the live questions because otherwise we're never gonna get out of here. Okay. Yeah, it's nine already here for some of us. Wow. For stuff says, "If you had a device that allowed you to view the objective truth of one historical event, which event would you pick?" Historian.

(1:55:41) Yeah. This is like for me this is like the u uh you know like the question like if you could go to visit a historical figure what you know who would you go have lunch with or something like that. Yeah. And um and I always pass on these because I don't I I feel like I don't need to go talk to have lunch with anybody and I also don't know I I feel like um you know it's like you have it's like a burning question that you just have to know how it went.

(1:56:11) And and for me, I feel like the uh you know, his historical methodology gets us to what we can know or not know. And and and as close as we get is that's what we can know, and that's great. And if we can say it more definitively, that's fine.

(1:56:28) I'm not saying that I'm not I'm not sure that I have something that's a a mystery that just lingers over me and I just can't take it that I don't have it. Um do you have an idea? Well, I I think it would be difficult to if if I had some device like that, like a time machine of knowledge, it would be difficult to just pick one event out of so many things, so many possible things that are open questions because we don't have enough uh enough data like this.

(1:56:58) I mean, I guess I mean, you would go and find out the, you know, the actual I mean, it's like this thing like you go and find out the the actual Aramaic sayings of Jesus. And that way that'll that would allow you to objectively know kind of what happened in terms of Q and the other the other sources, the Mark source, the MA source, the Lucan source. That would help us to know those things. same thing.

(1:57:21) You could go back and hear absolutely everything that Socrates ever said and that way you would know what what's the Platonic Socrates what is it you know I mean at the end of that that Platonic question about how much of Socrates Plato Socrates is Plato and so forth I mean I'd be interested in those things uh maybe that I would do I or one of those I remember a science fiction book where they had to decide something like that they had they had constructed this this time machine and they one of the I don't remember where all the options were. Uh, one of the options was something about

(1:57:54) the American Revolution that I would was at the time I had no idea about American history. So that show would have been of interest to anyone. But um, but the other one so the the one the one that won was like the the la the the last days of of Jesus. So they actually decided to go to to Jerusalem for the time of the passion to see if it really happened and it did happen. Okay.

(1:58:24) All right. I I guess for me I would rather have the I would rather know the teachings firsthand so that we could know that than just so we would have it. I wouldn't it wouldn't necessarily change anything other than just would know what the historical Jesus's actual teachings were or same thing Socrates somebody like that as opposed to the event but I guess this is a question was about an event I guess so there's a question from Deborah Darthama Ayana here she ali was raised in Muslim Brotherhood escaped and was an atheist

(1:58:55) for many years and now she's a fledgling Christian can you discuss the new movement of Christianity as a social response to save Western civilization. There are many people seeking community but who call themselves Christian atheists. Well, um I think that the the there's a bunch of Christian atheists.

(1:59:27) And so we had there was a big um controversy recently a couple years ago in the in the uh United Church of Canada, which is the big Protestant church, which is also very uh liberal, where uh one of the one of the pastors in the greater Toronto area kind of came out as an atheist and the church wasn't sure what to do about that.

(1:59:47) Um, I feel like my feeling on this is that that there that that there is um for for kind of Christian atheists, there is this that there is this idea of God that is very literalistic and fleshy and all of these kind of things that um that people are so fixated on that they need to reject that idea and that makes them atheist as opposed to um what I would call like undefining God, which is to say where we don't ne where we can reject that fleshy literalistic conception and instead go back to um you know some of these more abstract philosophical uh ideas that are embedded in the tradition very strongly um that that

(2:00:29) therefore we don't necessarily have to you know you don't necessarily have to say well that's atheism. You could say this is a very um esoteric and philosophical way of looking at God, a very nonliteral way of looking at God. That said, that's fine. We have a we have this understanding that people are pretty fixated on. And so, um, and so there are Christian atheists.

(2:00:53) Um and I think that there is value to that because um western civilization as we now call it, the word western civilization is a um is a is a word that that we made up in in order to secularize Christendom and um and much of western civilization is so thoroughly rooted in our whole tradition which is not fully secular but rather is has all of these things both culture, music, all the buildings, architecture, everything.

(2:01:30) Um, I think that the the rejection, the to wholesale rejection of Christianity that happened um was a wrong turn and it was done because of anti-clericalism. So, clerics, church leaders um were uh rotten. They were um insisting on, you know, literalism, all kinds of other problems. they they wouldn't allow for um us to undefine God and to and to have new looser ways of doing it.

