Podcasts about jewish wars

Up To Jerusalem - Teaching 8 Scripture - Matthew 24:15 - Matthew 25:13 Luke 21, Mark 13 and Matthew 24-25 all have the story of Jesus' Mt. Olivet Discourse with His disciples. In today's opening verses in Matthew 24:15ff, we hear Jesus answering the questions we left off with last week.   The two questions the disciples asked Jesus:     1.    When will these things you are telling us happen to the temple     2.    What will be the sign of your return They are thinking that these two questions coincide one with the other…. As we now know - that was not the case.   Jesus is giving a forewarning of what would befall Jerusalem. (The fall happened in the year 70AD when the Roman General Titus laid siege to Jerusalem and ultimately leveled it to the ground.) Jesus' answer contains responses for both the questions.  The Abomination that causes Desolation - three options of what this might be were shared last week - but only one seems to fit the time frame: An event in winter 67/68AD -  the temple was profaned by Jewish insurgents. Pastor reads about the event from Josephus' writing: The Jewish War.  During this event the insurgents caused division within the Jewish community.  It's a good possibility that this event caused believers in Jesus in the city of Jerusalem to begin fleeing the city by those who took Jesus' words literally. They left because they could see what was coming and Jesus had warned them about what was coming. They fled across the Jordan River and they were protected from the siege by Titus which began shortly after the insurgent uprising.  Those who fled were protected from all that followed.  Over 1 million people died in the siege of Jerusalem. In Luke 21:20-24 we read: “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” UNTIL THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES ARE FULFILLED - This passage in Luke has been fulfilled in our day.  Pastor shares a brief history of the city of Jerusalem from 70AD to the mid 20th century of when the city of Jerusalem was dominated by gentiles. Romans Byzantines Persians Byzantines Crusaders Ottoman Turks WWI British control WWII - The Jewish people were given a homeland in 1948 Six Day War - 1967 City of Jerusalem came under control of the Jewish people and has remained in their control in an uneasy peace. THIS IS SOMETHING JESUS SAID AND IT WAS FULFILLED IN OUR LIFE TIME. "The times of the gentiles are fulfilled"... what does that mean?  Does that refer simply to gentile control of Jerusalem? Or does it mean far more? Romans 9, 10, and 11 talk about the Jewish people returning to the Messiah. When they return to Him - the end comes!  We don't know the day or hour - but He tells us when we see these things happening, look up because our redemption is drawing near. Jesus' final return will be like lightening filling the sky. He will come on cloud in great glory! As the discourse continues in Matthew 24 - 25 we read about the following:     ⁃    Fig Tree Imagery - Jesus prophesies that the end is near when we again see Israel beginning to flourish then we know “summer is near” (the end is coming)     ⁃    Jesus says, “This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”  THIS GENERATION - generation in Greek has multiple meanings - one meaning refers to “this people” the other to “this nation” and in Aramaic (Jesus' language of the day) the word for generation and the word for nation are the same word. It may well be that what Jesus is declaring is that the Jewish people will not come to an end - they will survive. And they have.     ⁃    Judgement by fire     ⁃    Be awake!     ⁃    Do not grow weary in doing what is right     ⁃    Follow Jesus - receive Him as King, Savior and Lord     ⁃    Last days and times will be difficult - so we are called to walk close to God     ⁃    Then Jesus shares several parables to emphasize what He has been teaching.     ⁃    The Parable of the Ten Virgins - Be ready for Jesus' return.  Pastor shares what Jewish weddings were like in Jesus' day and how knowing that brings insight to this parable to be encouraged to be awake and to be ready for Christ's return. Join us next time as we continue with the story of “Up to Jerusalem” as Jesus travels to the cross. Our website –  https://www.awakeusnow.com Watch the video from our website! https://www.awakeusnow.com/2-year-study-of-the-gospels-upper Watch the video from our YouTube Channel!! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTaaqrC3dMOzMkhPyiNWwlJRpV6Bwpu01 Up to Jerusalem is a study of the final weeks of Jesus' ministry concluding with His resurrection and ascension, using the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John together with material from ancient sources and recent discoveries.  Up to Jerusalem is part four of our Two Year Study of the Gospels. Up To Jerusalem is the story of the plan of God to redeem the world, and the story of a Savior willing to obey the Father's plan. As we study Jesus' final days, we will be impacted as we discover the Love of God for each one of us.  This study is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time.

October 7, 2023 - The Hamas terrorist attack was Israel's “911.”  I, Sam, a Christian, traveled with 14 Jews, none of whom I knew beforehand, but all of whom I came to love, to war-torn Israel on a “solidarity“ trip.  Join me as I relate my experiences with freed hostages, wounded soldiers, military officers and high ranking government officials, amidst earth-shaking artillery, and emotionally draining yet incredibly inspiring encounters with victims and heroes.

Today's guest, historian Steve Mason, has called Josephus's The Jewish War "perhaps the most influential non-biblical text of Western history." And he's got a point! Read alongside the Bible, The Jewish War tells the "rest of the story" — specifically, how the Romans came to destroy the Temple in 70 CE. The trouble is, The Jewish War isn't "history" in the modern sense. It's a narrative written to make moral arguments about "good" and "bad" leaders in both Jerusalem and Rome. In today's episode, Mason explains how historians like himself try to reconstruct the past from a wide variety of sources, not just narrative.To learn much (much) more, check out some of Steve's excellent books:A History of the Jewish War, AD 66-74 (2016)Josephus and the New Testament (2002)Jews and Christians in the Roman World: From Historical Method to Cases (2023)SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINEIf you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting the show through the Time Travelers Club, our Patreon. We love making the show, but since we don't run ads we rely on listener contributions to cover our costs. Please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a $5/month subscription.DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHYCheck out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

Malcolm Flex joins Stew to discuss the Daniel Penny verdict: NOT GUILTY!   Sam Parker joins Stew to discuss the untold truth about Pearl Harbor, and how it connects to Isael, Ukraine and Syria!   Stew Peters goes off on the Jewish War Machine DESTROYING Syria as Greater Israel, New Khazaria Take Shape   Watch this new show NOW at https://StewPeters.com!   The world needs to know the truth that fake history has concealed. WATCH Old World Order, and find out more at: https://stewpeters.com/owo/   Become an SPN member to gain access to exclusive content and unlock premiere benefits, including personal interactions with Stew, VIP event tickets, and live giveaways. https://stewpeters.locals.com/   Check out the Stew Peters Store for all things Stew Crew merchandise and more! https://spnstore.com/   These loyal and courageous sponsors chose to stand with us despite the cancel culture backlash. Support their bravery below: Red light therapy is scientifically proven to prevent and beat cancer, autoimmune disease, thyroid disease, arthritis, dementia, and tinnitus while achieving great results with weight loss, wrinkles, acne, and stem cell regeneration. Watch medical journalist Jonathan Otto's free training and get the best at-home red light therapy devices at the lowest prices. Go to: https://myredlight.com and use the promo code STEW10 for an additional 10% off your order!    Cortez Wealth Management makes financial planning for you and your family. Find out how you can rely on this America First financial advisory and get your retirement plan today by calling 813-448-3446 or by visiting https://cortezwm.com   Please support your child's natural immunity as we send them back into the school year with Z-Spike Gummies and use code SPN for buy one get one 15% off at:  https://zstacklife.com/spn   Don't miss your chance to own this one-of-a-kind Holocaust encyclopedia. You can get yours by visiting http://holocaustencyclopedia.com/ or at https://armreg.co.uk/product/holocaust-encyclopedia/ using promo code “stewlikesbooks” for 15% off your order.   Preserve heart health and be the best version of yourself with Cardio Miracle by checking out: http://HighPowerHeart.com.   Kuribl- We have products to help manage your stress through the holidays; visit https://kuribl.com/ Use promo code “Stew20” for 20% off. Extra 10% off for 72 hours. (Total 30%) Spotlight products this month - 3000mg CBD oil Mint https://kuribl.com/collections/kuribl-premium-tinctures/products/kuribl-3000mgs-premium-mint-tincture - 3000mg CBD oil cinnamon https://kuribl.com/collections/kuribl-premium-tinctures/products/premium-kuribl-cinnamon-3000mgs. Nutronics Labs' Testosterone Booster: Man's Edge with NO2 - visit https://getigf1.com and use code “STEW.”  Mastering Mental Health with Diana Ketterman. You can get her new book, TRUTH IS NOT OF THIS WORLD, right now by visiting https://authordianaketterman.com/. Diana wrote this book to educate Christians who believe the Scofield Bible; there is a difference between Biblical Israel and Rothschild Israel. DON'T BE THE LAST TO KNOW! Visit Https://EuropaTheLastBattle.net to watch Europa for free. Please consider buying a DVD copy. Available online at https://InvisibleEmpirePublishing.com/Europa. Europa The Last Battle is now for sale on Blu-Ray in 28 Languages!  Get it here  http://InvisibleEmpirePublishing.com/Europa Visit http://fieldofgreens.com and use promo code Stew!   Stay up-to-date with Stew by following him on all socials! Twitter: https://twitter.com/realstewpeters Telegram: https://t.me/stewpeters Gab: https://gab.com/RealStewPeters Youtube: https://youtube.com/stewpeters

This week, we’re coming to you live from Mancini's Steakhouse for the Jewish War Veterans Annual Membership Dinner, co-hosted with the Department Commander of the Jewish War Veterans, Department of Minnesota. We’ll dive into the history of Mancini's and its support for the military community, meet with the National Commander, and gain insight from the […] The post Jewish War Veterans Annual Membership Dinner appeared first on Minnesota Military Radio.

To join The Church History Project Facebook group and engage in more discussion about released episodes and other fascinating nuggets of church history, you can visit the page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. In this episode, we dive into the turbulent era of the Jewish War (66-73 AD) and explore its seismic impact on both Jewish and early Christian communities. Host Jared Luttjeboer walks us through the causes of the conflict, the brutal Roman siege of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. We'll discuss how this pivotal event fulfilled Jesus' prophecy, shifted theological perspectives, and reshaped the early Church. Episode Overview The episode provides a comprehensive look at the Jewish War, beginning with the political, economic, and religious tensions that fueled the rebellion. Key topics include: Causes of the Jewish War: Economic oppression, political corruption, and religious desecration by Roman authorities, which led to widespread unrest and the rise of revolutionary groups. Key Battles: Early Jewish victories, such as at Beth Horon, and significant Roman sieges, including the fall of Jotapata and Jerusalem. Theological Impact: Jesus' prophecy about the Temple's destruction and its perceived fulfillment, strengthening early Christian identity and the theological shift away from the Temple. Jewish and Christian Transformations: The episode examines the rise of Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity's new mission focus, setting the stage for future global evangelism. Discussion Questions for Small Groups: Jesus prophesied the fall of Jerusalem, which was fulfilled in 70 AD. How does this demonstrate Christ's authority over history, and how should this impact our faith in His promises today? What does the fall of Jerusalem teach us about the seriousness of sin and the consequences of rejecting God's call? Are there areas in our own lives where we might be resisting Him? With the destruction of the Temple, early Christians saw Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice, ending the old covenant. How can this understanding deepen our appreciation for Christ's sacrifice? For other questions and comments, feel free to reach out to Jared at thechurchhistoryproject@gmail.com. For more content, visit the podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or wherever you find your podcasts.

It sounds kind of final. It sounds kind of world-ending. What's hard is what Revelation shows us, and maybe we miss it because we don’t study enough Old Testament prophets, maybe we just don’t like to saturate in this truth, I don’t know - but God is capable of great wrath. He is capable of horrific judgment. He is the Sovereign over it.

It sounds kind of final. It sounds kind of world-ending. What's hard is what Revelation shows us, and maybe we miss it because we don’t study enough Old Testament prophets, maybe we just don’t like to saturate in this truth, I don’t know - but God is capable of great wrath. He is capable of horrific judgment. He is the Sovereign over it.

Revelation feels so otherworldly. It feels like a science fiction novel placed at the end of a rather large chunk of books that are timeless, ancient, but timeless. The Bible opens with us getting to know Yahweh, getting to know Jesus and His followers, and then right smack dab on the end, we're taught,” “And this Book is about a whole new cast of characters and dramas yet to take place,” and it felt like throwing in – I don’t know – a platypus at the long line of a cat, a mountain lion, a leopard, and a lion, and then here’s a platypus. That’s Revelation. Or is it?

