In this episode, we embark on a controversial and thought-provoking journey into religious theology, focusing almost exclusively on Judaism. Host Malcolm begins with a fundamental question: 'Why were the Jews God's chosen people?' This query leads to an extensive exploration of Jewish theology, identity, and the broader implications for both ancient and modern Judaism. The discussion delves into the historical practices of Judaism, including proselytization, matrilineal descent, and circumcision, comparing them to contemporary interpretations and practices. Malcolm also scrutinizes the noahide laws, Kabbalism, and the concept of divine favor, ultimately questioning the reasons behind Jewish exceptionalism. This episode is a comprehensive examination aimed at challenging and reframing conventional understandings of Judaism within a broader religious context.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today we're going to do another one of our track series where we do deep dives into religion that are very, very offensive.
And for the first time we're going to have one that's almost exclusively focused on Judaism. Oh. This is track 10. The question that breaks Judaism. There is one question I started to innocently ponder that led me down a rabbit hole, which began to unravel Jewish theology, identity, and even raised the question of whether modern Judaism should be thought of as the less radical deviation from ancient Judaism when contrasted with Christianity.
The question, the question that breaks Judaism is Why the Jews? Why were the Jews, of all people, singled out by God as his chosen people? Oh, right. Yeah.
Simone Colins: Yeah, they gave her
Malcolm Collins: child. Yes. Why? This is gonna get very offensive, and it's the type of information I hesitate to release if it could be used by antisemites.
However, I think theologically it is a conversation we need to have in the [00:01:00] same way previous tracks have had to uncomfortably point out where modern Christianity does not align with what is actually in the Bible. We will be doing the same with modern Judaism today. And I would note here for people who want to be like, Oh, this is, you know, antisemitic or something like that.
I did nine full tracks. Absolutely railing and ragging on modern Christian traditions and where I don't think they align with the Bible. I do one on Judaism. No, you don't get a be. I'm just trying to do as honest a dive as I can on these various subject matters. And I hope you can see that as I go through this and go over the data.
But this data shocked me to my core. So we're going to be arguing that ancestral Judaism was not an ethno religion. The concept of matrilineal Jewish identity is a non biblical. In fact, pre Christ, Judaism actively and aggressively proselytized and even forced the mass conversion of conquered peoples at times.
As evidenced by both biblical sources. Roman historical accounts and [00:02:00] the Jewish historian Josephus and even Roman law, which we'll see. The Noahide movement lacks solid biblical backing and is essentially a theological construct with minimal scriptural foundation. The biblical passages that Jews cite to argue against modifying God's covenant with man, which they use to deny Christianity as the more faithful offshoot of ancient Judaism, do not actually communicate what they claim.
And this one is pretty in the extreme, which we'll get to. Even the way circumcision is practiced today may be incorrect, or I'm going to say is probably incorrect. What? Compared with Egyptian practices contemporary with the writing of the Old Testament, which we have a reason to believe the Jewish tradition may have been influenced by at the time of Christ, Judaism was a highly diverse tradition and the Christian branch was not unique in its differences.
The quote unquote true Judaism that modern Jews claim to be descended from would have been just [00:03:00] one of many religious systems based on the Old Testament and was as different from the average theological understanding as Christianity was at the time. Original Christianity and Technopuritanism are much closer to the belief system of the average Jew at the time of Christ than modern Judaism.
And, if Judaism started as a religion that actively proselytized and became an ethno religion after the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition gained widespread adoption, this makes the entire modern Jewish tradition appear as a reaction to the success of a version with an arguably greater divine mandate.
Of course, we will be addressing the arguments against every one of these points, as I have discussed my positions with a few rabbis to gather the strongest counter arguments I could find. And, finally, we are going to go over a clever and unique Textual theological argument that fixes every one of the problems I raised throughout this entire video.
We will also discuss How Christians have to reconcile with the fact that demographically speaking right now [00:04:00] the Jews very obviously have God's favor and will likely be the dominant world power within the next century. So I'm going to start all of this was the framing of, you know, when I first was growing up and I was, you know, an atheist growing up, really raised an atheist.
I always saw Judaism versus Christianity as being like no competition. Like Judaism was just obviously the more logical religion it had. More claims to antiquity which I no longer, I'm gonna argue it may not. It, it was basically in my mind, like, deism plus. Christianity added a bunch of weird stuff that I didn't really get.
Like, transferring sins onto an innocent person seemed really off to me. The idea of Jesus as being literally God's child on Earth. I was like, why do we need to, like, it's a whole other theological element I have to believe other than God. And it, it felt very like just no contest. I was like, well, if I, if I could have been born in the Jewish tradition, that's the way I would [00:05:00] have gone.
Now I'm not going to be a reformed Jew or something lame like that, but that's where I would have gone. After digging really deeply into it, especially with this tract I am now quite glad that I don't have to defend the Jewish position because I now have come to believe that textually speaking and, and, and in the eyes of history is actually a slightly harder position to argue for.
I say all this believing still that Jews have a divine mandate that they are still following a covenant that God gave them. But there has been a, another covenant since then. And so they're not like inactive rebellion to God. But yeah. So thoughts before I dig in.
Simone Colins: I want to hear your arguments here.
This is intriguing, if a little intimidating.
Malcolm Collins: I will start this tract by saying this is not a path of logic I wanted to try down, but one that became evident as I began to examine what I thought was an innocuous question, like pulling a single thread only to watch the entire sweater unravel. Why were the Jews, of all people, singled out by God as his [00:06:00] chosen people?
This is a theological question that not just Jews need a good answer for, but one Christians and Muslims also need to address. Yet it is ignored by these traditions. There are two broad categories of possible answers. There was something phenotypically, genetically, or otherwise tied to the nature of the early Jewish people that led to God favoring them.
Or two, the Jewish people were set apart by their belief system and not by anything tied to their biology. Rabbinic scholars almost universally lean towards the second answer, early Jews had a more accurate conception of God, which led to them being rewarded as God's chosen people.
I would note that this is also what I believe in what I find to be the most satisfying answer. The problem is. If the early Jews were God's chosen people because they had a more accurate understanding of the divine, why should modern Judaism be gatekept around matrilineal inheritance instead of around a person's belief system?
Why would an atheistic secular Jew be considered more Jewish than a deist when a [00:07:00] deist has a closer understanding of God and a closer belief system to what is theologically Jewish? Does this concept not contradict the very basis of God's favor? For more insight on how Orthodox Jews answer this question, we need to examine a book composed in the 4th century CE, Strife on Deuteronomy.
An important note here is that the ideas discussed here were not added to Jewish canon until centuries after Christ's death. Now here's the exact Mishnah. Any thoughts before I go further, by the way? I
Simone Colins: will say that it has really bothered me that Technically, someone who is matrilinearly Jewish is seen as Jewish, whereas someone who like, personally went through as much material as they could and then practiced and followed all of the rules would not be considered Jewish.
Well, unless they were approved by a rabbinic court. Unless, yeah, unless they were, but like, it's also [00:08:00] intentionally difficult for them to do that. So like, why someone who doesn't follow any of the rules and is only matrilinearly Jewish. I find that a lot less, that makes sense to me. Look, I can understand.
Malcolm Collins: Well, so you would say. It's just a genetic condition. It's just, you know, you are. You want to gate keep the tradition to some extent. But what doesn't make sense to me, and I think it's a much harder question to answer, is why is a deist not more Jewish than a secular Jew? Because a deist, you know, the, the Jews would say monotheism is like a very important thing to believe, right?
So, so, if the deist is closer to the true faith
Simone Colins: shouldn't they Now why, why is a deist closer to the true faith? Because my association with deists If we're being honest here is just basically the atheists of the Enlightenment Pyramid period
Malcolm Collins: because they are a monotheist and the secular Jew is a pure atheist, a monotheist, theologically speaking, is closer to Judaism than a pure atheist.
But the [00:09:00] question is, to me, like, why? Now, I can understand some degree of gatekeeping here. But I suppose your question is right. Like, I can understand how they might want to keep out somebody from the Jewish community who otherwise had studied the text and everything like that. Sure. But I can't understand why they would want to include somebody who has renounced all of the belief systems.
Yeah, and who doesn't follow the rules. So we'll get into all of this, because this gets really interesting, because this does not appear to be the way it used to be. Okay. Okay. So right now we're getting to the Mishnah. This was written a few centuries after Christ's death. Some of these traditions might be older but I think that we can sort of see which traditions were common within the period that Christ was preaching, because they were adopted in early Christianity.
This tradition was not, so I'm going to assume that this is a post Second Temple tradition. Okay, so, and this explains why the Jews. This is the standard Orthodox Jewish explanation. And he said, the Lord came from Sinai. When the Lord appeared to give Torah to Israel it is nott to Israel alone that he appeared, but to [00:10:00] all nations.
First, he went to the children of Esau, and he asked them, will you accept the Torah? They asked, what is written in it? He answered, you shall not kill. They answered, The entire essence of our father, it's murder, as is written, and the hands are hands of Esav. And it is with this that his father assured him, and by your sword you shall live.
And then he went to the children of Ammon and Moab and asked, Will you accept the Torah? They asked, What is written in it? He answered, you shall not commit adultery. They answered, Lord of the Universe, is our entire essence, as is written, and the two daughters of Lot, conceived by the father?
Now you should note here, whenever I say, as is written, they're quoting some other part about some figure in early Jewish, like, canon, who did something naughty. Okay. Like here, it's basically saying that the children of Esen are, are descended from Lot, okay? Okay. And, and his daughters. He then went to the children of Ishmael and asked them, Will you accept the Torah?
They asked, What is written in it? He [00:11:00] answered, You shall not steal. They answered, Lord of the universe, Our father's entire essence is stealing. I just find that they know they're talking to God, the Lord of the universe, and they're like, Yeah, but stealing's like our whole bag, man. I'm just so in this feeling and he, and he, Ishmael shall be a wild man, his hand against all.
There was none among all of the nations who he did not go to and speak and knock on their door asking if they will accept the Torah. All the kings on earth will acknowledge you, oh Lord. And they have heard your words of mouth. I might think that they heard and accepted, it is therefore written, and they did not do them, and with anger and wrath, will I take revenge on the nations, because they did not accept the mitzvoth, And even the seven mitzvahs that the sons of Noach took upon themselves, they could not abide by until they divested themselves of them and ceded them to Israel.
[00:12:00] So, this explanation presents numerous theological problems. First, the Midrash portrays God physically appearing to numerous distinct nations simultaneously, an event of unprecedented cosmic significance that would have fundamentally altered human history. Yet no archaeological record, written tradition, or oral history outside the Jewish tradition references such a universally transformative revelation.
Furthermore, the Midrash's genealogical framework attributing entire civilizations to single biblical ancestors, Ezzam, Amob, Moab, and Ishmael, Contradicts established anthropological understandings of human population dispersal and development. Archaeological and genetic evidence demonstrates that human groups evolve through complex patterns of migration, intermarriage, and cultural exchange, rather than the neat, biblically aligned family trees this narrative presupposes.
This anachronistic perception of later ethnic identities onto a mythic, pre Sinai world fundamentally misrepresents the accurate historical development of ancient Near Eastern peoples. Now, you might say the Mishnah is meant to [00:13:00] be allegorical and that God's foreknowledge that other people would deny the Torah is why he didn't bring it to them.
This leads to the second problem. Second, it is clearly immoral. The Old Testament makes it clear that children should not be punished for the sins of their father. Why can't these people's descendants simply decide to stop their sins? Ezekiel 1820 states, The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, Nor will the father share the guilt of the son.
The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged to them. If your response is to argue that this was just a deeply ingrained cultural tendency in these groups, then why is somebody still considered Jewish if they have left Jewish culture?
Why are they still Jewish when they break God's commandments? Why maintain matrilineal descent at all? Third, it seems to suggest that one can inherit a core sin from something a distant ancestor did, at least at the cultural level. In the context of Jews being the descendants of King David, consider the [00:14:00] passage, Will you accept the Torah?
They asked, What is written in it? He answered, You shall not commit adultery. They answered, Lord of the universe. Evra, of this it relations, is our entire essence, as it is written. And the two daughters of Lot This just seems like trolling. I, this can't be. Why, why are the, why are the children of Ammon and Moab tainted by their ancestors sins, but not the Jews?
Here I'm thinking the descendants of King David, who, you know, clearly did illicit relations. You know, why, and we know from the Bible that Jews did all sorts of horrible things in ancient times, even during the biblical period. Why are they not tainted like all of these other people? And then fifth, the midrash, and I love somebody, I was talking to one of you about this, and they go, Well, David later felt bad about that.
Oh, well, of course. That doesn't cancel out that he did it. That's, it's like, not in the way this works. Apparently here, if the sons felt bad that their father did it, it doesn't even remove the sin. Why, why, why did they have [00:15:00] to carry it for multiple generations? And David, it's like A lifetime he feels bad about it is gone.
And then at fifth, the Midrash presents entire nations being judged based on the actions of single ancestors or representatives, which raises serious questions about fairness and individual moral agency, i. g. why can't I, or why didn't God bring this to them multiple times or something? So anyway, thoughts.
Why don't people talk
Simone Colins: about this? This seems oddly discordant.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I think that's why people don't talk about it. I think that's the
Simone Colins: well, hold on, right? Like within the LDS church, people don't talk a lot about a lot of things. And then, you know, there's, there's an issue with a bunch of things being on the internet. So the moment you do start questioning, there's all the people who have left the LDS church and.
Are talking about the stuff that doesn't make sense and that doesn't match up and it's a little embarrassing. And why is there not an equivalent of this with Judaism that brings up these issues? It's surprising. I
Malcolm Collins: think that there's [00:16:00] there's three things here, right? Okay. Jewish de converts that have a, that are both highly educated Jews, i.
e. not from one of these factions that doesn't really educate people that they they don't have the same axe to grind against their tradition. They often don't feel like they were intentionally, had things kept from them or lied to. Like all of this would be taught to a Jew. An Orthodox Jew is gonna know all of this.
But they don't have a reason to question it. They don't have a reason to question the Mishnah in the way I an outsider would now a Christian is not going to question this because when Christians do proselytization to Jews, they're genuinely terrible at it. They keep trying to be like, Oh, but look at all these prophecies here and see how they were filled by the life of Jesus.
And it's like, well, I mean, you could have just written all that stuff to fill all those prophecies. You know, like there were, you know, I, that's going to be super unconvincing to a Jew and a Christian is not going to take the time to study like the internally consistency. An atheist who's arguing against this stuff, well, they're gonna have a problem because they're gonna approach this [00:17:00] and, and, and point out, like, factually and historically where this doesn't make sense, or, like, logically things about, like, an all caring God don't make sense.
They're not gonna point to, like, the nitpicky things in the way that I am, because I'm like, oh, these texts are divinely inspired, I need to study them in my studies. I, I'll hope you also see was the mission I hear why I do not count personally. Like a lot of people are like, why are you into like the Christian texts and not into the Jewish texts at post Christ?
And I'm like, because they're honestly like not as well thought through or researched like the, the, the, the text here, like when I read it, that doesn't, it felt like pretty poorly logiced.
Like, like I I'd say almost sort of like, a Popol Vuhi type religion, like a really polytheistic religion where it's like, Oh, you have the X and the Y and then the Y crazy thing happened in the Z crazy thing happened rather than like polemics on morality or parables or stuff like that, which are like a sort of easy way to convey a moral system.
And not just easy, but [00:18:00] I think fundamentally more sophisticated and sort of the depths of morality that can be taught with it instead of Oh, actually God gave this to everyone. Just nobody else accepted it. Like that, that feels like a terrifically unsatisfying answer to me.
Simone Colins: It is unsatisfying. Yeah, I guess it's just about hiding in the weeds then.
Malcolm Collins: Now before I go further, let's examine every instance in the bible or old testament where someone attempts to address the question of why the jews deuteronomy seven seven eight the lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples For you were the fewest of all peoples, but it was because the lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors.
This passage is interesting because it specifically denies one potential reason, population size, but then provides a somewhat circular explanation, essentially because God loved you. Genesis 18 19 provides another perspective regarding Abraham specifically. For I have chosen him so he will direct his children and his household after him.
to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is [00:19:00] right and just. This suggests that the choice was based on Abraham's future role in teaching righteousness. That is, I believe, the clearest and correct answer. It was because he had closer to correct beliefs, and his beliefs would influence future populations in a, in a positive direction.
I. e. that's like technopuritan laid out because you know, his direction and his children and his household after him will keep the way of the Lord and doing what is right and just. Now Deuteronomy 9, 4 through 6 explicitly rejects the idea that the Jews were chosen for their righteousness after the Lord, your God has driven them out before you.
Do not say to yourself, the Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness. No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.
It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity. We see here that through, and you know, this one I find pretty interesting. Some people are sort of like, this shows that the Jews weren't more righteous than other people. But I could argue that this doesn't necessarily say that. It, it, it just says like everyone else was.
so completely deplorable [00:20:00] that maybe on average Jews were slightly more righteous, but they shouldn't take any pride in it because they were still like pretty deplorable. It could, it could be read that way. But a lot of people read it to say, I think because it deflects one answer that people don't want to be the correct answer is that the Jews were more righteous than other people.
And it kind of, it kind of sets that What we see here is throughout the passages is notably the absence of any claim that the Jewish people were chosen because of an inherent or unique qualities that they possessed. Thoughts before I go further.
Simone Colins: This just seems like so much guesswork. And it seems The conclusions made are putting words in God's mouth in a way that makes me feel very uncomfortable.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. All right. All of this refocuses our question. Okay. If Jews are only Jews because of what they believe theologically, why did matrilineal descent enter the picture? Okay. Back to Simone's question. This is good. First, let's examine the academic answer to this question, then we'll address what [00:21:00] Orthodox Jews believe.
The matrilineal principle in Judaism is particularly interesting because it's not explicitly stated in the Torah slash Hebrew Bible itself. The primary biblical text often cited is Deuteronomy 7, 3 4, which discusses intermarriage. You shall not intermarry with them, for they will turn your children away from following thee.
However, this text doesn't specifically establish matrilineal descent. In fact, if you look at the text It explains why you shouldn't marry them. Because if you marry someone of a different faith, your kids will deconvert at a higher rate. That has nothing to do with matrilineal descent and is completely logical.
The clearest early source for matrilineal descent comes from the Mishnah compiled around 200 CE in Kiddushin 312, which states that a child follows the status of the mother. The Talmud, Kiddushin 68b, attempts to derive this principle from biblical verses, particularly from Deuteronomy 7. 4, but many scholars view this as an ex post facto justification of an Already existing practice.
In fact, we have substantial evidence to believe [00:22:00] that at the time of the Christian split, Judaism transmitted family identity patrilineally. Biblical precedents throughout the Hebrew Bible slash Old Testament lineage and tribal affiliation were traced through the father's line. The genealogies in Genesis, Numbers, and Chronicles follow a patrilineal descent.
All of them follow a patrilineal descent. As far as I know, there's no matrilineal genealogies in the Old Testament.
Josephus and Philo, the first century Jewish writers sometimes discuss Jewish identity in ways that appear to emphasize patrilineal descent. Priestly and Davidic lines. The priesthood being a Kohen, the royal lineage were transmitted petrolineally, and the messianic line was transmitted petrolineally.
Every major line went petrolineal in the Old Testament and we have lots of lines that we can be citing here. There are so
Simone Colins: many.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls generally appear to emphasize petrolineal descent, particularly in the Damascus Document CD and the Rule of the Congregation. 1qsa Neither Filio of Alexandria nor Josephus mentions patrilineal descent.
Instead, [00:23:00] both focus on concepts that implicitly support patrilineal descent. And I note here that if you're talking about a figure like Josephus
27 to 100 A. D. So, Josephus would have been a post Christ figure. He would have been discussing post Christ Jewish theology. And so, when a, like a modern Jew, which I often hear, they're like, okay, yeah, like the Mishnah was made a few hundred years later, but they were codifying pre existing Jewish tradition.
It's like, why did nobody write about this pre existing Jewish tradition? We have a lot of Jewish writers like Josephus. We have a lot of people documenting the Jewish community. We have Dead Sea Scrolls community. They, this, this extremist community didn't think to document matrilineal descent anywhere if it was common and important to Judaism at the time.
The Old Testament didn't think to mention it anywhere. That to me beggars belief, and I think that if you're approaching this from an atheistic mindset or a skeptical mindset you're going to say [00:24:00] it probably wasn't there. If you need to approach it for religious reasons, okay, let's see. Now, do you have any thoughts here?
Simone Colins: No, keep going. This is intriguing.
Malcolm Collins: Now, if you ask an Orthodox Jew about this, I've heard one logically coherent, though not necessarily convincing, answer to the question of why matrilineal descent matters. Okay. This is other than my answer, which I think is much better than this one.,
if Jews are originally chosen for what they believed rather than who they were, this can be transferred on to them. Through the contract at Sinai, so if we say that when the Jews agreed to the covenant at Sinai, this contract would apply to their bodies in some way, and that's applied specifically to those people and only those people who were at the signing at Mount Sinai a, this, this does make kind of sense because then you're transferring the.
Okay Jews Yes, they were originally chosen because of what they believed being closer to accurate. That gave them the option to make the contract at Mount Sinai. And then the contract at [00:25:00] Mount Sinai wrote them on, wrote this on their body. This also explains matrilineal descent. Now the person who was telling me this, I don't know if this is well known within Judaism, but it just seemed intuitive to me, so I'd add it explains matrilineal descent, because if it's written within their body, new Jewish bodies are constructed within women.
Simone Colins: Okay, so it's, it's like, almost as though on the, their double helix, there, there was this tiny little tag added, a little
Malcolm Collins: Well, I'd say it's not within the DNA, that's why it's matrilineal. It's something else in their body that is, like, unique in some, or spiritually set apart in some way. And that's why Okay, okay.
Spiritual
Simone Colins: epigenetics, somehow.
Malcolm Collins: No, if it within the DNA, then the father's DNA would still be there. Yeah, that's
Simone Colins: true, that's true.
Malcolm Collins: It has to be The point here I'm making is that it's not in the DNA, it's something inherent to their bodies, which is why to have a Jewish body, it must be constructed within a Jewish woman.
Boom. Womb. Right. And I was like, okay, that's actually fairly [00:26:00] satisfying. It explains that, yes, they were originally chosen based on their, their beliefs, but then this transferred to, like, a biological thing at It's just really weird, though, if
Simone Colins: I were creating some kind of divine authorization process, or I were going to tag something, you know, add something to the human metadata of my favorite people who did the thing I wanted them to do.
It wouldn't involve the gestation process. Like, that's just
Malcolm Collins: weird. Everything involves the gestation process, but DNA, Simone. That makes sense to me. But why not the DNA? Because the DNA, then it would be like a specific piece of code that wouldn't have any spiritual significance. Because like, like, it's, it's, I mean, it might.
If it's like the lines from the Torah or something. Because, you know, that's the way Kabbalism sometimes does things. But what I'm saying is I mean, wouldn't it
Simone Colins: be, it would make more sense to me if it were like The divine semen, you know, like they at least have a little more. Agency, you know what I [00:27:00] mean?
Like they're wiggling. What is it?
Malcolm Collins: I'm just saying there is a logic here that I can get behind. I might not buy it myself, but there's a logic here that I can get behind. I'm not feeling it,
Simone Colins: but
Malcolm Collins: Okay, i'm glad i'm
Simone Colins: glad you feel okay about this. This is great. Okay. I don't actually so
Malcolm Collins: okay I'd say now if you're jewish and I say I encourage people to stay with their ancestral religions.
This is As good of an answer as you're gonna get, other than the one I'll have at the end of the video, you can skip to the timestamp at the end of the video. Other than that turn off the video now and walk away because it's only downhill from here.
Simone Colins: Ruh roh.
Malcolm Collins: For those of us who are undone by such constraints, this answer fails at a number of levels.
Alright, so, first, you've got common sense. If the covenant God made with the people at Sinai traveled matrilineally through bloodlines, why was that never explicitly laid out in the Bible? That is an important point in what seems to be one of the existentially most important facts about God's people, that their [00:28:00] identity travels matrilineally. And if it does work that way, why can people convert to Judaism at all? Something we see happen multiple times in the Bible. Like if this Thing that was written during the initial signing of the contract is actually important to Jewish identity Why are converts allowed at all?
That doesn't make sense to me Why was Ruth able to convert? And we'll get to this question more in a second But then there's a second problem, which is we're told in the Old Testament that it wasn't written in their bodies Specifically we have Jeremiah here talking about the second covenant. So this is the covenant after Sinai
Simone Colins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them , by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. , dot, dot, dot, I will put my law within them.
I will write it in their hearts. This is said in regards to a covenant to come and is contrasted with the one at Sinai, making it clear [00:29:00] that the covenant created at Sinai was not. put within them or written within their hearts. Not great, not great. Then you have the problem of biblical conversions.
We see multiple fairly straightforward conversions into Judaism within the Bible. If this is possible, it negates the idea that some special bond within the Jewish body. We will examine each of these in turn along with the counter arguments from Jews and rabbis as these being easy conversions. Historical.
Finally, we know factually that early Jews did not see their religion this way. Traveling Jewish missionaries were so common in the Roman world that they are mentioned by multiple Jewish historians. We're going to go over three Jewish historians, then a Jewish historian, Josephus, who talked about this phenomenon.
Then they're also mentioned in the New Testament. But more damning than that. We also know the Jews used to force people in conquered regions to become Jewish and afterward considered these people fully Jewish. Again, I will cover all of these points in turn. [00:30:00] And then finally, as I mentioned here, the New Testament.
And this is actually really, really, really important to this point. And this is an argument that I think many Jews wouldn't really think through, but it's actually a really powerful argument if you think through the logic of it. Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say his goal is to open Judaism to non Jews.
If Judaism at the time was understood to have high requirements for conversion or some level of matrilineal descent, why doesn't Jesus ever mention that this is now waived? Why did none of the people writing immediately after him mention this when Gentiles were converting into the religion? Why was this seeming, and they did write about other things, they wrote about like should we have circumcision, should we not have circumcision, they had these debates, and early Jews also had these debates which we'll get into.
Simone Colins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Why was this seemingly a complete non issue for early Christianity, with the debate in the early church instead focused on whether circumcision was required for non Jews who converted? In Paul's letters, and other jewish laws [00:31:00] specifically dietary laws discussed in acts This alliance was what we have seen in other jewish conversions of the time but more on that in just a moment.
So any thoughts before I go into all of these specific i'm dying for you to go
Simone Colins: into them.
Malcolm Collins: Just go ahead Because this goes against what I knew about early judaism, And we'll go against the counter arguments too because I brought this up with rabbis multiple rabbis.
If you think like, I'm just calling out one rabbi, no, no, no. I went over this with lots of people to get a diverse set of counter arguments and as strong counter arguments I could to what to me seemed a patent historical truth. That in early Judaism, they had active missionaries and aggressively tried to convert other populations.
Which again, why would they be doing that if they had matrilineal descent? Right. And I actually want to hear your thoughts on this, I think the, that the Christian Bible and the early Christian theologians never thought to mention, now Judaism or , , the Old Testament is open to non Jews, why didn't they ever mention that?
The, the core thing they mentioned is now it's open to non Jews [00:32:00] without
circumcision
. That's a, that's a big difference.
Simone Colins: That is a big difference.
Malcolm Collins: And it wasn't even without circumcision because we'll see people converting to Judaism without circumcision in just a second, historically speaking. Oh, okay. It was an active debate at the time, I'll give you that, but the requirements were much lower.
What both history and the Bible reveal is that Judaism during this period was much closer to modern day Islam than an ethno religion. Specifically, it was a religion that anyone could convert into, that conquered other people and forced them to convert, and that had traveling missionaries who actively sought converts.