(2:02:01) And so the big thinkers decided, okay, well then we'll reject all of you and your whole stupid institution. And I think that that's um that has been a problem. So I do think that there's um an advantage to going back and saying, okay, those clerics were wrong, but that doesn't mean we have to reject all of our inheritance. But I also see it as what western people do with eastern religions. Uh what we have been doing since the 60s.

(2:02:26) Uh where we we try to distill everything that is quote unquote religious or ritualistic um from from Buddhism, from Daoism. And we what we uh focus on is the ethical teachings and maybe some meditative practices and things like that. And I think this there's the same uh intention behind uh these people that we sometimes identify as as these atheist Christians is just to to value that there's something uh in in the tradition.

(2:03:09) putting aside certain things in a way cherrypicking what do you what do you like about the religion and coming up with something new but ultimately you're going to have your own uh your own practices and your own sets of values because as you as you select what do you what do you work with you're it's just you're you're doing a your own religion or set of values alakart yeah yeah so I that and I think that there's a value in doing it that way. I think like you said as of the 60s again as kind of the tail end of this

(2:03:45) anti-clerical the not not liking you know some of the ways that churches had positions that they'd staked out. independent-minded people, you know, like the Beatles going off to some ashram or something like that. There people decided to um westerners decided to go and take the parts of eastern traditions that they liked and make a very uh new thing that you know that purged of a bunch of stuff.

(2:04:13) And now I think in the 21st century we're maybe kind of looking at that and saying well you know we also have to be aware of like appropriation you know and and that kind of a thing where we're taking other people's stuff whereas you could do that within your own tradition um you know because the kind of uh western dowoism or western Buddhism is very very different from the actual lived religious experience that you would get like in a in a in a village in in an actual Buddhist country like Sri Lanka or something like that. And so so that's there's there's some value in trying to

(2:04:44) um do that sort of program but within your own tradition in which in the western civilization is Judeo-Christianity. Ricky Palasios has a okay we have to make sure that we we summarize this question. Okay. Can you explain the concept of christologology? And I would say and then John add any any other notes but this is one of the sub branches or like substudies within theology. Theology as St.

(2:05:23) Anselm said famously said is the faith our faith seeking understanding. And now within theology when you focus on Christ, so is Christ and are the the father and the son the same substance or different substance? Is Christ fully divine and fully human? How many natures does Christ have? All these questions concern Christology.

(2:06:02) Christologology is also very intimately related to another uh part of the theology uh the study of theology with this which is sotiology s which is to save. So the salvation part of theology. So Christologology also often includes not only these complicated questions about the substance and nature of Christ as it relates to the father but also how Christ saves which is sariology but sometimes as part of Christologology.

(2:06:36) And there's there's other um substies wi within theology like ecclesiology. That's another another one of these uh uh approaches of theology that specifically focus in this case ecclesiology on ecclesia which is the the body of Christ the church. I don't know John if there's anything else to add. Yeah. Yeah. I want to say just the reason you you summarized it great.

(2:07:03) I would just say the reason why we have to have a whole complicated christologology is Christians are absolutely monotheists and yet how do we explain who Jesus is then you know what is Christ so there so it becomes a big complicated thing and different Christians have had you know wildly different answers to that and so that's why we have to have a christologology fire everliving says do you have any thoughts on concurrent believers they try to interpret the Bible in a way that's rigorously internally consistent which ends up with weird and interesting

(2:07:43) results. I I mean I haven't heard of this movement I guess have you heard of this? I don't know but it makes me think of concordance but that's probably something but just from the just from the context that fire ever living has given us I would say that that's what lots of Christians have always tried to do although they haven't done it consistently and rigorously like you're talking about and I agree that when if you were to try to if you like we had said before I think earlier today if you um if you imagine that all of the

(2:08:16) different books in the Bible which are written with very different voices can perspectives, competing voices, voices that don't agree with each other, and you instead believe that they actually are rigorously internally consistent and then try to draw conclusions about it. I I would believe you Fire Ever Living that you would get very weird results.

(2:08:35) It'd be interesting to see what those results are. I think that instead people view a lot of Christians view the Bible that way but don't do the don't get the weird as weird of results because they um because they don't approach it in a way that's rigorously internally consistent and instead just pick the parts that they want to emphasize.