Revelation feels so otherworldly. It feels like a science fiction novel placed at the end of a rather large chunk of books that are timeless, ancient, but timeless. The Bible opens with us getting to know Yahweh, getting to know Jesus and His followers, and then right smack dab on the end, we're taught,” “And this Book is about a whole new cast of characters and dramas yet to take place,” and it felt like throwing in – I don’t know – a platypus at the long line of a cat, a mountain lion, a leopard, and a lion, and then here’s a platypus. That’s Revelation. Or is it?

A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity St. Luke 16:1-9 by William Klock The Pharisees and the legal experts were grumbling.  They'd come to meet with Jesus, but as Luke tells us, the tax-collectors and the sinners were coming close to Jesus and listening to him.  The Pharisees didn't associate with people like that and neither should Jesus, if he really was the Messiah.  You can practically hear their teeth grinding as that one Pharisee spits out with disdain and disgust, “This fellow welcomes sinners!  He even eats with them!”  If the kingdom of God was ever going to come, it certainly wasn't going to come that way! But Jesus, oh so patiently, sat down in response and told them a series of three stories.  We know them well.  He started with a story about a shepherd hunting high and low for a lost sheep.  And then he told a second story about a poor old widow hunting high and low for a precious lost coin.  And he told—you could see the joy on his face as he said it—he told how the shepherd rejoiced when he found his lost sheep and how the widow rejoiced when she found her lost coin.  And he looked at the Pharisees with that look that only Jesus could give and asked, “Wouldn't you rejoice, too, if that were you?  The heavenly court rejoices like that when a sinner repents?  Why can't you?”  And then the third story, the one about the presumptuous ne'er-do-well son who demanded an early inheritance from his father, then went off to live like a reprobate in a foreign, pagan land and only wised up when he squandered his last penny.  The lost son went home to his father, who rejoiced, just like the shepherd and the widow.  What was lost had been found.  But the boy's older brother refused to join in the celebration.  He got angry and raged at his father: “This son of yours squandered your livelihood with his whores, and now you've killed the fattened calf for him!”  Like the Pharisees, he sat out in the darkness grumbling over repentant sinners.  They were the longsuffering faithful ones.  When the Messiah comes, he was supposed to throw a party for them! That third story, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, is supposed to be our Gospel today, but it wasn't always.  Back in the late 1920s the men who revised the Prayer Book—in the US and in Scotland—they changed it.  Before that—and still in Prayer Books in other countries—the Gospel for today is the bit of Luke that comes next, right after the story of the prodigal son.  It was that way for well over a thousand years.  In part they changed the Gospel for today because of the rise of theological liberalism.  They had a watered down doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible and they came to think that some parts of the Bible weren't appropriate for public reading in the church.  But, I think, their main reason is that the traditional Gospel for today is really, really difficult.  Not necessarily difficult in the sense of being especially demanding on those of us who hear it (although it may be), but just plain difficult to understand.  What did Jesus mean?  It's not easy to say.  And so, when the Prayer Book was being revised, the folks in charge of the lectionary took the opportunity to take out a hard passage and to slip in an easy and familiar one.  And I've always preached on that easy and familiar story of the prodigal son, but today—maybe despite my better judgement—I'd like to look at that other Gospel, the one Christians were reading on this day going back maybe as far as fifteen-hundred years. Like I said, Jesus was telling those stories to the grumbling Pharisees in the fifteenth chapter of Luke, but then we turn the page to the sixteenth chapter and Luke said that “Jesus also said to his disciples…”  As Luke tells the story, there's no break.  Maybe we can grant that the Pharisees, offended by Jesus' parables, are walking away and it's now just the disciples.  There's a connection, somehow, between these two scenes.  Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and now he turns to his disciples and he also says: Once there was a rich man [a tycoon] who had a steward, and charges were laid against him that he was squandering his property.  So he called him in and said to him, “What's all this I hear bout you?  Present an account of your stewardship, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” He's fired—and for cause. So he [the now former manager] said to himself, “What am I going to do?  My master is taking my stewardship from me!  I can't do manual labour and I'm ashamed to beg… Ha!  I know what I'll do—so that people will welcome me into their houses after I'm fired from being steward.” So he called his master's debtors to him, one by one.  “How much,” he asked the first, “do you owe my master?” “A hundred measure of olive oil,” he replied “Take your bill,” he said, “sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” “To another he said, “And how much do you owe?” “A hundred measure of wheat,” he replied “Take your bill,” he said, “and make it eighty.” And the master praised the dishonest steward because he had acted wisely.  The children of this world, you see, are wiser than the children of light when it comes to dealing with their own generation. So I tell you this: use unrighteous wealth to make friends for yourselves.  Then when it gives out, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.   So what's going on and what's Jesus getting at.  The first part of that isn't has hard as the second.  This man had a very desirable job.  Some men were known to sell themselves into slavery to be this kind of manger for a rich estate.  Think of Joseph in Egypt managing all of Potiphar's affairs.  It was prestigious and the pay was very good, but it also obviously required a high level of trust.  The manager managed while the rich man was off in the world enjoying his profits.  But in this case something went wrong.  When Jesus talks about this man squandering the business, he uses the same word he used to describe the prodigal son squandering his inheritance.  While the cats away, the mouse gets to playing and suddenly the cheques going out to the rich man are getting smaller.  So the rich man comes home to fire his manager and to find someone who will keep the profits rolling in consistently. But since they didn't keep records the way we do, the rich man demands his manager—as his last duty—provide him with an accounting of the business that he can give to whomever he hires as his new manager.  But when the manager leaves the meeting, he's not thinking about his accounting.  He's desperately thinking how he can maintain the good life he's become accustomed to.  He's not going to go out and dig ditches and he's too proud to beg.  But then that account.  He gets a brilliant idea. He starts calling in the rich man's debtors.  In each of them comes with the receipt for his loan.  The first man owes a hundred measures of oil.  The second one owes a hundred measures of wheat.  These are not small sums.  This is sort of the First Century equivalent of a military contract for feeding the army.  And he says to the first man, “Cross out one hundred and make it fifty.  To the second he says, “Cross out one hundred and make it eighty.”  You can imagine how happy the debtors were when they left those meetings.  They had a new best friend, which was exactly what the manager was going for. But what's he doing?  Because to us, at face value, it looks like he's taking advantage of his master not knowing the business and now he's ripping him off to ingratiate himself with these other men.  He was dishonest in his earlier management, but for what he does here, he gets praise from both the rich man and Jesus—and that doesn't make sense if he's just compounding his dishonestly and driving the business further into a hole.  This is why preachers avoid this parable and Prayer Book revisers drop it from the lectionary. If, however, we dig up the cultural and historical background to a text like this, it clears a lot up.[1]  When we do that we find that even though the torah forbade charging interest, it was still a common practise.  They had ways to keep it off the books.  Maybe the manager would call it his “commission” or they'd pad the receipt. You couldn't loan someone 10 denarii and write them a receipt for 10 denarii that also demanded an additional denarii each month or a penalty for late payment.  That was against the law.  But what you could do is loan someone 10 denarii and write them a receipt for 20.  They only borrowed ten.  You knew and they knew that the other 10 denarii were interest, but since the receipt simply indicated a debt of 20 denarii there was nothing anyone could do about it. So we figure out that on top of squandering the rich man's profits, the manager has also been charging interest or a “commission”.  That's what he writing off when he tells these men to write down their receipts.  Over and over he does this with each of his master's debtors.  Imagine how happy they are to have their debts cut so dramatically. When he left the meeting with his master he was out of work and knew that no one would hire him.  Word would get around about his dishonesty.  But now he's countered that.  He isn't really being honest—he's still motivated by self-preservation—but others might think that he's turned over a new leaf and that he's going to start doing business honestly.  Ultimately his goal is to ingratiate himself into their hospitality.  In verse 4 he thinks to himself that if he does this, these people will “receive” him into their houses.  In Greek he uses this same word when he tells each of his master's debtors to “take”—literally to “receive”—their bills.  He's expecting some quid pro quo, some tit for tat.  As they receive their reduced bills, with any luck he'll receive their gratitude and hospitality. And, as we read, in verse 8, the rich man, when he hears about all this, he commends him. The master praised the dishonest steward because he had acted wisely.   To be clear, Jesus isn't calling him the “dishonest steward” because he wrote off the interest.  That—even if the motive was selfish—that was actually an honest thing to do.  He was dishonest in his management—and, knowing how such people are, he's probably still dishonest—but the point now is that he has acted wisely to preserve himself in a difficult situation. That's the parable itself.  Knowing the background behind first century management and lending practises helps us sort out the difficulties of the story.  But understanding what the manager was up to is only half the reason this parable is so difficult.  We still have to ask what Jesus' point was in telling it. Jesus says to his disciples: The master praised the dishonest steward because he had acted wisely.  The children of this world, you see, are wiser than the children of light when it comes to dealing with their own generation. So I tell you this: use unrighteous wealth to make friends for yourselves.  Then when it gives out, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.   I can't help but think that even though Luke presents this as a parable, that it was probably a real story and that Jesus opened it saying something like, “You remember that guy—the guy who managed that huge estate over in Capernaum—the guy who got fired when he lost a whole year's profit in a shady business scheme and then got fired—remember that guy?”  Just maybe the rich man in the story was one of those grumbling Pharisees.  I say that, because Jesus' point is that people really do these kinds of things to save themselves from trouble.  They lie and they cheat and then when they get caught and trouble comes, like the dishonest manager, they scramble to fix things to stave off disaster.  And Jesus compares these shrewd or prudent “sons of this world” with the “sons of light”.  This is where the story becomes difficult again.  Who are the “sons of light”?  I've read some pretty good commentary that argues that the sons of light are Jesus' followers.  Jesus has been preaching that judgement is coming and here he's saying that they'd better use their worldly goods to find some way to escape it or find a way through it.  The problem is that if the sons of light are Jesus' disciples too many parts of the story don't add up.  It's a good idea, but it comes from a common way of approaching the gospels that ignores the real historical setting in which Jesus was living and preaching and, instead, spiritualises or tries to universalise his message as if he could be preaching to anyone anywhere. But Jesus didn't come to just anyone and he didn't come at some random time or some random place.  Jesus came at a strategic point in history and, more specifically, he came as the culmination and fulfilment of Israel's story.  Israel's mission was to carry the Lord's blessing to the nations, but she failed.  And so Jesus came, not just as the Messiah—not just as the long-expected king in the line of David.  He also came as Daniel's “Son of Man”—he came as Israel's representative.  He took up her mission and where she had failed, he succeeded.  Where the Lord's letter of redemption and restoration of creation had stalled out in Israel's post office, Jesus delivered it to the entire world. So at the core of Jesus' ministry was the proclamation that in him the kingdom had arrived and that in him God is now king.  And for these three years he spent proclaiming that message and travelling throughout Galilee and Judea, what he was really doing was calling Israel—the children of light—to follow him.  He was picking up where she had failed, but she could still take part in his mission if she would only cast aside her wrong ideas about God and his plan and follow Jesus as he manifested his lordship to the world, by seeking out the lost and by conquering sin and death as he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Jesus is preaching to Israel here.  He's giving commentary on her history and calling her to repentance.  And that means that the rich man in the story is the Lord.  He is rich.  He created the cosmos and he created humanity so that he could share his riches of love and grace with us.  And when we rebelled and rejected him, he called Abraham to carry his message of grace to the nations.  Abraham and then Israel, the nation descended from him, were called to be the Lord's managers in this world.  But just as the manager in the parable squandered his master's riches, Israel squandered the Lord's riches of grace.  And now judgement is coming.  The manager in the story saw judgement coming and had the sense to act decisively and to do something even though it meant giving up his riches.  But in contrast, as Israel faced the Lord's judgement for squandering his riches, most of the people were going about their lives as if they had nothing to worry about.  The Sadducees were firm in their denial of any need to change the status quo.  Of all the people in Israel, the Pharisees knew that something had to change and that the people had to turn to God.  But the solution of the Pharisees was to turn the light they had been given into darkness.  Instead of using the law God had given Israel as a means of carrying light into the darkness, the Pharisees kept the light to themselves and condemned everyone left in the dark.  Instead of seeking out the lost, they condemned them.  The law wasn't enough; they had to add to it, making it burdensome, not unlike the dishonest manager who had padded his debtor's bills with heavy interest loads. So in the parable, Jesus is warning Israel.  It's not just that judgement is coming, but to escape judgment, God's people had to act and they had to act now.  They had to repent and they had to repent now.  And that meant letting go and potentially giving up all the things they held dear.  We've seen Jesus pointing this direction throughout his ministry.  A new age and a new kingdom were coming in which blood ties with Abraham wouldn't matter anymore—what will matter is allegiance to Jesus the King.  He is Israel himself and true Israelites, true sons and daughters of Abraham, will be those who find their identity in him.  They also had to let go of the land, because this new kingdom isn't about a place—again, it's about Jesus himself.  And they had to let go of the temple.  In this new kingdom the Lord's presence is no longer found in temples of stone, but in hearts of flesh—in the hearts of those who are in Jesus and filled with the Spirit. Jesus says, “Use unrighteous wealth to make friends for yourselves.  Then when it gives out, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.”  These aren't easy words to translate and it's hard to say exactly what Jesus meant, but it seems that like the manager in the story, they—and we—need to be ready to give up the things of the kingdom that is passing away in order to be welcomed into the kingdom that is being inaugurated by Jesus.  This was Jesus' word of warning to his disciples, to the Pharisees, and to the people of Israel. And again, we need to remember the real history that surrounds and weaves its way through the New Testament.  Jesus wasn't warning the Jews of some far off spiritual day of reckoning; he was warning of imminent destruction coming in a very tangible and earthly way—before this generation passes away, he said.  Interestingly enough, the Jerusalem Church escaped when the judgement Jesus warned about came to Jerusalem.  Josephus in his Jewish War and Eusebius in his History of the Church both tell us that the Christians received a divine warning and fled to Pella, in what it now Jordan.  They took the decisive action Jesus talks about in the parable, they left everything behind, and they were spared when the Romans destroyed the city and the temple. Brothers and sisters, the fulfilment of Jesus' promise of judgement in the First Century serves as a warning to us that his promise of final judgement will also be fulfilled.  And so we now need to ask if we've been good and honest stewards of God's grace.  Have we been good and honest stewards of the Good News?  Have we lived it?  Have we proclaimed it?  Or have we kept it to ourselves?  Have we become self-righteous and used our kingdom status to condemn the lost rather than to seek them out?  Have we added heavy burdens to the Good News?  The heart of the Good News is that Jesus is Lord, but like the dishonest manager, are we trying to get our cut too—lining our pockets or feeding our spiritual pride?  Or are we preaching the unfettered Good News that Jesus is Lord and that at the cross and at the grave he conquered sin and death. And to what do we hold too closely?  Is our priority in life the wealth that Jesus talks about in the story?  Whether rich or poor, we have a powerful tendency to hold on to money and possessions for security.  But brothers and sisters, money and possessions are part of the kingdom that is passing away.  Even the dishonest manager understood that.  All his profit would do him no good when judgement came, and so he let it go that he might find a way to survive in what was for him a new age.  The same goes for us.  Are we clinging to the things of this fading kingdom—to things that will not last or that will be of no value in the kingdom of God—or are we using them as tools to further God's kingdom and God's plans and to ensure that we have a place in his kingdom? Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, we pray, the spirit always to think and do those things that are right; that we who cannot do anything good without you, may in your strength live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. [1] See J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Fresh Light on St Luke xvi.1. The Parable of the Unjust Steward,” in New Testament Studies 7 (1960-61), pp. 198-219 and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Story of the Dishonest Manager (Lk 16:1-13),” in Theological Studies 25 (1964), pp. 23-42.