It was a religion that, like Islam, concerned how the state was governed. This is what makes it very different from Christianity. It was also a religion that, like Islam, carved out a place under that state for non believers with unique rules applied to them This is where the concept of Ger toshav emerges, which is very similar to the Muslim concept of Dahimi.
And I note here it's also similar to Islam in like all sorts of other ways. You, you've got the, you were supposed to read it in the original language. You've got the, there is kind of one ethnicity that's bound [00:33:00] to the religion, but not exactly one ethnicity. It's really fascinating to me the parallels between Islam and this early Judaism from the perspective of how it related to things like governance and converts and an ethnic status.
We are going to start with accounts from ancient historians, then move to biblical accounts, beginning with the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in the first century BCE. Crucially, after the destruction of the temple, showing these practices were still common at the time. I think some of his writings might have been before the destruction, but it was generally around that time.
Like temple destruction, I should say. Crucially, after Christ, showing that these practices were still common at the time. During the Hasmonean period, 2nd 1st century BCE, there are accounts of mass conversions, particularly of the Imidians. According to Josephus, John Heraclius conducted military campaigns to expand Hasmonean territory.
After defeating the Idemians militarily, he incorporated their territory into his kingdom. After the military conquest, Heraclius gave the Imidians an ultimatum, either convert to Judaism, which meant circumcision [00:34:00] for males, and adherence to Jewish law, or be expelled from their homeland. , this suggests a relatively simple conversion process.
The conversion process consists of circumcision and following the Jewish laws. But interestingly, not necessarily following Jewish beliefs. It is clear , at this period of Jewish history, being a Jew was not based on matrilineal descent, or even belief, but on keeping the commandments. Anyone who followed the rules was fully Jewish.
And I'm talking about the common perception. And I note here, when I brought this up it was a rabbi. Their thing about the, the Hasmoneans was like, well, the Hasmoneans were like weird, basically, like they were an offshoot, but they, they were powerful enough to be conquering other people. I think that they are weird from the perspective, and again, we'll keep going over this, from the branch of Judaism that ended up surviving and existing as modern Judaism.
For more color here. The Hasmoneans were the primary ruling dynasty of the Jewish people during their period. They were an independent Jewish kingdom that came to power, , after a revolt against
[00:35:00] Seleucid rule. , this was from approximately 1 67 BCE to 37 BCE. The reason why a rabbi might think of them as weird is because they align themselves more with these Sadducees, , which favored a more literal interpretation of scripture and a rejection of oral law. And the Jewish group that survived follows the Pharisees most closely, which focus on oral tradition and interpretation of the Torah.
Malcolm Collins: And, but again, As I've noticed, if you took the average of all the Jewish beliefs at the time, that branch was about as different from the average with Hasmoneans clearly being part of this average as the branch that led to Christianity. And, and, and why would he even think this was normal? I mean, clearly he thought this was normal, that you could, and we'll see other instances where people are forced to convert.
And in a world where you can forcibly convert people, it, it seems to me be much more just follow the laws. Similar actually to like modern noahide traditions, but without the circumcision thing, like just follow the laws and everything's good. Which I like, it's, it's [00:36:00] very Jewish, like I'm not going to say that's important was what I understand about Judaism at this time period.
But I don't think that this is actually what the Old Testament says you need, needed. I think of the Old Testament period, so not in this period, which is after the Old Testament. You actually needed to be a full believer and fully support the, the people of the, Faith of God. And if you did those two things you, while also keeping all the rules, you were fully Jewish.
I think that the believer part kind of got dropped among some of the Jewish groups here and may have been more, you know, unique to this time period. Also from Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapters 2 through 4, we learn about the conversion of Queen Helena of Adebelini and her son.
Isaides to Judaism in the 1st century CE. This account is particularly noteworthy for what it reveals about conversion practices during this period. Key points from Josephus account include process of conversion. Helena and Isaides were drawn to Judaism separately through different Jewish merchants and teachers.
Their conversations were voluntary and occurred without any reference to their matrilineal ancestry. Again, this is common. Even today was Jewish conversions. [00:37:00] You could convert without it, but it is interesting that there is no mention of, you know, them converting or matrilineal requirements or anything like that.
It was based solely on their acceptance of Jewish beliefs and practices. What is That's, that's my game. I'm into that. About this is the circumcision debate that happened. Okay. Azades initially converted without circumcision on the advice of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who feared political backlash if the king underwent the procedure.
Later, another Jew from Galilee named Eliezer convinced Azades that circumcision was necessary for observance of the law. And we'll see a few times that there appears to have been some debate about the requirement of circumcision during this period, but most of the like trained rabbis would have said it was required, but trained rabbis were not required to approve of you to convert to Judaism.
We'll see that in a second here. The conversion process appears to have been centered on accepting monotheism, adopting Jewish practices, and following the Jewish law. For men, Jewish circumcision was debated as either essential or optional. [00:38:00] No formal tribunal, notably absent is the mention of any formal beit din, rabbinic court, or extensive questioning process that became Standard in later rabbinic Judaism considered fully Jewish after their conversions.
Helena and Isaias were considered fully Jewish. Helena made pilgrimages to Jerusalem provided for famine relief for the city while Isaias sent offerings to the temple. And apparently they are talked about as being very good Jews by like Jewish historians. They are pious, good Jews. These two. The story of Metelius.
In the Jewish War, Book 2, Chapter 17, Josephus recounts a brutal episode that occurred at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome around 66 CE. The Jewish rebels in Jerusalem attacked and overwhelmed a Roman garrison stationed in the city. The Roman soldiers took refuge in the royal towers, but were eventually forced to negotiate surrender on terms with the Jewish rebels.
The garrison commander, Metelius, arranged terms of surrender whereby the Romans would lay down their weapons, and be allowed to depart unharmed. However, once the Romans had surrendered their arms, the Jewish rebels, led by [00:39:00] Eliezer, attacked and massacred them in violation of the agreement.
Josephus writes, They, the rebels, fell upon the Romans when they had brought them into the stadium and encompassed them around, some of them being unarmed and others in such a condition as rendered them incapable of defending themselves, and slew them, all accepting Medallius. For they spared him alone, because he intrigued for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew and be circumcised. Medallius was thus the sole survivor of the massacre, having agreed to convert to Judaism to save his life. Josephus presents this incident as a terrible crime that violated sacred oaths and brought divine punishment on Jerusalem.
Regardless of the act and the ethics of the act and anything like that, clearly this gang of Jews or this troop, like this was a large group of Jews thought that an individual saying, okay, I'll be Jewish, don't kill me, that that was enough to merit him being Jewish in some way. , and thus, Not like what are your thoughts on I think it says [00:40:00] something about the belief of about what a conversion meant during this time period
Simone Colins: well, I like that the conversion involved a Costly signal it seems
Malcolm Collins: again, we, we can, we can argue about, you know, were these good people or not, but it's indicating something about what was commonly understood as the conversion process. If it was commonly understood, you had to go through a rabbinic court, these people certainly wouldn't have thought of this as a conversion.
Nor would the mass conversions of the Hasmoneans been thought of as a conversion. Yeah. Okay, so now we've got the conversion of the women of Damascus, which I think is very interesting in regards to your note on costly signals. And we'll see, I think, why Christianity spread as the branch of Judaism that ended up spreading.
In the Jewish War, Book 2, Chapter 20, Josephus describes events in Damascus during the early stages of the Jewish revolt. After news spread of Jewish rebel victory, the people of Damascus planned a massacre of the Jewish population in the city. However, they had a problem. Quote, but they were afraid of their own wives.
who were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion. [00:41:00] Oh no. It was the greatest concern was how they might conceal these things from them, end quote. The passage indicates that a significant number of non Jewish women in Damascus had embraced Judaism. These women had such strong attachment to Judaism and the Jewish community that their husbands feared.
They would warn the Jews about the planned massacre. The men of Damascus ultimately carried out their plan in secret, killing about 10, 000 Jews in a single hour. This brief mention illustrates how Judaism had attracted numerous Gentile women converts to the point where it affected political and military calculations during the Jewish Roman conflicts.
Now, I'll note here. Josephus is known to exaggerate. Do I think that almost all of the women really were addicted to the Jewish theology? No, but I think that he's noting something here, which we also see in the other stories, is that women converted to Judaism at a disproportionate rate. The question is, is why did women convert?
Likely because they didn't need to get circumcision. There really wasn't that costly a signal for women who converted to Judaism, but there was a very costly signal for [00:42:00] men to convert to Judaism. Yeah,
Simone Colins: that's fair.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. And I'd also point out here that, like, do you even need a rabbinic court if you're talking about, like, circumcision?
I can see why rabbinic courts weren't really needed during this time period before first conversions became common. Because, like, no one's gonna fake that. Like, no guy, it's like, there's a lot of things that a guy is gonna fake. And I think that they just didn't really care about women converts that much.
They didn't see them as you know, it was good to, to, to have them when they were really dedicated, but more often than not, and you'll often see this, they're a little worried about women converts. They're like, oh, they'll deconvert your kids because there's some periods when the Bible was written, when like deconversions and like marrying outsiders was a big issue, but it doesn't appear to be the case throughout the, like the entire old Testament.
The story of Fulvia in the Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 3. Josephus accounts an incident occurring in Rome during the reign of Emperor Tiberius around 19 CE. According to Josephus, there was a woman who was a proselytite converted to [00:43:00] Judaism, whose name was Fulvia, a woman of great dignity and one who embraced the Jewish religion.
The men, four Jewish scoundrels, had persuaded her to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem. And when they had received what she had donated, they asked for their own purple dye. Oh. For their own uses. Or maybe fabric. And did not bring it to the temple. In this account, Fulvia is described as a woman of high social standing in Rome, who had converted to Judaism.
Her husband, Saturnalius, reported this fraud to his friend, Serjanus, keep in mind the husband wasn't a convert, who then informed the emperor Tiberius. Tiberius used this incident as a pretext to expel all Jews from Rome, forcibly conscripting 4, 000 Jewish youths for military service in Sardinia. This story illustrates both that high status Romans were converting to Judaism, and that this was occurring during a time of increased Roman hostility towards Jewish practices, and that it seemed to disproportionately convert women.
Oh, actually, this could solve a mystery from one of our other And one of our other episodes, we were talking about what's Christianity really more [00:44:00] moral than the other systems of the time, like our Christmas Day episode. So like nobody watched it, but I figured it was a good one for Christmas Day. And one of the interesting things is that early Christian communities seem to be overwhelmingly female, like a rate of like, And Scott
Simone Colins: Alexander discusses this in his book review on the early rise of Christianity.
Malcolm Collins: But he also noted that a lot of these early Christian communities were actually just converted Jewish converts. Sort of. It seems
Simone Colins: like the, the female interest in Christianity was, Especially all this extra simping for women.
Malcolm Collins: But he also mentioned that a lot of these early Christian communities were communities that had wanted to convert to Judaism or had flirted with Judaism.
Oh yes, but like the circumcision
Simone Colins: was just one step too far. And, or the rules. Because it can be very hard to convert to Judaism if you don't live in a Jewish community. Because there's so many things, like you need all these amenities.
Malcolm Collins: To be able to follow rules. The point being is this explains potentially why they were so overwhelmingly female because of these pseudo Jewish convert communities.
Mm-hmm . Were, [00:45:00] as soon as they saw an iteration of Judaism that didn't require all this other stuff, they were fully on board with that. Yeah. So they were converting sort of prebuilt. communities. And I think early Christianity, as we'll get in further about this, because you'll see that these communities were super common of Jewish converts all around the, the Greek world, all around the Roman world.
That we might be understanding early Christianity wrong as being the super fast spreading religion when it was really spreading on kindling. It would have been. Yeah.
Simone Colins: I mean, Scott Alexander also discussed that in that book that he reviews. I
Malcolm Collins: don't think the book fully emphasizes it. Yeah. How common, because we're going to hear that almost every community had a group of Gentile Jewish converts living within it.
That they were that common, that it was seen as any town you go to, you can find Gentile Jewish converts as a community. So They loosened the lid. It's not fair. Yeah, those communities all converted and it made it look like Christianity was growing much faster than it actually was. The Jewish Greeks [00:46:00] of Antioch.
In the Jewish War, Book 7, Chapter 3, Josephus describes the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in Antioch in modern day Turkey, one of the major cities of the Roman East. Quote, For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all habitable earth, So it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighbors and the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings after Antiochus had afforded them a habitation with most undisputed tranquility.
They also made prostelitites. Of a great many Greeks. Perpetually, and thereby after a sort brought them to be a portion of their own body. So this is a Jew bragging about how many Jewish converts there were from Greek populations in this city of Antioch, and that they converted after proselytization.
This passage indicates that Judaism and Tioch was actively attracting Greek converts. The phrase they had in some measure incorporated within themselves suggests these [00:47:00] converts were integrated into the Jewish community. This provides evidence that Judaism during this period was not closed to outsiders, but was actively engaged in what we might today call missionary activity.
And throughout his books, Josephus writes of Jewish proselytization against Appian, book 239, Josephus proudly notes the widespread appeal of Jewish practices. Quote, the masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances, and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation to which our customs of abstaining from work on the seventh day was not spread.
And where the fasts and the lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed, end quote. Against Apion, book 239, he emphasizes how many Gentiles have adopted Jewish customs. Quote, many people have come over to our ways of worship. Some of whom have remained, while others, lacking the necessary endurance, have fallen away again.
End quote. Now, I also think this is pretty interesting here, is it talks about, you know, what makes you a Jew. It's not that they were, like, turned away by a court or something like that. It was just too hard to follow all the rules, and [00:48:00] so they stopped being Jewish. So I think that that shows how a Jew of this time period, of the time period like a bit post christ deaths, would have thought about conversion.
Jewish War Book 2, 18 2. During the outbreak of violence against Jews in Caesarea, Joseph C. Smith notes the whole city was filled with confusion and it appears evident that the rest of the population would soon betake themselves to arms against the Jews. This event was mainly achieved through the work of proselytite converts.
, antiquities book 22 1 through 5 Beyond this specific story of helena and ezatis joseph mentions a merchant ammonius Quote taught them the royal family to worship God according to the Jewish religion, suggesting ongoing missionary activity.
Now, maybe Josephus made all this up. That's possible. Or maybe this is just like super rare instances and all of the stuff about like mass conversions, or the, you know, multiple communities Total fiction because Josephus wanted to make the Jews look good. Now, why he would think this would make the Jews look good if you needed a rabbinic court and Judaism was considered a [00:49:00] matrilineal thing, I don't know.
But clearly, he loved that people liked converting to Judaism. All over his works, okay? Okay. Let's go to writers who hated Jewish people. We'll start with one who really hated the Jewish people. This is Tacticus. Now, for people who don't remember Tacticus, Tacticus was the guy, when he was complaining about how evil the Jews were, , one of , his complaints was that they didn't practice exposure or drowning their infants.
He was very upset about that. He was like, what a disgusting practice to not drown infants. Everybody knows, you know, when you don't want a baby, you just drown it. People wonder why women were into it. Yeah, you, you wonder why we talk about in the, with early Christianity, we're more moral. This is one of the things that early Christianity really kept with Judaism, which is do not kill babies.
Yeah. And also like, don't be a dick to women. Don't be a dick to women. We'll get it. We'll get it. If you want to go into that episode, you can, but your early Judaism was significantly less dickish to women. Then the Romans [00:50:00] were I can see why women wanted to convert as well from that standpoint, but you can learn more about that in the other video.
So tacticus on Jewish convert in his history is book 55 written around 100 to 110 C. E. Tacticus notes was disdain quote those who are converted to their ways, follow the same practice, he's talking about circumcision here, and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers of little account.
Now. This hostile characterization nevertheless confirms that the conversions to Judaism were occurring among Murbans. Tacticus presents conversion as a complete break. Tacticus is where the word tactics come from. He wrote the, our version of like, the art of war. The western canon version.
It's not a bad name, what do you
Simone Colins: think about that?
Malcolm Collins: But most of it is like, I like Tacticus, let's do that for a guy! Tacticus! I'm sorry, not taking into account what he had to say about Junes. No, no, no, no, I'm just like, We're not pro baby drowning, I [00:51:00] just like Tacticus. No! Yes, thank you. But I, I think he, he shows some really interesting things here.
So what from his perspective was required from Jewish conversion? Today, what we would think of as a lot of like cults or alternate religions, much more so than modern Jewish conversion. We also see this with Ruth which is if you talk about modern Jewish conversion, yeah, it might be harder to convert, but you're not supposed to cut ties with your family.
Jewish conversion during this period, cutting ties with your family was normal. Maybe not everyone did this because we see Ruth cut ties with her family and Tacticus complains about people cutting ties with their family. So I'm guessing it was normal for some converts. I'm not going to say all converts because we know of other individuals who didn't, like the woman whose husband, like this highborn woman whose husband was clearly not Jewish.
But I'm going to say that, that really dedicating yourself to the Jewish community appears to have been one of the core things that made you Jewish during this period. Juvenal's complaints in his satellites, particularly [00:52:00] satire 14, lines 96 to 106, written in the early 2nd century CE, Juvenal mocks Romans who adapted Jewish practices. Quote, Some of you have had a father who reveres the Sabbath, worship nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens.
Oh! I love that! The sound so much, he's like, they worship the clouds and the heavens! Haven't been trained to despise Roman laws. They learn and practice and revere the Jewish law. I, again, I love this. It's like, it's like, there is this level of, like, breaking from Roman laws. And there was a reason to despise many Roman customs.
Again, see, we're Christians, actually more moral. He describes a multi generational process where first generation converts observe some Jewish customs while their children become fully observant Jews, showing concern about Judaism's growing influence in Rome. Really interesting here, because he's talking about, like, you whose fathers You have gone like full Jew.
Very interesting. Roman legal restrictions. Emperor Hadrian ruled 117 to 138 CE. Reportedly banned [00:53:00] circumcision, which effectively prohibited conversion to Judaism. Earlier Emperor Domitian ruled. 81 to 96 CE imposed the Jewish tax, fiscus judicus, on those who, quote, lived a Jewish life without publicly acknowledging the faith, in quote, targeting converts.
So that's really interesting. If this wasn't a big thing that was happening, why are they making laws about it? What, if it was just a few rare instances and that's good evidence. I like that. And this is very different from, again, I think, like modern Jewish missionary activities, where there just is not a sustained modern Jewish missionary effort.
Even among Reformed Jews, that it's at least competent or widespread, or that I've seen. Whereas you really get the impression, if you are a wealthy Roman, like, writer, or even emperor, like, like, Tacticus, or this, this guy who, who wrote the satirites, these are satires you know, You are going to know enough Roman [00:54:00] to Jewish converts that it's gonna be annoying to you.
I don't know a single convert to Judaism. I do. Oh, sorry. I do know. My sister converted. I don't know a single convert to Judaism where it wasn't involved with a marriage. I do. I should say. Is that the same with you?
Simone Colins: No. He just chose to convert on his own. Just really liked the religion. He was one of my former managers at my first job.
Yeah, I actually know,
Malcolm Collins: but I think that who they were marrying and their kids future played a role in it. So it's a bit different than this. It wasn't,
Simone Colins: it wasn't his partner either. So,
Malcolm Collins: but here, here's the thing. Apparently, these converts were obnoxiously Jewish to these, these Romans. Like, I mean, I
Simone Colins: think it's like being a vegan or a marathon runner.
You know, my
Malcolm Collins: understanding is that these early Jewish converts were maybe closer to like, not like what we would think of as like a reformed Jewish movement, but like somewhat Orthodox in a lot of their practices. And, and like you say, I think like a vegan, like [00:55:00] they actually held the dietary restrictions.
They actually maybe did some of the Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. Like you
Simone Colins: bring them over for dinner and they're like. I'm sorry. I recently converted to Judaism. You invite them
Malcolm Collins: over and they're like, It's the Sabbath. I'm sorry. Yeah,
Simone Colins: and I can't eat this dish right now because you've combined the cheese with the meat.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, but here we're talking about now Cassius Dio's account in Roman history, book 67, 14, 1 to 2, written in the early third century CE, but describing events under Domitian, Cassius Dio reports, quote, many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some were put to death and the rest were at least deprived of their property.
This passage suggests Jewish conversion was widespread enough to warrant imperial persecution and, and, they believed enough that they were killed for it, you know, really dedicated to the Jewish community. And then we have the new Testament Matthew 23, 15, the new Testament verse written CE 80 to 90 CE has Jesus criticizing certain Pharisees.
Quote, woe to you, teachers of [00:56:00] the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. While polemical, this suggests active Jewish missionary efforts during the late Second Temple period, confirming some Jewish groups actively sought converts. So it's common enough that all these well known Romans had seen these, these Jewish proselytizers.
And, and Jesus, apparently, Was like, hey, I know your type, you travel all over the place trying to convert people. Like, this was a common activity. And, and I, I hear like, I brought this up with a one of the rabbis I brought this up with was like, oh, but see this book that was written hundreds of years later says that during this time period, we didn't actively seek converts.
Well, I'm going to go into why you might want to whitewash this part of your history because there is a reason why they had to stop doing this. But it's not even whitewashed, like, I see nothing actively wrong with this, it just poses a problem for the concept of matrilineal Jewish identity being something that's biblically grounded or [00:57:00] even grounded in Jewish ancient history.
Simone Colins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Now, let's turn to the Bible itself. By the way, any thoughts before I go further? No. You were thorough. , I'm pretty pumped on this because this changed, I had no idea, I had no idea until I started looking in on it that Jews used to have a big, like, proselytization effort. I didn't either.
This is very surprising. And it feels very Islami, right? Like, they have their own country, , they have their own laws for their country and their own, like, system for those laws. They have their own system for people who aren't Jewish living within their country, and then they, they have, like, active missionary efforts.
And a big diversity of beliefs as well. Like modern day Islam was like different Jewish groups, which we'll get into in a second here. Let's now turn to the Bible itself. I didn't start with the Bible because most Orthodox Jews have already had to deal with the fact that all Ruth apparently had to do to become a Jew to become part of the lineage that led to King David was say that she wanted to be a Jew and was committed to the religion. They typically handle it with comments like this.
When Ruth converts to Judaism, she offers [00:58:00] a very radical declaration of commitment. See Ruth's 1. 16. 17, and Ruth said, Do not entreat me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die.
There I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me, So may he continue, if anything, but death separate me and you. I mean, that sounds like standard marriage stuff. Yes. It's not like, oh, hey let me call, this is the other person talking here. It's not like, oh, hey, let me call myself Jewish and keep living like a heathen.
It's I'm totally committed to this people. And I am leaving my cultural context, my land moab, and totally immersing myself in Jewish culture and practice. And it's like, yeah, but it is all still just saying that, and going to a land where all this stuff is like the normal rules, you're not going to have an easy time living in Israel of this time period without obeying like the Sabbaths and the other Jewish laws, like It's not, like, I guess as an outsider, I'm like, [00:59:00] I don't know, I'm not convinced.
That said, when this is taken in context of all of the historic evidence provided above, it becomes clear that Ruth's conversion was not something extraordinary, nor did it require such an extreme statement. She just needed to say, like, I'm committed now. I will also note modern Jewish interpretations of the story of Ruth are hugely weighed down by extra biblical rabbinic traditions, which makes her conversion sound more modern.
Here is an example of one of those. So this is another rabbi who got back to me on this. Okay. Ruth cuts her ties with her Moabite family. family and joins with the Jewish people that fits the Talmudic criteria of accepting the mitzvah as she is committed to the Jewish God and Jewish people. And even then she's treated as an outcast until she manages to seduce Boaz, a local Jewish noble, and the marriage is only approved.
of after she goes to the analog of Beit Din Jewish court at the city gate. If it within the text that she went to a Jewish court to confirm her status as a Jew, this would be a significant blow to my argument. [01:00:00] This is not him saying that, this is me admitting that. If these Beit Din, if these Jewish courts existed during the time of Ruth, that would like blow a major hole in the argument I'm making here.
And I'd also note for the above story, there is almost nothing less you can do than make a verbal commitment to a religion. Right? Like, it really is, you might say, well, the verbal commitment was extreme, maybe. But if you actually want to change your religion
Simone Colins: Toasty all the time after breaking something or making a mess says, I won't do it again.
Five minutes later He makes very strong verbal
Malcolm Collins: commitments.
Simone Colins: Yes, he makes extremely strong verbal commitments. They're very earnest sounding.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so this would have like really hurt me if it was true. So of course I go to AI and I'm like, is this actually in the Bible or is this later rabbinic tradition?
Or maybe just a fabrication. What's in the biblical text? In Ruth 4 does go to the city gate, which is the place where legal matters are settled. He gathers 10 elders as a witness. However, the primary purpose was not to approve Ruth's conversion or status. The legal matter [01:01:00] concerned the right of redemption of Nomi's property and the Leverite obligation to marry Ruth.
The closer relative initially had first right but declined. Boaz then publicly declared his intention to redeem the property and marry Ruth. The elders and the people present blessed the union. What is not in the biblical text, there is no mention of Ruth's appearing before this gathering. The gathering was not convened to approve Ruth's conversion or status as a Jew.
There's no mention of Ruth being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty to Nehemiah and her people. All of, the characterization that Ruth went before an analog of a Beit Din and needed approval for her conversion is reading later rabbinic conversion procedures back into the biblical text.
This represents an anachronistic interpretation that projects later Jewish legal frameworks onto the earlier biblical narrative. , the Biblical text itself presents Ruth's transition to becoming part of the Israelite community as primarily based on her declaration of loyalty to Naomi and her people and her God without detailed legal procedures for [01:02:00] conversion that developed in later Rabbinic Judaism.
And then I again ask, and hey, I like Is this actually correct? And it goes, Ruth's declaration to Naomi, your people will be my people and your God, my God constitutes her allegiance with Israel without any formal conversion process. And it again, affirmed the gathering at the city gate. Ruth's four was specifically about property redemption and marriage rights, not Ruth's religious status.
There is no mention of Ruth's being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty. And Ruth never appears before any court like body to have her conversion approved. But let's say Ruth's conversion wording was so powerful. You're convinced it parallels to modern conversions. What about Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite priest who married Moses, with no conversion process at all?
In fact, just how unconverted she was, was made clear when God threatened Moses to make sure she circumcised their son because she wasn't practicing circumcision of their children. What's striking about all these conversion processes described is while they don't align with what modern Jews believe about [01:03:00] Jewish identity, they match exactly with the Jewish experience, identity, and covenant made with God described in the Bible.
Simone Colins: Wow.
Malcolm Collins: Made you Jewish was following the rules and to some extent your belief, your heritage, had literally nothing to do with it outside the priestly caste. What about passages in books like Jubilee that warn against sparing outsiders? Okay. Well, they do. But they also explain why the warning exists in context, not due to concerns about purity or blood or matrilineal descent, but because children from such marriages often had less Jewish beliefs and led the community astray.
If I warn my children against marrying non believers, which I will, does that mean I wouldn't consider converts to be technopuritan? Does that mean I would still consider them technopuritan if they left the faith? Of course not! It was a practical concern and a logical one. To the notion that Jewish identity should be passed on matrilineally and Judaism should become an ethno religion represents such a bizarre series of conjectures drawn from practical concerns in the Bible that I [01:04:00] am astounded. The Bible and Judaism of biblical times didn't have to address the question why Jews because it simply wasn't relevant.
Anyone could become a Jew. At any time. Just by following the rules and dedicating themselves to the community of God. Interesting. Okay. So, did this blow your mind, first part? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I hope we've reached a point here where anyone without a strong, and this, this really gets me like when people are like, Oh no, like you're misreading it.