(2:08:59) We have Julie Bazvski asking, "Do you think there is any connection between the Essene community and later ideas of desert monks and monastics or is Greek philosophical denigration of the physical of the physic the catalyst?" It's a great question, Julie. Um, I think I, you know, I think it could be a little both, right? So I think that um that I think that that is you know we're by the time we have the desert fathers the you know the or these early um Christians who go off and are denigrating the physical and are are therefore um being imbued with as far as their contemporaries are concerned all

(2:09:41) kinds of really spiritual power and spiritual energy because they're showing how how little food they need or or every how little other comfort they need. And that is definitely pulling out of lots of pre-existing Greek philosophical traditions since um you know everybody from the cynics and and so on have already been sort of doing that kind of thing.

(2:10:08) Nevertheless, um you know, we also have this um Essen community that is doing that same thing. And it does seem that um you know, the people have asserted potential connections between the Essenes and John the Baptists and therefore, you know, some some kind of connections there that may be that may be relatively direct. So, so in that sense there is a potential model there, but I do think that the um you know the Greek aspect is is going to inform a lot of what they're doing.

(2:10:40) We have another question from Anthony uh Sprag who also uh just supported our channel with a super chat. Thank you so much. and asks, "How likely is it that the canonical gospels each had multiple authors and that the texts evolved over time with their own specific religious communities? So um so each one of these is has a different answer presume potentially uh Anthony because you know each one is as coming out of its own specific community as you're saying and so the uh we talked in earlier in this about the gospel of John and how many um literary uh

(2:11:22) critics have gone through and identified um texts that are evolving over time within what we now called the Johannian community. Uh and so that does seem that that may well be the case that there are additional authors. It's most likely the case within that gospel that is emerging uh within that.

(2:11:47) Um most scholars agree that um you know the Lucan and Mthan communities have um at least you know like each have themselves three different sources. So there's Mthan material, there's access to the Gospel of Mark, there's access to the Lost Sayings Gospel Q, and likewise the same thing in Luke, only with Lucan material. Um, and then with Mark, there's a bunch of questions.

(2:12:13) Mark is the earliest of the um of the gospels that have come down to us, but it's also the earliest uh that uh is has a narrative gospel. And so the question is is there are there sources that underly Mark and some um some scholars see that and so they think that maybe Mark is for example reliant on a passion source but other scholars think that the passion narrative within Mark you know has a lot of the same thematic things of the whole rest of Mark and so and so it's not clear if there's a whole um you know uh emerging thing with Mark. there's some edits to mark uh over time potentially but maybe not you maybe more coherent as

(2:12:51) a whole but it's not not certain and I but I think that the question also is specifically um like we know that for example there's there's multiple authors uh with the gospel of John right but but I wouldn't say there there are multiple authors writing the other gospels there might be minor edits it uh but especially Mark.

(2:13:24) But for the most part, both Matthew and Luke are the work of one author. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's they're they're working with multiple sources and sources but it's one author. Yeah. Yeah. And specific especially Yeah. So for sure and Luke for example we can say for sure is one author because um because Luke is a great author who has made the seams very hard to detect you know and so also wrote acts. Yeah.

(2:13:49) Yeah. So we have a question. Okay. This question is a little weird. Um Richard Martin. My family says at church they talked about the war in Israel and and the Middle East countries and that if you read from the Bible using the current names then the Bible is talking about current events which I think um I mean I guess what what that means is if you change the names of particular stories of the Bible and just scratch um yeah and you you write Palestine then you might think that the conflict is Uh the Bible is talking about the the the war thea war the the occupation of Gaza

(2:14:32) right now. Yeah. Which of course that's I would I would say that's misusing the Bible. I'm not sure what other conclusions you might get when when you do that kind of exercise, but that that is not how the that I wouldn't consider that responsible use of the Bible. Yeah. So that kind of interpretation goes back at least to the the middle ages where um where people have had you know what I call that is um what was it I say like uh I can't remember the word I was using for it. It's essentially your yeah like I don't know like a temporal ego mania

(2:15:15) where you think that um a 2,00 in some cases part 200 some cases 2500 or so year old book you know that it's referring specifically to the time you happen to be living in right now and ever since um Yakima Fiora um did that in the as a medieval monk in the 12th century um that has been incredibly popular idea and so you know every few years um someone will update that and prot and and with that same perspective and think that the Bible's not talking about Yokima Fiora's day. It's not talking about uh the Millerites day in the 1840s. It's t not talking about you

(2:15:53) know any other day where anybody's been thinking it's about them. Uh they think it's talking about us right now but um but it's not. So, so in fact actually all of the authors are talking about their own day um not and and it's the day that when they're writing not the not even the day uh when their story is set.