J.J. and Dr. Martin Goodman go antiquing! They discuss the most important Jewish historian of the Roman period–Josephus Flavius. What did he write? Who was he writing for? And what ideological framework motivated his histories? Please send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMartin Goodman is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He has written extensively on Jewish and Roman history. His books include Rome and Jerusalem (2007), A History of Judaism (2017), Josephus's The Jewish War: a Biography (2019), and, most recently, Herod the Great: Jewish King in a Roman World (2024).

What did ancient Jews believe about the mission of their Messiah? Were they expecting a kind of warrior king who would defeat the Gentiles and reign as king over all the earth, or one who would atone for sin through his own sacrificial death? On this episode, Shane discusses these questions as he interacts with a variety of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources that give us insight into the way Jews before and after the time of Jesus attempted to interpret some of the messianic prophecies recorded in the pages of the Old Testament.To download a PDF copy of the lecture slides for this presentation, use the link below:SHOW NOTESRelated ArticlesSprinkled Nations & Speechless Kings, Shane RosenthalA Dead Sea Scroll Hymn on the Suffering Servant, Shane RosenthalFinding Christ in All The Scriptures, Shane RosenthalProof of the Gospel, Quotes from Eusebius, Augustine & othersWhy Should We Believe The Bible? (PDF), Shane RosenthalDid Palm Trees Grow in Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus?, Shane RosenthalWhere Was Jesus Crucified?, Shane RosenthalConsidering Alternatives to the Resurrection, Shane RosenthalRelated BooksHolman Quicksource Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Craig EvansA Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, Craig EvansA Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Gospels, Craig EvansJosephus, Jewish War Vol. III, (This edition includes some Slavonic material)Josephus' Jewish War and its Slavonic Version, Henry & Kate LeemingThe Gospel According to Isaiah 53, Darrell Bock & othersThe Jewish Gospels, Daniel BoyarinThe Jewish Annotated New Testament, Daniel Boyarin & others“Son of Man” in Early Jewish Literature, Richard BauckhamThe Jewish Targums & John's Logos Theology, John RonningThe Angel of the Lord. Doug Van Dorn & Matt ForemanThe Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy, Rydelnik & BlumThe Life & Times of Jesus The Messiah, Alfred EdersheimProof of the Gospel, Eusebius of CaesareaRelated AudioJewish Views of the Messiah, with Daniel BoyarinWhat Did the Earliest Christians Believe?, Humble Skeptic #25The Earliest Gospel, Humble Skeptic #45 Were Jews Expecting a Divine Messiah?, WHI 1243 with Craig EvansThe Gospel Creed, Humble Skeptic #9Locating Golgotha, Humble Skeptic #17What Child Is This?, a bonus episode of the Humble SkepticUpcoming Events• Shane will be the keynote speaker at The Cross & Resurrection conference in the greater Memphis region on March 22-24, 2024 (click here for more info or to register).• On Wed. March 27th at 6:30 pm, Shane will be discussing “Objections to the Resurrection” at Christ Presbyterian Church in St. Charles, MO.• Greg Koukl, Shane Rosenthal & Jeremy Smith will be speaking on apologetics-related topics at The Fellowship of Wildwood in the St. Louis area on April 7, 2024. Greg Koukl will also be speaking at the Creating Confident Ambassadors conference at First Baptist Church—St. John on Saturday, April 6th in St. Louis.• Shane will be discussing the question, “Is Faith Blind & Irrational?” at Third Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday, April 28th (more info will be available soon).• Shane will be one of the speakers at the ReThink315 College Camp which will take place on the campus of St. Louis University, July 16-19, 2024.• On Wed. Sept. 18th, Shane will discuss the question, “Is Faith Blind & Irrational?” at an event in Cedar City, Utah (more details coming soon).• For more information, or to invite Shane Rosenthal to speak at your next event, send an email to: INFO at HUMBLESKEPTIC dot COM. Write a Positive ReviewIf you're a fan of the show, consider writing a brief review to let others know what you like about it (preferably via the Apple Podcast app since their reviews can be seen in other podcast portals). The more positive reviews we get, the more exposure we get!We Need Your Help!Consider supporting The Humble Skeptic podcast by making a one-time gift or upgrading to a paid subscription via Substack ($5.95 per month, $59 per year). Tax-deductible giving options are also available. Get full access to The Humble Skeptic at www.humbleskeptic.com/subscribe

This week we learn about the mission of the Eagle Group of Minnesota Veterans, meet with the Commander of the JWVMN and get an update from the MN Patriot Guard. Guests include: Brad Doboszenski – The Eagle Group of Minnesota Veterans Alan Hill – The Eagle Group of Minnesota Veterans Commander Stewart Mednick – Jewish […] The post The Eagle Group of MN and Jewish War Veterans appeared first on Minnesota Military Radio.

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and […]

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School.

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/israel-studies

How should we think about violent accounts in the Bible? Why did Gandhi urge the Jews to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism during World War II? What is the reality behind buzz-words like asymmetric warfare and collective punishment that come up so often when discussing events in Gaza? What role should global opinion and the hostage crisis play in Israeli strategy? Is there a moral imperative to win? Jewish ethicist Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody discusses these questions and more in this discussion of his recent book Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. This conversation examines how history and ethics bear on modern dilemmas in Gaza, and presents vital information and historical context for thinking about how to respond to the events of October 7. Shlomo Brody is the Executive Director of Ematai, an organization which provides guidance to Jewish families and rabbis surrounding morally difficult health issues such as end-of-life care and organ donation. He is also the Jewish Law Live columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has previously served as the founding director of the Tikvah Overseas Student Institute and co-dean of Tikvah Online Academy, a senior instructor at Yeshivat Hakotel, and as a junior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His writings have been cited in Israeli Supreme Court decisions and appeared in a wide variety of publications including First Things, Tablet, The Forward, and the Jewish Review of Books. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an MA in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University, and his PhD from Bar Ilan University Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.  Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. In Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (UNC Press, 2023), she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Paul Lerner is Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He can be reached at plerner@usc.edu and @PFLerner.