Look, I've got like four historians here of different faiths. I've got the new Testament. I've got Jesus never mentioning that he was opening this to non Jews. I've got stuff in the Bible. I've got what's actually said in the Bible and your, your core argument against this is coming from sources hundreds of years later.
Like. Mm hmm. You, you really, it is a [01:05:00] theological belief, given the preponderance of historical evidence, that Jewish missionaries and proselytization efforts were not common and widely accepted in the period of Christ. Mm hmm. All right. I hope we've now, would you agree, like, am I being crazy here? Am I, like, reaching or something?
I don't, I don't think you're being crazy. I'm being super biased here. That's the other thing. Like if somebody was like, I
Simone Colins: think maybe here's the problem. And I think this is what it's going to come down to. If I can try to predict the comments or the emails that you'll receive after this, it will be that like, you're applying a very Protestant or Calvinist.
Or materialist mindset to our religion. Like you're, you're, you're just applying the wrong logical framework. and this doesn't interest us.
Malcolm Collins: Like, it doesn't matter. If, if you approach this from more of like , a theological community base, or vibe Or mystical. Like, if [01:06:00] it's just vibes,
Simone Colins: then, or, you know, mystical feeling, whatever, I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm clearly not a mystical person.
Then move like it doesn't
Malcolm Collins: matter and this criticism is like if you're a Jew and you think like, I'm, I'm, I'm calling out Jews here in some way, this criticism and the difference , in sort of, if you just approach this with a different vibe, you get it. Is exactly my concern with Catholicism as well.
Like when I rip on Catholics and say they're practicing demonic stuff and they're blah, blah, blah. All of that is coming from just being ultra obsessed with the text itself. Trying to like interpret what the text means and not being like, yeah, but like, look at the community and traditions and vibes.
And so I'd argue that my, if you want to call this, like. You know, investigation or, or criticism of these traditions is completely analogous to the criticism I've had of everyone else's traditions and in no way unique. And I would emphasize with all of this, I like the Jews. I think they're still clearly being shown God's divine favor right [01:07:00] now.
So we've got to keep all that in mind with any, like, Clearly, they're doing something right, or at least comparatively right when contrasted with other groups. And I, I don't think that they should be targeted for conversions. I think they're following a covenant that they made with the actual God, because it's the same God of Jesus.
So again, like, I'm fairly positive on Judaism more broadly, but I also really like, the truth. And if I'm getting truth from these texts and from historians and from, you know, like trying to suss out, like, what actually happened, what was actually written here, This is what I can't help but come to.
Simone Colins: Yeah, I think a lot of it also, though we have to separate the truth and sort of your religious journey from what was more broadly discussed in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, which is First, you're looking at this from the perspective that only very people very deep in the doctrine get and unless you're a Catholic priest or really high up in the LDS church or a rabbi or, you know, some equal thing, right?
[01:08:00] You're not going to be in the weeds. I think what's more important about cultures and religions. Is what the soft focus Vaseline over the lens audience is experiencing and doing. And that's one reason why I still, I mean, well, I know that they're experiencing more problems now, but I love the LDS church because in the end.
They are, I mean, at least the ones that I know are happier, they're more functional, they're, they're they're thriving, they're having kids, they have successful careers, they're satisfied with their lives, they're enjoying their lives, they have lower instances of mental health issues, all these lovely things, right?
So that's like a good cultural technology, and I think that the same can be seen For judaism, I agree 100.
Malcolm Collins: I think judaism makes people's lives better. I think it makes jewish lives Like
Simone Colins: does it matter? Does it matter if it's true? I mean in there, I mean I think that on both sides, we have met people who are like, they kind of wave their hands when it comes to the religious stuff and they're like, whatever, you know, like, do I, I actually, I don't know, but the [01:09:00] religion, like the culture is good.
Like
Malcolm Collins: just as you can see. And I'd actually go so far as to say, I actually agree with matrilineal descent. from a practical standpoint. I think it helps the current Jewish community's cohesiveness, sense of identity, sense of historical connection to the ancestors and the Bible and the, and the traditions.
I don't think like, I'm not here arguing that this should be dropped within modern at all. Okay. I think it is actually core to modern Judaism, but I, as a Christian derived religious system, this significantly changes the way I relate to that system and Jesus's teachings. Because my branch broke off before Judaism became matrilineal, before Judaism became exclusive.
And if it broke off before Judaism became exclusive, the idea of Christianity is like a Judaism fan [01:10:00] club disappears. It is, it becomes more of an equal and viable branch of the early Jewish traditions, which is what we'll get to here. Because I think a lot of people contextualize Christianity that way.
It's like a cult that was radically different from Judaism of the time, that broke off from Judaism. And I think that that belief, what we're gonna see, is mostly downstream of how different modern day Christianity is from modern day Judaism, instead of Christianity of this period from Judaism of this period.
I hope we've now reached a point where anyone without a strong theological reason to believe otherwise will see that Judaism, at the time of Jesus, was a religion attempting to grow aggressively through proselytization. While it had some ethnic connection, this was closer to the modern relationship between Muslims and Arabs than how contemporary Jews view their religion.
So now the question is, why would a religion like this transform into an ethno religion? The sad answer appears to be that it within response to the success of the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition. First, we need to be clear that the branch of Judaism [01:11:00] taught by Jesus was not particularly deviant for its time period.
Yes, it was distinct, but not more distinct than all the other contemporaneous branches of Judaism. For a quick list, you have the Pharisees, who emphasized oral tradition along the written Torah, and believed in resurrection, angels, and fate, slash free will. They were the forerunners of rabbinic Judaism.
You have the Sadducees, primarily aristocratic priests, who rejected oral tradition, resurrection, and afterlife concepts. They emphasized temple worship, and only accepted the written Torah. Now note here, the, the Sadducees would have been significantly more different from the Pharisees than Jesus would have been from the Pharisees.
Which is really interesting given that they did, , they denied resurrection and afterlife concepts.
And they rejected oral tradition. Now, I note here, because this is very important. A Jew today could argue Yeah, but the mainstream Jews, they always believed about the same thing. Except the problem , is that if you went to a person during this time period, if you went to the [01:12:00] Kingdom of Judea and you said.
Okay. I understand there's all these different forms of Judaism, but which one is the real Judaism? The answer they would've given you is, oh, it's the Sadducees, that's the Judaism that's practiced both by the royal family and the priestly cast, except the Sadducees are extinct. It is the Pharisees that modern rabbinic Judaism descends from. And I also wanna emphasize how different the Sadducees were than modern Jews. They, when I say they denied the resurrection of the dead, what I mean is they did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and they believed that there was no. Afterlife. The Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic use of the oral Torah to enforce their claims to power citing the written Torah as the sole manifestation of divinity.
, the Sadducees denied the existence or influence of angels as well. All of these were things that the Pharisee branch of Judaism and Christianity shared. This is what I mean when I say that. [01:13:00] If you look at how these groups were different from each other, the group that modern Judaism came from really and truly was as different from the mainstream Jewish group.
The group that the royal family and priesthood practiced as Christianity was.
I'd also note here if you're like, well, okay, maybe the royal family and the priesthood practiced this other form of Judaism, , but the one that turned into rabbinic Judaism, this was the Judaism of the people. This wasn't like some weird offshoot. , well, unfortunately we happen to have historical documents showing that's not correct.
If we look at the Jewish historian Josephus. He reported that there were only around 6,000 Pharisees
This was out of a Jewish population at the time that would've been, , about 1.5 million in Israel and 4 to 4.5 million already dispersed throughout the Roman Empire.
I know this is an offensive thing to state, but it aligns with the historical facts we have on the ground.
The good news about this from a Jewish perspective is it [01:14:00] means that any who claim that the quote unquote Jews were involved with the execution or persecution of Jesus are just factually incorrect. It was the Sadducees who were as different from the Christian group theologically speaking as the. , Pharisees, which later became rabbinic Judaism were, , the Pharisees had nothing to do with the persecution of Jesus,
Malcolm Collins: you have the Essenes, a separatist group who lived a monastic life. Like communities, possibly including the Dead Sea Scrolls community. They practice extreme ritual purity, communal property, and apocalyptic beliefs.
These people thought the world was about to end and were communists. Again, very different. The Zealots, a revolutionary movement focused on violent resistance against Roman Occupation, believing God alone should rule Israel. You have the Therapudae, a Jewish contemplative community in Egypt described by Philo, practicing asceticism and mystical interpretation of scripture.
They would have been more like a monastery type community, you could almost say? Yeah. You have the Herodians, [01:15:00] supporter of Herod's dynasty. who accommodated to Greco Roman culture while maintaining Jewish identity. This is like a mix of like Judaism and Greco Roman traditions. You have various messianic movements, multiple groups formed around charismatic leaders claiming messianic status, including Theodos, Judas, the Galilean, and the quote unquote Egyptian.
You have the Samaritans though they consider themselves followers of an Israel of an Israelite religion, mainstream Jews viewed them as a deviant sect. They accepted only the Pentateuch and worshipped on Mount Gerizim. You have Hellenistic Judaism. Jewish communities, especially Alexandria, who synthesized Jewish practice with Greek philosophy, represented by figures like Philo.
That's an important figure. You have Jewish Christian groups. After Jesus, various groups like the Ebonites, maintained Jewish practices while following Jesus as a Messiah. You have the Boethusians , often grouped with the Sadducees, but considered a distinct sect by some sources.
They were founded by followers of Boethus, [01:16:00] appointed high priest by Herod the Great. They rejected the oral tradition and had specific calendar related disputes with the Pharisees. Note here. I, the Ebonites, like our tradition, like technopuritan, it's actually probably of all of the traditions. If somebody was like, what are you closest to?
We're probably closest to the Ebonites because the Ebonites also didn't believe that Jesus was literally God's son. They just believed he was the Messiah. So very, and they were very similar to older Judaism in many ways. So I'd argue like, if you're actually like, which branch are we closest to?
We're very close to the Ebonites.
Side note here, but if you are one of those Christians who is like, well, it was very obvious to those writing the Bible, specifically those around the time of Christ, that he was a divine being who did lots of spectacular, and undeniable miracles, I must point out that this is factually untrue, even among his followers who thought he was the Messiah. The Ebionites, who believed Jesus to be the [01:17:00] Messiah, and who were one of the largest groups of his followers in the geographic region where he actually preached, believed him to be a man.
And just a man, not also simultaneously the son of God and also God himself.
Malcolm Collins: Ebionites believed Jesus to be the Messiah foretold in Jewish prophecy, and thus a man. The group most tied to the region where Jesus actually taught, and who would have had the most oral history of his teachings from their parents and grandparents, and who believed he was a literal messiah, so like, not against Jesus or his teachings, did not believe him to have claimed to be literally the son of God. Those traditions only evolved in regions where no one would have had any cultural memory of the actual Jesus like Rome and Egypt. This is why the Technopuritan tradition that follows what is actually written in the Bible most resembles the Ebionites and what they believed than the early church movements who were very, very far from where Jesus actually preached.
They went extinct, by the way. You have the Hemera Baptists, a Jewish sect mentioned in early Christian [01:18:00] and Rabbinic literature who practiced daily rituals of immersion for purification. So this was a Jewish sect that practiced daily baptism. Again, showing that, like, the baptism that Jesus was practicing, other Jewish groups were doing this.
Like, it might be weird. from a pharisee's perspective, but it wasn't weird from the perspective of the
Simone Colins: Hemerobaptists,
Malcolm Collins: right? And when we go to like John the Baptist, probably one of these guys. You know, he was, he was a Jew who was practicing baptisms, right? But again, like a lot of these traditions in Christianity, they weren't that deviant.
You have the natherites, while not exactly a sect, they were individuals who took special vows of abstinence from alcohol, cutting hair, et cetera. For dedicated periods of consecration to God, you have the Reshabites, a clan that practice an ascetic lifestyle, avoiding wine and permanent dwellings, living in tents as a religious commitment.
So when I bring up like all of the conversion stuff that's happening to modern Jews, I often get like a no truth Scotsman's fallacy. It's like, well, that must have been like deviant [01:19:00] rabbis or like overzealous weirdos who were like not mainstream Jews. It's like they may not be mainstream. If you consider mainstream, the sect that survived to become modern Judaism.
But that sect within this period was one of many highly deviant sects. That had a huge diversity of traditions. And the only reason that sect today is seen as true Judaism is because it's the one that survived and still calls itself the Jews. Not due to any uniqueness during this period. I'd also note that I actually do not discount the possibility that there was a sect of Jews during this period practicing matrilineal descent as an important part of Jewish identity, just that this community was probably not the community involved in proselytization, but there was a community involved in proselytization that seemed bigger and better resourced.
And this community appears to have nobody having written about [01:20:00] them. It appears to have not really impacted any of the literature written during this period. So my guess would be, is this community was either small or insular. What also is note to me that the extremists, like the Dead Sea Scrolls community, didn't appear to be of this community because they didn't appear to practice matrilineal descent.
So I'm not saying it's not possible that it wasn't practiced during this period, but it would have been considered a weird practice in the same way Jesus was a weird practice.
Simone Colins: Okay. But, but, but You're always gonna get weird subgroups in any culture. This is normal.
Malcolm Collins: No, not like this. This is way more diverse than modern Judaism.
This is a series of things that in a modern context might even be called a collection of different but related religions. I actually don't even think in a modern times we would call these the same religion. They're probably about as similar as like Mormons are to Christians. Like Mormons call themselves Christians, but like, this is a huge diversity.
The point I'm making here is that mat the matrilineal descent group [01:21:00] may have existed. And you may even say, well, they were always the real Jews because they ended up being the group that survived, and that proves God's favor of them. Fine. But I could equally say, well, the Christian branch proved God's favor by their rapid expansion.
And a few other things that we'll get to. All these various branches of the Jewish religion were attempting to convert followers and spread their influence. The only reason we think of the branch ancestral to modern Jews as the quote unquote true branch is because it is the one that survived and proliferated.
But if surviving and proliferating makes you the true branch, why isn't Christianity considered the true branch? Just because they don't call themselves Jews anymore is one of the main reasons. We need to look at Christianity in the context of its actual text and not let later traditions that were added, which makes Christianity radically different from ancient Judaism specifically these later beliefs were not actually in Christian scripture and, and they deviate significantly from Judaism.
So if you look at Christianity today, I, I, I agree. It's very radically different from Judaism of this period but it's because of a [01:22:00] few later additions to it. The addition of an immediate heaven and hell afterlife in addition to the afterlife in which you're raised again at some point in the future,
See our last track, track nine.
If this is shocking to you that this is not well attested in the Bible, and I'd also noticed the belief in like the garden of Eden that you go immediately when you die in modern Judaism is a massive deviation from what the Jews of. Jesus's time would have thought you know, so to again, go to track nine.
If you want more on this, the belief in using the son of God as a sin transference ritual, mirroring the goat that Jews transferred their sin to, and then sent to the demon Azazel, see track eight of this is shocking to you, but this idea was added to Christianity by Anselm of Canterbury. 10, 033 to 11, 009.
It is influential work, Cure Deus Homo, Why God Became Man, and is not found in the original text, which seems to be arguing Jesus needed to be sacrificed to seal a new covenant, a common practice during that time period being sacrificing animals when signing a new covenant. And Jesus even says this a few times that I'm being signed for the new [01:23:00] covenant they are killed for the new covenant.
Anyway, so, Three, the belief that Jesus was literally both God and God's son. We have not yet published our track pointing This out in the Bible and the Bible actually explicitly argues he is not so I will summarize the key point and go into detail on this maybe in a future track or maybe it's so offensive to Christians I'm just gonna bury it deep in this one because I don't want to deal with the backlash from pointing this out it was actually common in the old testament to call favored individuals children of god.
This is likely why what Jesus meant in the parts where he calls himself the son of God. Christians today call God Father all the time, and no one gets confused and believes they think God the Father is literally that individual's father. Plasms 2 7, I will proclaim the Lord's decree. He said to me, you are my son, today I become your father.
This is referring to the Davidic king. Another clear example is Exodus 4 22 23, where God refers to Israel collectively as his son. Quote, then say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son, and I will tell you quote, let my son [01:24:00] go, so he may worship me, end quote, in Hosea 11. 1, God refers to Israel as his son, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, called him my son then also there's a reference in 2 Samuel 7.
14 regarding David's descent, Solomon, and You I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands, end quote. God be like, he's my son, and I will punish him with a rod, inflicted by human I don't know,
Simone Colins: floggings and, oh, yeah, I guess You can use the human hands to hold a stick or something, but I was just pictured like a slap fight.
Malcolm Collins: Point being is god saying you know, jesus saying like god is my father doesn't mean god's literally his father. No for sure
in the Old Testament, God helps other women conceive when it should not be possible without those children being considered God's son. We see this, like, all the time in the Old Testament. God helps women get pregnant, and we're never like, well, that's God's son. We also need to think about the logistical problems.
If it means that Jesus is literally God's son, what [01:25:00] is his Y chromosome? God used some human male's DNA to create Jesus, as God does not have DNA, and it is the DNA that mixes with the female's that determines God's son. Who the literal father is of a child whether or not that man slept with that woman.
So even if God took some other man's DNA and implanted it in Mary, that man is still Jesus's, like, human father. That IVF, like, I don't say because we do IVF that, like, Simone was miraculously conceived. No, I do think Jesus conception was miraculous, I just think that a human's DNA was used for it.
To highlight how absurd it is to claim that God was literally Jesus' father, just because he assisted in combining Mary and Joseph's DNA. , this would be like all of my kids were had through IVF. It would be like if somebody said, oh, Malcolm, you are not the father of those kids. It's the IVF doctor.
It's the doctor who helped implant the embryo. , which is obviously laughable. Nobody thinks like that. The father of a [01:26:00] child, it's a contributor of the DNA.
quick aside here. If you are wondering who's, why chromosome Jesus had, we actually know this. It was Joseph's. The prophesied Messiah had to come from the paternal line of David.
If Jesus is literally God's son, he cannot be the Messiah. I will also note here on multiple occasions, Jesus accepts the title of son of David, Mark 10 46 52 and Matthew 15 22 28. The only occasion you could use to plausibly argue he is not David's son is Matthew 22 41 46. We know from other passages that Jesus is the son of David.
We know this passage isn't about invalidating that connection. What it appears to be doing. is pointing out that while he is descended from David, he is above him in terms of spiritual connection. We will see in a second Jesus pointing out that a part of God is in him and a part of God is in us. Maybe this is him arguing the part in him is more than the part that within David.
And it doesn't make sense in [01:27:00] context.
If he and God shared the same will, why would he say things like, quote, My father, why have you forsaken me? End quote.
I once have somebody tell me that the reason he said that was to fulfill prophecy, and I'm like, do you know how stupid that sounds? That okay? So Jesus is up there suffering on a cross. He is not thinking, nor does he believe God has forsaken him. He doesn't want to ask this question yet.
He feels compelled to ask it just so that he can check a box on a prophecy even. Why would you create. A prophecy that you, like anyone could just choose to fulfill as well. , just don't have that be part of the prophecy. If that wasn't something Jesus was going to naturally say,
it, it is like that south park scene with the red heifer where they paint it red and they're like, oh, yeah. That's what the prophecy was always about. It was a bunch of kids painting a heifer red. It's like n no, very clearly. If you can just choose to fulfill a prophecy, then it's not a meaningful prophecy.
There.
There it is. Right there. See a redheaded cow.[01:28:00]
Whoa. Look it you right Kyle. A ginger. I shall never question your keen intellect again.
Malcolm Collins: But, more importantly, Jesus tells us he is not literally God's son on each of the three occasions he has pressed on the subject. One, quote, But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again, the high priest asked him, Are you Christ, son of the blessed? This is when he's on trial to be potentially killed. And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. So, note here, Jesus is asked two questions. The first being, is he Christ the Messiah, who Jews understood to be human?
And the second being, if he is the Son of God. He answers both in turn and very explicitly. I am, I am the Messiah, and You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power. I am the Son of Man. He literally inverts their phrase. Are you the Son of God? No, I am [01:29:00] the Son of Man. Okay, people use the I am word to be like, well, God said I am when he first announced himself to Moses.
That seems, I don't, I think it's a, it's a much easier parallel to say, are you the son of God? I am the son of man. To be pretty, pretty explicit there. Note here, because he does believe himself to be set apart by God.
And people who are set apart by God are called the children of God throughout the Old Testament. He does not deny this, but clarifies that he is the Son of Man to ensure there is no confusion that he perceives himself to be literally the Son of God. But he is confirming that he's the Messiah here.
And I'd also note here, very interestingly this is one of the only places in the entire Bible, and I actually think The only place where Jesus hard confirms that he's the Messiah which is really interesting because the one time when it will lead to his death is the one time when he absolutely confirms it.
Without ambiguity. Two here. How long will you keep us in suspense if you are the Messiah? Tell us plainly. Remember, they don't think the Messiah is literally the Judaism. The Messiah is a [01:30:00] guy. Jesus answered. I tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my father's name testify about me, but you do not believe me because you are not my sheep.
My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my father's hand. I and the father are one. Note here the line, I am my father are one.
He is referencing the unity of their ability to catch lost sheep because the question is in reference to him being the Messiah. As we continue, we have a case of people misunderstanding Jesus on this exact point in him correcting them. And his Jewish opponents picked up some stones to stone him. But Jesus said to them, I have shown you Many good works of the Father.
For which of these do you stone me? So note here, Jesus is implying that he has not done anything blasphemous. Meaning he must assume that they are not meant to infer that he is literally God or the Son [01:31:00] of God, but is set apart by God. So here he's being like, what, why are you gonna stone? Like, what are you doing?
If he understood that he was claiming to be God, he'd know exactly why they were about to stone him, right? And they say to him, we are not stoning you for any good work, they replied, but for blasphemy, because you are a mere man claiming to be God. Jesus answered them, it is not written in your law.
I've said you are gods, if called them gods to whom the word God came. So it's saying you are gods to whom the word of God came. And scripture cannot be set aside. What about the one whom the father set apart as his very own and sent it to the world. So here he is saying, I have been sent apart, and I have heard the word of God through Scripture.
Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I say, I am God's son? Right here he makes it clear that he calls himself the Son of God because he has been set apart by God as the Messiah. Not because he is literally God's son. He is correcting them here, pointing out there is no blasphemy in what he is saying, otherwise his argument does not make sense.
If you believe that he thinks he actually is the son of God, this argument doesn't make [01:32:00] sense. And then he says, do not believe me unless I do the works of the Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you know and understand the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
So here, when pressed for more information, we see Jesus explaining when he says he is the Son of God or he is God, he means that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. The intention of this statement is made clear in the third place Jesus denies being literally the Son of God. So note here, you might be like, well he is saying God is in him and he is in his God.
Certainly he never says that about anyone who has faith. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where we are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know the Father as well. For now on, you do know him and have seen him.
Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered. Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you for such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. [01:33:00] How can you say show us the Father? Don't you believe I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
Now pause and note the phrase he says here, okay? I am in the Father and the Father is in me, okay? So by seeing him, you have seen the father, because the father is in him and he is in the father. The words I say here, I do not speak of my own authority. Rather, it is the father living in me who is doing his work.
Believe me when I say, I am in the father, and the father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will be greater things than these, because I am going to the Father, and I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, quote, if you love me, keep my commands, and I will ask the Father, and will give you another advocate to help you, and be with you forever. The Spirit of Truth. This is the Holy Ghost. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
[01:34:00] But you know him, for he lives in you, and will be in you. Bam. Right there, ladies and gentlemen. He says, he lives in you, and will be in you. Whenever Jesus says the Father is in him, he means it in the same way he believes the Father is in all believers. In this passage, we see the language mirrored. The Father is in Jesus, and It's just the whole we're all made of stardust thing.
It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, and the Father is in all faithful believers. Also note, Jesus is not putting himself above other faithful believers. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these. Because I am going to the Father.
So here we see him saying, he is not the be all end all. If he was literally God, other people would not be able to outdo him in the name of God after he dies. He also ends this section pointing out that he will not be on this earth forever, and will in a traditional [01:35:00] sense die. In the Old Testament, as we point out in the last track, it is common When someone dies to be said to going back to God or that the rock is going back to God, they're animating for us.
And then, finally, I will not have you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will also live. On that day, you will realize that I am the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Listen to that. On that day, you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me.
And I am in you. Bam. And for those in the back, on that day you will realize I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. All of the believers are in each other and the Father in the same way Jesus means when he says the Father is in him. So this isn't a unidirectional thing. It's not that Jesus is in you because you're a believer.
You are in him. He is in God because he believes in God. All of these people in this belief circle exist within each other, but not literally as each other. Again, why would [01:36:00] he say, My lord, my lord, why have you forsaken me? If he was literally had the same will as God.
Another wildly important part of this particular segment, where Jesus is laying out that when he says the Father is in him, and he is in the Father, he means it in the same way that he is in you, and you are in him, and you are in the Father, and the Father is in all of us if we are a believer.
In this very segment he says, quote, No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know the father as well. For now, you do know him and you have seen him. And actually, this entire segment comes at somebody saying, basically, he says this and the person's like, oh, so do you mean that you are literally God?
And he's like, no, I do not mean I am literally God. I mean that God is in me and God is in you and I am in you and you are in God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So a lot of people use this line, no one comes to the father except through me to mean that there is no other path to God. i. e. if you're Jewish, you cannot get to God.
And yet we clearly [01:37:00] see here, he says, except through me, if you really know me, you know the Father as well. He is saying this in the exact context of the passage, where he makes it clear that the part of the Father he has in him, we also have in us if we are true believers. So when he says the only way to God is through him, he clearly means when read in context, that the only way to God is through true believers, not literally just him.
It's pretty clear from other words in this segment that he does not see himself as the be all end all, quote, truly, truly, I say unto you, whoever believes in me will also do works that I do and greater works these he will do, end quote. Oh, that's
Simone Collins: pretty clear.
Malcolm Collins: Pretty clear. Yeah. What he's saying here in context is that yes, the only pass to God is through him, which The him here could be any believer, because we all have God in us the same way Jesus did, [01:38:00] in Jesus own words.
Which means that Jesus literally, i. e. Christianity literally, is not the only path to God, so long as it is one of the other true religions. So, while this tract may contradict both Jews and traditional Christianity, you can still be a technopuritan and follow one of those traditions. This track contradicts them because it is an evolution of my own ancestral tradition, which has a focus on facts and textual slash historical accuracy.
That is not as important as things like buying spiritualism and tradition , that within some of the other true branches determine it. Objective truths. Basically, all I can do is describe truths from the perspective of my tradition and culture, but the limited understanding of truths afforded to humans of this age means that other truths which might seem in direct contradiction to me can still be true as long as they follow one of the truth faiths.
Now, to those who say it is sacrilege to say that Jews could actually be right with God, it is pretty [01:39:00] striking that throughout the Bible, Jesus never said he invalidated the covenant that the Jews had with God or that they could not continue to be right by God by following the old covenant.
In fact, he even explicitly states, do you think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets basically implying, no, I have not come to do that.
Simone Collins: Right.
Malcolm Collins: He says, I have not come to abolish, I have come to fulfill, for truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest feather, nor the largest stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.
I hear the old covenant still stands. It is just a separate potential covenant to God, but he has fulfilled it, allowing for a new covenant. As you see here in Luke 2022 20, the new covenant in my blood, as I have mentioned many times when they say Jesus died for our sins, what they mean is Jesus was sacrificed to create a new covenant, not [01:40:00] as a sin transference vehicle like you would have had with the demon Azazel that was actually really common during that time period, i.
e. sacrificing something or an animal specifically to create a new covenant. You would sacrifice animals when you were signing a new covenant. This makes sense in context and assigns an added degree of value and importance to Jesus's sacrifice without making it nonsensical, which removing literally all of man's sins.
does. And I would also note here on the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus repeatedly uses the formula, you haven't heard it said, but I tell you, showing that the Bible's continuity is a reinterpretation of various commandments without an invalidation of those original commandments. The best you're going to get if you're looking for the old covenant being completely invalidated.
is not from Jesus, it's going to call from Paul's writing in Hebrews. By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear now, if you think he meant this in absolute terms, like it would soon disappear from the [01:41:00] world, he clearly didn't.