(2:16:16) So it is not um not talking about today for sure. A question from David Lator or David or David, I don't know. What date would we feel confident in applying when uh it could be said that Judaism became a genuine monotheistic religion? And I would say you were to say what letter? I wouldn't say like a like Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't say a date.

(2:16:52) I wouldn't say like you know like June 20th 584 BCE that day. No, but I tend to be on I tend to side or what what makes most sense to me and to to answer this question is the the most minimalist um scholarship which we'll say that it it happens starts to happen in the exilic period with like some second Isaiah and and then it's um It's something that fully developed post exilic during the Persian period. Yeah.

(2:17:38) So that's what I would say too in the second temple period it get it you know because even even if the some of the early thinkers are are you know are are coming up with those ideas in the exilic period it takes a while to to get that the ideas into everybody's head. And that also mean like I guess the question is well depending what what you mean by Judaism because we're Israel the like 100% of all the people of Israel were were all monotheists and the qu the answer to that would be no that like older practices that you might not that that might not fit within what we consider monotheism. continued um right so for example in um

(2:18:23) like the Jesus's times yeah and we have in the second temple period um you know we have the example of the uh the elephantine uh Jews in the exilic in you know in in diaspora Egypt where the temple there has multiple deities right and so so it's it's a work in progress during the second temple period but Even John when you consider like now in this in this period the Persian period the Hellenistic period Hasmonian period we have the development of all this angelology and we have uh we have to consider well but what what do we mean by monotheism if there's if

(2:19:09) there's like these other divine beings that are lesser than God but are not human so there's uh so I guess the question that I'm I'm I'm trying to say is also depending on what you mean by strict monotheism. If you consider that that Satan that angels are their own entities, divine entities separate from God, then that still qualifies as some form of polytheism and that definitely was happening in this period.

(2:19:41) But but nobody has a nobody ever gets to a thing that's free of divine beings. You know, in other words, those are subordinate divine beings are still, you know, allowed within monotheistic religions. And that's why I've said by some definitions and certainly have gone to hindi Hindu temples where the where the leader of the temple has said, well, we're monotheists even though we have four million gods because we, you know, or 40 million or 30 million, however many, because we recognize there's one divine source. So I would agree that that that counts as monotheism in the same way that um that the Gnostics if

(2:20:13) there's you know like ultimately one true god or something like that is is is a monotheism right even if there's other iminations we have kinetic how many more questions do we have oh we're almost done since the septuagent renders uh the tetetrogrammatin as kios uh the Greek word for lord does that mean that the authors of the synoptic gospels are calling uh the name of Yahweh when they quote Isaiah 40 verse3 before the baptism I have to look up oh yeah the Isaiah 43 is a voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make straight a desert in the desert a highway for our God so

(2:21:02) in other words the uh the quotation that is um that Christians apply to uh John the Baptist. So um so the Lord there uh you know makes make way the uh prepare the way for the Lord that is the you know that would be the tra tetrogrammaton in Isaiah. So yes, Mason Phippe asks were there attempts by the Romans in Judea to synthize the Jewish faith at the time? I know Zarastrianism was around, but I'm curious how the Romans dealt with monotheism so close uh to their provinces or more uh or rather in one of

(2:21:48) their provinces. So um so I guess kind of famously uh Caligula was about to put his statue up in the Jewish temple right before he died, right? or is it is it it's Clayula right who was going to do that so I mean I I think that there were some times um it certainly had happened in the uh in the helenistic period where uh where the Seucid kings uh anti you know was attempting to kind of uh impose a synretatism to say you know to put a to put a statue of of Zeus there and say that Yahweh you know the the god of

(2:22:28) Israel is Zeus for synratism and I think that Um the Romans occasionally were trying to do the same thing. Maybe Caligula was trying to do that and and same thing whenever the presence of Roman eagles in the in there. But I think that at a certain point um you know I mean the the Romans fought ended up fighting three Roman Jewish wars, right? So there's, you know, they there they weren't they weren't going to accomplish that because um there was just too much push back.