In the ravages of post-World War II Europe, some Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust found the beginnings of a new life when they met – and married – American (and Canadian and British) men serving with the Allied forces. These women were part of a much larger group of war brides, who came to the United States in such large numbers that they required a change in immigration law, but these Jewish war brides faced additional challenges, from language barriers to the memory of the trauma they'd experienced to finding a community in their new home. Dr. Robin Judd, Associate Professor of History at the Ohio State University and author of Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides after the Holocaust, joins this episode to help us explore the story of these women. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Hava Nagila - Orchestra Clarinet,” by JuliusH, available for use via the Pixabay content license.  The episode image is “Hanns Ann Alexander wedding 1946,” taken on May 19, 1946, and posted on Flickr by David Lisbona; the image was adapted for use under CC BY 2.0 DEED. Additional Sources: “Displaced Persons,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Coming To America: The War Brides Act of 1945,” The National WWII Museum, December 28, 2020. “Here Came The War Brides 60 Years Ago, a Vast Wave of British Women Followed Their New Loves to a New Land,” by Tamara Jones, The Washington Post, February 12, 2006. “Band of Sisters,” by Sarah Kewshaw, The New York Times, July 6, 2008. “America Denied Refugees After the End of World War II—Just As We Are Today,” by David Nasaw, Time Magazine, September 17, 2020. “Statement by the President Upon Signing the Displaced Persons Act,” Harry S. Truman, June 25, 1948, Truman Library. “Flory Jagoda: Singer Songwriter, Storyteller, and Composer,” Ladino Music Today as a Tool of Storytelling and Preservation, Curated by Laurel Comiter, Gabriel Mordoch, and Gabriel Duque, University of Michigan Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Steven B. Bowman about his book Sepher Yosippon: A Tenth-Century History of Ancient Israel (Wayne State UP, 2022). Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend from Adam to the destruction of the Second Temple, this is the first known text since the canonical histories written by Flavius Josephus in Greek and later translated by Christian scholars into Latin. Sepher Yosippon has been cited and referred to by scholars, poets, and authors as the authentic source for ancient Israel for over a millennium, until overshadowed by the twentieth-century Hebrew translations of Josephus. It is based on Pseudo Hegesippus's fourth-century anti-Jewish summary of Josephus's Jewish War. However, the anonymous author [a.k.a. Joseph ben Gurion Hacohen] also consulted with the Latin versions of Josephus's works available to him. At the same time, he included a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources. This book contains Steven Bowman's translation of the complete text of David Flusser's standard Hebrew edition of Sepher Yosippon, which includes the later medieval interpolations referring to Jesus. The present English edition also contains the translator's introduction as well as a preface by the fifteenth-century publisher of the book. The anonymous author of this text remains unique for his approach to history, his use of sources, and his almost secular attitude, which challenges the modern picture of medieval Jews living in a religious age. In his influential novel, A Guest for the Night, the Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon emphasized the importance of Sepher Yosippon as a valuable reading to understand human nature. Bowman's translation of Flusser's notes, as well as his own scholarship, offers a well-wrought story for scholars and students interested in Jewish legend and history in the medieval period, Jewish studies, medieval literature, and folklore studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today I talked to Steven B. Bowman about his book Sepher Yosippon: A Tenth-Century History of Ancient Israel (Wayne State UP, 2022). Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend from Adam to the destruction of the Second Temple, this is the first known text since the canonical histories written by Flavius Josephus in Greek and later translated by Christian scholars into Latin. Sepher Yosippon has been cited and referred to by scholars, poets, and authors as the authentic source for ancient Israel for over a millennium, until overshadowed by the twentieth-century Hebrew translations of Josephus. It is based on Pseudo Hegesippus's fourth-century anti-Jewish summary of Josephus's Jewish War. However, the anonymous author [a.k.a. Joseph ben Gurion Hacohen] also consulted with the Latin versions of Josephus's works available to him. At the same time, he included a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources. This book contains Steven Bowman's translation of the complete text of David Flusser's standard Hebrew edition of Sepher Yosippon, which includes the later medieval interpolations referring to Jesus. The present English edition also contains the translator's introduction as well as a preface by the fifteenth-century publisher of the book. The anonymous author of this text remains unique for his approach to history, his use of sources, and his almost secular attitude, which challenges the modern picture of medieval Jews living in a religious age. In his influential novel, A Guest for the Night, the Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon emphasized the importance of Sepher Yosippon as a valuable reading to understand human nature. Bowman's translation of Flusser's notes, as well as his own scholarship, offers a well-wrought story for scholars and students interested in Jewish legend and history in the medieval period, Jewish studies, medieval literature, and folklore studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Today I talked to Steven B. Bowman about his book Sepher Yosippon: A Tenth-Century History of Ancient Israel (Wayne State UP, 2022). Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend from Adam to the destruction of the Second Temple, this is the first known text since the canonical histories written by Flavius Josephus in Greek and later translated by Christian scholars into Latin. Sepher Yosippon has been cited and referred to by scholars, poets, and authors as the authentic source for ancient Israel for over a millennium, until overshadowed by the twentieth-century Hebrew translations of Josephus. It is based on Pseudo Hegesippus's fourth-century anti-Jewish summary of Josephus's Jewish War. However, the anonymous author [a.k.a. Joseph ben Gurion Hacohen] also consulted with the Latin versions of Josephus's works available to him. At the same time, he included a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources. This book contains Steven Bowman's translation of the complete text of David Flusser's standard Hebrew edition of Sepher Yosippon, which includes the later medieval interpolations referring to Jesus. The present English edition also contains the translator's introduction as well as a preface by the fifteenth-century publisher of the book. The anonymous author of this text remains unique for his approach to history, his use of sources, and his almost secular attitude, which challenges the modern picture of medieval Jews living in a religious age. In his influential novel, A Guest for the Night, the Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon emphasized the importance of Sepher Yosippon as a valuable reading to understand human nature. Bowman's translation of Flusser's notes, as well as his own scholarship, offers a well-wrought story for scholars and students interested in Jewish legend and history in the medieval period, Jewish studies, medieval literature, and folklore studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Today I talked to Steven B. Bowman about his book Sepher Yosippon: A Tenth-Century History of Ancient Israel (Wayne State UP, 2022). Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend from Adam to the destruction of the Second Temple, this is the first known text since the canonical histories written by Flavius Josephus in Greek and later translated by Christian scholars into Latin. Sepher Yosippon has been cited and referred to by scholars, poets, and authors as the authentic source for ancient Israel for over a millennium, until overshadowed by the twentieth-century Hebrew translations of Josephus. It is based on Pseudo Hegesippus's fourth-century anti-Jewish summary of Josephus's Jewish War. However, the anonymous author [a.k.a. Joseph ben Gurion Hacohen] also consulted with the Latin versions of Josephus's works available to him. At the same time, he included a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources. This book contains Steven Bowman's translation of the complete text of David Flusser's standard Hebrew edition of Sepher Yosippon, which includes the later medieval interpolations referring to Jesus. The present English edition also contains the translator's introduction as well as a preface by the fifteenth-century publisher of the book. The anonymous author of this text remains unique for his approach to history, his use of sources, and his almost secular attitude, which challenges the modern picture of medieval Jews living in a religious age. In his influential novel, A Guest for the Night, the Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon emphasized the importance of Sepher Yosippon as a valuable reading to understand human nature. Bowman's translation of Flusser's notes, as well as his own scholarship, offers a well-wrought story for scholars and students interested in Jewish legend and history in the medieval period, Jewish studies, medieval literature, and folklore studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Jewish Wars