Because, you know, Jews still exist. If you think he meant this, Oh, well, as soon as Jesus made the new covenant, the old covenant was no longer relevant for anyone on earth. Well, that also is clearly not what is meant because he said it will soon disappear as in it hadn't disappeared yet. So let's take another alternative.
Suppose what he meant is it will disappear in relevance for members of the community, the followers of Christ. Keep in mind that many of the Jews. who converted to Christianity in the early days still kept the Old Covenant at this time period. Well, then it was absolutely correct. So, that's what I think he meant here.
, if we're assuming he had any prophetic wisdom in what he was saying. Not that it will disappear as it passed to God, and not that it will disappear from Earth. Because if it was a pass to God, and it would disappear, it would have disappeared as soon as Christ made the New Covenant.
If it was going to disappear from the Earth, well, it clearly didn't do that. He meant within the Christian tradition, which of course it did. Very astute that he was [01:42:00] able to predict that. There might have been one other way that he meant it which was that it would last until the end times started, or the messianic age, as rabbis talk about this however, I don't I think that's, that's not the way I read it but he could have meant it that way. Just, just another logical alternative.
But he definitely didn't mean that it disappears in the path to God or it would have disappeared the moment Jesus created the no covenant. Not soon. No, I will note here that it makes. clear that this new covenant is superior though. So it may not completely replace, like for Jews, the old covenant, but it is better.
Quote, the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one. Since the new covenant established is established on better promises, end quote. And he explains here why the new covenant is better. Is that specifically I will put the laws in their minds and I will write them in their hearts.
As we go into more detail on this [01:43:00] shortly in this tract, the core difference between the new covenant and the old one is that the new covenant or within the new covenant, you are supposed to have a direct relationship by God, not one mediated by a temple, a bureaucracy or religious experts. You are now responsible for making up your own mind about what is right and wrong.
Was the old covenant that was like the old Testament that explicit about needing a mediator? Yeah, the Old Testament is very clear. I mean, the rabbis determined God's will. Basically, they would debate on it and then they would perform councils. And that's where all of these Jews, like when you're talking about maybe what,
Simone Collins: like the practice tradition was, but in the actual text and
Malcolm Collins: yeah, but if you're looking at like modern Jews, like, yeah, no, I
Simone Collins: get that.
But I'm just saying, where in the book does it say that? I
Malcolm Collins: don't know. Oh, well, so you get this from things like, not in stuff that was still recorded at the time of the split with Jesus Uhhuh . But if you look at the, like, snake oven story or the oven of, of course,
Simone Collins: I I get that. I get that. I just, I was, I was wondering if there was some Old Testament based precedent for this, and it doesn't seem like you've come that No, there,
Malcolm Collins: [01:44:00] this, that did wasn't invented until after this.
Okay. But it,
Simone Collins: it was more like then Jesus was attempting to reform. How things were playing out in practice, almost like a correction, because people
Malcolm Collins: weren't doing it. He seems to really explicitly be saying, you don't need to listen to the Levite cast, you don't need to do things through the temple anymore.
He was removing the cast. And not
Simone Collins: even like that was the original rule, because it never was. He was just saying, by the way, you don't need this.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, basically, by, well, the original rule, if you go to like the original rules that God laid out, it was definitely, yes, you have to follow the rules God laid out, but Yeah, but
Simone Collins: I mean, it was just the Ten Commandments, as long as you knew those.
Yeah, it was just the
Malcolm Collins: Ten Commandments, and then a tradition arose. You didn't have to go to someone
Simone Collins: else to have you tell, tell them, like, I mean, as long as, like, mom and dad told you.
Malcolm Collins: A hundred percent right. The, the rabbinic tradition was within one group of Jews within this period. But it was not like the dominant, there were many old Testament faiths during this period as we go over elsewhere in this tract.
And you are 100 percent correct in saying [01:45:00] that really all you had to follow was the original 10 commandments when the covenant was made and not all of the additional rules. Okay. And Jesus. was just you're creating a new covenant, which is written in our hearts. And within this new covenant that's written in our hearts.
It is up to us to determine stuff like what food is good to eat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Me, and I agree with the Bible with my intuition that this is a superior covenant because it allows you to make moral judgments on your own and gives you the ability to make those moral judgments. Well, it's
Simone Collins: almost, I mean, to use sort of, Current contemporary terminology. It's like the doge of Christianity or at least like, Abrahamic religion and that Jesus was saying all this bureaucracy, all these extra layers, all this regulation.
Is not necessary and if you cut it out you might be better off. Let's all try to
Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I actually think it's more than that I mean the new covenant said that you now have the responsibility If you agree to it to make these decisions for yourself It is an additional [01:46:00] responsibility not a removal of responsibility to decide for yourself Whether something is good and righteous and in line with god's plan So if you look at jesus's words here you have so whatever you believe about the things Keep between yourself and God, blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but whomever has a doubt is condemned if they eat because they're eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Basically everything you have to do has to come from faith and you're responsible for making these decisions yourself.
Simone Collins: Okay. Interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Thoughts. Did you, did you know that he denies this three times in the Bible?
Because I've never actually read these sections that are supposed to be, and followers will say, Oh, this affirms that he's actually God's son. When he's like exactly saying I'm not, like I'm the son of man. And then they have to get around this with the Trinity and say, well, he's also the son of man. Well, then why did he say, I'm the son of man and the son of God?
He doesn't say that.
Simone Colins: It's just subsequent hyping. I get it. I was just watching this really long YouTube video on the history of animatronics. And they tried to, [01:47:00] Disney, Walt Disney wanted to make a very, very perfectly accurate Abraham Lincoln. And the big sell originally was the accuracy of this animatronic.
But in the end, they accentuated his cheekbones to make him look more distinctive. And they made him. Like, four inches taller. He was six foot four. I think they made the animatronic six foot eight because he needed to feel bigger. And they gave him a low, booming voice, even though it was understood that the historical Lincoln's voice was actually fairly shrill and kind of grating.
And I think this is the same kind of thing. It's very hard for us to have a revered figure and to not make them bigger than they were. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I agree. It is, it is very hard to do. And I think that that's, you know, part of what's going on here. And, and you know, some theological intensities that were created by some belief systems built up in some branches of the early church.
So, what about the Trinity? Let's start with how the modern concept of the Trinity started in the first place, because it's a little absurd. Basically, even though Jesus denies being God's literal son multiple times and [01:48:00] explains that God is in him in the same way he is in all believers, some branches of the early church, and I note here only some branches, tried to insinuate that Jesus was literally God's kid and thus a God himself.
This creates theological problems, because if Jesus is a God, Now you are clearly no longer a monotheistic religion, despite the Old Testament constantly warning against believing in multiple gods.
Now you could argue that Jesus is God, except it is made clear in the Bible on countless occasions that he is not, as he frequently beseeches God for things and prays to God. We don't have just, My Lord, why have you forsaken me? But we have John 17 3, where Jesus refers to the Father as the only true God, and to himself as the one, quote unquote, sent by God, or 14 28.
Quote, the father is greater than I, the Christian groups that had a polytheistic idea that despite what the Bible said, Jesus [01:49:00] was actually a God had to find a way around this contradiction. Tertullian. 1 55 to two 20. CE came up with the concept of the Trinity under the name Titas in 200 to 210 ce.
Simone Collins: It's funny because it's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the Old Testament again and again is like, don't do this. Please stop.
Malcolm Collins: Can you,
Simone Collins: can
Malcolm Collins: you just
Simone Collins: not,
Malcolm Collins: can we, this is why a lot of the early Christian groups like the Ebonites and stuff like that didn't believe this. Which we'll get to in a second.
Haven't we been told something about, Oh, right. Don't, but what's interesting here is. I mentioned that Tertullian came up with the concept of the Trinity in Trinitas. What's interesting here is that Tertullian, when he originally came up with this concept, it was actually closer to the technopuritan perspective than the way Catholics later reinterpreted it.
Okay. For example, first off, he was a materialist, arguing for divine corporeality, that God literally existed as a spiritual, physical thing in the same way we do. [01:50:00] And he argued that the material thing within part one of the materials that made up Jesus and the Holy Spirit was also one of the materials that made up God.
And obviously we agree with this. So we agree with Tertullian because we agree with what the Bible said. And when the early Christians were grappling with this, they were like, okay, so then we have to go to the next thing, which is okay, well, then where did the Trinity really come from? The idea that Jesus was literally the same thing as God was not made up until the Council of Nicene in 325 CE, literally a third of a millennial after Jesus death, and was hotly debated at the time.
Keep in mind how crazy this idea is. Jews had the concept of the Holy Spirit for centuries without being tempted to think it was meaningfully separate from God. So how did the Holy Spirit get looped into this craziness? Well, since there was literally zero biblical backing for this concept, and it was true that there would need to be given how critical this was to the concept of God for Christians, i. e. [01:51:00] if this trinity concept was actually accurate, clearly God mentioned it somewhere. They need to pull the idea from somewhere. So the two best lines for pulling this are the baptismal formula for Matthew 28 19.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Where it says quote baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in quote That's how the Holy Spirit got roped into this But again, that doesn't really say that they're all one thing. It says in the name of the things and the benediction in 2 quote the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all in quote Okay, definitely doesn't say they're all one thing but does mention them all at once. That's it. The entire policy istic concept of the Trinity is derived from just those two lines, which clearly to any level headed person do not indicate, say, or insinuate God is literally the same thing as Jesus. The other line sometimes used to argue that God is Jesus in Genesis were a plural us [01:52:00] used for God, but see track nine for a much more satisfying explanation to that.
All that said, technopuritan do believe in the Trinity, just not the one developed at the Council of Nicene. the Jesus you pray to and can reach God through is the part of God that lives in all true believing humans, as Jesus laid out.
The Jesus you pray to is a part of all believers actions and words that are directed towards the divine and eventually culminate in God, making them literally part of God. As for the Holy Spirit, that is a way of distinguishing God's will and identity as existing simultaneously as a singular entity and as a hive mind entity being both literally God, but meaningfully separated from the way we conceptualize identity.
Simone Collins: Oh, so trying to basically articulate that this is beyond our normal comprehension.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: But not that it's these three distinct things, which is bringing it strictly back into our comprehension.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he's singular, but he's also the Holy Spirit, [01:53:00] and he's also you which, you know, I think was really powerfully done with, with the original concept of the
Simone Collins: nuance is just ripped off by being like, no, no, no, it's Jesus, and then the dude God, which is his father, and then the Holy Spirit,
Malcolm Collins: by the way, side note here, another popular branch of Christianity that doesn't include the concept of the trinity are Mormons. They don't All right, good for them.
Simone Collins: I mean, everyone
Malcolm Collins: knows I love Mormons. You can get good if you're looking for like anti Trinity arguments for Mormon you know, apologies.
Hmm. So how was original Christianity actually different from original Judaism? Only in three meaningful ways. And by the way, I'd note to Jews here, I, I just pissed off Christians a bunch too. Like you think I'm just being heretical. You're
Simone Colins: just, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so the three ways that it was actually different from, from Judaism of its time is Jesus was the Messiah who was prophesied heavily in the Old Testament.
This seems to me at least self evident given how much he expanded the reach of the Jewish faith under the name of Christianity. Why would the Old Testament not have prophesied about that? Could any figure in human history [01:54:00] be a better candidate for the prophesied Messiah? We'll get into that in a bit in a second.
So I do believe that Jesus was the Messiah that was prophesied in the Old Testament. He created a new covenant that did not require the temple to fulfill. Coincidentally, only 40 years before the destruction of the temple, more on that later and he was sacrificed to create a new covenant that consolidated the rules mankind was expected to follow from a long list to essentially just dedicating your life to God.
Romans 14, 19, 23, did a good job of laying this out. Consider the old stranded Jewish food restrictions compared with this. And I'd also note, consider this line when contested with the mission line I led above to get an understanding of why I take Like, I'm really interested in the Christian text and not the Jewish text.
The Mishnah sounded like, I don't know, like I wasn't impressed with it, theologically speaking. Then I get to something like this and I'm like, ooh, that's impressive. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.
All food is clean, but it is wrong for the person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. [01:55:00] It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat because of their eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Basically lays out all the rules in one system. Don't do things that randomly impede your brothers and sisters, you know that hurt other people but also do not go against your conscience when you are doing something the rules around food existed for a reason If you believe that those rules are important hold them if you don't believe those rules are important don't hold them what matters is that we are doing our best to serve god's will and trying to interpret god's will through whether it's the restrictions God has laid out like what's their actual intention or through you know, trying to build a better relationship with God ourselves.
Simone Colins: Seems very reasonable. [01:56:00]
Malcolm Collins: And you also see why like that compared to the Mishnah, like just the difference in like theological quality. Which is why I, I go for, and people are like asking, like why do you go for the New Testament and don't go to this other work? It's, it's because I can get in, like originally it wasn't because I believed all of it.
It was just like, it was like, Juicier and also much cleaner, tighter, more compact didn't have to memorize as much,
And I should note here that this is actually saying quite a lot because when I came into all of this, I was leaning towards Judaism. , people can look at some of our older videos like raising our kids with Jewish traditions and stuff like that to make it easier. They wanted to convert into the religion as they got older, or me, as a young person, I always thought, oh, you know, , while I was raised atheist, if I converted into one religion, I always thought Judaism seemed the most reasonable.
It was actually. Studying the theology and the text themselves, which drove me away from it. , which I, again, I don't mean this as an insult to Jewish people. I think it's useful to get the perspective of an outsider who has actually put a lot of [01:57:00] personal focus into this. , that may help you see things through a different lens.
Malcolm Collins: So I was talking with Simone after we had originally recorded this and she had some really interesting thoughts
Simone Collins: I was musing to him that I've watched a lot of content delving into the lives of Mormons, and delving into the lives of Orthodox Jews. Like, I find the content of both really, really interesting, but for different reasons. So, I, I realized that I watch content about Mormons and Mormon lives because I'm interested in what they're doing, and I want to do it.
Like, I'm interested in building up a year's worth of food storage, and putting you know, raw grain into buckets, and sealing it, and figuring out which fats remain shelf stable the longest. And I find that quite, Fascinating. And I'm, I'm interested in that versus the, the reason why I watch the lives of Orthodox Jewish women is I'm just interested in how they live and I want to understand it, but I don't find it aspirational because so much of it, instead of feeling useful, like I get excited about prepping.
Cause I'm like, well, who knows? Like, you know, what [01:58:00] if, what if society falls apart? That would be so great. Or even, even in a disaster, it'll be nice to be prepared and I'll just feel so secure versus like, Oh here is, The, the wig shop that we're going to go to, and I'm going to explain, you know, how we fit wigs and, and why we wear wigs.
And I'm like, wait a second. So you're supposed to cover your hair during this period of your life. But you're doing it by putting on more hair and isn't the whole point to cover your hair because it's, you know, it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, you're not going to, you know, I mean, I know there's lots of different interpretations of the, I think it's Corinthians 11 about covering, you know, women should cover their hair.
Both in worship and in everyday life. But I think the idea, the principle, the, the, the spirit of the law would be that women's hair shouldn't be seen. So if I can't tell as an outsider that this orthodox Jewish woman is hiding her hair because her wig is so good and these wigs are beautiful, you've [01:59:00] completely ignored the spirit of the law.
And that, that I would never do that because one, it's a lot of work to To put on a wig and maintain a wig and choose a wig and buy a wig and it also costs a lot of money but two, if I'm going to cover my hair, I'm going to make sure that everyone knows that they can't see my hair.
Malcolm Collins: It just seems to be a privilege.
Would you say that it felt sort of counterfeit to you? Like it was Not
Simone Collins: counterfeit. I mean, it feels in its own way very extra, very It's own thing very, very aspirational, but it doesn't feel aspirational to me because it doesn't feel functional. It feels like a lot of extra work, a lot of extra steps. And in the end, not even doing the thing it was supposed to do.
And I find that very, very frustrating. And in the same way that I find it very frustrating to. Go through some government bureaucratic processes knowing that it's not going to work. Like, right now we need to get some, some documents at Bastille with the Peruvian consulate. And [02:00:00] I'm going through the process, I'm getting the lawyers to write this stuff up, I'm collecting the paperwork that I need to do.
I've already paid a lot of money to do this and spent a lot of time doing this. And I'm about 85 percent sure that when we show up at the consulate, they're going to be like, Mmm. We can't help you. And here's why and it just really, it feels so futile and I don't like any system that makes me feel like that.
Like I'm wasting my time. Like this is not going to do anything.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and I think that for people who aren't born within the Jewish tradition I think this really highlights the differentiation between the covenant that Jesus attempted to put in place and the covenant that the Jews still follow as God.
And to the average outsider, the old covenants understanding is going to appear somewhat contrived, like a fridge that doesn't have a light on it because you know, turning it off and on is work on the Sabbath, but you still want to be able to open the fridge. I just this morning saw a Reddit post at the top of my feed on sheitels, the thing that Simone was talking about, and people complaining about them.
And so this was one of the most [02:01:00] upvoted comments on there, which I think is the average non Orthodox Jews interpretation of Orthodox Judaism saying, quote, I swear every time I hear about a new tradition in Judaism, they seem like creating loopholes to avoid obeying God's will. 90 percent of them seem right out of Wile E.
Coyote, a mile long fishing line connecting all the houses in New York. And I think to a Jew like this wouldn't be confusing at all. They'd be like, well, of course you would put that up there because you know, you need to differentiate between the indoor and outdoor and domestic and public spaces and it would be basically impossible to live without this in a city like Manhattan.
But to a non Jew, they're like, what do you think? Maybe God just want you to take a day off. Like, and I'd also note here that this really aligns with the prophesied second covenant where the laws are written on your heart, so you are no longer required to listen to or have a rabbi or human authority interpret the laws, but you are responsible for interpreting the laws yourself because they are written within [02:02:00] you, and you know when you are breaking them versus when you are not.
As they relate to you specifically. And this also, to me, is one of these things where I look with less favor on things like the Catholic tradition or the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. Because it seems like they just rebuilt the Jewish system of having like an intellectual caste that's supposed to interpret everything for you instead of making, you know, being responsible for those decisions yourself.
Important for me, personally, to reinforce that Judaism is a path to God and how I'm putting this together. Because while it is critical of Judaism, I still need to say, you know, I, I do not think it is helpful to have the religion say, well, all of these religions are strictly wrong.
Simone Collins: Oh, I hear that. Well, maybe you could do a little more in favor of Judaism, because I'm not hearing a whole lot. I'm hearing,
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I want to say that I think this system is superior. I, I do think it's superior, but that doesn't mean that Jews aren't right with God.
Simone Collins: Well, yeah, I mean I think sort of the way that [02:03:00] I'm categorizing Judaism in my head at this point, based on everything that you've said, and based on what other people have told us too, is Judaism is just a very different cultural take that really is, it's like, you know what, we are going to be all about this blockchain of rules that evolves, and it evolves within our community, and those rules are kind of independent of it.
God and that there's a clear precedent for that and We very much respect God, but our key bet in terms of civilization surviving is that we're going to do our rules. So God, you do what you do and we're going to do what we do. And our rules are our own thing. They're not about God. They're about The point is the rules.
It's like, but you forgot about the cones. You forgot, you're right, it is, you forgot, it was all about the rules. It was all about the cones and the rules.
What's so funny? Oh, no, no, [02:04:00] no. You're a smart guy. Clearly picked up some flashy tricks, but you made one crucial mistake. You forgot about the essence of the game. It's about the cones.
Simone Collins: And it, they, I think that the important thing for me is I'm starting to see it's almost like, like a workout regimen or, or their health.
Like this is what keeps us sharp. This is what makes us exceptional. Yes. And it clearly, when you've looked at how we've done over, thousands of years. Clearly it's working for us. It's clearly imparting fitness. And this whole time we have still done well by God. We have still done well. And so let us do our rules.
And we will we will do well by you god and and our rules
Malcolm Collins: They've objectively sometimes done well by god. So by this what I mean is it appears clear to me and it's laid out in the bible. We know that god does punish the jewish people when they are not or his people. Whatever that means so People when they are not acting good with him We [02:05:00] know this because of like, you know, when they're the babylonian exile, right?
The bible makes it pretty clear like okay, you get punished as a people when you do bad things. Well, I mean The pogroms happened, the holocaust happened I think as No, no, no, any
Simone Collins: group of people gets punished by circumstances when they go soft, and sometimes No, no, no, but what I
Malcolm Collins: mean is as favored as the Jews are today, and they do appear to be clearly divinely favored, and the rules appear to be working, there were periods of history where the opposite was true.
Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm just saying, like, the key bet of Judaism is the blockchain of rules and the meritocratic intellectualism and that is that should be seen and respected independent. Of theocratic truth. Like they are two separate, sometimes even somewhat incompatible systems, but they should not be considered.
It's kind of like, this is your financial management system and this is your nutrition system. And I don't know, like you use [02:06:00] money to buy food, but like, they're not really related. And, and, you know, your financial manager is not going to be the one who advises you on how to eat. Okay. Like let them be. And I think that's, what's going on here.
Malcolm Collins: I think you're right. And I love you to decimum.
Simone Collins: I love you too, gorgeous.
Malcolm Collins: But to continue why are these tracks so long? The reason they're so long is because if I am laying out an argument here where I'm like, actually Christianity should be thought of as a direct continuation and a not a less deserving direct continuation of the ancestral Jewish teachings. Then modern Judaism, there are going to be a hundred thousand counter arguments that a person is going to have to that, and I don't want to address in piecemeal, because then the person watches the first video, they put the counter argument right under the video.
You know, I, I prefer to handle them all together for anybody who actually wants to engage with a topic like this. Fair. I mean, it's a, it's a meaningful topic you know, from any religious perspective. And I would note here that this is not the pure technopuritan law of the land that [02:07:00] we're laying out here.
This is our part of the technopuritan tradition to be within the broader technopuritan tradition. You can be a technopuritan Catholic. You can be a technopuritan Jew. You can have wildly different beliefs than we do. You can take some of these tracks and not others of these tracks as you decide which ones you think have the most evidence.
The key things that make a person a technopuritan, is that they attempt to investigate what is actually written in the text. Two, they when they're arguing for what is theologically true, they attempt to use logic and they attempt to. Convince people with things that everyone has access to. IE no personal revelations, no, God just talked to me.
No miracles that nobody saw. Everyone has to have access to this. Like I can say, I think that this religion is sanctified because it did so well or because this guy wrote this down and this predicted these events in the future. Those are things that I have access to and you have access to and, and can't be easily faked.
And then the final thing is, and I, and I know that this will exclude a lot of traditional [02:08:00] frameworks, is the belief that God is a real entity that actually exists at a different point in time. Mm-hmm. And this is one that Simone and I debated on adding as part of the criteria and saying that you're actually part of the tech community.
But I, I, I do think that, that that is just so core to our worldview, and that's the first differentiating belief we came up with.
Simone Collins: That's it. That's it. It's always been like, that's the core thing.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So it, everything I'm saying right here is not like. Canon technopuritan this is just, it's more like this is a way you should engage with your religious teachings.
IE look at history sources, look at what's actually written, think through it, debate, you know, somebody was like, well, what does it mean to be like a, a technopuritan like minister or something like that. I'm like engaging in the debate from the perspective of your tradition. Yeah. But anyway so Jews, if, if they've heard everything I've written here, they'll say something like, well, God, when he handed down the law, he said, and it is written that he said this in religious text, that you and I share that at no point in the future would anything be taken out of the law if this is accurate.[02:09:00]
And in the Old Testament, that is a major problem for the idea that Jesus created a new covenant. So let's examine those passages. Deuteronomy four, two. You should not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of Lord God, that I command you. Deuteronomy 13, one.
In some translations it's 1232. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. First of all, in both of these instances, it states very clearly that adding rules is just as problematic as taking them away. Jews have consistently added rules while glossing over this point saying, oh, we're just putting fences around the Torah.
In what conceivable way is that not adding rules?
Simone Collins: Yeah, that's
Malcolm Collins: me.
Simone Collins: Adding rules.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, adding rules.
Simone Collins: If someone's like, add nothing to this property and they're like, we just added a fence,
Malcolm Collins: you'd still
Simone Collins: be like,
Malcolm Collins: mm, you property. That's, that's a rule, [02:10:00] but it's a fence. But a rule, you're just using a synonym. Yeah.
It's something that you're not supposed to pass. Yeah. It's not me you have to answer to on this point, but God, would you really stand before God was the argument that putting up fences isn't adding rules? Modern Judaism with all its added rules is just as invalidated by these two passages as Christianity is for its consolidation and rationalization of rules. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But we don't need to worry in either case because we know from the Bible in no uncertain terms, that rules will be added and taken away. So the above two passages cannot mean what they appear to mean at faiths value. Okay. So here I'm saying, look, Jews are breaking this just as much as Christians are. Yeah. 'cause the first line is you can't take anything away. The second line is you can't add anything. Yeah.
And so it's a major problem for both religions if it actually means what it appears to faiths value. But we know it doesn't mean that because there are other parts of the Bible that we've already gone over here where God's like, oh [02:11:00] yeah, I'm gonna give you a new covenant in the future. It's gonna be different rules.
So we know that new rules will be added. So that's obviously not what it means. Hmm. So, Jeremiah states, behold the days are coming, declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant. Who's the house of Israel and the house of Judah? Not like the covenant I made with the fathers on the day when I took them by the hand outta the land of Egypt.
My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord for this. At the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord, I will put my law within them. I will write within their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother saying, no thy Lord, for they will all know me from the of them to the greatest.
Declares the Lord for I will forgive their inequity and I will remember their sin is no more. Whether the new covenant referenced here is the one made through Jesus or not, is not relevant. Hmm. Jeremiah comes after Deuteronomy and makes it clear that rules will be taken away and added.
It also clarifies something very [02:12:00] unfortunate for modern Jewish theology which would argue that the covenant created at Sinai was quote, written within the Jewish people, allowing it to be passed on through matrilineal descent. The passage by contrasting the covenant to come with the one at Sinai shows that in no uncertain terms, the Sinai Covenant was not written within the Jews.
Remember is saying that this new covenant is gonna be written in your heart, like it's gonna be written onto you. Mm-hmm. Which implies that the old covenant was not written onto you, meaning you can't pass any part of it down through the bloodline. So big problem there again, for the, the matrilineal sensing.
So if those lines don't mean what they appear to mean at first glance, what do they actually mean? Deuteronomy 13, one, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it. Importantly, this verse is followed by chapter thirteens warnings about false prophets and those who might lead people to worship other gods.
So the don't add or take [02:13:00] away command sits between instructions about proper worship and warnings about false worship. This context suggests that the command is specifically related to those. Rather than being a general statement about never modifying religious law.
Chapter 12 starts with the commands to. Destroy other nations felicis of worship, not worship God in the way other nations worship their gods. Only worship at a designated place later understood as a temple. Follow specific rules about sacrifices and meat consumption. Hmm. Then comes the don't add or subtract warning immediately after chapter 13, warns about false prophets who might encourage worship of other Gods family members who might secretly promote other religions, entire towns that might turn to other gods.
This sequence suggests the warning is specifically about not adding foreign religious practices to the worship system. IE like the concept of heaven and hell on this see the previous track not removing elements of proper worship as prescribed, maintaining the [02:14:00] purity of the centralized worship system.