(2:23:04) Um, apparently Mike uh tells us there was a discussion in the chat about the distinction between Lucifer and Satan. And Darth Rama asks um or Darth Rama says rather, I've never really understood how morning stars refers both to Lucifer and Jesus. Um, so yeah, there's a um there's a I guess in Christian theology there's sometimes Jesus is referred to as the bright morning star and that means that he's like a a bringer of hope and new beginnings. But then we also have the idea that uh that Lucifer is the morning

(2:23:48) star because of uh a reference to um a reference to the morning star in Isaiah. So the morning star is Venus and um and so there are Venus is a god in paganism. Um there was the what the reference in Isaiah is to a king of Babylon who um was equating himself with a Babylonian god that represents Venus.

(2:24:20) And then later because um um all of the references to things like Lucifer or the devil and even the serpent in the Old Testament are all brought together to mean the devil. Um that's why we think of the devil as being Lucifer the morning star. The lightbringer is a lightbringer in Lucifer is the Latin for um for the morning star.

(2:24:46) Um and so and so but nevertheless the morning star has multiple different meanings. And so when when Jesus is the morning star, that's because the morning star represents new beginnings. And so uh so we're having you like you know everybody had there's like a symbol can be used to mean more than one thing I guess is what we'd say.

(2:25:03) I mean the devil isn't actually the planet Venus, you know, nor is nor is Jesus the planet Venus. Um, planet Venus is a symbol and you know and has the more but by the way Venus is also the evening star you know and so um you know because of uh what because we also realize now that you know how the how the heliocentric solar system works as opposed to a you know a geocentric solar system. And so now we realize oh that's actually the same planet.

(2:25:35) Um and so the symbol of you know like uh appearing before the dawn that means you know it's the lightbringer and so forth. And so that's that is a um in a time period when people looked at the sky a lot more than we do now. It was an important symbol and so the symbol can be applied to more than one thing. I can't see any stars. So I would look at the sky more if I could.

(2:25:59) But yeah and it it is and I guess if you think of all the way back to Sumer Ishtar was was also associated with the planet Venus which is well and let's say I would also suggest perhaps the goddess Venus is associated with the planet Venus. There might be an association there. Okay. Uh so we have a few questions left in the queue. Let's see if we can get through it.

(2:26:28) Um, I guess John Tracy Poster said, "Was Jesus rescued from the cross and not resurrected? That's why people saw him afterwards." I would guess no, but what do you think? So, so, um, again, this is a kind of a thing that we need that people would like to do to as if that uh as if the gospels were were eyewitness accounts and they're trying to explain it, right? And so an idea is is that uh that people have is that they will look at the gospel accounts and say well I don't believe that um people can actually walk on water and so therefore maybe maybe Jesus was you know walking in a shallow

(2:27:07) part of the Sea of Galilee or something like that and it only seemed to be walking on water or something like that. And they do the same thing with like the uh um the the parting of the Red Sea. Maybe the wind was blowing in the kind of way like this or something. So, so these are not eyewitness accounts. These are are literary uh things that happened later.

(2:27:27) Um the gospels are kind of clear actually that the disciples are all scattered. And so what a lot of historians of the historical Jesus like for example John Dominick Crossson um will say is that the most likely scenario is that um that uh Jesus uh was just you know body was just thrown in a mass grave and he didn't have a there was no tomb or any of these things and that these ideas of people seeing the wounds later are are simply visionary experiences that decades later are written down as if they were literal physical experiences, but you don't have to explain it away if you don't believe in physical resurrection. You can simply

(2:28:04) say these are written later. So, in other words, you're saying that this is this this kind of interpretation is part of this attempt to rationalize the Bible so that the miracles and the supernatural all of a sudden make sense in our modern minds.

(2:28:30) Like you know, for example, the the departing of the waters in Exodus was actually a tsunami or something like that. That's right. Yeah. You just all we can we can instead of worrying about having to explain things like that, we can simply say Exodus is a myth. There was no there was no the waters didn't do that, you know. I mean, so so I I appreciate that people want to take um we can do the same thing with Greek mythology.

(2:28:49) People want to take supernatural things that we don't believe happen anymore and then try to have a kind of a physical explanation for them. It's simply not necessary. That's taking it the wrong direction. John Daniel Seda and Lorenzo Schllestak ask about the Gospel of Tatan the Assyrian. Are you familiar with that? The Gospel of Tan the Assyrian.