HARDCORE CHRISTIANITY - The Jewish Wars MondaySupport the show: https://hardcorechristianity.com/donations/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Recently Tom Huszti interviewed me for his YouTube channel, the Unitarian Anabaptist. We talked about the importance of geography, archeology, and Greco-Roman history for interpreting the bible, especially the New Testament. Next we delved into early church history, starting with the earliest forms of Jewish Christianity in the first and second centuries. We talked about the Jerusalem church, the Nazarenes, and the Ebionites. Next we considered the persecution many Christians faced at the hands of the Romans for their unwillingness to give their ultimate allegiance to Caesar. The conversation was wide ranging, but what came through over and over is the importance of studying the bible and history in order to restore authentic Christianity and live it out today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KefOimH6ZU —— Links —— For the trip to Greece and Turkey with Jerry Wierwille, see the itinerary here and the map here. Follow Huszti's YouTube Channel, the Unitarian Anabaptist Check out episode 478 Unitarian Anabaptist (Tom Huszti)  Get the free class on Early Church History here. Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Transcript —— This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan:Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to restart studio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. Tom Huszti: Sean Finnegan, welcome to Unitarian Anabaptist. Sean Finnegan: Thanks for having me. Tom Huszti: So this has been a long time in the waiting. I was interviewed by you about 8 months ago and now you're being interviewed by the Unitarian Anabaptist. What a privilege there is. A lot that you have to say today in the limited time that we're going to do this, you just came back from a trip of Italy and Greece. You finished a 500 year history of the early church. There's just so much interrelated and what I would like to do, as we discussed earlier is to relate these things back to the 1st century faith of our early Christian brethren. So to begin, could you give us a summary of the important highlights that you saw on your trip related to church history? Sean Finnegan: Yeah, we ended up going to a number of touristy spots in Greece like Santorini and Mykonos, but we also hit Athens and we came into the port of Piraeus and then got to the city of Athens and and the first thing that I will note. And anyone who's been to the Mediterranean in August will. We'll know what I'm about to say is. That it's hot. It's a very.SpeakerHot part of the. Sean Finnegan: World. So is the Middle East, so it's it's. It's interesting that, you know, like times I've been to Israel, times have been to Greece or Turkey. It is a very different climate than what I'm used to here in New York or you in Ohio there. Tom Huszti: Sure. Yes, yes, absolutely. Uh. Sean Finnegan: And you know that that. Brings to mind the importance of water. Hmm. And something that really stuck out to me in Israel I. Would have never. Gotten that from reading books, but going to Israel you go to these ancient sites and. These cisterns dug into the ground these huge caverns to store water because it doesn't rain that much water is is still a big deal in the 1st century in Rome in.SpeakerYes. Yeah. Sean Finnegan: Other cities Pompeii also got to visit Pompeii. Tom Huszti: A lot. Sean Finnegan: And they brought. The water in through aqueducts and this is. All part of. Their system of city structure, but the question. Who pays for the aqueducts? Who pays for the bath houses? You know, I got to see some bath houses in Pompeii where you had the the frigidarium, the tepidarium and the calidore. Yum, you know, and this is the really cold water, the tepid water and the hot water. And this is just what people did. These are these are public facilities. This actually ended up having a great deal of prestige. As wealthy people step forward and this happened in the 1st century, but also in the the 2nd century, was really the heyday of this period, where wealthy people would come forward and they would donate money to build these public works and they would build other great structures like theaters. And whatnot. And these would then be the ones who controlled the cities and won political office. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: And so it's a very different kind of world, you know, just like I don't think about water, I don't think. About wealthy people building bath houses or pools, right? It's just we, you know, we pay taxes and then, you know, we argue about the police. It's just a very different world. And that was really driven home to me on the trip, you know, in Athens, you're on the Acropolis and you're seeing the Parthenon and some of the other structures that still remain. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: It's just like this is an utterly different world, and it's just so helpful to remember that Tom because. We don't do that when we read the Bible, what we do is we just. We have what we. Understand the world to be, and then we encounter the scripture. We read the text and then we think to ourselves. How can I incorporate this new information? I'm reading about the book of acts or one of the church epistles. For example, how do I incorporate that into what? I know about the world. This is an automatic process and the problem is if you don't force yourself to stop and say wait, they lived in a different world where they had different. Different language, different politics, different weather, different everything. Then you can easily misunderstand so much of the New Testament I. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: Think that's a? Lot of what we as pastors do is we're trying to help people understand the scriptures. So the trip was really enlightening in that sense. Also, I'll make another quick point about it is that we did manage to go to the very edge of Mount Vesuvius. Now Mount Vesuvius blew in 79 AD 79, and that's what killed all the people in Pompeii and Herculaneum. And so they say it's still an active volcano. But you can take a.SpeakerOK. Sean Finnegan: Bus all the way up to the top and then you hike until. Tom Huszti: What's the way? Sean Finnegan: You get to the very crater. You can look down into the crater and it's just incredible. It's just dirt and some like grass and stuff. There's no like lava. Or anything cool but. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: It's just a weird experience to like, stand on the edge of an active volcano and think, wow. This thing blew. And you could kind of see why ancient people were like, ohh, the gods are angry, right? Because. Like who would it? Tom Huszti: Uh-huh. Well, yeah. Sean Finnegan: There's no one in living memory of seeing this thing blow the last time, and it's just such a otherworldly power, sure. Tom Huszti: How far is Pompeii from Rome? Sean Finnegan: I think about two hours. If I had to guess something like that, so we approached. Tom Huszti: Ohh that far OK. Sean Finnegan: Pompeii, from Naples, Naples, is on the. Coast came at it from the West to get to Pompeii in the east, and then you get to Vesuvius and. At the top. Of the Zeus, you can see everything you can see just miles and miles in different cities and. It's really incredible. Tom Huszti: My, my. So how far did the lava have to travel to make it to Pompeii from? Sean Finnegan: Well, wasn't it? They didn't get buried in lava, actually. Yeah, you, you. You would, I guess you would expect that, but it was, it was a I think it was a toxic gas. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: That swept through it well. Initially it was uh. Was launching projectiles and ash and rock straight up, and then that fell because of the wind onto the city and so that, you know, imagine like a hail storm, but with stones and bigger ones and smaller ones. But then a gas came from the mountain and. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: I believe that's what happened and it killed the people, but then it continued to rain. Ash, I think they said like 20 feet of ash, something crazy. Tom Huszti: Oh wow. OK.Speaker 5And it just. Sean Finnegan: Settled on the city and people just didn't have a reason to go there for anything or I'm. I'm not really sure why, but it just laid there. Century after century, and I'm not sure exactly when. Maybe in the 1700s eighteen, 100 something something around there, they're just like, hey, I think we found. A city over here, you know? Archaeology. Just finally gets started. And what happened, Tom, is they would come against these air pockets. So they're digging through. And they hit like a pocket of air and they're. Like this is so weird. What is this? And someone got the bright idea of. Of squeezing into it some plaster, yeah. Tom Huszti: plaster plaster. OK OK. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, if you have you seen these images? Tom Huszti: Yeah, I have. Yeah. That's what I was wondering. OK. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Yeah. And so then they let it dry and harden, and then they chip around it and then they see the exact shape of a human being. Sometimes even with fine detail. Of like facial expressions and stuff. That's kind of become their customers when they hit an air cavity. They just do that and there there are lots of these casts of human beings in various positions. And what's crazy about them is it's. Just like a. Plaster, but inside the plaster are that person. 'S actual bones. Tom Huszti: Yeah. I was gonna ask. OK. I was gonna ask, you know, something that you mentioned to me back. Louisville, KY, was the length of time that bones. Yeah. And we were talking about resurrection and literal resurrection. And you mentioned that bones last a long time. That's something I really was impressed by something that Rabbi Tovia singer was speaking out against being cremated because. Because the bones are supposed to be the material that used for in part anyhow to reconstitute us as human beings in the resurrection. So that view is very Jewish in origin, as you well know. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, I tend to agree with Rabbi Tovia singer on that. I'm not a fan of cremation. I'm not going to say it's going to defeat God's ability to resurrect somebody, feel like that's a pretty extreme position to take. But I have learned a lot and I know you've been to Israel and you've stood on the Mount of olives and you see. Well, the the tombs there that are, I don't know why they're buried above ground, but they're all these stone rectangles and or stone boxes, really rectangular shaped boxes and inside are the bones. And it's like, well, what's the deal with this? Why are they so worried about bones or not worried but concerned about bones and focused and. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: About caring for the bones and you know they have these ossuaries where you know they they found Caiaphas ossuary. Tom Huszti: I know I saw it when I was in Israel. Sean Finnegan: Incredible ornate. Tom Huszti: In the Israel, yeah. In the Israel hit Natural History Museum of all places, back in 2004, I was shocked. Sean Finnegan: Isn't it beautiful? Tom Huszti: Well, well, it's a beautiful ossuary, but what was most shocking was the was the plaque beside it. The plaque, the plaque beside it, said this was the high priest in the days of Jesus that was responsible for his crucifixion. And I thought to see that advertised in the Israel. Sean Finnegan: Oh, what did it say? Tom Huszti: Natural History Museum was just shocking because it's a recognition that this thing happened and this is the man responsible to it. I was, yeah, that was the last thing I saw in the museum on my way out because we were we had a very short time frame and it was at the entrance of the. Museum so we saw it as we exited. Very cool. Fascinating, yes. Sean Finnegan: Very cool. And you see that stuff? You just say to yourself. These are real. These are true stories. This is history, you know. You see. The the litho what is that Lithos Stratos? You know that that street that is beneath Jerusalem, that was discovered where this is where Jesus was beaten or. He was. It's the layer that goes back to the 1st century. It's kind of underneath the city of Jerusalem. You see these things you say to yourself like I like. I've stood there, Tom. Like, I know for sure. Now. Vesuvius is a real volcano. I looked into the. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes. Crater. Yes, yes. Yeah, right, right.SpeakerIt's like not that. Sean Finnegan: I ever really doubted it, but like when you do it and you stand there and you see and you, you know, you see the cast and the horror on the faces of the. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: People in Pompeii, you're like. OK, this is not a story, this is history. Tom Huszti: Yeah, no. Sean Finnegan: And it's very powerful. But back to your point about resurrection and bones. What really started me on this, this is going to be a really random source, is a Freakonomics podcast episode. They're talking about cremating animals. The guy was saying, when it comes to cremating animals, they it was, they were trying to do an investigation. The big question they had was. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: Do they actually give you the ashes for your animal? This is like a pet crematorium. Or are they just like scooping random ashes? And you know what? What's really going on here? Right. And they were talking it. So they got into the subject of cremation and bones. And they're like, well, you know, what really happens to the crematorium is they burn, you know, the human or the animal or whatever. And then the bones are there. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: Their bones are not burnable, they just, they're just there. Tom Huszti: Right, right, right. Sean Finnegan: So what they do is they grind them. Tom Huszti: That's what Tovia said, too. Sean Finnegan: And after they grind them down, that's the ashes that you get. They're actually ground bones. Tom Huszti: Ohh, is that right? Sean Finnegan: That they return to you. At least, that's what this podcast episode was saying. It was talking about animals, but like, it also talked about humans, whatever. And it and it made me think to myself, like, wait a second. I always just assumed the bones desiccated. I assumed that they disintegrated over. Tom Huszti: OK. Ohh you did. OK. Sean Finnegan: Time and then it it it kind of informed my thinking about, you know, the James Ossuary and the Caiaphas archery and some of these other ossuary findings, like some of the more sensationalized ones said we think we found Jesus and all this, which has been pretty much not accepted by scholarship but anyhow.Speaker 5The idea of. Sean Finnegan: Bones lasting for centuries and centuries was just like common sense to ancient people because they didn't have this separation. Like we have from our dead. Like we don't, we don't. Know but like they would go. Sean Finnegan:A year later. Sean Finnegan: Back to the tomb and they would pick up the bones and put them in a. Little bone box. Space is limited and you want to fit as many ancestors, descendants, relatives in the same cave or tomb as possible. But you're not looking to, like, mix all the bones together. So yeah, it just kind of made sense to get a box the width of the skull and the length of a femur, and to use that to, you know, organize people and just scratch on the side, the person's name. And so I think this all goes back to whether we're talking about the amount of olives. Tom Huszti: Yeah, yeah. Tom Huszti: Oh, OK. Sean Finnegan: To this day in Jerusalem, or we're talking about the austrias in the 1st century this or or Tovia Singer's preferences. This all goes back to the same thing which is this. Really strong belief in resurrection and so burying your dead in a way that preserves the bones or cares for the bones is is in a sense, I think a an act of faith that the Jewish people have always had. Again, I'm not saying that cremation is a sin or that it's going to damn somebody to, you know, eternal judgment or, you know, that's not where I'm going here, but I think. Tom Huszti: Yes. No. Sean Finnegan: We should ask the question, is this really this is really fit as Christians like I know it's less expensive. OK, but like is it? Is that always the right course of action? Just cause something's less expensive. So I I think burial. Traditional burial it can be an act of faith because you're saying I'm going to Mark Toome. I'm going to rise. Out of this to. Him so. Tom Huszti: Let's get back to your your trip details. I'm trying to picture this, the framework of well picture this setting that the acts of the apostles was written in. Is Athens set on a hill? Sean Finnegan: Well, the Acropolis certainly is. Tom Huszti: The acropolises OK. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. So, yeah, there there are definitely hills there. The propolis is a very high point in the center of Athens and it is kind of steep. I don't know what you call like a plateau that just. Rises out of nowhere. In the old days, that would be the spot where you would retreat to if Athens were invaded, because it can be held much longer. Tom Huszti: Apostle Paul preached in that place. Sean Finnegan: Well, I think he preached. On Mars. So which is right next to it. So it's yeah, it's right. Right nearby. Tom Huszti: Can you imagine the possible Paul in that setting? Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Well, I mean, the interesting thing about the apostle Paul at the Areopagus or Mars Hill is that he is looking at all these statues. And I when I was in Athens, I got to go to the museum. Tom Huszti: Can you picture him there? Carry out this OK? Sean Finnegan: The Acropolis Museum, which is. Walk. We got there and we went inside and you see all these statues? These are all these statues that they found? Of course. The Acropolis had actual temples to gods on it and that wouldn't have been unusual. There would be temples and statues of gods all throughout the city. And that's not weird for Athens. All Greco-roman cities had statues to gods, shrines, little other ways of worshipping their gods, you know, depending on what gods we're talking about, they're all a little different. You know, there's Paul. He's not really from the West, you know, for and for his perspective as as somebody from. Horses and cilicia. Athens is the. West, we say Athens is east, but for him that's. Tom Huszti: OK, he's from us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: West and you know, so for Paul, he would have seen plenty of this throughout his travels and stuff. But for whatever reason, his heart was just so troubled in Athens, he saw that people just in the city just given to this in Act 17, he finds this altar to the unknown God and he's like. All right, well, here's. Here's someplace where I can hook on a gospel presentation. Really good speaking. But it's interesting too, going back to our former conversation about burial and resurrection, when it comes to the part where Paul says that God has furnished proof by raising that Jesus is the Messiah by raising him from the dead. The Athenians had no trouble hearing that Jesus would be the Messiah. I don't think that was like a really understood category to them. They wouldn't have a hang up about that as him being a king or whatever. But when he says. He has given proof by raising him from the dead. Suddenly they're just like this is ridiculous. Everybody knows you don't want your body back again. This is stupid. I'm out of here. And like the Greeks, the Greeks, they're standard approach to the afterlife. Tom Huszti: Ohh yeah yeah. Sean Finnegan:That's right. Sean Finnegan: Was to get rid of the body. It was not to keep the body or to get the body back. Restored and renewed. And so this. This was always a big issue between Jews and Christians. Agree on. Over against the the Greco-roman, whether the philosophers or just like the folk religion of like going down to Hades and you know all the stuff they, you know, they had stories about all that. Tom Huszti: Have you been to Cesarea Philippi in Israel? Sean Finnegan: Yeah, it's like they call it banya or. Tom Huszti: Something banyas. Yes, banyas. And actually, I guess you know why it's called banyas. Sean Finnegan: Well, there was a. Shrine to the God pan there. Tom Huszti: Right pan, right. So the original name was panyas. But the Arabs have a hard time pronouncing the sound, so they change it to bond. Yes, believe it or not. But yes, yes, yes. So now. Sean Finnegan: Well, that makes sense. Thank you. Tom Huszti: You learn something. From me for a change, right? OK. Sean Finnegan: There it is. There it is. Yeah. I have been there. It's a beautiful spot. And you know, again, talking about the heat and the the arid climate of Israel to have a place with a beautiful water supply. Tom Huszti: Oh my. Sean Finnegan: Like sensory flip by where you say, OK, this is it. This is going to be a big spot. This is going to be a place where people are going to want to go and build things and live because there's plenty of water. Tom Huszti: Yes. Yeah. Tom Huszti: Yeah, it's beautiful there, isn't it? Maybe the most beautiful place in Israel. In my my view, as far as the physicality of it, that's arguable, but. Sean Finnegan: I don't know. I loved Dengeki. I thought it was. Tom Huszti: And Betty was beautiful too. Yes. Also water the the shrine. So do you remember what the shrine of Pan looked like? And and with the details about what was happening there. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. No, no, remind me. Tom Huszti: OK, there's a a graven image of pan on the the wall of the the side of Mount Hermon, the base of Mount Hermon there. And there is a cave right next to it. And there would would have been an altar for a member, correct? There would have been an altar in front of The Cave, and they were doing sacrifices to the God pan, and they were throwing the sacrificed beast into The Cave and the Jordan River begins flowing from that area. So. There was some kind of a relationship to throwing the sacrifice into The Cave and and whether or not the blood came out at the Jordan River that cave. On the side of the mountain, Mount Hermon was supposed to be the gateway to the underworld. Sean Finnegan: It is certainly the case that the Greeks and the Jews looked very differently at the dead. The Jewish mindset was at the dead are resting and they had the term show all for that. The sort of realm of the dead where all the dead are they're they're awaiting, they're asleep, they use that language. Lot, even in the the Christian New Testament. Tons of references, a lot of our translations, just like get rid of it and they say died or. Something like that. But that it actually says fall asleep or fell asleep. Ohh which you know the a Greek person wouldn't say that they would say no, they're in a different realm. And they're in the underworld of Hades, and Hades is not just a realm. It's also the name of a God who's in charge of all of those shades or departed souls. And you know, so, like, these are very different views. You know what I mean? And it's sad to say, but Christianity has more often than not. Agree with the pagans over against the early Christian. Of view, which is a shame, right? Tom Huszti: Unfortunate indeed. Yes, it is in the the first conversation I had with Tovia Singer, we hit upon so many touch points that we agree upon resurrection life in the age to come. The term Messiah is something that we can talk freely about. There's so many things from my Christian view that actually are terms that you can talk to Jewish people in this present day about, especially those who are inclined to study the Old Testament. And that's a conversation that most nominal Orthodox kind of Christians cannot have with Jewish people. The the rule seems to be that Jews have to leave Judaism in order to come over to Christianity. But strangely enough, we received Christianity from the Jews. And so the context that you're you're seeing here is something that is is very interesting. In restoring Christianity to its 1st century foundations, which is your your big desire so. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's what, that's what I'm all about, is trying to clear away the accretions of the Middle Ages and the post Christian. Developments and getting back to that original earlier version of Apostolic Christianity, you know what? What would the church have thought about this in the 1st century rather than in the 2nd and following centuries? The the subsequent centuries? And, you know, I'm not against technology. Renovation. But I am against changing our beliefs from what the New Testament says and that has happened a lot and it happens very slowly. And I've had a a a desire to understand that development. For a long. Time and did my masters on the subject and was really surprised to see that, you know, people are just not asking this question. Like I'm I'm a member. Of the even to this day of the the Boston area patristic society. OK. And so I get emails and, you know, invitations to attend their meetings, which I attended when I lived out there. And, you know, they're held either at Harvard or at Brown University or sometimes at Providence College as well as three schools have good patristic good, early church history programs. And you know so. They they issue these papers a couple. Of times a year. I don't know like 3 or. Four to five times a year and you know you have lint chocolates and a little wine and a little cheese. And you know, you sit around and, you know, just kind of listen in with these, you know, somebody presents on some aspects some facet of. Early church history. Three, I've been a member of this for I don't know a decade they have never done. A doctrine not once. Not once. There's no interest at all in doctrinal development or this mindset that says, hey, let's get back to living out our faith the way they lived out there is, as far as how we treat people or how we think about the government or whatever practical area. There's zero interest in that. In the the more liberal side of the fence and then on the conservative side of the fence, you have the Catholics that really dominate. And not that there aren't liberal Catholics. I'm sure there's plenty of them too. But I'm talking about the more conservative minded ones and they're always just trying to show that what the church teaches now is really what Christians have always believed. So it's apologetic. It's not OK, let's see what happened. It's more like, alright, well, this person like, for example Ignatius of Antioch, there's going to be an amazing presentation on this. Tom Huszti: Come on. Sean Finnegan: At the Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference next month, Nathan Massey has done some cutting edge research on Ignatius of Antioch. But anyhow, people, Catholic scholars in particular love Ignatius, and they'll go to Ignatius and they say, well, see, Ignatius calls Jesus God. Therefore, the Trinity is true as we, you know, 20 centuries later. Teach it it. It's it's all true because Ignatius said Jesus is God, and there's just more problems with that than you can shake a stick at, which you know I won't get into unless you're interested. But like my my point is. There's very few scholars who are honestly going to the sources of ancient Christians. Whatever books have survived right, and saying what were they saying? And and just taking them on their own words, their own terms, giving them the credit that they knew what they. Were talking about even. If it disagrees with what the? First later said was the right way to think, right? So let me let me just give. You one example. So for example. Justin Martyr, Justin Martyr doesn't fit with anybody, right? I mean, he's just idiosyncratic. He has his own way of thinking and talking. About things, he will even call Jesus, the second God sometimes. And you know he doesn't. Think at all that. Jesus, even in his preincarnate state, was equal. With God the. Father ever, you know, at the same time he's he's sort of like very much like in mesh with the Jews and and like very much talking to the Jews and at. The same time, incredibly rude. And it, you know, by what I would say, it's totally inappropriate. You know, some of the ways he he talks to in in one of his books, the book against Trifle. So yeah. So anyhow, Justin Moorer, you know, a church historian will come along and say, Justin, Monta was just. Tom Huszti: Ohh trifle.Speaker 5You know, he was reaching in the dark for the doctrine of the Trinity. He just didn't quite have the language yet to express it, and it's like. Sean Finnegan: No, he wasn't. He had a he had a mature developed view of who he thought Jesus was. And it's just different than yours, man. Just just. Allow him to be him. Tom Huszti: He might have squeeze everybody into the. Sean Finnegan:You know. Tom Huszti: Same mold, huh?SpeakerHe's not. Sean Finnegan: Hinting at anything he thinks he knows what he's talking about. You're not. Tom Huszti: Right. Tom Huszti: He wore the philosopher's robe, didn't he? Sean Finnegan: He did, and he had a he had a a little meeting spot in Rome above a, you know, above a shop, you know, he had a little apartment or whatever, and he'd he'd meet with people and he'd teach him what he thought was the definitive understanding of the Christian religion, just because nobody else later on agrees with him doesn't mean he was just like. Undeveloped or something, you know, he he believes what he believed, and it's just different and that's OK. And what I see when I look at Justin or Irenaeus or, you know, a lot of these guys is I see development. And when I see development, I think to myself, let's rollback the tape and see the trajectory overtime. Yeah. What is the vector? Where is this heading? So if I see you know a couple of points on a line that go in One Direction, I could say OK, I make a measurement here, make a measurement here, connect those dots and trace it backwards. What's there in the? 1st century and that's that's what I love to do. That's what I want to know. That's my my research, my investigation to find. What's the earliest beliefs and practices and that I'm crazy enough to think we can live that out today? Tom Huszti: Yeah, you are a strange bird, but I agree with you I. Guess I am too so. Sean Finnegan: Well, and The thing is we both came to this from very different milieus, different backgrounds, denominations and so forth. But we both recognize that it makes logical sense that if the church has gotten off track. Then you know the best way to do it is to reform back to the, you know, whatever we can recover of the original version of Christian. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: And you know, that's. Yeah, it makes sense to me. A lot of people don't. They don't believe in Restorationism. They they say, oh, that's you can't go back there. It's impossible and it's like. Tom Huszti: That's so true. Sean Finnegan: Well, well, why let? Tom Huszti: Me. Share you with you my thought on this. So the the 1st century church was waiting for the return of Jesus and it didn't happen in their age, but. We who claim to desire the return of Jesus need to be postured as they were. Like I'm I'm just. Wondering you know. Like if Christianity gets far enough away from their origins, it's an awful lot to ask Jesus to return when we've strayed so far from. What our forefathers believed so that the church that I was put out from is called the Apostolic Christian Church Nazarene. And the term Nazarene is a a term that is very, very honorable, I would say. But when you think in terms of the early church, the term Nazarene meant Jewish believers in Messiah. And I still call myself a Nazarene, even though my community has, for the by and large, has disfellowship. Hit me. I'd like to to trace my origins back to the the Nazarenes my my Jewish Brethren, believers in Jesus, and this is something that you touched upon in your. Your church history. You think you could fill us in a little bit about the views of different Jewish Christians, Abbey Knights and Nazarenes and. Any others that would kind of fit that category maybe give us a little summary. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, to do work on the Ebionites or the Nazarenes is to read late reports. By their enemies. I don't know of a single document that survives other. Than I would. Argue that, dedicate, I would say that dedicat is a Nazarene document. Tom Huszti: Oh wow. Sean Finnegan: It reads that way to me. It has a low Christology. It's very Jewish, you know, it's very Christian, you know. And it it just seems to kind of fit that that mindset. So I would argue that the dedicate would be a Nazarene document. Now these these terms, Nazarene, it's actually in the New Testament. The sect of the Nazarenes. Where was that? They said. Tom Huszti: Right, Paul Paul, was it? Yes, they did. That's correct. Yeah. Yes. Sean Finnegan: That about Paul, right? Yeah. So that's old school. Right. But what we can kind of gather is from these late reports and when I say late, I'm talking like from the year 375, we get this heresy hunter named Epiphanius of Salamis and he writes a book called The Panarion. You know, so this is this is riding 300 years after all the action and the excitement has already happened, right? Where's where's the action? Where's the parting of the ways? As James Dunn's famous book called it? Well, it's really in that post 70AD pre. Justin. So like between like 70 AD when the temple. Tom Huszti: Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: Got destroyed and the Romans conquered Jerusalem to the time of Justin Mortar where, like he begins in, you know, maybe like 135 was the 2nd revolution. Right. So you have the the bar Copa revolt. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: Actually, some people might call it a third revolution because there was another one in between the two, but whatever. It wasn't in. Jerusalem. But you know, in that period there, what is that like? Probably like 60-70 years something happened and there was a a splitting away and Gentile. Tom Huszti: Ohh there was OK Ohh. Sean Finnegan: Christians and Jewish Christians. Stops influencing each other. And it's a really murky period of time. Scholars have all kinds of theories from there was never a parting of the ways. What are you? Talking about to it. Tom Huszti: Uh-huh. Well. Sean Finnegan: It happened because of this or because of that. But let's just put it this way, the the the official Christian line on it has always been since. The time of Eusebius. That the followers of Jesus when they. Saw the Roman legions coming. Abandoned the city of Jerusalem. And if that's true and they, he says they went to power, they went to this other area. If that's true, then the native Jewish people who stayed and fought and died. And then many of them also survived. Would not very much like the Jewish Christians because. They didn't stay, they didn't like. Tom Huszti: So you're talking for 70, you're talking about from 70 AD that the Christians would have left. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Yeah. So, like, after the city is conquered by the Romans, things kind of settle down politically. I mean, I guess the last holdouts are at Masada up until what, like 7370? Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: 4 but like. Then that OK, this period ends, the Romans have reasserted their dominance. But you know a lot of Jewish people survive and and. And they're not looking at the Jewish Christians positively, they're looking at them negatively. And we have this Birkat hominem. Yes. Are you familiar with that? It says for the apostates, let there be no hope and uproot the Kingdom of arrogance speedily. And in our days, may the Nazarenes and the sectarians perish, as in a moment let them be blotted out of the book of life. Tom Huszti: I am. Sean Finnegan: And and so forth. So it's like OK by the time of Justin, he makes mention of this and he says you. Know why? Why? You guys cursing us in your synagogues, right? So like Justin knows about it, so. It's got to be before 160 and it's. Probably after the month. Tom Huszti: So let me ask you this, would that curse? Be specific to Jewish believers in Messiah Jesus. She will. Or would it? That was specifically for them because they were thought they were thought to be created. Sean Finnegan: Well, they they would be the ones to go to the synagogue. So this is something. That would be spoken. Publicly in the synagogue, along with the other blessings and. Tom Huszti: OK. Ah. So that would discourage them from attending synagogue. Sean Finnegan: It would expose them as well because they wouldn't be able to recite that. Tom Huszti: Oh, they wouldn't be able to recite it, OK. Sean Finnegan: You can't curse yourself, you know. It's just awkward. Tom Huszti: Yes, so so so.SpeakerYou know, right. Tom Huszti: During the time of the Barkha revolt, the Jewish believers in Yeshua Miss Jesus would not have taken up arms against the Romans and this would have been a further offense against the. Against the revolution, revolutionaries against the Jews. Sean Finnegan: Well, you know. We we see we see rumblings even before in the I don't know if it's the Jewish war or the antiquity of the of the. Jews with Josephus. He talks about how there was a power vacuum just for a moment in Jerusalem and during that power vacuum when the old governor had, I don't know if he died or just had left or whatever happened to him. But the new governor, I think, was Albinus, was on his way then the non Christian. Jewish people were able to gang up on James, and when James was fairly old brother of Jesus and that they were able to more or less lynch him, you know, they just got a mob together and they they were able to to kill. Tom Huszti: A friend. Sean Finnegan: Him. So there was already animosity before the war. War starts in 66, you know it. It did blow up from time to time. We see it in the book of Acts. Right. There's a lot of animosity between the Jewish Christians, the non Christian Jews. OK, so this this continues. But after the war.SpeakerOK. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: It it's it seems like there's not even much real space left for Jewish Christians to even go to a synagogue with this curse that's put there specifically against them. Again, the war is such a massive historical event. The Jewish War of Rome, 66 to 74, where I mean, how many kinds of Judaism. Do we know? About from the 1st century, you have your Sadducees, you have your Essenes, you have the rebellious types. They call the 4th philosophy and Josephus. You have your Pharisees, and then you have the Christian Jews. Tom Huszti: They would be the zealot. Would there be the zealots or the sikari? Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah, that would be the 4th philosophy. The Zealots, the sicari, all the revolutionary types. Right. So you have like, five types of Judaism. And so the Christian Jews. Tom Huszti: OK. OK. Sean Finnegan: Five and the Pharisaic Jews survive, but the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the revolutionaries. They're all gone, or completely disempowered. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: After the war, so now you have pharisaic Judaism, which eventually kind of develops into rabbinic Judaism, and you have the Jesus Jews. And they gave birth to the Christian movement, which is kind of like, it's almost like in a sense gone public like a like a corporation offers an IPO. And then, like, the, the company has kind of a life of its own, independent of what the founder, really. Tom Huszti: Yeah. OK.SpeakerHis vision was. Sean Finnegan: And maybe that's a good analogy for it, cause like Christianity goes pretty much Gentile and there it's Jew and Gentile together in the 1st century for sure. But like as we get into the 2nd century. The kinds of literature that survive from Christian pens. It's just like either ignorant of Jewish practices and interpretations of the Old Testament or outright antagonistic, where you get like documents from like the middle of the 2nd century. Like I'm thinking of the Epistle of Barnabas, and some of the other documents in the Apostolic Fathers, where like they're just like you, Jews are crazy because you kept the law. And it's like, how could you ever say that if you're if you're a little more aware of what the, you know, that that was the law that God gave to the Jewish people to keep, why would they be crazy to keep it? Right? So it seems like there's just a parting of the ways. And that's the term James Dunn used for it. And, you know, we just wish so much that we had. We have more information about it. We just kind of get these little bits and pieces. We don't know exactly how it happened. We just know that it happened.SpeakerOh yeah. Tom Huszti: Some hostile witnesses, of all places. Sean Finnegan: So now you've got. These Jewish Christians, Tom and they're kind of isolated in the east, they're not well loved by the Gentile Christians or they don't have access or I don't know, for whatever reason, there's just not a lot of interaction, which is tragic in my opinion. Tom Huszti: Yeah. Yes.SpeakerBut they're also. Sean Finnegan: Alienated from their own Jewish brothers and sisters because they're not allowed in the synagogue and you know, if you're in a little village and there's only one place putting shoes on horses. Or doing some other craft or trade. And they don't want to sell to you. Guess what? You're in trouble, you know, because you're one of the Nazarenes or. One of the Ebionites. Tom Huszti: Sure, sure. Sean Finnegan: So you know these people had a really tough go of it and you know, we hear about them later on and they may have survived pretty well. Outside the Roman Empire, in the east, in the Persian Empire. But we don't know much about that either, so it's really hard to do scholarship on them. There are more questions than answers, but my best guess, OK. And that's really what it is, is it's a guess is that the community of James, the brother of Jesus, they didn't really get on board. With what Paul? And Gentile Christianity was doing they got on board to a certain degree and and this we see this conflict in the book of. Acts 15 and then later. Tom Huszti: Yeah, 15. Sean Finnegan: On in .2 what happens is.SpeakerThey say all. Sean Finnegan: Right. Well, you you can have. Gentiles and they don't need to keep the law. Fine, but we Jews are going to keep the law. Still, I don't think Paul got on board with that. Paul would say Jews don't need to keep the law either. Obviously they can. Anybody can keep the law. Who wants to? But Jewish Christians, I should say I should be clear. I'm not talking about just Jews in general. I'm saying Jews who believe in Jesus because of a covenantal understanding expressed later. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: In the Book of Hebrews, whoever wrote Hebrews that it is clear that Jewish Christians don't need to keep the law. James and his group of Jewish Christians disagree with. That viewpoint, they say no. This is the covenant. We're Jewish Christians. We're going to continue to keep the law. So I think this James Community is what left during the war and survived north and east of Jerusalem. And that then this community had a doctrinal division where some of them. Accepted the Gospel of Matthew, which possibly was in Hebrew or Aramaic. You know some language that the people could readily read. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: There are lots of hints of that in the patristic literature. People talk about it quite a bit. They don't talk about any other writing. From the new. Testament, all the other books in the New Testament. They never mentioned as being in Hebrew, just Matthew. Tom Huszti: Wow, just Matthew cross. Sean Finnegan: It's the only one. Yeah. So why would you? Put it in Hebrew, whether it was written in Hebrew originally or translated into Hebrew. Why would why? Because you have Jewish people. Reading it. You read the Gospel of Matthew. What does it begin with? A genealogy? Who loves genealogies? The Greeks? No, they don't care about genealogies. The Jews love genealogies. So Matthew begins by making a convincing argument that this Jesus of Nazareth has a claim. And. Could possibly be the Messiah because of his ancestry. That's how it starts. So you've got this community and in. The Gospel of Matthew as well as. Luke, you have. The virgin birth. You have the virgin conception and you know this idea that in in some way Jesus is the son of God.Speaker 5Some of the. Sean Finnegan: Jewish Christians in this community don't believe that. And others do, and that is, and again, this is a reconstruction based on hostile sources like Epiphanius, and you siberius, and there are plenty of later ones too. Like Jerome mentions this stuff and it, and and it's even possible that these Jewish Christians survive. Arrived and they there was some interaction with them. It wasn't just all hearsay. OK, but it's possible for us to know today how reliable these reports are. But so you have the James, Jewish Christians. They go away from Jerusalem and they settle in north and east of of Jerusalem. And they have this difference. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: Among them the ones who? Believe in the virgin birth. Are Nazarenes the ones that do not? Are Ebionites both of them believe that Jesus is a human being? Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: Whom God anointed as a Messiah. They both believe in crucifixion. Both believe in resurrection. Both believe in Ascension. Both believe in the coming Kingdom. So the question is, you know whether he is biologically. Whatever that means, you know, like, if there was this miracle to get him started or if he was the son of Joseph. OK, so that's that seems to be the disagreement there between the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And here's here's just one more thing to complicate it, make it worse is some Christians will call both groups of unites. Tom Huszti: Yeah, that's a mistake. Sean Finnegan: And they're saying, well, some of you guys believe this and some even nice believe. That it's like. Tom Huszti: Yes, right. Well, it seems to me the very, very important doctrines they agreed upon. And I know I noticed in the Apostle Paul's writing, he never mentions the virgin birth, he does emphasize. The authority that Jesus received through the resurrection, most notably in Romans chapter one, that's where. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. I mean, I think the closest pull comes is Galatians 4 four, where it says when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law. Sort of like the closest. To it you. Can interpret that a number of different ways. Tom Huszti: So it's fascinating to understand that we've actually lost connection to a large extent to the original source of our our gospel message. And I suppose that makes that makes your challenge of restoring 1st century Christianity even a bit. Your task you're trying to recreate these things based on what you know and based on hostile witness accounts. Sean Finnegan: Here's the good news. We still have the Bible. We have the New Testament. You know, we can read it, we can see. And it's not like the New Testament is hiding or covering over any controversy like the The Paul. James, things is is is plain as day in Galatians like pull, yes, pull lays it out, you know, and I and. I'm going with Paul on. This I'm going to. I'm going to disagree with James. I think he was a great. And but I think he just didn't have the full understanding of how Jesus, through his actions, how he affected our relationship with God and and this whole understanding of covenant. So I'm going to go with Paul on that. What happened among Pauline Christianity is. A development that slowly moved away from the New Testament read from a Jewish perspective because I think Pauline Christianity basically got swamped by Gentiles. Tom Huszti: Yeah, I think so. Tom Huszti: Too and I. Sean Finnegan: Think the leaders. Of Pauline Christian. Probably not in his day, but maybe within a generation or two. Became highly educated intellectual gentiles who were financially well off enough to get an education because education costs them money. Otherwise you got a farm or you got to do a craft or a trade, right? So is that is that sort of movement occurred away from? Apostles and their appointed success. More towards these intellectuals. We get Christian doctrine shifting away from what's in the New Testament into these more Greek and Roman ways of thinking. And that's kind of an area where I've been doing a lot of work recently. Trying to understand. Especially on Christology, how would a a Greek or a Roman person? How would they hear the story of Jesus? What would that sound like to them? And so I've done a lot of work on that and I'm going to be presenting that in a month as well at the UCLA conference. Yeah. But that will be out later on YouTube as well. If you don't make. Tom Huszti: Ohh at the OK. But that should be very interesting. Sean Finnegan: It to the conference, you know. Tom Huszti: I bought my ticket already. Ohh, good. Yes. Yes. I'll look forward to that. I guess we probably shouldn't talk too much about it in advance because we have to. We don't want to. Take the the. Thunder out of your presentation. Sean Finnegan: Well, I I just mentioned, I'll just mention one thing, OK. So let's imagine you're a non believer, you're a Pagan. You've worshiped the gods all your life. You've heard stories about Apollo getting banished down to Earth and having to work as a servant. You've heard stories about Zeus coming down impregnating women. You've heard stories about. Tom Huszti: Hercules. Dad. Huh, Hercules. Dad. Sean Finnegan: You've heard stories about Hercules as well, and Asclepius was originally a human who got deified, and he got deified to such a level that he became essentially an Olympian God, that that level of. Elevation and exultation was possible. So you hear all these stories about these gods who come down to become men, or appear as men being made in appearance as a man, right? Like this is this. Is their vocabulary. That's their world. And then you hear lots of stories. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes, right. Sean Finnegan: Humans, who had a beginning normal humans, but were so exceptional that they got to skip Hades and instead go to Olympia or instead go to some heavenly realm like. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: You this is just your.Speaker 5World these are all your stories. Tom Huszti: OK. Uh-huh. Sean Finnegan: Now you're going to hear a story about a miracle worker, Jewish miracle worker. Who was executed came back to life. And now lives in heaven. And is immortalized. You have a category for that. Kind of a being. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: It's called a God. Tom Huszti: Yeah. Yes. Sean Finnegan: Like in our in our language. Today we would say a lower case G God, right? They didn't fuss with capital. A lowercase. You know, like everything's capital pretty much and all the inscriptions we have in the manuscripts from this period, right. So they would just say, oh, that yeah, we. I know, I know. Plenty of other beings that are like that too. Yeah, they're they're called. Gods. And so you're you're trying to say that Jesus is a man and now he's become. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: God. So like you could just imagine a like an evangelism encounter going like that. And if you don't have that Jewish sensibility to say, well, hold on a second.SpeakerThere's only. Sean Finnegan: One God, and that's the supreme God who created everything. You can just see like Christian saying well. Yeah, I guess so. Like in that way of thinking. Yeah, he's a God. So now people. Start calling Jesus God. And now the question becomes well, in what sense has he got? Does he have a beginning before he was a human, you know, and you're just operating in a totally foreign. World View, mindscape than the Jewish mode, which is the Jewish mode, sees Jesus doing miracles and they say how great it is that God has given such authority to men. Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: What do they say when they see a miracle in the book of acts, when Paul and Barnabas? Tom Huszti: Right. Sean Finnegan: You know, get that guy filled. Tom Huszti: The gods are come down to us, the gods. Sean Finnegan: Of course, that's what they. Said that's what they believe could happen, right? We really have two different thought worlds that are combining in in weird and innovative ways. And that's just like one step along the path that leads to the doctrine of the Trinity, which doesn't really get fully developed until the late 4th century. Tom Huszti: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Tom Huszti: So Paul is trying to emphasize that Jesus is a human being, a second Adam. So that has a different flavor to it, like you have to. Paula is using the first Adam story to introduce the second Adam. And this is a glorified human being who is residing in heaven until God sends him back. That's a different. Category isn't it? For the Greco Roman mine? Sean Finnegan: Yeah, they don't. They don't. That doesn't. That doesn't make sense to them. You know, it's just that's just weird. That's like resurrection. Like, why do you want your body back? And what did Christianity do with that one? We get rid of it. You go to any funeral like unless it's somebody from my own group of churches, network of churches, or maybe like one or one or two other denominations. Right. Like you go to a funeral. What 99% of the? Funerals you go to they. Say this person is now in heaven and their soul. Whatever you know, they make up all this stuff. You know, it sounds just like the Greco Roman stuff from the ancient times. It doesn't sound. Like the Bible. Tom Huszti: Right, yes. Can you imagine sitting in the audience when Paul was preaching from the Acropolis? Sean Finnegan: Not to me. Tom Huszti: Can you put yourself in the in the shoes of a a Greek sitting in the audience hearing this message for the first time? And you know the setting. What would have impressed you or what you already mentioned this earlier but like if you as an individual were doing this? What would be going through your mind? Given your background and context. Sean Finnegan: Well, I think. There's a lot of misunderstanding going on. And and that's just normal. We shouldn't be upset about that. We should expect that. I think we see the same thing today. In the 21st century, where you try to explain something and somebody just doesn't get it, who's not a Christian, and I think that's what was happening here. And what happened is Paul is is evangelizing people. He's talking to people in the marketplace, his Jewish sensibilities, I think, are offended by seeing a city full of idols. It's just as somebody who was raised with the 10 Commandments, it's offensive. I mean, it's offensive to most Christians. Well, I don't say most, but many Christians today are offended. By seeing idols and statues and seeing people actually worshiping them, Paul is very disturbed by this. He's trying to to help. He's reasoning in the synagogue. And also in the marketplace every day. You've got the Epicureans, you've got the Stoics there, and then they say this is act 1718, he says. He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities. Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection and see the word resurrection, there is Anastasia. Tom Huszti: OK. It's a Greek. Sean Finnegan: Word it means resurrection. You know, stand up again, but it seems like. And I I think some translations might do it this way, that they're thinking that. Jesus is 1 divinity. And they think that Paul saying that Jesus is divine being, which is interesting, right in light of what I said just a minute ago. And then the other thing they think resurrection is is another divinity. Right. So there's just. Misunderstandings all over the place. They're. Like you know, it seems like he's bringing in some new gods. Let's go here. What these new gods have to say, he's kind of like you. Remember. Back in the old days, kids would collect baseball cards. Or like when my kids were little, it was Pokémon cards. And you know, you trade with each other. This one, it's like gods to the, to the Athenians. You know, they're like, oh, you've got that. Tell me about that. God, I let me tell you. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: The story about this. One you know, so they're. Tom Huszti: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: Interested. And they put them up there and they say, OK, what is this new teaching? Tell us what this is all. About and so we know. There's going to be misunderstanding. We know there's going to be confusion, but that's no reason not to get started. And so he does. He starts in a very friendly and flattering way. Tom Huszti: He used their own poets. Their own poetry. Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: He's building the bridge as much as he can to their thought world, but at the same time. He's so disturbed. Buy the idolatry that like he just. He just wants to hit that, you know, like it's just and it's not. It's not out of sense of superiority. I don't think. I think it's a sense of empathy and compassion. And so it just starts in with, like, explaining who God is. And he's like there's a God above everything else that made everything else. And he doesn't need you. He doesn't need you to. To offer animals. And he believed in animal sacrifice. I don't know if he still believed in animal sacrifice or not, but he believed in it. At least most of his life. And still, he's just like, look, he doesn't need. He doesn't need anything. God is radically. What do they say? Ah, say he's not contingent or dependent on us for anything, and that's not. How they thought about their Greek gods. They thought their Greek gods needed to be cared for. They believed that the Greek gods created humans to do the work for them, so they didn't have to do the work all the time, including feeding them these sacrifices that nourish them.SpeakerRight. Tom Huszti: Right, right. Tom Huszti: A hutch. Sean Finnegan: You know it's a. Tom Huszti: Very the gods. They were very dependent. They're their gods, were very dependent. Sean Finnegan: They needed a bunch of slaves to do all the hard work of cultivating the lands, raising the animals, planting the vegetables, do all the things so that they could be properly cared for and fed. And if you didn't do that, then they messed with you. They stopped the rain, or they brought war or whatever, you know. So that's the kind of thing he's coming against here. And he says, look there the the God who made the world and everything in it, Lord of heaven and Earth, does not need temples. This is a radical message. I mean, it's just like. You're in a. City, now that I've been there, like I've literally seen the temples.SpeakerWith my or. Tom Huszti: Not they're still there. They're still there. Tom remnants. Amazing. Sean Finnegan: Wow, there's actually, when I was there was scaffolding all around it. You know, they're always restoring these things because of the weather erosion and what, you know, but. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: You know, massive, massive. Structures unquestionable. You don't go to a Greek ancient Greek city and say God doesn't need tempo. Tom Huszti: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: You know that they. Would really get their attention, it's. Like, wow, what is this guy saying? Tom Huszti: Yeah, I can imagine. What would it like these temples were full of pillars and the structure would have been probably unprecedented structures. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're looking at structures that are so impressive that if you didn't live in a city. If you live somewhere out in the country, you can't in the city. It would just take your breath away and then going into the temple itself, seeing most cities, temples they have what's called an apps, which is kind of like the back curved area where they had the statue itself and to see, you know, this huge statue. The artistry was magnificent. And you know, I've seen this where I think I saw this in a museum in Ephesus, on site, they have a little Ephesus museum there. And they had the head of Domitian. Which is a Roman. And it looked like a baby head. The proportions were all wrong. You know, just you know how, like, baby heads look. Weird, I don't know really how to describe it like there. May be a little spot. Tom Huszti: Oh yeah, yeah. Compared to the rest. Of the body you mean? Sean Finnegan: No, no, it was just the head. It was just the head and it and it. It looked like a baby head. And I asked my team. I was a part of a class at Boston University. I asked my teacher. I'm like, what's the deal with this? Why does it look like a baby head? And he just kind of laughed a little bit. And he said. Tom Huszti: Or it was just a hat? A hat. OK, OK. Sean Finnegan: Get low. Imagine this being 20 feet up in the air. Change your perspective and look at it again and it was exactly right. If you got. Low and looked at that same head. Of the mission. From that angle that you would see it. From the ground. All the proportions were perfect. Tom Huszti: So it was designed to be looked up to right? Sean Finnegan: So we're looking at people that have the. Artistry of the skill. Well, to to you know to like factor in perspective and angle. You know what I mean? Like that's something I would never think of you.SpeakerOh yeah. Sean Finnegan: Know. Of course I'm. Not a sculptor, but you know. I mean, you come in and you and you're.Speaker 5Confronted by this? Sean Finnegan: Stone object that is beautifully done. You just takes your breath away. For anyone to question it. It would just be like. What are you talking about, man? Everybody believes in this. And then there's a parade where they bring the portable idols through the city, and then they end up out front of the temple and you get a big barbecue and everybody's rejoicing and you know, the Jews and the Christians are just like, we're not going, we're going to stay home free. Tom Huszti: Oh yeah. Tom Huszti: Neat, right? And they're they're. Sean Finnegan: Well, free meat. Tom Huszti: For the pagans, right? Yeah. For the pagans. Right. Right. Yeah. Do you happen to know this story about the Roman general? Was it Pompeii that when he came into Jerusalem? And he was going to go into the holiest of holies, and the priests were. Standing in the way. And he ordered several, several of them killed with a sword. He wanted to see what the God of Israel looked like, and and he entered in the Holy, Holy Holiest of Holies. After these priests gave their life and he found nothing. What a surprise, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so the Paul is preaching the same unseen God, but he's preaching the Jewish Messiah, who was seen, who was raised from the dead. Exalted into heaven, and whom God made judge over the earth. So this is the Athenians are being told that this Jesus God gave authority to for judgment, and that the world will be judged by him. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, even before that, you know, just talking about how you mentioned that Paul quoted a couple of their poets. You know that in him we move and have our being, we live and move and have our being and the other statement for we indeed are his offspring. You know, there's a lot of depends on how deep you want to go in this town. But like, there's a lot going on. The schools of the philosophers. Tom Huszti: You know, delve into it? Sure. Sure. Please. Sean Finnegan: OK, so so you have the Epicureans. Founded by Epicurus, and then you have the Stoics founded by Zeno, and they are just. Like total opposites? Right. So the the goal of the Epicurean is to to seek pleasure. Tom Huszti: OK. Sean Finnegan: But not in a primitive like spring break frat party way. You know where, like you just go crazy, and then you you're in pain and suffering the next morning. That's amateur hour. For that, you'd be curious. Or maximizing pleasure over the course of your entire life. Tom Huszti: OK. OK. Sean Finnegan: What would maximize my pleasure, and the Epicureans tended to say that either the gods don't exist, or they exist, but they don't care about us. So you don't need to worry about the gods. There's a lot of precursors to modern atheism and agnosticism there, but the Stoics are saying, ohh pleasure is bad and you got to serve the gods. You have civil duty. The Stoics tended to be the ones in charge of the cities, and the Stoics are absolutely convinced pleasure is. Inherently sinful, like any kind of any kind of pursuit of bodily pleasure, is well, I would say, at least, question. Bowl, but probably like if you could really live without food that tastes really good, or beds that are nice and soft, or a woman's touch or a man's touch if you're. A woman, you. Know like that you would be happier, you would live the good life. So the philosophers are all all about Greek philosophers in particular, or all about how do you lead the good life? Then