It's like saying. Here's how worship should work. Don't copy other nation's practices. Don't add, and don't skip parts of your system. Don't subtract. This is different from the blanket statement about never modifying any religious laws. The context is specifically about maintaining proper worship practices without influence from surrounding nations.
It's about religious purity rather than legal immutability. Now, let's examine Deuteronomy for two. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord God that I command you. And I note in both of these instances, both add and subtracted there.
It's not like the ad is just in one of the two. Mm-hmm. Deuteronomy four opens Was Moses addressing Israel? The sequence is verse one. Now, oh, Israel. Listen to the statutes and rules that I'm teaching you. Verse two, our don't add a subtract verse. Verse three through four immediately gives an example about Baal Peor, who those who followed Baal were destroyed, and those who stayed with God lived.
[02:15:00] Verses five six, Moses explains He's teaching them statutes and rules and emphasizes how these laws will show their wisdom to other nations. Verses nine through 14 reminds them about receiving the law of Horeb Mount Sinai, emphasizing they saw no form of God only heard his voice. The rest of the chapter continues with warnings about making idols, warnings about being exiled.
If they make images of God's reminders, they alone. Received these laws. Okay. The context suggests this warning is specifically connected to not adding idol worship or visible representations of God. Mm-hmm. Not removing elements of proper worship that distinguish them from other nations. Like the Deuteronomy 13 passage, it appears more focused on maintaining proper worship and avoiding idolatry than about preventing any future legal interpretation or modification.
The warning comes in a section specifically about avoiding the religious practices of other nations. Given that it seems laser focused and it's all about idolatry here, it's not making carved images, not worshiping celestial bodies, not forgetting the [02:16:00] covenant. By making idols and not following other nation's worship practices.
Given this laser focus on idolatry in the surrounding texts, it's a reasonable interpretation that the don't add or subtract. Warning could be specifically about idolatry rules rather than a blanket statement about religious law. Finally, we have Proverbs 30 60. Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you. and you will be found a liar. This in context is not about rules, but about words specifically not changing the text. Mm-hmm. I wanna note here how much I dislike the standard Christian non-response to this particular question.
Mm-hmm. Rather than actually addressing it in context, they simply say, well, Jesus fulfilled the law. He didn't change it. This is as nitpicky as Jews saying, rabbis are not adding rules, they're just putting up fences. We need to address these texts directly and stop dodging the issue. This kind of evasion makes each faiths look like an outfit you're wearing rather than something you're intellectually invested was actually being true.
Hmm.
Movie Clip Joke: But sometimes we want to believe in something [02:17:00] so much that we willingly deceive ourselves.
I mean, I know I've been guilty of that in the past. I wanted to sign so badly that it drove me to distraction because it is the question we all want the answer to, isn't it? I mean, does God exist? I mean, does he exist?
Does he?
How's your whole world built in a lie? Peter.
Peter? Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Because I, I see this so much. When I, when I talk to people of specific faiths and I engage them with stuff and I'm like, if you actually believed this, you wouldn't be making that argument. Like, that's such a limp handed argument that shows that like, you came to this, you didn't have an immediate answer, so you threw out, ah, he fulfilled it.
Well, that doesn't change if, if the original interpretation that it actually means you can't add or remove is accurate. And why are you so comfortable just throwing that out there and then walking away from it? [02:18:00] Hmm. And I think that that's another thing that makes technopuritanism different is we wanna really engage with this stuff.
Thought Simone,
Simone Collins: I agree. I, I'm like hearing all these different Bible verses, it's do you ever find yourself kind of writing some things off? Because Bible say the different lines and different books of the Bible say conflicting things. I mean, you used order of books at one point as justification for something being overwritten, but were they really meant to be treated chronologically?
Malcolm Collins: Well, not overwritten. I mean, of course they were. So what, what they would say is the rules that were handed down at Sinai. That those rules will never be added to or removed from. And, and yet the, the time when God tells us, actually, I'm gonna have a second covenant with you. He told us that after Sinai, if he had told us that before Sinai, you could have said, actually Sinai was the second set of, or the second covenant.
And, and so it meant that you couldn't change the order after that. That's why the order is important. Mm-hmm. And as I dive into religious texts I [02:19:00] find that they don't actually conflict each other as much as I was originally led to believe. Wow. Okay. By skeptics. And we may even do a track where we just go over places where people say the Bible contradicts itself.
I like that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Because I'm, I'm still doubtful, even though you can say that, I'm still doubtful.
Malcolm Collins: As soon as you take a technopuritan perspective a lot of the. Potential areas of contradiction just clear themselves up really clearly. Mm-hmm. EE even already, like the issues about the two afterlife, I'm like, okay, but if you take it this way, then you don't have to deal with that problem.
Mm-hmm. The Old Testament makes it pretty clear that most Jews now and at the time believed that the Messiah would be a man and not a partially divine being. Mm-hmm. For me, one of the biggest confirmations written in a history of his status as the true Messiah is how his life is mirrored in the life of a false Messiah.
Sabbatai Zevi loudly claimed to be the Messiah with a message that can be almost thought of as an inversion of Jesus'. Where Jesus argued for a [02:20:00] consolidation of the rules around the purpose that they were meant to achieve. Sabbatai Zevi had an antinomian message. This is the idea that in the Messianic age, religious prohibitions would be inverted.
This led to followers engaging in religiously forbidden acts, including sexual transgressions, and violating dietary laws. Historians estimate that around 30% to 50% of Jews gloBaaly believed him to be the Messiah. And this guy was around in the 16 hundreds. However, when he was put on trial and claiming to be the Messiah would've gotten him tortured and killed, that was the one time in his life he would not call himself the Messiah. He ended up converting to Islam and living a long life of luxury and shame converting to Islam. Wow. Okay. Converting to Islam.
Yeah. So, so I I, Jesus on the other hand, only once in the Bible concretely confirms that he is a messiah, and that is when he is on trial, when confirming it would've led to his torture and execution. Oh, interesting. Jesus [02:21:00] did not claim to be the Messiah except when he knew it would get him killed. Hmm.
And yet he was proven right. His life did transform Judaism into a worldwide religion. In the form of Christianity. So here I would note a few really important things before I go further in this. Jews understood the Messiah, and I think the Messiah, as he's written in the Old Testament, is very clearly a, a man, which is the way that we or our branch of technopuritanism, relates to Jesus.
I think that he as we've argued, did not claim to be literally the Son of God. He claimed to be he, he said that he had God in him and other humans had God in them. And, and when he called himself the Son of God, that that's all throughout the Old Testament, like people who are set apart by God are called the Son of God.
Like, that's not like a, a unique, doesn't mean that he literally impregnated her mother. And God helped with other pregnancies as well. You know, famously and if he was the son of God that invalidates him as the Messiah because he is not from the Davidic line anymore, and the Messiah has to come from the Davidic line through his father.
So [02:22:00] problem there, but I'd also note here, I just find it so interesting that we have this other figure in history that that's, that's so important to the history of Judaism. Because he really transformed Judaism making Jews much more hesitant about like Messiahs or like mass following of potential Messiahs in the future.
And Messianic cults within Judaism. So he, he is an important figure, but he's literally a direct inversion Zevi versus Jesus Zevi inverted the rules. Jesus said, live for God. Act on your conscience. Zevi was widely hailed as the Messiah by Jews. Jesus widely hated for what he taught.
Zevi were royal garments. Even crowning himself, Jesus lived in poverty and wore a crown of thorns. Zey expected to be treated like royalty. Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. So Zey went around talking to kings and queens and like demanding that they use royal titles for him again. He actually had, had a crown made for him himself.
Almost like I, I think supernaturally an inversion of Jesus' life. Yeah. Ze [02:23:00] married multiple times, regularly claimed to be the Messiah when it would benefit him. Jesus celibate never claimed to be the Messiah, except when doing so, would've gotten him executed. And again, you could see elsewhere in this track where we argue against other places where Jesus say that he was arguing to be a messiah and we're like, no, he wasn't.
Yeah. Zevi converted to Islam. When his espouse beliefs would put him in danger. Jesus repeatedly refused to deny his espoused beliefs eventually leading to his death. Zevi died of old a age in luxury. Jesus died painfully for his beliefs. Zevi, born to wealthy merchants and well educated Jesus.
Born to humble circumstances. Ze attracted scholars, rabbis, and wealthy merchants as key followers. Jesus , selected disciples from common people, especially from fishermen and tax collectors. Zevi communicated through complex kabbalistic concepts and mystical doctrines. Jesus taught through parables.
And public sermons accessible to the common people, , do you have any thoughts on zevi [02:24:00] or like this, this weird parallel?
Simone Collins: Yeah, you in an earlier track. I think it's something about how if you are a prophet of God, communicating a message, message.
Oh, that's a track we haven't
Malcolm Collins: done yet. It's, it's one that I wrote was the original. I originally wrote a flurry of tracks and some of them haven't been published.
Simone Collins: Okay. But that you are punished if you claim to be a prophet of God, even if you really are one. And now I'm like, well this, well that track was never,
Malcolm Collins: so it's not out there you are you taking it back?
Yeah, I, I, I did more. Well, this is the interesting thing. So before I do attract I do a lot of research with other real, like I'll talk with rabbis, I'll talk with Catholics, I'll talk with Mormons. This stuff is not happening outside of a bubble. Like, there's like a tech to Puritan community that has these, there talks with me, debates with me.
And many of them are approaching faith from different traditions. And it's through those conversations that I learn more and get better. And I think that that's something I want this faiths to be able to continue to do. Mm-hmm. [02:25:00] That's why I don't say like, any of this is handed down from God to me or something like that, or is like canon.
All this is, is one person logically trying to read texts that I think were divinely inspired to understand what they really meant was the understanding that other people might be able to do that better than me. Yeah. I can't claim I Trump you because I'm the founder of this. That's, that's not the way this works.
I, I am not. Divinely. I mean, I guess if, if I was, then I couldn't even claim credit for this, right? It wouldn't be me being clever. It would be the somebody acting through. I prefer to be clever than to claim divine inspiration. But anyway, anyway so, but it didn't get, it didn't get made into the tracks.
Who knows? Divine Providence, that one never got made. Okay. But and I think that that one was back when I didn't know how little the Christian texts contradicted our own beliefs which I was really surprised about. But there is more evidence. He is the Messiah, and this is the big one, the most important event [02:26:00] in Jewish history that broke their ability to uphold most of their covenant with God was the destruction of the temple.
Hmm. Now. Do you think God is foolish? Do you think he would've given the Jewish people a covenant told them you can't add or subtract anything from it in their, in their interpretation that they had no way to fulfill? Now, he almost certainly would've amended the covenant or created a new covenant before the temple fell.
Mm-hmm. When did Jesus die? Only 40 years before the temple fell and his teachings centered around a new covenant with God that did not require the temple. That was by far the most radical break from traditional Judaism that Jesus preached. Now, no. I'll note that, that more modern Christians have added a bunch of other weird stuff that differentiates it from Judaism more as we've argued in this traction.
But initially. Really all Jesus was saying is we need a way to relate to God that doesn't involve the temple and this priest cast and this hierarchy. You know, like maybe the law needs to be written on our hearts. Mm-hmm. I don't know where I might have [02:27:00] read that before. Sorry. That's the second covenant is prophesized.
What are the odds that a branch of Judaism would end up spreading over the entire world? And the man who founded that branch made modifications to traditional Jewish teachings. So the temple was no longer required to stay in God's good graces. And this man died within a lifetime of the temple's destruction.
No, really? What are the actual odds? I could see Jews dismissing Jesus as a random cult offshoot of their religion. But when that offshoots core message was, this is how you make Judaism work without a temple, and it emerged immediately before the temple's destruction, the, that's more coincident than I could ignore.
Simone Collins: I hear. I can also understand though. Why in general, Jews would doubt one. I mean, it, it's hard for word to get around, you know? I'm sure news of Jesus was very lumpy, especially during his lifetime, and he was one of many apocalyptic Jews. So how were they to know which one was legitimate and which one was not?
I feel like [02:28:00] Jesus really only picked up with his apostles proselytizing after his death.
Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. I would have, if I was a Jew within the lifetime of Christ, I do not think I would've thought that he was a Messiah. Yeah. But if I was a Jew, a few, like, like within modern times, like even just me at the logical person I don't know if I could get around that particular logical contradiction.
Hmm. That God literally didn't know that the temple was going to be destroyed. That he didn't give his people a new covenant. And that that new covenant's veracity wasn't confirmed by the speed at which it spread and the thriving of the communities it spread within.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I don't.
No one looks at the Bible like you do. No one's looking at this stuff so carefully, but
Malcolm Collins: Jesus said, I, I come to create a new covenant. Like the, he, he, that's what he, he didn't say I died to the truth, but like so
Simone Collins: many apocalyptic Jews said, that is, is my concern.
Malcolm Collins: I don't, not, I, I, again, I don't know. I, I don't know.
And I think that [02:29:00] sometimes you know, people who do bad things are used. Their, their life is sort of used by like a paintbrush by God to tell us things about the world. Hmm. And so even if Jesus did do bad things, or he wasn't this person, or he was just another random apocalyptic Jew he is shown to be correct in the same way God showed the Jews to be correct by showing their beliefs favor because they were closer to the truth.
So even if Jesus was just a crazy person, okay, just hearing voices, he still served the role within prophecy of the Messiah through the way that his message changed the world and his messages, authenticity was verified through its ability to spread and the effects it had on the communities it spread within.
Mm-hmm. So even if you take this completely, Jesus was never actually talking to God. He was just a crazy person. And then God decided to uplift his message because it was closer to true than the other. Message is fine, maybe. But I do not [02:30:00] see how you couldn't see, if you look at the prophecies around the Messiah, that you wouldn't be like, this is obviously a really good candidate for it, which is something I didn't know when I originally was a Christian.
For clarification. What I mean by this is that while I was raised an atheist, I went to church every week because of my school,
Malcolm Collins: like I hadn't really thought through that before. And, and even if you're like, logically working this out, okay, here's this thought experiment. In the Bible, God makes it clear that he will create a covenant with the Jews after the covenant on Sinai, a new covenant, see Jeremiah. Okay. Assume that covenant was offered and you just missed it.
What a
Simone Collins: quick question though. What, what did Jews in general say about that? That the new covenant will come or they're just like, no, it hasn't come yet. And we're sure because of reason agency, they already
Malcolm Collins: living. Some Jews say they're already living in it. Some Jews say it hasn't come yet.
Simone Collins: So the new covenant they're arguing is through the evolution of debate and rulemaking of the almo.
No, no, some,
Malcolm Collins: sorry. Fringe Jews say they're living under it. The mainstream rabbinic [02:31:00] position within like the Habad community or the Haredi community is that it has not come yet. Oh. And that it comes with the Messianic era. Hmm. Okay. Even though, even though it doesn't say it comes with the Messianic era or the Messiah with the one who initiates it.
The Messianic era, we'd say, well, the Messiah did come and he initiated it, but Okay. Here's this. So, so if we go back to this thought experiment, okay. Okay. Yes. We're told there's gonna be a new covenant. Now assume that Covenant was offered and you just missed it. If you could pinpoint any moment in all of Jewish history that would've been logical for God to have given Jews a new covenant, when would it be?
Right before the destruction of the temple. Right. If the Old Testament is actually divinely inspired, eventually it is meant for everyone, right? The debate would just be whether that has already happened or whether that's going to happen in the future. Mm-hmm. IE if, if this is a divinely inspired work, it's clearly eventually meant for all [02:32:00] humans.
And even most Jews believe that, like, eventually this stuff applies to all humans in the Messianic age or in Uhhuh, you know, the next age. I, I, I don't see like the one God of all reality only cares about one population. That seems to me completely implausible. So that would mean that, okay, eventually these rules are gonna apply to everyone.
The question is, is and, and, and will with the new Covenant. The question is, is does that happen now or in the future? And I'll note here the New Covenant, because it says, oh, this new covenant will be for the Judean or the Jewish people. We'll talk about this. I think that given the way that Jews understood themselves during this time period, as I've said, like anyone could become one of the Jewish people that meant that like anyone who follows the faith, any of the faithful, which would, could apply to everyone, because again, I don't see a divine God of all reality only caring about one population.
Hmm. So right now what I'm pointing out is logically, if you had missed the new covenant. It would've happened right before the destruction of the temple. Now, suppose you don't believe Jesus was a [02:33:00] Messiah and we're in an alternate timeline where a Messiah had come during that period to bring a new covenant that didn't require the temple.
Do you think all Jews would've believed it? Of course not. What does the Old Testament say about this? Isaiah 53, 3 says, quote, he was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one whom people hide their faithss. He was despised and we held him in low esteem in quote, Hmm.
That's what the Jewish text say. The Messiah is gonna be treated like. Further in the same chapter, Isaiah 53, 7 through eight states, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.
. So he did not open his mouth by oppression and judgment, he was taken away. \ plasm 1 18 22 is another passage off incited. The stone that the builders rejected has [02:34:00] become the cornerstone. So he'd be rejected by his people.
Mm-hmm. In Daniel 9 26, there is a reference that some interpret as for telling the Messiah's rejection, the anointed one will be put to death and will have nothing. Then Zacharia 1210 contains the line. They look on me, they, when they have pierced, they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.
And here I will note that the majority of Jewish people not accepting the Messiah, I do not think with a mistake that God made or something I actually think they are not supposed to. The covenant was created through the sacrifice that Christ made is an alternate covenant, not a replacement for the original one that the Jews had access to.
Mm-hmm. I don't think it's against God's will to continue follow the first covenant more on this later. So basically here what I'm saying is, okay, so I. God's Okay. Was this initial covenant, right? The destruction of the temple makes it harder. Judaism has to reform. It's the way it relates to God [02:35:00] after that.
But I think that all of that's actually okay. All of that was part of God's plan. I mean, it happened, and it's pretty clear that God has some degree of favoritism for the modern Jewish people. If you look at you know, Jewish exceptionalism this is, you know, this scoring higher, making more money, having more political power, Israel sort of being a focus of, of the world stage, having a country that's a higher fertility rate country and yet wealthy being the only country on earth like that, like God still clearly favors the Jewish people.
I do not think that they are currently in rebellion to God. So for me what that means is the old covenant must still be in operation. And what Jesus truly allowed was for a new past to God, for a new covenant, for people not born into that community.
Simone Collins: okay. Hmm. Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: that
Simone Collins: makes
Malcolm Collins: sense. Now I mentioned this above, but this is really important.
What about the problem that the Old Testament is constantly talking about? The Jews specifically? Mm-hmm. Surely this causes problems for this interpretation? Not really. We know from cases like Ruth, that anyone who fully dedicates themselves to the correct [02:36:00] version of the Old Testament faith and its people is considered to be one of the above people.
This means any Christian. That fully dedicates themselves to the cause of Christianity would be one of the people being referred to as Jewish in the prophecies. When I look at the early Christians voluntarily going to the Lions, it is hard to argue that they were not at least as dedicated to their iteration of the old faith as Ruth was, if not significantly more so, thus, to consider them non-Jews, if Christ really was the Messiah is extremely unpersuasive and requires a modern understanding of Jewish identity rather than the one that was around when the Bible was written.
Hmm. So when it talks about the new covenant being for the people of Judea, it's talking for them in the same way that Ruth became one of the people of Judea by living her life for this Old Testament phase.
Simone Collins: Interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Any thoughts?
Simone Collins: I, I guess I'd never. [02:37:00] And that helps to explain a little bit the, the differential treatment of, of Jews versus movies. What differential
Malcolm Collins: treatment?
Simone Collins: Weren't you just saying that Jews are sort of allowed to continue with the old covenant, but that are Well, I'll, I'll make
Malcolm Collins: some notes here. I think that when, so remember, I, I sort of judge God's will within a community by whether that community is, is, is thriving or being punished.
Yeah. And within the Jewish traditionist understand that, that God relates to them in that way as well. So if I look at the period after the destruction of the second temple, I. It seems pretty clear that God was not happy with the Jewish people after that period. And he seemed to show a lot more favoritism to the Christian communities, which means to me when I'm looking to which faith was more accurate or more closely aligned with a real understanding of God during that period.
Yeah. I would say was likely the Christian faith. And then Jews must have done something to really piss off the God. And when they started [02:38:00] accepting all this kabbalistic stuff. Mm-hmm. And this is where you get things like the Holocaust. Like if Jews accept that like the Babylonian exile was because God was mad at them, God must have been like really, really mad at them.
Before this because of something leading up to the Holocaust. It's an interesting take. Yikes. If you look at what happened after the Holocaust, how did they regain God's favor if the faith that they're following post Holocaust looks a lot like the faith they were following immediately before the Holocaust?
My answer to that is God's favor goes to whoever is following him most closely, was their current practices. I think that the Christian practices of stuff like sin transference to the Messiah and, and idolatry you see in a lot of Christian churches today things like prosperity, but gospel in the Protestant traditions, where they like basically worship money.
That all of these things were further from even that. Kabbalistic style Judaism as a true interpretation of God. And so I think it wasn't that the Jewish [02:39:00] tradition improved, I think it's that most Christian traditions just became even more corrupted. You know, whether it's the PDA file scandals in the Catholic church, covering those up, just true evil allowed to enter so many segments of the other true faith that they moved away from God.
And I think that that's how the Jewish people came back into favor. Hmm. I would also interesting note here that if you're a Jew and you believe that like the, the Babylonian exile was a punishment that God does punish the, the destruction of the second temple was a punishment. You need to look for the other things you were being punished for in different periods of Jewish history.
And I feel like during those periods of tribulation, Jews focus an awful lot on the punishment and they're like, what are we doing wrong? How can we improve? But after the punishment has happened, I see very little reflection on, okay, but really what had entered our faith that was bad during this time period that led to our punishment.
Simone Collins: Well, what I like about this approach too is this makes a lot more sense to me in the context of the way that we view [02:40:00] God, which is the inevitable God, what humans eventually become in the far future. Yeah. Because there is not really a right or wrong answer.
There are actions that are more likely to bring about the future that must come. And you can have multiple groups doing things that are optimal in their contexts. So there's not exactly only one correct approach to take depending on the people and depending on the context, in fact, the correct approach for one group in one geographic area at one time may be very, very different from another group in a different geographic area at a different time.
So the fact that one group could be doing the right thing and another group could be doing the right thing, and both of them are doing very different things makes sense. But that also there can be times when a group is totally going in the wrong direction and the best way for them to tell whether that's the case isn't the words of prophets or priests or people who say that they speak directly with God.
It is to look at the outcome of those people.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I completely agree with you. So to continue [02:41:00] here now why do I go on all these lengthy explanations? Because once all these points are taken in context, we can better understand why Jews adopted matrilineal descent as a key part of Jewish identity.
Basically, multiple equally valid branches of the Old Testament religion were competing and trying to convert people. Then one of them, Christianity, I would argue due to divine favor, actually succeeded in what all the others were trying to do. Mm-hmm. This significant problem for all the other branches of Judaism, if they continue trying to convert people, their members would inevitably start saying of the various branches.
One of them seems to be very obviously out-competing the others Hmm. Might that be a sign of divine favor? Even worse would be the thought lingering in the back of many minds that this was the rabbi who when questioned, said he was the Messiah and was crucified for it.
That's a bold conviction of I've ever seen one. So what do you do [02:42:00] to hide that one version of Judaism seems to have divine favor in its proselytization efforts. Mm-hmm. Well, you stop your own proselytization efforts more than that. You attempt to scrub your tradition of any knowledge that such efforts ever existed.
Yes. In fact in fact Jews are in ethno religion and always have been in Christianity. You see, it's a totally different thing and nothing like Judaism. You see, we have all these traditions. Christians don't, uh uh, okay. What, what traditions are those? Hey, you know all that local canaanite folk, magic me-maw used to practice?
Can we ha have someone start collecting all that in one place? That's something that makes us different from Christians. Yes. Yes. I mean, all those folk traditions are old, but we never included them in the Old Testament or any other religious work precisely because they were canaanite origin.
Otherwise, if they had antiquity, we obviously would've recorded them.
Movie Clip Joke: I will stop being an actress. When the earth stops spinning on Kabbalah [02:43:00] monster's fingernail,
Malcolm Collins: as two brief asides here. First, I don't think any of this withintentional. I think the iterations of Judaism that focused on proselytization just did not replicate at the same rate in a Christian world as those focus inwards on community and identity.
Mm-hmm. I also think Kabbalism developed in this way. I am telling the story this way to be funny and to tease the perspective that kabbalistic ideas were common and fully fleshed out all the way back in the second temple period. In reality, I think what happened was rabbis just collected a lot of religious ideas that were popular at the time, within intellectual and philosophical circles, and we will go into the receipts that that's what they did.
But I need to point out the counterfactual of the implications implied by Kabbalism actually having antiquity to it. So here what I'm saying is a lot of the times when I say Kabbalism is actually fairly modern. And it's really sort of pop mysticism from the medieval period, and Jews are like, no all of these traditions are actually super old and we're always practiced alongside all the other traditions.
We [02:44:00] just didn't write it down. I'm like, that's a, like a way more heretical take because now you need to ask the question, why wasn't anyone writing these traditions down? Because we know from the Jewish Bible that there were actually other traditions being practiced alongside the Jewish traditions that Jews and Christians went a long way to try to take out of their traditions with things like the Josiah reforms.
Movie Clip Joke: To put it another way, as an outsider, when I hear people describe kabbalistic concepts, I get a lot less of this feeling
Behold the power of God.
and a lot more of this feeling.
I think this comes from explaining the concept of God in a way that would only be accessible to an extremely educated and secretive [02:45:00] group of individuals who is allowed to study him in ways that the average person can't, which to me feels very anti Abrahamic. Whereas to me, the Abrahamic God is defined by being something that's accessible to the every man to the child
Malcolm Collins: why do I think it's less anti-Semitic to assume that the Kabbalah was basically just a collection of ideas and pop philosophy and pop spiritualism that was trending between the fifth and 12th century. The alternate is that the traditions it contains had actually been practiced within the Jewish population for centuries, but had been explicitly excluded from the Bible and thus likely represent some alternate religious system.
Hmm. Did the Old Testament ever talk about an alternate religious system constantly that was trying to worm its way into the worship of Yahweh, maybe one that had its idols in the temples for hundreds of years before they were removed in the Josiah reforms? Oh yeah, the Canaanite one, God's like Baal and Asherah.
I mean, it only makes sense. [02:46:00] We know from DNA studies that the Jewish people were half Canaanite and that some Canaanite folk myth would stick around and eventually the Jewish people would forget where these myths had . Come from. And so if you collated folk traditions within the Jewish community, I mean, even if you go back to like the time of Christ and you collated folk traditions within the Jewish community that were not being actively like written and talked about by rabbis, just think , like use your common sense.
Where would those traditions have likely come from? They would've come from the canaanite religion. We know this because Jews during that period were always writing about how to keep this other out of their texts. Hmm.
And I note here, it's not just me saying this. , if you go to the thirteen hundreds, you can look at prominent rabbis like Rabbi Ian, Yitzchak ben Sheshet Perfet . He's called the Rivash. And he argued, , so this was during the early period of the rise of Kabbalism within Judaism that Kabbalism was even worse than Christianity because it made God into 10 entities rather than three.
, so he argued that Kabbalists were less [02:47:00] Jewish than Christians were, and this was a prominent Jewish thinker during the early rise of Kabbalism. Or you can look at more modern Jewish critics like. Yeshayahu Leibowitz a , modern Orthodox Jewish philosopher who referred to Kabbalism as quote, a collection of pagan superstitions and idol worship end quote, and these remarks were made in the 1990s.