(2:29:12) It was popular in Assyrian churches but eventually replaced So, I'm not familiar. So, we might have the top. Yeah, I'm sorry. Uh, Daniel and Lorenzo, we're going to have to We'll have to get back to you on it. I It sounds very I mean, it sounds very interesting.

(2:29:33) I know that it's replaced by the, you know, so I've heard of the Pacetta and things like that. So, I just want to um you know, I say it's called the Datasaurian harmony. So, which was an attempt to harmonize the gospels are asking. We'll look it up and we'll talk to you um uh next time. Valda asks who wrote the book of Deuteronomy and she adds or they add Moses was a man not of words at the burning bush but then he's able to compose the book of Deuteronomy. I wonder if the Assyrians wrote the book of Deuteronomy.

(2:30:05) So, so most I think traditionally most scholars have understood the duke book of Deuteronomy to be or at least the core components of the book of Deuteronomy uh to be um this book that is found by um Hilkaya the the scribe in the in the court of Josiah that's where most you know we a lot of scholars now think that it's even later than that but um the book um the deuteronomic histories describe the books of kings describe this event where you know wa this book that they'd never seen before has been found and when they read it all of these rules and everything like that

(2:30:46) that they have never heard of before have they realized haven't been being um fulfilled and so the king rents his garments he can't believe about it and this is the impetus for a reform so the person people who write it um under the in that scenario will have been uh priests um at the time of the end of the very end of the first temple period and that might just represent the the core of Deuteronomy which was then expanded um maybe in the exilic and the immediate post- exilic period um but it would have been it it's it's Judeian priests who

(2:31:24) wrote it not Assyrians there's another question uh about the historicity of the apostles And John you you gave a lecture on who were the apostles. Now right which ones were historic his historical so so we don't so so one of the things that we have about the apostles u one we should remember that that the 12 and the larger group of Christian apostles is two different things.

(2:32:04) So um early Christianity is founded by um groups of mendicants, men and women who are going around and spreading the good news by mendicant that is begging. They're not taking purse or script and they are speaking from the spirit and they are planting Christian communities as they go around. And so there is not just 12 of those people.

(2:32:30) Um, one of the examples of an apostle we have that is not one of the 12 is Paul, who is obviously a very famous one, as we call him the Apostle Paul. He definitely calls himself an apostle. He is not one of the 12. So, there's a bunch of apostles. I presume you're um though asking Owen about the 12 apostles. And all of the lists that we have of the 12 are late.

(2:32:48) They're coming out of u the the gospels and they contradict each other. Um, and so of these, how do we how do we know which ones are are historic? So, the Apostle Paul, who is our earliest Christian, who contemporaneously knows some of these folks, he himself talks about having known and met Peter and John. And he also says he met the apostle James, but James is James, the brother of Jesus. So, he is not one of the 12.

(2:33:19) So in other words, we know there are uh historical apostles Peter, James, and John, but that James is not one of the tw apostles named James on our list of the 12. Um Owen also asks, did Peter actually exist and die in Rome? We don't have any direct um you know, firsthand early information for that. That's a much later tradition.

(2:33:47) So we the Apostle Paul is a real apostle but uh and we know he got as far as Antioch. We don't know um if he went ever went to Rome although tradition says he does. Uh and so how many apostles are real? There were hundreds of real apostles. Thousands probably. Um but in terms of the ones of the 12 uh minimum we have I think minimally we can't say I I don't think that we can say more than than the three uh and actually one of those is not one of the 12. two. So two or I guess in terms of the list of 12.

(2:34:20) But um but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a important early leader named Thomas or an important early leader you know named Philip or all of these other names. There were certainly um and so it's but but they wouldn't necessarily have been as described in the gospels which are which are late. Okay, last question.

(2:34:44) Richard Martin, writing a scripture seems like an insurmountable task. Can you comment on what type of person would be capable of writing a scripture and what it would take to write a scripture that gets adopted? And this for some reason makes me think of Joseph Smith Mormon and the apologetics about that that some Mormons uh will will offer to to say well clearly this is not the work of a human being because of this and this and this and or trying to say that Joseph Smith was would not have been capable that he was illiterate or hardly literate to somehow elevate

(2:35:30) the the value of of scripture, right? So, yeah, it's not I know that writing a book does seems like it's a big deal, but actually there are millions and bu millions of books and uh people write books and so that it's not insurmountable and in even uh even in antiquity. Uh so what kind of persons would it take? Each one of these are different kinds of are different kinds of people including even just in the New Testament.