A hero has passed away but not before Yishai had a chance to talk with him: Shai Ish-Shalom was an Israeli warrior who rescued Jews at Entebbe and continued to teach the art of Jewish defense. Then, Zeev Orenstein talks to Fox News about the Shiloach Pool at the City of David in Jerusalem and Yishai talks with The Israel Guys about the Biblical Highway. And finally, Ben Bresky tells the story of Joshua's Altar on Mount Eval.

SEASON 2023 EPISODE 35: A hero has passed away but not before Yishai had a chance to talk with him: Shai Ish-Shalom was an Israeli warrior who rescued Jews at Entebbe and continued to teach the art of Jewish defense. Then, Zeev Orenstein talks to Fox News about the Shiloach Pool at the City of David in Jerusalem and Yishai talks with The Israel Guys about the Biblical Highway. And finally, Ben Bresky tells the story of Joshua's Altar on Mount Eval.SPONSOR LINKS:The Israel Bible https://theisraelbible.com/Prohibition Pickle https://www.facebook.com/Prohibitionpickle/Hebron Fund https://hebronfund.org/The Jewish Press https://www.jewishpress.com/JNS https://www.jns.org/Kosher Cycle Tours http://www.KosherCycleTours.comPODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://yishaifleisher.com/podcast/ Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3mIsdfU Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3oP2Reo4JYnfIJdDUrQS2c RSS: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1271258.rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/YishaiFleisherTV SUPPORT & CONNECT:Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcastSupport on Givecloud: https://kumah.givecloud.co/Twitter: https://twitter.com/YishaiFleisherInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/yishaifleisherLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yishaifleisher/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YishaiFleisherSupport the show