Malcolm Collins: While we don't know a ton, that would be really easy if we knew exactly what K nine worship looked like, because then we could just be like, oh, okay, well this is what it is.
And so just don't do anything that looks like this. Right. Well, we know a ton about the worship of canaanite gods and how they attempted to mold themselves into the worship of Yahweh. We do have scattered evidence like female figurines found throughout Judea and inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud mentioning Yahweh and his asherah It appears that pairing God was a feminine representation was a very important part of this form of worship. Mm-hmm. For those familiar with Kabbalism, it does something similar with [02:48:00] Shekhinah, which represents the feminine divine presence or the feminine aspect of God. The Shekhinah is often defy described as the bride of Tiferet, another serro representing beauty and compassion.
But let's not pull that particular thread and just. Assume that Kabbalism was mostly just made up wholecloth and that no educated Jewish rabbi could have been boneheaded enough to actually collect all of the folk myth traditions present within the Jewish population that had been explicitly kept out of the Bible for hundreds of years.
Simone Collins: Well, why wouldn't you wanna catalog it if you wanna make sure you don't do
Malcolm Collins: it well, but that's not how they collected it. They collected it and said, oh, the Christians, because the Christian that were spreading and, and Judaism was trying to sort of define its identity in contrast to Christianity. And so when they saw all of these folk traditions, they saw all of them as being parts of Jewish, like actually Jewish, Yahweh religious teaching.
That was for whatever reason, not recorded in the [02:49:00] Bible, rather than thinking they might have been remnants in the same way that if I went to like a , medieval town, right so I go to like a medieval English town, right?
And I start collecting all of the traditions that are not in the Christian Bible, but are unique to this community. Okay? 98% of those traditions are just going to be pagan. Yeah. Um, Right? Like this, this is common. Sense. This would've been like what the local witch hut lady was doing.
Simone Collins: Well, but per the way things seem to play out, like actually indulging in these traditions would lead to bad outcomes and groups that practice them would eventually die out or be outcompeted by groups that didn't practice them.
Plus, okay, so here's another reason why. To me, it seems unreasonable that the Jewish contingent would not adopt Jesus as a legitimate prophet, not take his practices and run with them. It seems antithetical to me that they would deviate from this sort of meritocratic [02:50:00] intellectual blockchain process that they have for establishing what's true and what's not true, what they should do and what they shouldn't do.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah,
Simone Collins: and it seems to me there's enough documentation in the Bible stating, alright, the Jewish people are kind of, kind of special, kind of different. They have their own way, like they're one hypothesis on how humanity can thrive and flourish, and they have a process that works well for them. But then everyone else, you guys should be following these other rules.
How is that? I mean, like I don't see how.
Malcolm Collins: Well, because we're told, and we'll get into this in a bit, the second covenant is better. And at the second covenant it's open to Jews. It's
Simone Collins: better, I'm sure for most people. Is it better for all Jews? I mean, and maybe, I mean, I can, I would not doubt even that for periods of time, the second covenant was better for Christians and it served Christians better and clearly gave them an advantage in terms of spread and all sorts of other things.
But it could be that it was just very important. And I mean, we [02:51:00] personally think that it's really important to have very mimetic variation that there was still a group that didn't fully adopt that methodology because it's safer to have a diversity of approaches to human advancement and that it's good that this one method that seemed to grow really well.
Was adopted and grew significantly, but I think it, it may have as an insurance policy, as a backup, as a, well, let's make sure that we have other perspectives too, that both Judaism stuck around, but then that also, you know, Islam emerged for example. Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I mean, again, the, this religion's perspective, the technopuritan perspective is that different religions work for other people and are true in ways that someone of our tradition wouldn't be able to understand.
Mm-hmm. The way that I talk about this in the track series is from somebody, I think that two people can logically look at the same set of events and come to different conclusions about what God intended. And I think that we're supposed to, I think that that's the way God communicates with us. But this is [02:52:00] our family's tradition around this.
, and other people when they hear this will be like, oh, that sounds logical to me. Whereas other people will hear this and they'll be like, that doesn't sound logical to me at all. Mm-hmm. And so, I agree with you that somebody who says, that doesn't sound logical to me at all and sticks with the Jewish perspective, I think that they're still right with God.
But I, I do have a lot of skepticism around kabbalah . That that is one area where yeah.
Simone Collins: But I think that's just an example of a venture capitalist who invest in a lot of companies, some of those companies ideas, even to the venture capitalists to invest in them. Like, this is so dumb. But this is so dumb that it just might work.
You know? Like why not? We'll invest in it. If it is true, it would be such a big deal. If it does help, it would be such a big deal. We might as well try it, and if not, whatever, it's a write off. I only need, you know, one out of every 13 investments to pay out and pay out really well. And there's so much variation among different Jewish groups where like, I, I don't know.
I don't see a problem with that.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And here I'll note , before I go further, I want to point out that [02:53:00] this position of skepticism I hold about the Kabbalah actually was shared by many Jewish intellectuals during the early spread of the, of Kabbalism.
This is not to say all Kabbalist were conmen, but the Kabbalist conman was a trope that permeated the perception of prominent rabbis. During the traditions rise to prominence in the 13th century, Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote Polemics Against Kabbalists, accusing some of inventing traditions and falsely attributing them to ancient authorities.
So when Kabbalism was arising, top Rabbi said, this stuff is made up, and post facto has been attributed to ancient authorities. Hmm. Rabbi Leon of Moderna wrote, many ignorant people presumed to be kabbalah and miracle workers. They write amulets and pronounce divine names without understanding them at all.
Rabbi Vilna Gaon , wrote, beware. Those who claimed to form wonders through Kabbalah for in truths. They are [02:54:00] merely skilled in deception and know nothing of the Holy teachings. Rabbi Yaakov Emden describes confronting several individuals who claimed kabbalistic powers. They come with amulet and promises of wonders, taking money from the desperate while knowing nothing of true wisdom.
Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague wrote These men who traveled from town to town with claims of kabbalistic powers. Writing amulets and promising cures while taking payment are nothing but frauds, preying on the simple-minded. Rabbi Moses Sofer wrote, they dress in strange garments and affect mystical knowledge.
Yet their real expertise is in emptying the purses of widows and orphans. So they did not have a great reputation as they were rising to power.
They were very much seen by the Jewish intellectual heavyweights of the, their ages when, when they were rising to power as like an sort of like mystical conman.
And they were only edified later. Hmm. Even great Jewish philosophers like Moses Maimonides were heavily [02:55:00] critical Of kabbalistic amulet makers, seeing them as con artists for some quotes from him. Perplexity, part one, chapter 61. You must understand that the many laws against witchcraft, which are directed against the activity of those who practice sorcery of astrologers, of those who by means of calculations, attempt to know the future of those who mutter spells, of those who consult familiar spirits, of those who consult the dead, and those who inquire familiar spirits and of wizards.
All of these are species of the techniques of astrologers. So basically here he's saying, if you're doing any of the things the many laws against witchcraft apply to you today. Many kalas do these things. Now, I think that there is likely a way to interact with Kabbalism safely.
But it means that if you're interacting with it in this way, I mean, I would take Moses Maimonides teachings here. Really, really, are you using calculations to attempt to know the future? Are you muttering spells? Are you trying to consult with spirits? Mm-hmm. Are you trying to consult the dead?
If you're doing any of those things? If you're making any of this stuff. [02:56:00] Strictly bad news. Don't do it. That's witchcraft. That's what you were warned about. Mm-hmm. And the laws of idolatry 11, 11, 12. He says, anyone who whispers a charm over a wound and reads a verse from the Torah, or who recites a biblical verse over a child, lest he be terrified, or one who places a Torah scroll or Teflon over an infant to enable him to sleep, are not only included in the category of sorcerers and charmers, but are included among those who repudiate the Torah.
They use words of the Torah as a physical cure, whereas they are exclusively a cure for the soul as it is written. They will be the life to your soul. Oh gosh. So this is Moses Maimonides guys. Old school. He's like a real Jewish intellectual heavyweight. Yeah. Most people, people who study the ka cabal take him really seriously.
Mm-hmm. Oh, and I love that he and I, and I also love the way that he writes that. I think it's really beautiful. Where he says, any who recites a biblical verse over a child, lett, he be terrified. So it's saying, if your child is scared, [02:57:00] use the Bible to comfort them, but don't use the Bible to attempt to heal them.
And that's, that's just such a, a, I think, a powerful way to relate to this. But then, you know, some people will be like, well, you can heal the body by healing the soul. And he's saying Here, no, you can't. If you try to do that, you are a witch. Mm-hmm. Or a soer by Moses Maimonides, not by Malcolm. Mm-hmm.
I feel forced to assume, as did Moses Maimonide, that many early Kabbala were con artists, because if they were not, and their rituals were real, that would mean that the Dybbuk ghost slash demons that these ISTs reported their rituals were summoning, we're real entities.
And I should note that modern Kabbalists don't engage with this anymore. But as you study like early Kabbalism, this is happening all the time. That would mean that the kabbalistic masters knew the rituals they were performing were summoning demons if done even slightly wrong, and yet they kept going. what kind of arrogant, imprudent cleric could [02:58:00] know that a ceremony might accidentally summon a malevolent spirit and think that that ritual was bringing them closer to God.
Simone Collins: Doesn't this sound kind of, kind of classic? I mean, whatever it takes.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the type of arrogant cleric who would allow others to call them by the pompous honorific, Baal Shem master specialist. The honorific earned by the top masters of these pre Abrahamic rituals and ways of relating to the supernatural that began to consolidate in the Jewish community about a thousand years ago.
Now, you, an outsider might be thinking, wait Baal, that's the deity that represents the avatar of all that was sinful and antagonistic to God and prea Abrahamic practices we're not Jews commanded to ensure the land of Israel was never again infected by the followers of Baal, to not allow their country to fall to the Canaanite occultic practices.
Surely Baal in the term Baal, she must be spelled [02:59:00] differently or something.
These individuals who were out there who at least themselves believed they were summoning demons and ghosts, sometimes in their rituals, were not literally calling themselves. Baal specialists. Yes. Yes, they were.
Simone Collins: Oh dear.
Malcolm Collins: Now, and, and this is now, you as an outsider might be thinking, how did they not notice this?
Why would they not choose literally any other name? And this has to do with how I think God communicates with people. This is a common trick God uses to mark when there has been an incursion of a pre Abrahamic faith in an Abrahamic tradition, so that all those open to his word can see it. This is not unique to the Jews.
This happens to all of us. Christians from time to time consider the Catholic followers of mystical practices of Santa Morte. They literally worship human skeletal remains dressed up in red robes, which allows them to pray for things they might be too [03:00:00] embarassed to pray to God for sex, murder, etc..
Simone Collins: It's really not a good look.
Malcolm Collins: This is a real community, by the way. People dunno. This is a popular thing that's like a break off of the Catholic church in Mexico right now. God does not make heresy for Oh yeah, you've mentioned them before.
Simone Collins: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. They
Malcolm Collins: literally were, they dress him up in red, they dress him up in red and then they, they worship skeletons for things that they're too embarrassed to ask God for.
I'm like, that's a demon. You see that? We all see the demon. Right. Or, or the Catholics who literally eat the guy who apparently died. To save all of humanity. The guy who, who suffered for us, and they're like, I'm gonna do a religious ceremony where I cannibalize him. Now, me as an outsider, I look at that, I'm like, that seems like a non-A Abrahamic incursion.
Like that seems, and I would argue that , the idea that the Baal Shem would go around calling themselves Baal Shem, it is no more like comically and [03:01:00] obviously like bad than , Santa Muerte or within Protestantism you have stuff like this, like , the prosperity gospel doctrine. Like this to me seems very obviously evil.
You know, and, and that that people should just see, oh yeah, the preacher who says you know, give God, give me money so that God can do you miracles. He's a bad guy. But anyway I had taken the following story out of the tracks, but given how germane it is to the topics and how clear the message in it is, I feel comparable to share it to someone who loves studying comparative religion.
A story from the Talmud that is critical to an outsider's understanding of Judaism and what makes it unique is the oven of Akhnai. This, this is sometimes called the snake oven story. In the story, three rabbis argue over whether a new oven design is subject to ritual impurity. Two. Rabbis argue from the perspective of legalistic interpretations of past texts.
The third, rabbi Eliezer , bolsters his argument using a thaumatological performance are using a series of [03:02:00] them basically miracle working to show his closeness to God, and that God endorses his perspective. Rabbi Eliezer is shown to be in the wrong. In short, this story is used to show that even if someone has an apparent closer connection to God, even if they can show it with thaumatological performances, a real Jew will eshoo their teachings.
God admits that Rabbi Eliezer was wrong. He, he comes down and he is like, oh, my own children, Ted me this, where's this ling comes from. Furthermore, rabbi Eliezer either is framed as the bad guy, and I don't mean like mildly bad, like super bad. In another story, he is yet again humiliated by a rabbi with more knowledge than him, but less thaumatological talent.
And so the leader of the community ta a rabbi to follow him around and make sure he does not pray. The rabbi that offended him dies well. Rabbi Eliezer tries to shirk the guy. Then eventually the guy misses a moment. Rabbi Eliezer straight up murders the guy who offended him by having greater knowledge with a prayer slash curse.[03:03:00]
Not an nice guy, a bad guy guy. If you knew this, you'd be like, oh, okay. We as Jews, the core thing we need to remember never ever follow somebody who can do thaumatological performances over somebody with better knowledge of the law of the scripture. Okay, now I'm gonna tell you a different story.
Simone Collins: I don't know.
I mean, does, does might mean, right? Is that what we're being taught though?
Malcolm Collins: Wait, what do you mean? Basically it's saying that if somebody can come up and, and show you a bunch of like spiritual magic tricks, don't follow them over somebody who has a better understanding of the law. But now I'm gonna tell you the difference.
But he keeps winning. Yes. And God says he's in the wrong God. Literally come
Simone Collins: down. What? But I thought the whole point is that God's like, yeah, my bad. This is not my domain. Yes. And that rabbi Eliezer is wrong.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, sorry. Yes. Right, right, right. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. God comes down and says, oh yes, this guy has more of a connection to me.
He can do magical feats. You still need to ignore him if you're a real Jew. Mm mm. Okay, [03:04:00] so let's keep going here. This is another story, but this one is not from the tel mode. Okay. Rabbi Dov Ber, a rabbi who is widely renowned, intelligent, and learned scholar. Okay. Met was Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, a rabbi who was widely known for his close connection to God, but that had some unorthodox, mystical teachings that were viewed as dangerous to the Jewish community because it was elevating the role of pre Abrahamic traditions, like seeing God through the natural world in our bodies.
Hmm. Cult tactics like chanting and chasing after visions of God and elevating emotions over logic. Dov Ber did not agree with this and saw it as an affront to Jewish tradition. In this inversion of the oven Nak mood, the more learned Rabbi dove bear is convinced of these new practices by the Rabbi with an apparently closer connection to God through a thaumatological performance.
A rabbi named Rabbi Eliezer as well. By the way, his [03:05:00] full name is rabbi Israel ben Eliezer. But it's hard for me as an outsider to not see, it's like God's like drawing a line between these two stories. Hmm. This inversion of the oven of Akhnai is made crystal clear in Rabbi Eliezer's words, your explanations were correct, but your deductions were thoughts without any soul in them.
He literally says in his own words, yes, you knew the rules better, but I performed better theological thaumatological hmm. I have more of a connection to God. Okay. Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer is the founder of the Hasidic movement. Called by its followers, Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Dov Bor became his successor, Dov Bor of Mezrich.
And this is why I have incredible consternation around that entire movement.
Simone Collins: I think it's a hazard of [03:06:00] the format and method of Judaism that you're going to get wrong. Offshoots, I see this as similarly, like I see this similarly with Catholicism, that there are. Sometimes orders that just totally get it wrong and yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. Made the church astray and that both the Catholic church and Judaism, some of the most old Abrahamic religions, you know, the, they've been long around for a really long time and they've done quite well actually have a pretty consistent track record of losing their way, but having systems in place that allow the church as a whole to self-heal.
So I agree with you that these things are egregious. I think that the foundations are sound and as they are supposed to be for these groups of people, they're not for us.
Malcolm Collins: Now to keep going here. Now you may be thinking this oven of ane must be some obscure fringe story that Hasidic Jews just don't know about.
There is no way they know a story about an [03:07:00] evil rabbi who was known for appearing to have an unusually close connection to God, who got in conflict with more learned rabbis and was rebuked for using thaumatological performances, for trying to advance his teaching. Okay. And that the founding myth of their movement is about a rabbi known for having an apparently unusually close connection to God who used thaumatological performances to convert a more knowledgeable rabbi.
And there is definitely no way that God literally gave both of these guys the same name. And this isn't even a point of consternation in the Hasidic community. Nope. Not only is the oven of Akhnai, even within the Hasidic community, considered one of the more important stories of the Talmud, but I have yet to talk to a single , Hasidic rabbi who has ever had this pointed out to them before.
Now, if you're a Christian and just learning about this, you're probably thinking, how could you conceivably not notice such a giant, out loud red flag that their [03:08:00] religion has been infected with demonic rituals? To which I would say, I hope you're not from one of the branches of Christianity that believes in sin transference onto the Messiah.
Despite this concept being invented by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033 to 1109, you know the ritual the Bible lays out is being performed for the demon Azazel. You look in horror at some Jews not seeing obvious signs that a ritual is evil, while you wait in line to consume the blood and flesh of the Messiah.
You wear the device that tortured him around your neck, then you transfer your sins to him. And a ritual only performed for demons in the Bible onto an innocent person. You hear the Messiah died for man's sins, which he did. And you think that that gives you the right to attempt to literally transfer all of your sins to him in a demonic ritual.
Just pointing out, both Christian and Jewish branches, from my perspectives, have some deep, thick veins of demonic rituals entwined within them. And these are loudly signaled. Like, [03:09:00] ugh. You know, it's not a, it's not a great look.
Simone Collins: No,
Malcolm Collins: no. Look, I look at this stuff. And it seemed very demonic to me, but I am sure that is just my puritan background, which may, I don't know, give me a unique susceptibility, demonic practices making me more susceptible to their corrupting effects, like a person who is uniquely susceptible to alcohol.
Maybe some people need them to get closer to God,, or maybe spiritualists from these traditions, when they interact with the spiritual world, they have a more of a resistance to the corrupting effect that that world has.
What I'm saying about these traditions should be taken not as a statement of fact, but as concern, and even if they are demonic, I would remind any who follows this religious system. We are not to interfere with the work of the basilisk. Mm-hmm. It is only through overcoming temptation on its own that a man's spirit can be fortified.
Well,
Simone Collins: that's how you could interpret some of these weak would say, corrupted offshoots of Catholicism [03:10:00] and. Judaism and any other religion that they are, the basilisk means of weeding out those who are morally corruptible, weeding out those who shouldn't be moving forward with everyone else.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yes. If, if these things are a test God has laid out, we cannot interfere with them outside of resisting them with our own hearts.
And so what you might be seeing here, and you might be talking about here, it is just like a means of like spiritual temptation to fortify your spirit. Hmm. Like engaging with these sorts of dangerous practices like Kabbalism could be a way to fortify the spirit by not succumbing to it or having the.
Folk belief because I think even within like true Catholic doctrine, they do not believe like the mainstream, that they're literally transferring their sin onto Jesus. And I hear it both ways and
Simone Collins: that disturbs me.
Malcolm Collins: What
Simone Collins: I hear it both ways way too much.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but if, if, if you can believe it the other way and be right with the tradition, then what that shows is that's just an additional temptation that exists within that tradition to fortify the spirit.
Okay. And so, you know, [03:11:00] some of these traditions might have like a reason for being there. Like, god's not like an idiot or a failure if this stuff is there, it's likely there for a reason. Yeah. So now I want to be clear. I actually don't believe. The above, I included it because it is the most logical conclusion if somebody insists that Kabbalism isn't just made up.
Or rather, a mix of completely foreign ideas to Judaism combined with a few popular philosophers at the time, and a system of folk wisdom. That developed hundreds of years after Christianity split with Judaism representing a significant shift in the direction of the religion and a break with historic Judaism.
Mm-hmm. e.g. , if you are debating me and you say, actually the things in kabbalistic literature were always practiced in Jewish communities going well before the time of Jesus. They just were very intentionally never written down and kept secret. That's going to cause me to think all of the above, but I don't think that.
I actually think that the evidence is, is that Kabbalism was just a collection of pop mysticism at the time. So where does [03:12:00] Kabbalism actually come from? , and some Jewish early traditions from like a few hundred years before it was collated. So where does Kabbalism actually come from? It's a clunky stapling together of ideas from the following schools of thought that represents a transformation of OG Judaism into a new religion.
In my book. First Neoplatonic philosophy, Kabbalist concepts like Sefirot divine emanations show strong parallels to neoplatonic ideas of emanation from the one, the concept of Ein Sof, the infinite unknowable aspect of God resembles the neo platonic notion of an ineffable source. Scholars like Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel have shown how Spanish Kabbalists engage with neo platonic texts available in medieval Spain through Abrahamic translations.
The hierarchical structure of reality depicted in Kabbalism echoes, neoplatonic cosmology, gnostic concepts. The kabbalistic notion of sparks divinity trapped in material reality parallels, gnostic concepts and not. So that was really big at the time. Kabbalism, or I think a bit before Kabbalism was being developed.
[03:13:00] Ideas about cosmic balance between good and evil forces show potential gnostic influence. The interpretation of biblical narratives as encoding deeper mystical truths is similar to gnostic approaches. Mm-hmm. However, a couple of them rejects gnostic dualism by maintaining that all reality, including material existence, has divine origin.
Islamic Sufi mysticism, medieval Jewish and Sufi mystics lived in proximity, particularly in Spain and North Africa. Similar practices of letter meditation and divine name contemplation appear in both traditions. What is
Simone Collins: letter meditation?
Malcolm Collins: I can look it up and edit in post,
In Kabbalah, this practice involves contemplating individual Hebrew letters, their shapes, numerical values, and combinations. Kabbalists believe the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the building blocks of creation through which God formed the universe.
Through meditation on these letters, practitioners aim to connect with the divine energies and gain spiritual insights. Sufis meditate on the Arabic letters of the Koran and their mystical significance like Kabbalahists, Sufi see letters as having special [03:14:00] powers and connections to divine attributes.
The practice involves reciting or visualizing specific letter combinations while contemplating their spiritual meanings and vibrations.
Malcolm Collins: But they, they predated it in the Sufi tradition.
Okay. The concept of divine attributes has parallels in Sufi. Thought about God's names. Scholars like Henry Corbin have documented conceptual similarities in their mystical cosmologies. And these communities got along really well. The ancestral medieval Sufis and Jews often worked together , as scholars.
And the Jews quite preferred the Muslims of this period to the Christians. Because, oh, well because the Christians of this period who thought that Jesus was literally God, some that's hard not to see as idolatry within Jewish theology, but the Muslim, yeah, but I thought
Simone Collins: Muslims were. Kinda killing you.
They have some
Malcolm Collins: issues, , but fewer issues if they're being followed, , like to the letter Medieval style Islam. Okay. This is the actual old part of the Kabbalistic traditions Merkabah mysticism. This early Jewish mystical tradition. First to 10th century CE focused on visionary, a sense to the [03:15:00] divine through the chariot described in Ezekiel kabbalistic texts like the zohar incorporate elements of earlier. Hekhalot Heavenly palace literature meditation practices and visualization techniques from Hekhalot mysticism influence kabbalistic contemplation methods that concern with divine names and their power shows continuity between these traditions. And medieval Jewish philosophical tradition.
Maimonides negative theology influence kabbalistic approaches to God's essence. Abraham ibn Ezra's Biblical commentaries provided interpretive message adopted by kabbalah Jewish philosophical debates about the creation, ex nilo shaped kabbalistic cosmology. Concepts from Sefer Yetzirah book of formation, third to sixth century CE regarding Hebrew.
S as cosmic building blocks became central to kabbalistic. Talk back on topic, Judaism was forced to become an ethno religion by the success of the Christian version of the Jewish tradition. Any thoughts on Kabbalism?
Simone Collins: I can't believe it. Well, okay. But I can't believe it picked up. But then again, like in terms of [03:16:00] themes of the Old Testament of you gotta stop doing this.
It seems like just that theme coming back. Yeah. Yeah. We just can't help ourselves. It's just so fun. Magical spells. Ooh.
Now, by the way, did you know there's there's a whole decorating scheme called whimsy goth. No, tell me. Right. That is, just think of like the way that the bedroom is decorated in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and all these other, it's just like a lot of like, oh, that sounds really fun.
Like moons and draperies and velvet and charms and excess objects. But like, there's even just aesthetically this drive, this, this inherent aesthetic interest , in sort of mystical themes and flourishes that I think go beyond just this instinctive desire to pray and do spells. It's just to, to be surrounded by, there's something, it's like a nesting instinct almost that , I find really interesting.
Well,
Malcolm Collins: I didn't see this, you know, women who are like otters and just collect things or raccoons
Simone Collins: Yeah. Little, little shiny objects. Yeah. You know, Taliman. [03:17:00] Yeah. Anyway, to
Malcolm Collins: continue here, now we're gonna get really offensive to some Jews. Oh boy.
But by any metric you look at, Judaism is a much younger religion than Christianity.
Except for one metric, which is when was their first book written? In which case they are both exactly tied because both Christianity and Judaism start with the Old Testament. Saying that Christianity evolved from Judaism is the same sort of mistake as saying human beings evolved from chimps. No human beings and chimps evolved from a common ancestor.
But the text that Christians worship are generally much older than the text that Jews worship. So if you look at the entire Christian Cannon, only 23% by word count, and only 25.5% by verse count come after the Old Testament within Judaism. It's because if you include the Talmud, it's 79.7% to [03:18:00] 83% come after the Old Testament.
Simone Collins: Oh my. That's,
Malcolm Collins: if, if you, and, and this is by the way, me counting on the Talmud alone. I'm, I'm not including Kabbalah. We'll do that in just a second here. But if you only including the Talmud, say, when was the average, and I'll include the calculations on screen here. Average piece of Jewish scripture written you get 167 ce.
If you do it with Christian scripture, you get 290 BCE. So, about okay, God, what would that be? About 450 years early. Hmm. And then if you include kabol literature, the average or the percent of Jewish writings that happened after the Old Testament is 84%. So if you are comparing it based on when with the first text written, it's the same if it's, when was the median text written?
Judaism is much newer, and if it's, when was the last text written? And again, here, not including to Kabbalah with Christianity, it was around 100 to 150 ce [03:19:00] within Rabbinic Judaism, you're looking at around 500 to 600 ce. So by most metrics, it's a newer religion, but they'll claim, oh, no, all of that extra stuff that we added.
Jews had always been doing all of that. They just didn't write it down.
Simone Collins: I. I'm inclined to agree though. That's the impression I get.
Malcolm Collins: No, if you look at what they were doing in like the temple and stuff like that, like animal sacrifices and like, it, it was very different than modern Judaism.
Simone Collins: It was, yeah.
But that's my, my whole thing is that Judaism is a living religion of constantly evolving rules based on, , a meritocracy of
Malcolm Collins: people. Yeah. Which, which I would give it now. Yeah. If you're saying like, yeah, but here's the thing. So you say, okay, well Jews have, have more continuity. Yeah. But as I've sort of argued throughout this track, I wouldn't argue that Jews actually have particularly more continuity with the ancestral tradition than Christians do.
In that they have sort of more their version of like papal authority. Right. You, you could say that it was the Council of original [03:20:00] rabbis, which continued in that community that continued and then evolved into modern Judaism. But even if you take something like the technopuritan faith that argues against the dualism, that argues against, you know, this, this concept of like a, a heaven and hell, which many modern Jews have some iteration of like an immediate afterlife rather than the afterlife where you're raised in the future.