(2:36:06) So they're they have a a wide uh variety of skill level uh with the language that they're composing in in the New Testament. It's Greek. And so um we get to some of the writers like uh the author of Luke Acts which is a very um very educated Greek writer. a kind of writer of Greek. Maybe Greek is their native language and they um one of the things that they have in their background is they are intensely uh familiar with the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagant. And so that is being um that is informing who they are.

(2:36:41) So all of them all of the writers are have a lot of familiarity with the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. And so that is a big thing to happen. Joseph Smith actually um spent his whole life growing up in Christian churches listening to um preachers preach. And so he is also has a lot of familiarity with the with the uh King James version of the Bible. And that definitely informed his composition of the Book of Mormon.

(2:37:09) And so um all of these different writers are are informed by that kind of reading. And you know even uh I I guess I'm thinking of books that are not necessarily considered scripture but that have special value within Christianity. I'm thinking of the the writings of the women mystics in the middle ages like like um Julianne of Norwich like like Hildigard like Methild who reported having visions and wrote really really extensively now it's not scripture but is like Theresa of Abila John of the cross that wrote uh this spiritual text that

(2:37:58) is like highly revered by by many Christians uh today and is it it's it's long and complicated and beautiful and and yet we know that who the author is. Right. That's right. Yeah. And I am I have a question, John, about your work with the Canadian Council of Churches and if you're ever uh are going to tell us a little bit about that. Not tonight, but if you're Yeah. Not tonight.

(2:38:29) Sure. Um yeah, so the the Canadian Council of Churches is an ecumenical body. um that is really an interesting one because the Canadian version of that so in the US there's the national council of churches both of which are part of the world council of churches so ecumenical bodies are different Christian groups trying to get together and um and and and work together on on causes that they can all agree are important and um and the Canadian Council Churches is special because it's a little more inclusive than all the rest in because we have um full

(2:39:05) participation of the Catholic Church for example and also all of the um the Canadian versions of all the smaller Orthodox churches and so on. Um the main represents maybe 85% of Canadian Christians. So the main people that are outside of it are groups like um uh Pentecostals, evangelicals and and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and so forth.

(2:39:29) uh and so um and so yeah I would very very happy to um I'm observer delegate for community of Christ and and they have annual me semiannually so the next meeting will be in November and I can uh report on it after we do that. All right. Thank you. And finally, I found many comments uh in uh that you left in our videos asking about those charts and timelines that that John uses that John creates for for our lectures.

(2:40:06) And uh so the good news is that we are starting our newsletter. So, you can subscribe to our newsletter and I promise we're not going to spam you with irrelevant content, but uh one of the things that is going to go on those newsletters is those charts that you see in the Tuesday lectures and uh and and additional content like like summaries of the lectures and and other things that John says in this channel.

(2:40:29) Yeah. Yeah. So, um wanted to have a way of sharing, you know, we do we like we love a timeline. We love like or org charts and even some of the maps that that I've created originally. Anyway, the one that I make an original map or other diagrams.

(2:40:47) So, we will we will start to include those in in our new newsletter that we're going to do. So, you can sign up for that at um our website centerplaceel the Canadian way.ca/signup. So, centerplace.ca/signup. So, like Leandra says, we're not going to spam you. We also we'll do a newsletter and it'll include we from you. We uns you unsubscribe. That's easy. Yeah, you can always subscri un unsubscribe. But yeah, so we'll just you know it'll include uh recaps from some of the questions like we're doing here.

(2:41:12) Um uh some of those graphics other other kinds of insights like that. What what are upcoming lectures? Uh or if we have to cancel, you know, that kind of a thing. So you get those notices. Next week. We're going to start it next week. No. What's next week? Oh, okay. Next week we're gonna have the stoic the stoic Jesus. The stoic Jesus.

(2:41:37) So, please, please join us for that. This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. And thanks everyone for the chat and for the questions tonight. Oh my god, it's almost 10 here. But don't forget to click like and share and to subscribe to our channel if you haven't yet.

(2:41:56) And of course, if you're able to support the work that we do here to with a donation to help us continue to produce this content. Thanks everyone. Bye-bye everybody. Thank you again.