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' website.James 5:7-9More about the ZealotsIn the Jewish War, they took revenge on the rich, according to Josephus.Rooted in the 2nd century BC:Revolution (Judas Maccabaeus)The ensuing Hasmonean dynasty becomes corruptThe Zealots targeted corrupt Hasmoneans – even assassinating a high priest.Later they targeted Romans. = dagger-bearers.Herod the Great tries to extinguish the movement, forcing them to Galilee.Later history (the Jewish War, 66-73 AD):Wealthy priestly families attacked. (They enjoyed a very high standard of living.)The Roman Emperor, Nero, aware of the seriousness of the rebellion in Palestine, sent his best general Vespasian, with three legions, to quell the outbreak. Vespasian's troops easily penetrated Josephus' defences and dispersed the Galilean army.Gamla vanquished, 4000 Zealots killed, while 5000 hurled themselves over the cliff.Masada—another amazing story of resistance.Today's text urges patience. Recall the socioeconomic disparities / lack of love, as well as the real possibility of persecution.No grumbling or bad attitudes.We are reminded not to be judgmental (negativity)—harking back to 4:11-12.The rich will get what's coming to them: 1:10-11; 4:9-10; 5:1-6.Nearness of the Lord can be taken two ways.The Judge is standing at the door.Awareness of that fact should keep us humble.This should also prevent us from resorting to violence, or association with violent powers, when we feel desperate about the injustices in the world—or the wickedness of our enemies.Tomorrow: Hang in there!Sicarii

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' website.To appreciate James and the logical flow of the letter, it is vital to understand the political background of Palestine in the New Testament period. These were troubled times: oppression under the Romans and those richer Jews who acted as their pawns, exorbitant taxes and food shortages and, with them, rioting and anti-Roman nationalistic fervor.Some landowners even hired to execute or at least threaten tenants who were falling behind in their payments. The politically active Zealots, to whom Simon the Zealot, one of Jesus' apostles, had belonged (Matthew 10:4), urged the nation to revolt. This pressing combination of factors climaxed in the Jewish War of 66-73 AD. In 70 AD Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, never to be rebuilt.If the history seems tangled, let's simplify: Even in a time of social challenge and devastating famine, the rich were still oppressing the poor. This is why James addresses the pride of the rich (1:9-11; 2:1-9, 13-17), persecution by the rich (2:6-7; 5:6) and economic exploitation by the rich (5:4-6). Patient endurance, not violent retaliation, is enjoined upon the Christians. Without this perspective, the letter of James is difficult to appreciate and to understand.Next: Waging War

E. Michael Jones examines the conflict in Ukraine from a theological point of view. He also introduces us to the spectrum of Jewish lobbies influencing US politics. ——— Buy Dr. Jones books: https://www.fidelitypress.org/ Subscribe to Culture Wars Magazine: https://www.culturewars.com Donate: https://culturewars.com/donate ——— Follow Dr. E. Michael Jones: Cozy: cozy.tv/emichaeljones Bitchute: www.bitchute.com/emichaeljones Gab: gab.com/emichaeljones Telegram: https://t.me/RealEMichaelJones Odysee: https://odysee.com/@E.MichelJones:f Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-920885 Twitter: twitter.com/EMichaelJones1 Podcast RSS: https://culturewars.com/videos?format=rss Sensus Fidelium: https://sensusfidelium.tv/@EMichaelJones

On this episode we'll pick up where we left off last week with Egyptologist, David Rohl. During this part of the conversation, Shane talks with Dr. Rohl about various archaeological discoveries which he argues are connected to the lives Saul and David. Later in the program, the discussion shifts to the recent discovery of the Mt Ebal curse tablet, as well as to questions related to the history and chronology of events recorded in the New Testament.SHOW NOTES• To listen to Part 1 of this interview, click here.• To order an English edition of The Amarna Letters, click here.• To watch a series of videos featuring Scott Stripling's discussion of the recently discovered Mt. Ebal curse tablet, use the following links: 1) The Altar, 2) Curses & Covenants, 3) The Name of God, 4) Translating, 5) Biblical Archaeology, 6) The Future• To order a copy of David Rohl's book, Legendary Kings (currently only available in Kindle format) click here; to order a copy of Exodus: Myth or History, click here.• To order a series of lectures by David Rohl on video, click here. To order The Patterns of Evidence: Exodus documentary featuring Dr. Rohl, click here.• To listen to Shane's previous interviews with David Rohl, use the following links: 1) Exodus: Myth or History? and 2) The Search for the Historical Joseph• Click here to read Shane's article on “The Significance of Golgotha,” originally published in Modern Reformation magazine.• Click here to order a copy of John A.T. Robinson's book Redating The New Testament. In his important new book, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament, Jonathan Bernier is currently attempting to revive Robinson's thesis. John Wenham attempted to do this in the 90s with his book, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke. In this article, Daniel Wallace argues that John 5:2 points to a pre-66 AD date for the Fourth Gospel, and in his commentary on John 1-7, William Weinrich makes a strong case for placing John, not only before the Jewish War, but perhaps as early as the 40s. Get full access to The Humble Skeptic at shanerose.substack.com/subscribe