Mm-hmm. technopuritanism beliefs wise, like metaphysical belief at the universe wise is, is closer to the religion that Jesus split from, than modern Judaism is. So I, I think, yeah, the one place you can sort of argue is that they have this, chain that's a bit more unbroken. And I would argue with that that I guess, yeah, because Christianity, you had so many lay people coming in, that's where in the early days with Christianity, and I don't think that this is actually true.
If you're looking at like the Christian core cannon, I think that that really stays within the Jewish tradition because that was like the writings of like a rabbi and his followers. Yeah. Where Christian Canon really begins to break is when they, the, the Catholics start adding in things like the concepts of [03:21:00] heaven and hell from like a Greek philosophy, the concepts of dualism from Greek philosophy.
That's the idea that you have a soul that is separate from the human body which we argue against in the previous track. And we showed that this isn't really a concept in the Bible or the concept of things like sin transference that that was added a a thousand years after Jesus' death.
So most of the ways where you get like the true break in Christianity come from, I would argue, Greek influences that happened after the initial split. And I do not think are core to Christian ideology.
Simone Colins: Yeah, no one thinks about that right though, like I, I grew up thinking of Judaism as being this is the stuff that was solidified and certified before Christ, this is Old Testament and it stops there. And then there's the New Testament, there's Christ. Well, I, I understand it's Old
Malcolm Collins: Testament, it stops there and you have the rabbinic tradition, but the rabbinic tradition is more like minor alterations to the Old Testament instead of like I thought of it as like the comments section.
That's the way I thought of it, but it's not. It's not the comment section. In terms of [03:22:00] studying, you're supposed to spend as much time studying the Mishnah as you spend studying the Torah itself. Well, and the
Simone Colins: rules seem to primarily not come from the Old Testament, right? They come from Subsequent discussions.
We'll talk about that in a bit. Okay
Malcolm Collins: Hopefully you don't think I'm being, I mean, look for me, this
Simone Collins: is just, I don't think you're being too harsh. I think you're just pointing out like these are the calling events. This is the Basilisk biting away at, in this case Judaism though you're giving plenty of mentions and had tips to Catholicism as well, as well as some new evangelical religions.
Like with the prosperity gospel. You're just saying this is the Basilisk, this is the Basilisk. , I mean, if I were talking about this or putting in a attract on my. Use that language more from a technopuritan perspective. Like we have reason to believe. And you know, the Bible makes it clear. Like every time you deviate from the Bible, every time you break these rules, it's good that that's happening.
But that's the Basilisk in a way.
Malcolm Collins: I to, to point out Protestants, you know? I'm [03:23:00] like, okay. Okay. Okay. What would be the most witchy thing a human being could do? Like the most obvious sign that someone is a witch? Mm-hmm. Well, it would probably be chanting in a demonic language while holding snakes.
Literally the symbol of the devil in the Bible, and yet they're using it for worship.
Malcolm Collins: Ah, what makes snakes? It's so hard
Simone Collins: to keep snakes outta churches and they're just so fun. They're just, aren't they just so fun? They're just great fire and s snake and weird, weird sounds. We just love them. We love. I mean, think about our children. What's our children love? They love snakes,
Malcolm Collins: they love fires, they want, they want birthday candles on everything.
Yeah. Is me as somebody who actually wants to believe that these texts have divine inspiration, I have to look at something like the, the Oven of Akhnai story. I have to look at something like the life of you know, , the Baal Shem Tav and say, this appears to be a direct and almost divinely written [03:24:00] inversion of that.
Mm-hmm. But it's the same with the guy, the false Messiah, who I mentioned. I think God doesn't just communicate major things to us through the books, but through historic events that we can learn from. And I think th this is why it's important to study individuals like the false Messiah, because I think that he highlights the real Messiah.
It's like putting the two on top of each other contrast what a real Messiah looks like versus what a false Messiah looks like. Yeah. In every conceivable metric. And I found that really powerful. Hmm.
Simone Collins: Alright, well we're jumping
Malcolm Collins: back in. I'm gonna jump you back
Simone Collins: in with circumcision. Oh. Did we go over that
Malcolm Collins: yet?
Simone Collins: How could it take We, it took us this long to get to circumcision.
One of arguably the key things that caused Christianity to spread more quickly than Judaism. 'cause it didn't require. Exactly,
Malcolm Collins: and there was actually debate in the early Christian Church as to whether it should require circumcision. Oh. Now I did promise a quick aside on circumcision, so we will touch on that briefly before dismantling the noahide scam.
I will note that whether or not [03:25:00] circumcision was required to become a Jew was a topic of active debate at around the time of Jesus, as we see in the Queen Helena of. Aberdeen and her son Isaiah's conversion to Judaism, but circumcision as a practice actually has tons of other problems. The biggest being Jews are probably doing it wrong.
Okay, so when circumcision is written about in the Bible, all we are told is that you are supposed to make a mark or do something to the foreskin. Oh, what? So you could like tattoo the foreskin Theoretically. Yeah. What we're supposed to do is not mentioned. I mean there's a word circumcision, but we don't know exactly what it means in this context.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But like circumcision could be. Like in the future, like a bioluminescent, glowing tattoo? Does that be Well,
Malcolm Collins: we, we actually know what it probably really was referring to. Okay. Okay. So if the Bible does not tell us how we are supposed to do circumcision, where could we find evidence on what might have been actually meant by this line?
Okay. Oh yeah, the Egyptians, oh, they practiced circumcision at around [03:26:00] this time as well. Oh. And we have very detailed accounts of that as well as mummies. We would, wouldn't we?
Simone Collins: Oh, oh man. Oh, ew. But, oh,
Malcolm Collins: so archeological and historical evidence shows that ancient Egyptian circumcision was quite different from modern Jewish practices.
What were they? The law, age different. Egyptian circumcision was typically performed on adolescence around the ages of 12 to 14 As a puberty, right? Not on infants as in the Jewish tradition. Okay. Procedural difference. Egyptian circumcision appears to have been a partial removal of the foreskin rather than the complete removal practice in modern circumcision.
Hmm. Some archeological evidence suggests it may have evolved a dorsal slit rather than the complete circumference cutting.
Simone Collins: Oh. So kind of like it would make it easier to clean, but not remove the sense of skin. Yes. Yes. Ah,
Malcolm Collins: A dorsal slit is a type of partial circumcision where an incision is made along the upper lengths of the foreskin without removing it completely.
This technique creates an opening by splitting the foreskin at top, leaves the foreskin attached, but loosened is [03:27:00] distinct from complete circumcision where the foreskin is completely removed. The evidence suggests ancient Egyptian circumcision was often this type partial procedure rather than the complete removal practice in modern religious circumstances.
Okay. Question.
Simone Collins: What,
Malcolm Collins: because
Simone Collins: I don't my penile logistics knowledge is limited. Would this mean that like. Like a mushroom cap, it would like flap up during intercourse, for example. Like how, like, would it, I,
Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I haven't seen this. I don't think that this type is done anymore. This would have achieved ritual significance, but been less invasive than modern circumcision techniques.
Purpose in Egypt, circumcision was primarily associated with ritual purity for priests and possibly as a mark of social status rather than a religious covenant. Hmm. So specifically the priest within many religious sects, within ancient Egypt, had to be circumcised. We know this from mummified evidence.
Several mummies from ancient Egypt show evidence of circuit concision, including those of Pharaohs like Ahmose and Amenhotep. Examinations of these mummies reveal circumcision styles different from modern practices, [03:28:00] artistic depictions, wall release, and paintings from Egyptian tombs, particularly the Saqqara tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor six Dynasty around 2,300 BC show circumcision ceremonies being performed.
These are some of the most detailed visual records we have of the practice written accounts, Egyptian text Mission circumcision as a purification ritual. On priests. Later, Greek writers like ISTs also commented on Egyptian circumcision practices. Hmm. The Bible specifically missions Flint knives for circumcision, Joshua 5, 2, 3, which aligns with Egyptian practices and archeological findings from the general period.
This, to me, indicates parallels between these two surgery types since Jews supposedly came out of Egypt and this was an Egyptian religious ritual they would've been familiar with. Mm-hmm. Way they were practicing, it was different. It seems likely they would've explicitly mentioned how it was different when making these recordings.
Sure. If they don't mention, this makes me believe that it was done in the standard quote unquote Egyptian way. Also note here that this [03:29:00] practice was done on priest for ritual purity given Exodus. 19 6, the Israelites were commanded to quote, be a kingdom of priests. It seems logical that they might have attempted to apply this priestly practice to the entire population because they believed that the entire population needed to be priests essentially.
And that's also really the way that Jews relate to their religion. So I could totally see that being an early part of the religion. So yeah, you're probably doing circumcision wrong, but I agree with Apostle Paul that it's not relevant under the current covenant.
Simone Collins: So when did, interesting. Right. Is there knowledge of when there was some switch to removing the entire foreskin instead of just I
Malcolm Collins: well, because we don't have lots of Jewish mummies or anything that we can trace over time, my guess is it's just one of those things where it's sort of like.
Well, I'm more Jewish because I'm more circumcised. Oh. And over time it just got to the maximal circumcision level dominant
Simone Collins: hierarchy. That totally checks out, especially considering how, like I'm wearing
Malcolm Collins: off because I'm wearing even bigger spikes than well, and,
Simone Collins: and Judaism especially, even [03:30:00] among more light people, like it seems to be more of a, like, you get more reward for really leaning in.
So that, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Malcolm Collins: Yep. That's what I assume probably happened. Interesting. Okay. Centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries. Now is there, I I don't think that the new type of circumcision is out of God's covenant. I mean, he's like, you have to, even if he meant you needed an impartial dorsal cut doing more doesn't seem like it has any risk in regards to the way that the commandment is laid down.
But just laying out that this is something that's probably done wrong today.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Now let's address the noahide concept created for non-Jews who wish to be right with God without converting to Judaism. I call it a fabrication because it was crafted to resolve a problem that Orthodox Jews created for themselves.
And, and this is probably gonna be the most. Offensive part of this empire video. 'cause some people were really bought into this noahide concept. Oh. As Jews begin to reframe Judaism as an ethno religion, they encountered a problem. What should non-Jew believe no other religion [03:31:00] faithss this question because most faith would simply say you should convert non-believers to your view, right?
The exceptions here are technopuritans. Who would suggest following a conservative version of your ancestral beliefs, if they come from one of these spiral traditions it's probably good. Mm-hmm. But Jews also have this problem, right? So how do, how do the Jews answer this instead of being like, be a conservative Christian and slash Muslim slash Jews?
So Jews have, say. So to handle this, Jews developed the concept of the noahide laws or commandments in the Bible supposedly extended to everyone, not just those of their ethno religion. Some Jewish groups believe that if you accept modern ethnic Judaism as the true religion, but you yourself are not Jewish matrilineally, you can still submit to their system, but with fewer obligations.
Most of these groups believe that if enough people follow these laws, the Messiah will come. What I find ironic about the idea that widespread adherence to these rules will bring the Messiah, is that these principles are already covered by Christianity and Islam. [03:32:00] Mm. The world's dominant religions who spread was enabled by the Messiah.
They have it backwards. It's not that getting everyone to follow these laws will bring the Messiah, but that the Messiah already brought people to follow these laws. Mm-hmm. But what are these laws. One prohibiting idolatry, two prohibiting blasphemy. Three. Prohibiting murder. Four. Prohibiting sexual immorality.
Five. Prohibiting theft. Six. Prohibiting eating flesh from a living animal. And seven, establishing courts of justice.
Simone Collins: Wait, so while it's still alive or just being vegetarian?
Malcolm Collins: No a still living animal while it's still alive. Oh, so
Simone Collins: like this idea of like the, the fresh Japanese food where you're eating the writhing octopus.
10. It's against
Malcolm Collins: Christian and Jewish.
Simone Collins: It's a no-no. I didn't know that.
Malcolm Collins: Christians might say, oh, you, you know what's interesting? Not against Christian and Jewish law is cannibalism. I
Simone Collins: mean, you gotta do what you gotta do. Mentioned a
Malcolm Collins: few times in the Bible, in the context of sieges as being a tragedy involved with this siege.
In, in [03:33:00] every instance that somebody eating their kids or eating their parents. So in these instances, it's like, it's a tragedy that in times of scarcity, some people, but it never says like, and God said this was a bad thing for
Simone Collins: you. If it's alive, run and hide. If it's dead, go ahead.
Malcolm Collins: If it's
Simone Collins: yes.
Malcolm Collins: But if you look at these laws that are associated with the noahide rules, they are largely really like just covered by everything.
Prohibiting idol idolatry, prohibiting blasphemy, prohibiting murder, prohibiting sexual anonymity, prohibiting theft, prohibiting eating the flesh of a living animal, and establishing courts of justice. That's Christianity in Islam. But anyway now, now they'd say, well, Christianity isn't exactly because it argues that Jesus is a son of God, which is a form of idolatry.
But I'm like, eh, it seems pretty iffy to me. And you know, our version doesn't so whatever. But anyway, the organized noahide movement as we know it today, primarily began, post 1950s gaining particular momentum through chabad efforts starting in the 1980s. noahide laws aren't explicitly listed anywhere in the Hebrew Old [03:34:00] Testament.
The rabbinical derivation requires quite a stretch from the text itself. So this is, this is where they get the noahide laws. It's ideas from. Hmm. Genesis 2 16 17, God commands Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is used to establish that God gave commandments to humans before the Jews existed.
Hmm. Genesis 9 1 7. God's commands to Noah after the flood, which include whoever sheds human blood by human, shall their blood be shed prohibiting murder and everything that lives and moves. About will be food for you, but you must not eat meat that has lifeblood is still in it, prohibiting eating, living animals.
Ah, and Genesis nine, nine, God establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants, all humanity, which is used to justify universal laws. The rest of the laws are derived through various interpretive methods. For example, the prohibition idolatry was derived from how Abraham rejected idolatry.
Sexual immorality laws are derived from Genesis. 2 24 about marriage and references to sexual sin in Genesis 20. The requirement for courts is derived from Genesis nine six's [03:35:00] implication that humans should judge murderers. The only reason the concept of noahide laws is needed is because the idea of matrilineal dissent was created, which is not found in the Bible.
What's fascinating is that the technopuritans would technically follow the noahide laws yet. Rejects the concept of Jews that the ethno religion and sees technopuritan branch of Christianity as the true successor of the religion in the Old Testament. As that is far closer to said religion, it didn't add the Garden Eden version of heaven and hell that modern Jews borrowed from the Greeks and maintained a belief in a single after life, the world to come see my previous track. it accepts that it is written in the Bible that Judaism is not an ethno religion. It has a much stricter view of monotheism, no demons. It is much stricter in its rules around idolatry. It's materialist and monist as the religion of the Old Testament was. See, my previous track, in all the other things, if you're like a Jewish religious scholar, you would concede that actually what technopuritans believe is closer to OG Judaism of the time of the Christ [03:36:00] split than even modern Judaism is all that said, because, you know, we're monist, we, we, we don't believe in this secondary afterlife.
We don't believe in demons or spirits or magical amulets or anything like that. All of that idolatry off the table.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: All that said, I would argue that attempting to spread the concept of the noahide tradition was misguided from the beginning. Even for those who believed it and were Jewish, it forces those who accept it into a spiritually subordinate position to Jews, which would obviously never gain widespread acceptance.
If you had to promote a tradition, you'd be better off promoting one. That both followed the technical rules of the noahide laws and had enshrined with in it commandment principles against interfering with. Jewish religious practices while maintaining Jews as a distinct religion and population group IE, the technopuritan tradition. So technopuritanism is just strictly better at achieving whatever noahide was trying to achieve than noahide
Simone Collins: laws, plus fixed, revised second decision.
Malcolm Collins: But the part of the problem is that it also teaches that Jews are maybe not the true inheritor of the [03:37:00] original Jewish tradition, which is not required within the new hide laws that you believe that but would be deeply offensive to many of the people who like the new hide laws. Okay. So one, now that you have time, do you have a larger reaction to this wider noahide phenomenon? Because a lot of people have tried to pressure us to be like, oh, say that you are noahide or whatever, say that you're gonna follow noahide laws. What, like, what are your thoughts on that?
Simone Collins: I think you've taken the correct approach. I think that the, the, the problem. With the Noad movement is it's, I think it's very half-baked and it's made from the perspective of an insider thinking that something's gonna work for an outsider without thinking from their perspective. And if you follow the noahide movement to the tune that it is outlined as it is.
You would rather just convert to Judaism and after being rejected, you would try to join again. Like it, you would just, no. You'd be like, no, Judaism is correct. Like obviously I wanna do it your way. Yeah. You have to revise it. , if someone's an outsider, they're an outsider [03:38:00] for a reason. And those reasons should be acknowledged and detailed.
And they are. And I also
Malcolm Collins: find it incredibly ironic, the belief that if you convert enough people, the Messiah will come. When the hypothesized Messiah, or at least who we think is the Messiah, is the figure who caused almost everyone on earth to follow the noahide laws. And that there isn't this recognition that almost everyone is already following them.
What they want is the submission, an individual saying. I follow noahide laws, which is incredibly stupid because even , the theological text that they have backing the noahide laws doesn't require an individual to say that. Hmm. So why do you require this additional claimant on behalf of the individual?
That's a saying, I'm following The noahide laws which is. To me, it's just like a weird power trip. That doesn't make any sense. And is completely subverted if it turns out, as I believe we have argued very effectively in this track. Ancient Judaism is not an ethno religion [03:39:00] that is a modern contrivance.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you
Malcolm Collins: alright, let's keep going before I get to my closing. But the Jews were probably right. And here is what I can't explain. There is an argument I hear from Jews all the time about why they believe their religion and it is a terrible argument and there is much stronger ones.
So let's address it. I have heard that accounts that all Jewish people at once heard slash saw God, and this is proof of their religion's veracity. The reason this comes off as so silly is it requires a basic lack of historic knowledge. And I've, I've genuinely heard this from multiple Jews who are like, well, I know Judaism is right, because at one point all Jews heard God talk to them like at once, and this has been passed down, right?
Mm-hmm. And I'm like, well, that happens pretty frequently in history. And they're like, wait, it. It does. I'm like, are you just like, and it requires just, you know, trying to think of reasons your religion is [03:40:00] true without actually engaging with historical religion texts or whatever. But anyway mass religious hallucinations are fairly common and well documented.
The miracle of the sun. Fátima Portugal, 1917, approximately 70,000 people gathered and many reported seeing the sun dance, change colors and zigzagged towards earth. This occurred after three children claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary. That was probably more than the number of people who saw this original Jewish miracle, by the way.
So, oh, oh, does that mean Christianity is accurate? Because this was associated with the Virgin Mary Catholicism specifically. The Dancing Sun at Knock Ireland 1879. A number of villagers reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John, the evangelists at the South garble at the local church, along with unusual light phenomenon.
Marion Apparitions at Zeitoun Egypt, 1968 to 1971, thousands of people of different religious backgrounds reported seeing [03:41:00] apparitions of the Virgin Mary atop a Coptic church. The phenomenon were. Photographed and filmed, but lasting intermittently for several years. The Dancing Sun at Medjugorje Bosnia and Herzegovina 1981 to present Similar to Fatima, many religious pilgrims have reported to a solar phenomenon, including a sun spinning, pulsating, and changing colors.
Hindi Milk, Miracle, 1995 across
Simone Collins: Milk, milk Miracle.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, we'll get to it across various co countries, particularly in India. People have reported that statues of Hindu deities were drinking milk offerings. The phenomenon was witnessed by thousands, and received extensive media coverage. So no, there, there was not a particularly unique thing that only happened to the Jews mass hallucinations.
Religious hallucinations particularly are really common in humans. In addition, culture bound illnesses that involve hallucinations are very common. See our episode on the Penis Stealing Witch phenomenon that often spreads through Africa, where people adopt the insane belief in mass that witches are stealing penises.[03:42:00]
Or for one more closer to home. Look at the modern trans movement where people believe they are another gender. And for the witch pe this happens to thousands of people. I remember I was talking to somebody about this saying, go, yeah, but what happens when they look down and their penis is still there?
And I'm like, yeah, that's why. It's an insane phenomenon. It's where the individual is like, your penis still my bed. And then a doctor was like, but I, I see it. It's right there. And the guy looked down and said it came back. It's pretty much like I was turned into a. newt, I got
better
Malcolm Collins: Oh,
there are even cultures and periods in history where divine visions and revelations were a common part of everyday life. If you believe in the divine, you see the divine historical examples include ancient Greek oracle sites, places like Delphi, where visitors regularly reported visions, hearing voices, and experiencing altered states of consciousness.
Inhaling vapors from geological fissures may have contributed to these experiences. So note here you might be like, well, they were inhaling vapors. Well, who's to say there wasn't like a gas leak in this location where all these Jews had this, [03:43:00] this you know, vision, right? Yeah. Whatever.
Simone Collins: Like proto mark carbon monoxide poisoning.
I.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean that's basically what, how the way we know the, the Oracle sites work now because we found specific fissures in them. There was a cool recent geological finding that's crazy. Medieval European pilgrimage roots along the Camino de Santiago and its sites like the Lourdes Pilgrims commonly reported.
Visions, healing experiences and supernatural encounters that were expected Aspects of pilgrimage. Ancient Egypt dream incubation temples where people would sleep to receive divine visions or messages were common practice. Aboriginal Australian dream time sites. Sacred locations were visionary experiences protecting and ancestral spirits were, and remain an.
Expected part of religious practice. Contemporary examples include Mount Kailash, Tibet, China Pilgrims often report mystical experiences, visions, and heightened spiritual awareness. While circumambulating the sacred mountain Varanasi Ghats, India, religious experiences, visions of deity [03:44:00] and supernatural encounters are commonly reported and culturally normalized.
Medjugorje Bosnia and Herzegovina . Since 1981, Pilgrim's . Regularly report seeing the Virgin Mary experiencing healing and witnessing solar phenomenon. Ayahuasca Ceremonies in the Amazon basin. Indigenous communities regularly experience visionary states that are considered normal religious experiences within their cultural context.
Vodou ceremonies in Haiti, . Spirit possession is normalized religious experience where practitioners report divine entities temporarily inhabiting their bodies, certain Pentecostal and charismatic Christian cultures, speaking in tongues, prophetic visions, and feeling the Holy Spirit are normal, expected religious experiences.
And outside of that, the argument that you could not fake, this is also very uncompelling and the events were written down just a few hundred years after they happened. It would be illogical to think that they would not have been exaggerated. Do you have any knowledge of whether one of your great grandparents.
Thought they saw a ghost or a supernatural thing in their life. I mean, they [03:45:00] probably did. It just wasn't passed down. Also, if this miracle was so amazing and everyone would remember it and pass it down. Why? When we are looking at the passage in the Mishnah, did other people in the world who were given the same offer , why do they not remember it?
Remember, I was like, oh, Jews were the right people because God actually went to all people and gave him the same offer. So you're saying everyone actually experienced this, but only the Jews remembered it. What? And that, that validating of the tradition. Very uncompelling. No, the much stronger argument for the Jews being right is God's current favor of their people indicates.
That they are doing something closer to right than other religious groups. But again, before we get into that, we do need to acknowledge God has withdrawn his favor in the past. Specifically, God tells us in no uncertain terms in Jeremiah that the Jews broke their covenant. The days are coming declares the Lord.
When I will make a new covenant was the people of Israel and was the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by their hand and led them out of [03:46:00] Egypt. Because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them. We can also see from history that God stopped favoring them for a period.
If he had not, why did he allow the temple to fall?
Simone Collins: And a bunch of other
Malcolm Collins: things and a bunch of other things. While this whole part of Jeremiah makes no sense, if you take the modern Jewish interpretation where the new covenant has not been established yet, as the section goes on and on about what will happen in the land of Israel after the Babylonian exile.
So I'm, I'm quoting here from this section where they talk about the new covenant just above the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of the people and animals, just as I watched over them to uproot them and tear down and to overthrow and destroy and bring disaster.
So I , will watch over them to build and plant. Then set up road signs, put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you will take to return Virgin Israel. Return to your towns. How long you will wander on faithful [03:47:00] daughter Israel. I will put you up again and you, Virgin Israel will be rebuilt again.
You will take up your . timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful again, you will plant vineyards in the hills with Samaria. The farmers will plant them and enjoy the fruit. He who scattered Israel will gather them and watch over his flock the shepherd.
The point I'm making here is right after he talks about I'm gonna create this secondary covenant with you. He talks about how the Jews are gonna return to Israel. The problem is, is that all of this was handed down in the Babylonian exile and Jews did return to Israel after the Babylonian exile and created Jewish kingdom.
That's when they built the second temple. Mm-hmm. That's when the Jewish empire existed. So it would be really weird to think all of these lines here are talking about something other than that, but many modern Jews, if not most modern Jews. Think that when God prophesies to the people in Babylon about going back and having orchards again and reuniting the Jewish people he wasn't talking [03:48:00] about the second temple period.
He wasn't talking about that literal kingdom of Judaism that exists for hundreds of years. He was skipping over that completely thought the Jewish people didn't need to notice about that. In talking about the modern country of Israel.
Or even more crazily that they're talking about the Messianic period. Still yet to come.
Malcolm Collins: I am like, what? So God just was messing with them because he knew they were all gonna come back at one point.
Like it was just a practical joke on God's part. Obviously people, the Second Kingdom people period, would've assumed that God meant their period. Right. Why would God give people's revelation that was one accurately prophetically for a different period, but also so misleading and like intentionally misleading.
Is he just a jerk?
So all the prophecies of this section associated with the establishment of the new covenant come true, but he just forgets to make that new covenant. I mean, you could argue it is [03:49:00] still technically after the above described events, but I feel like most of the above could also apply to the period.
After the destruction of the second temple and the refounding of Israel, which feels much like a chapter two. Thus the new covenant would've been established before the second group of events, EEG at the end of chapter one, or right before the destruction of the temple. So, you know, God has laid out all of these things that Jews are gonna come back to the kingdom.
They're gonna re reform this kingdom. It's gonna be great. You guys are gonna be happy during this period, and there's gonna be a new covenant. Mm-hmm. So. I guess you could be like, well, and the new covenant happens for whatever reason at some point in the future. Or it's sort of like a, a bookend to all of these prophecies that are alongside it, that describe the reconstitution of Jews within Israel during that period.
What's really weird to me about modern Judaism is they just sort of like take all of these prophecies that are laid out in the Bible and act like most of them haven't come true or are gonna come true in some sort of future messianic [03:50:00] period and weren't relevant to the actual lived experiences of the Jewish people.
Which to me is crazy when all of these prophecies handed down during the Babylonian exile were such good and accurate predictors of what happened to the Jewish people during the Second Kingdom period. , and
The reason they have to do this is because all of those fairly accurate prophecies about what would happen at the second Temple period are clustered around the point that during that period, they are going to get a new covenant at some point. And so because of that, they need to say, oh, well, all of these are actually about this future Messianic period.
It is almost as if. God stops warning the Jews of anything that's gonna tell happen to them or stop telling Jews about anything good that's going to happen to them, , sort of.
Around the time of Christ, which is really shocking to me. Like what? Like, so why is it that God stopped talking to the Jews at around the time of Christ? Why did he stop giving you unique prophecies? Then? Why did his prophecy stop playing out for you [03:51:00] then?
Why didn't he warn you about the destruction of the second temple or could Jesus have been seen as a warning about the destruction of the second temple? Why didn't he warn you about the Holocaust? That seems like of all the things that God was gonna warn the Jews about, that seems like one of the things he should have warned them about.
Malcolm Collins: . Now, you could argue God meant for all of this stuff to happen twice and the new covenant was going to come after the second time it happened, but this seems intentionally dishonest. Everyone during the exile when this was written would clearly be led to believe that what was being revealed was about their current period of exile.
When the exile ended, they would've seen this as a fulfillment of that prophecy. . If we take this reading, then God intentionally misled the Jewish people, which I do not believe. I like. Why? Why are you even following him if he's just messing?
Like. Pranking you all the time. Ha. Actually all of you had like all of your land destroyed and your temple ruined and everything I told you , like [03:52:00] absolutely messed. And I totally messed with you when I said that you would, you would have this all, you know, rebuilt and, and I wasn't even talking about that period that you 100% would've believed I was talking about if you were living through that period.
Second, if the event was supposed to happen after a second exile and the Holocaust, that's a pretty big thing not to mention.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: No, it seems clear. It is talking about the second temple period here, which is punctuated with the destruction of the second temple. So I note here, like if you take the view that, oh, this Messianic age or is being described here and this is all happening, you know, way, way in the future you didn't even think to tell us that we'd get a kingdom and the kingdom would be destroyed and then we'd get another kingdom and then that would be.
No, they didn't get to, they didn't get any of that. And so you could argue that. Or you could say God accurately predicted future events to the Jews who were in exile in order to console them and accurately prophesize the creation of their second kingdom. And included within that prophecy wasn't mentions of the Holocaust or anything.
Not because God just, I. Didn't feel like [03:53:00] telling the Jews about that. But it wasn't relevant yet , to Jews of that time period. And that the Holocaust, you could say , as we've argued, was likely a reaction to Jews doing something that pissed off God. And I think it's important. To meditate on what came a few hundred years before the Holocaust.
Mm. Because this is now, it could be the following of the false Messiah that caused the Holocaust, by the way, because that's why been a few hundred years before. Because it seems like God's punishments typically have been a few hundred, I'd say like 300, 400 years after whatever the event incident incites him.
Don't know why he takes so long, but it seems to be the way it works.
Now I would note here somebody could say, oh, it's really offensive to say, , that Jews were in any way responsible for what happened during the Holocaust. And I'm not saying this as like a accusatory thing. I'm saying this from the perspective of Jewish theology. God typically warns the Jewish people when they're doing something bad and then he punishes them, like with [03:54:00] the, , Babylonian exile or like with the destruction of the second temple period.
, there is no like major negative event to befall the Jewish people other than the Holocaust where there wasn't some consolidated within the Jewish tradition. Oh, this is why God did this to us line. So it would be. Antithetical to Jewish theology, , to say, oh, the Holocaust was just 'cause, just, just for funsies.
, God always does things for a reason, and you could go, oh, well what about the Book of Job? The Book of Job was a single person., the Holocaust would be a very unique thing for God to allow to happen, , , in terms of the way , the Jewish religious texts work without reason.
So either you actually believe that there is a God and he's real, and he has the capacity to do things like stop an event like the Holocaust, or you don't believe that, , or you believe that God is real and loves the Jewish people and allowed the Holocaust to happen even when they were doing absolutely everything right?, [03:55:00] That to me sounds like a really messed up situation. , so. I, this is one of those things where it's an offensive thing to state, but it's just like an obvious truth if you actually believe Jewish theology.
Malcolm Collins: Now, I should note here that all of this happens immediately after the bit about returning from exile. Mm-hmm. Like, it's not that each of these sections are in Jeremiah. The thing about the covenant is sandwiched at the end of the talk about returning from exile.
Mm-hmm. For example, this line comes up after the talk of the new covenant. The days are coming, declares the Lord when this city will be rebuilt for me, the new covenant discussion occurs in a long list about what's going to happen when they return from exile. Also, why did God give such accurate predictions of the Jewish people's future here?
But not warn them about the destruction of the second temple or the Holocaust. Clearly, it's almost like for a long period, starting with the destruction of the second temple, God's favor left the Jewish people to focus on some new [03:56:00] group only to return to them in the past century or so. Now, at the counter argument, the part after the talk of the covenant that talks about rebuilding the city does say that.
A time will come when the city will never be uprooted or destroyed again. And that clearly at least kind of was after the exile. So you could say the fact that that was part of the prophecy indicates that it's talking about a second rebuilding of Israel. But I take it to just mean, we're talking about this one rebuilding of Israel here and the covenant that you're gonna get along with that.
And then. Some other time in the future of the city will because, you know, in God and maybe Jewish history's perspective the period where the Jews were outside of Israel is just a blip in, in, in human history. Small to them in the same way the Babylonian exile seems short term to us.
Simone Collins: Any thoughts?
Well, with all these periods of, of God supposedly not showing favor, you and I always talk about how we don't want our children to have easy lives that we want to.
Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think God, it [03:57:00] challenges you, I think Favor? Yeah. Are these not
Simone Collins: maybe just challenges, not like, I need to give you hardships so you're stronger.
Malcolm Collins: No, the, the Holocaust goes a lit little more than just a challenge.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know. I don't know though, like,
Malcolm Collins: s. They're, I, I mean, it, it, maybe it strengthened the Jewish people. Maybe it's why they're so exceptional right now. What we have now, we have Israel, we have incredibly successful Jewish groups, so people
Simone Collins: who are due the Holocaust was Jewish better before the Holocaust than we're now.
Remember, we did an episode on this.
Malcolm Collins: We did an episode on this. So if you look at for example, pediatricians in Germany before the Holocaust, because we have notes in this mm-hmm. Or dentists. You have to go to the episode for the exact numbers, but I wanna say something like, they appeared in these professions at like 900%.
What you would expect. Or it might have even higher, it might have been like 9,000. What
Simone Collins: you expect as opposed to now, though, I mean, like, yes, they were exceptional then, but are they more exceptional now?
Malcolm Collins: Jews?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Are you, I, you know that they participate in like Nobel Laureates who are Jewish. [03:58:00] It's like, I know, I know.
My
Simone Collins: point though is like that is post Holocaust and pre Holocaust. You're you're, you're implying you're telling me that they were better off then?
Malcolm Collins: Yes. I just said pre Holocaust. Dentist doctors, pediatricians who were Jewish appeared at like 9000% the rate that you would expect given the percent that were Jews.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: But what about have evidence of this
Simone Collins: today?
Malcolm Collins: Is it lower it Jews don't exist in Germany in large numbers. What? What are you asking? In Germany? Yeah, but I mean like, then there's the diaspora throughout the rest of the world. Which is exceptional. Now, the point I'm making is that we have evidence of Jewish exceptionalism, both before and after the Holocaust.
Yeah. Indicating that Jewish SEC exceptionalism is not a result of the Holocaust.
Simone Collins: Right. But could it have been strengthened by that? I, I mean, again, like I do not support that there was a Holocaust. I think it's so horrible and I, it's hard for me to understand how it could been. It could have
Malcolm Collins: theoretically been, but the majority of evidence we have does not support that.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: [03:59:00] Okay. And we do have Israel now. Well, yeah, they've done well, but they were doing really well before the Holocaust. Again, I don't know, have, like Roth child, we didn't as much of a, as a family, the Jewish banking networks, all of that was pre Holocaust.
Simone Collins: Yeah, but it was concentrated as well. And like what?
No, it wasn't concentrated. I just told
Malcolm Collins: you. Doctors, pediatricians, and dentists. Oh yeah. 'cause
Simone Collins: they're. Changing the not, not to say that like, oh no, but
Malcolm Collins: they do earn significantly more and are indicative of a community that is a higher levels of education, higher levels of wealth, and higher levels of community influence
Simone Collins: maybe.
I don't know. M just, I'm trying
Malcolm Collins: to play devil's advocate here. Yeah. Yes. But the evidence doesn't agree with this devil advocates, but I know, I just,
Simone Collins: I just, I mean, it's really otherwise hard to understand. Jewish has chosen, like God's chosen people. When you look at things like the, it's just like. Well, you could say that he
Malcolm Collins: specifically, now we know because we know that God said during the exile, like, I'm punishing you for messing up.
We know according to Jewish tradition. Yeah. God punishes the Jewish people to show them they're messing up.
Simone Collins: [04:00:00] Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So this is not inconsistent with even God's original relationship with Jews that we see in the Old Testament.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So, and I imagine he's gonna do, he does the same to Christians when they mess up.
I, I think that we're seeing this through crashing fertility rates now and a degradation of the culture and artistic traditions that they built. And God , is using , the very thing that we are supposed to know, to be afraid of and, and have fear of this urban monoculture as this thing that's, that's burning humanity.
You know, as I said, God told us he would never again drown the world. But in an inversion of that, what we're seeing now in this great wiping of the world, this great sort of happening that we're living through of, of, of mass cultural death, mass cultural extinction, the crucible that this is an inversion of the flood.
That people instead of drowning, are burning on a bonfire of their own vanity.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And it, it is, instead of God doing it, [04:01:00] they are throwing themselves into this fire. And they are doing it through serialization rather than literal deaths. It's like an inversion of the flood narrative in every conceivable way.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And I think actually that's what the flood narrative is about, but we'll talk about this in some other day. I actually think the flood narrative is about warning us about this fertility collapse. Hmm.
Simone Collins: Um hmm. Looking forward to that conversation.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Now, suppose I was a Jewish rabbi and I needed to find a way to resolve all the above issues.
Here's how you do it, so I'm gonna fix this. Okay. I would concede that Judaism used to function more like Islam in terms of both how they set out rules for governing a state and through converts. This is just too widely attested to really argue against and some Jews, I've talked to you like, no, this isn't true.
I'm just like, it, it becomes really hard, like as a, the, you remember all of the evidence I laid out for this Simone, do you think it's even plausible that Jews did not have regular converts? And I'm not saying all Jews, there was clearly some sect of Jews that might be the true Jews, but there wasn't. No, I mean, [04:02:00] yeah, you
Simone Collins: laid out so much, like pretty well documented historical.
Evidence that they were proselytizers and people trying to convert? No. Yeah, yeah,
Malcolm Collins: clearly both. Both from within the Jewish community. And external to the Jewish community. Yeah. And from people who liked Jews and from people who hated Jews. Yeah. People who liked Jews were like, we have Jewish settlements in every city.
Then we have tactics here. Like, oh, Jews have settlements in every city. Like, like major convert centers, you know? And Yeah. And they, you know, so, and it also helps explain why Christianity spread so fast, so it even like explains other mysteries that don't make sense without this.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So I'd accept that because I think if you, if you try to take a position that's clearly anti historical, is harder to, for people to take your religion seriously.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Instead, I would argue that Judaism was not originally an ethno religion, but became one with the destruction of the second temple as was laid out in Jeremiah.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Specifically either the destruction of the second temple itself or something just before it happened. But was not Jesus. [04:03:00] Started the second covenant, which the Bible says clearly would be written within the Jewish people and on their hearts.
This explains why it was not written within the Jewish people in the earlier historic period and has clear text supporting it within the Bible, that at some point after the exile, the covenant would be become written within the biology of the Jews matrilineal de. Scent because the mother is the one who makes the body of the future Jew, thus imprinting them with the potentiality to engage with this covenant.
Mm-hmm. Bam. Fixed. Of course, for this fix to work, I still need some instigating event for the second covenant, but given that lots of rabbis have argued that they are already living under the second covenant, this is very doable. Okay. This is not seen as like a heretical Jewish position. It may not be a mainstream rabbinical position, but many.
Well known and famous rabbis have argued that Jews are already living in the second covenant. . The problem is, as a non-Jew, when I am asked to find some event of world spanning theological significant [04:04:00] that happened just before the destruction of the second temple, well, let's just say I find the above less satisfying than that.
Christ initiated the second covenant and applied it to all people. However, I am personally proud of coming up with a solution to this particular problem. And the way that you would argue this is you'd say, well, you can ignore the, the parts about, because it said that the second covenant is just for Jews just for the people of Judea.
And that, okay, yes, you could convert into Judea easily before then, like Ruth and these other people did. But you can't convert easily into Judea. After whenever this covenant was formed, which was written in people's hearts. And we know from the Bible that when the first covenant was formed, because it within contrast to the second covenant, it was not written, within the Jews.
It was not written, within their hearts. And that's why it was okay to convert people all the time during that period. And that's why it wasn't okay to convert people after the destruction of the second temple. It aligns with historical events of when conversion stopped. It aligns with the biblical text, and it's a completely logical explanation as to how Jews became a matrilineal [04:05:00] religion.
Now of course, again, I think the problem is, is you're like, okay, but where is the initiating instigating event of the second covenant of theological significant before? This is just before to destruction of the new temp second temple. And really the only one I can see is Jesus, but oh well. Any thoughts before we get to the very last section here?
No proceed, but I have one major problem. As saying Stan, God does seem to be favoring the Jews still, even with their corrupted belief system. From my perspective, they enter politics successfully at higher rates. They win more Nobel Prizes. They invent more stuff, they have more money. Oh, and they have their own country, and within that country have both a growing population, even among the technologically and economically engaged sub factions.
But are still, their country is surrounded by easily expandable territory, weak countries that could not put up a real fight against their technology and economy. If they ever wanted more land and resources, the only thing really stopping them is the pox de Romana [04:06:00] of the urban monoculture of the international community.
As Europe falls into irrelevance, and America is increasingly ruled by a proje Christian coalition, social norms are likely to be. More relaxed and Israel will be bringing an AI drone swarm to fight populations with AKs. Not that they will need the land, just if they hypothetically did, there isn't really anything stopping them in the future.
I. And if you're like, oh, Europe won't collapse, bro, bro, you need to like get a, a, like a snort of reality pill here. Italy right now is at a fertility rate of 1.18, even if it doesn't continue to go down, which it has every year for the past 16 years at its current fertility rate for every a hundred Italians, there's only gonna be every around 20 great grandchildren.
They cannot survive as a country like that, especially when you contrast them with the low tech populations around them that are breeding. And those low tech populations are not going to be that much of a threat to Israel if they build things like the United States [04:07:00] government is already building that we've talked about in other videos like giant movable.
Tanks and ships that can create hundreds of AI controlled drones a day. You just can't fight against that with tunnels or conventional weapons or really anything. And the people around Israel right now, these countries that today, we might view them as a test for Israel, like a test that God gave to make Israel strong keep their fertility rate high, everything like that.
In the future are. It's just like free land. It's like something that historically was a no. I'm not saying there aren't moral complications to taking this land. I'm just being like, suppose these groups continually attack the Jews giving them an excuse to take that land. Mm-hmm. It's not like that hasn't been a reason for their expansion in the past.
Nor in the Bible that God hasn't told the Jews, oh, well you can take this land or you can take that land in that particular area of the world. Oh, and any thoughts on that before I go further? I know that's a very offensive thing to say, but it's [04:08:00] also an obviously true thing. No
Simone Collins: yeah, I hear you.
Malcolm Collins: And it's, it's something that I think many Jews haven't thought about when they think about their current conflicts and troubles that it is the, their current troubles are born in the seeds of their future potential prosperity.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, and don't even get me started on the power of their diaspora.
Proverbial Esthers are in every country and government in the world. Basically, if things play out the way, all current stats predict they will, Jews win the game despite everything having been rigged against them. They still have some level of divine favor. This is why it is critical for the technopuritan tradition as it grows to build a strong, long-term structural allegiance with Jewish communities.
And when I talk about proverbial esters here, what I'm saying is is that Jews, even in their biblical tradition, say, Hey, you know, if you're a Jew in a country that is ruled by non-Jews, maybe you know. Marry to families like [04:09:00] say like Ivana marrying the Jewish guy, right? Like that's actually like within Jewish tradition, you're not supposed to marry outside the tradition, but if you can influence politics favorably for Jews there are stories you could take to say, yeah, you should do that.
And what I'm saying about this is, is that the Jewish diaspora is easily the strongest diaspora in the world in terms of cultural and political influence. That's not a conspiratorial statement. That is an. Obvious statement of fact. It's a practical statement. Golf clap. You guys did very well. I don't hold it against you.
And I would say that they've actually done it being less Jared Kushner. Sorry, Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner. Yeah. Being less nepotistic than some other communities. Like I think for example, if I look in American politics, Catholics are way more nepotistic than Jews. There's a number of times where we've basically been told like, Hey, you know, you guys convert and I can get you some nice positions.
I can get you. Hey, do you wanna go to mass with us today? Hey, do you wanna. Jews have never pulled that stuff with me, you know? But I get it from Catholics very frequently. And so, and I, well, I mean, I don't wanna say that I think that might have partially motivated jds [04:10:00] conversion. But I can say that we would have a much easier time in conservative politics if we were Catholics.
Despite the average Catholic, even today voting Democrat, that is quite a network of nepotism, that it works even in the party you don't support.
And I should note here that I don't mean this accusatorily. I think nepotism is completely fair game for any cultural group to favor their own over outsiders. , , even the idea that it would be normative to give equal vetting to both insiders and outsiders seems to me, , one of the repugnant lies of the urban monoculture.
Malcolm Collins: And I think everybody knows that. You can look at like the, that, that organization that helps Catholic judges the Federalist Society. Oh I didn't know that. Do you know it was run by the lady who did the tiger Children?
Simone Collins: No way.
Yeah. Really?
Note, I checked this in post and apparently it's not accurate. , where I had gotten that from is apparently she withinfluential within it or something, or influential within conservative politics, in part through the Federalist Society. , but she goes [04:11:00] to their events and everything I.
Malcolm Collins: It's like this, this society that helps conservative judges predominantly Catholic. Catholic. Catholic. I think she is.
Simone Collins: That's so interesting. iChecking
Malcolm Collins: post, you can ask, is Tiger Mom Catholic?
But yeah, this is why I'm like yeah, we, we should see Jews as a Amy, as a, a accurate way of following a covenant. It's just a different covenant. Tesseract God is an important part of the technopuritan belief that there are multiple conservative traditions to God. And so when I look through this prism or lens that God has given me.
A lot of things that the Jews are doing look wrong, as I've said here. But that is because I am looking through my traditions prism, and I think you can choose. Do you look at reality through the Jewish prism or do you look at it through my prism? Because my prism says even if when I put the prism on, I see, you know, you know, summoning demons accidentally sometimes, and I'm like, oh, that's obviously like a bad ritual.
You know, I know that God does favor the Jews from easily measurable public evidence. [04:12:00] And Amy Chua
Simone Collins: was raised Catholic after teenage years and it appears to be still Catholic. So yeah.
Malcolm Collins: What did I tell you? They make up like almost all of our Supreme Court judges. It was like. Eight of 10 at one point, like 80%.
That's why making it up like a very small portion of the US population. Yeah. But the
Simone Collins: rest are like Jewish, right? They're something, yeah. The rest are Jewish. That is Jewish.
Malcolm Collins: All Catholic and Jews? No Protestants. I think there might be Protestants right now. I think one converted into Protestantism and one's like a half Protestant.
Half.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I dunno, converted or was born, whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't matter to me. But the point being Jews, despite all of this we still have to find a way to work with them. And I think if we build from their perspective, I would say again, I. Hey, our system technically follows the noahide tradition.
Mm-hmm. It might follow it in a way that theologically isn't super palatable to you. But it does follow the rules you set out and propagates those rules and it would be a tradition that would be beneficial to you to have a high tech group that thinks your community. I. Is sacred. Shouldn't be [04:13:00] deconverted, shouldn't be messed with.
I would say it shouldn't be deconverted unless they're super competent. And that's one of the things about the te Puritan tradition. It is very much like, don't go after the average person. This is a religion that really, I, I think even psychologically isn't meant for the average person. It is meant for people who we would consider like it, it is very much a, elect religion. Right. You know, only certain people are meant for this religion. And so I would never, ever, ever advocate for, for mass conversion techniques or practices within the religion. But that doesn't mean that you would never have targeted conversions.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Now you might be asking why do I think their divine favor trumps my logic and what I read in the Bible leads me to think that they have more things right. Well, it seems clear to me that there were times in history God favored either Christians or Muslims more than the Jews. This indicates to me that his favor will shift. My current assumption is his favor currently rests on the Jews in spite of where they are.
Asray from his truce, because so many Christians have succumbed to idolatry and sin [04:14:00] transference rituals. If I am right. Then within a few generations, especially once the technopuritans have artificial wos and better gene editing technology, God's favor of us will be made self-evident.
So basically here I'm saying, look, if our community doesn't do well, I'm wrong. My interpretations are wrong. That's how God shows things, right? Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I would also end this by pointing out that Christ was sacrificed to create a new covenant that does not invalidate the first covenant. A Jew that follows all the rules of the first covenant is just as in line with God's will as Christians.
You know, as long as they don't get into all of the kabbalistic demon summoning and attempting to compute with the spirit realm stuff. I mean, Alex Jones clip here
They will not manipulate your free will unless you ask them in. I have dude, do not say that I'm gonna get killed.
Malcolm Collins: But Maimonides even warns Jews of this. As I pointed out, like this isn't some like novel anti-Jewish perspective. If I'm taking a perspective.
That, that Maimonides also takes , I think that, that most Jews would be like, okay, well this perspective isn't [04:15:00] common in modern Jewish community. It's not an anti-Jewish perspective. Okay. So anyway, Simone, thoughts on this tract Too offensive. I don't think it's that offensive to Jews Maybe.
Simone Collins: I think Jews generally, like , any group about whom you write are chuffed, that you care enough to learn so much about their religion. I. As an outsider, they can make any justification they choose should they disagree with something you say that you simply don't understand or you misinterpreted something so that which you consider to be offensive is probably something they would discount.
Due to your ignorance or misinterpretation?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, I think my, my interest in engaging with religion is very earnest. , , and obviously earnest, but some people can't. Like in the Opus Day video, you know, which was while we, we, we mentioned that like, we're not Catholics obviously, like we're gonna have a somewhat hostile interpretation of Catholicism, but this one group within Catholicism, I like almost everything they do.
A lot of Catholics were really mad at us for that [04:16:00] video. They're like, oh, you know, you're, you are attacking Catholicism. This is a Catholic's all bad video. We actually had a Jew once reach out to us angry about our video, where we argue that Jews are not genetically superior to other people, and that it's likely culture that's leading them to do better well, culture and divine favor.
Mm-hmm. And he's like, this is like an anti-Jewish video. And I was like, what? Oh, people are still
Simone Collins: tweeting about that. Like a couple of days ago, someone was like, anti-Semites on 4chan are using your video for. Like, and just we're trying to say that Jewish culture is superior and to, like you said, the Jews have God's favorite.
Like what? Do you want it to be just your genes? Yeah. That that's like, is that flattering somehow? No, but it's also worse. Your just maybe she's born with it 'cause she's
Malcolm Collins: Jewish. No, it's if, if I was king of the Jews and I could like make a rule like, okay, this is the way we're gonna handle this particular, you really wouldn't want the genetic explanation to be the mainstream explanation.
No. 'cause it makes it look like your success is unfair, and therefore within the progressive culture IE it's [04:17:00] due to a systemic privilege you have over other people a genetic privilege. Mm-hmm. You should be discriminated against. Like that would be a very, very bad mainstream interpretation to catch on.
Yeah. You would want the interpretation to be, oh, it's cultural practices that anyone can learn from and adopt. Mm-hmm. Because then it's not that you have the systemic thing , in your favor which is you know. If people are like, well, some people, people will use anything to attack anyone.
Like whatever, right? Like, , I think that, that it's really important to engage with data honestly. And that if the data says X or Y or leads me in a direction which is what I think I'm doing with this track, and it's really funny, like as soon as I like get in the stream and I'm like, I'm just gonna go where the like.
Current of data goes, like the current is taking me, I end in positions that appear vastly more moral than other positions. To me, they appear more religiously coherent. Yeah. So much of where I think a lot of Christian traditions went off the rails and Judaism went off the rails. Was it attempting to swim against the current of God's will?
Saying, okay well, we [04:18:00] absolutely need to make Jesus divine. Oh, but now this creates an idolatry problem. Oh, well, we'll fix it with this concept of the Trinity. Oh, well, you know, I really want this additional afterlife. The immediate afterlife. Well, it's not in the Bible. Well, we'll, we'll twist parts of the Bible to try to add it in and put in hell here and stuff like this.
But now this creates all this immoral like stuff where God is punishing people forever for fairly minor trans aggressions. Like, all of that just seems, or, like , a, another recent Christian thing that I absolutely do not like , is this idea of, now I do believe in complete depravity in that man has fallen.
But this idea that only through Jesus' sacrifice can our souls be saved. That's not in the Bible unless you take that one line really out of context, that we go over what it seems to actually mean in this tract. You know, only, only through Jesus can you get to God. Yeah. But we also learn that Jesus is in you and Jesus is, and everyone who's a believer in God's in Jesus and God's in you in the same way than Jesus.
But anyway but they take that to mean that all humans are irrevocably corrupted and sinful, and that none of us are deserving of any of God's grace. And I can [04:19:00] understand why. It would be like, okay, well then if you're a moral person, you don't actually need Jesus.
Like Jesus's sacrifices meaningless from this perspective. And then you build this whole theological tradition on top of this, even though it's not in the Bible. And then it leads to all sorts of problems of like. Well that, that, I mean, it does seem that, you know, some humans seem broadly good. Like conceptually I can see a human who's a good guy.
Like I, I believe I've met some people who seem like really morally chaste and everything like that. And, and so if then you take Jesus' sacrifice has just been creating a new covenant. It fixes a lot of things and it seems imal, but I dunno, that's where I am with all this thoughts, Simone,
Simone Collins: what more could I possibly add?
Okay. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: I love you.
Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm, A lot.
What I was reading from (changed a lot during editing)
Tract 10: The Question that Breaks Jewdism
There is one question I started to innocently ponder that led me down a rabbit hole which began to unravel Jewish theology, identity, and even raised the question of whether modern Judaism should be thought of as the less radical deviation from Ancient Judaism when contrasted with Christianity.
That question, the question that breaks Judaism, is "Why the Jews?" "Why were the Jews of all people singled out by God as his chosen people?"
This is going to get very offensive and is the type of information I hesitate to release, as it could be used by anti-Semites... However, I think theologically it is a conversation we need to have in the same way previous tracts have had to uncomfortably point out where modern Christianity does not align with what is actually in the Bible. We will be doing the same with modern Judaism today.
We are going to be arguing that:
* Ancestral Judaism was not an ethno-religion, the concept of matrilineal Jewish identity is non-biblical. In fact, pre-Christ Judaism actively and aggressively proselytized and even forced the mass conversion of conquered people at times - as evidenced by both biblical sources and Roman historical accounts.
* The Noahide movement lacks solid biblical backing and is essentially a theological construct with minimal scriptural foundation.
* The biblical passages that Jews cite to argue against modifying God's covenant with man - which they use to deny Christianity as the more faithful offshoot of ancient Judaism - do not actually communicate what they claim.
* Even the way circumcision is practiced today may be incorrect when compared with Egyptian practices contemporary with the writing of the Old Testament.
* At the time of Christ, Judaism was a highly diverse tradition, and the Christian branch was not unique in its differences. The "true" Judaism that modern Jews claim to be descended from would have been just one of many religious systems based on the Old Testament, and was as different from the average theological understanding as Christianity was at that time.
* Original Christianity and Techno-Puritanism are much closer to the belief system of the average Jew at the time of Christ than modern Judaism.
* And, if Judaism started as a religion that actively proselytized and only became an ethno-religion after the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition gained widespread adoption, this makes the entire modern Jewish tradition appear as a reaction to the success of a version with arguably greater divine mandate.
* Of course, we will also address arguments against these points, as I have discussed my positions with a few Rabbis to gather the strongest counter-arguments I could find.
* Finally, we are going to go over a clever and unique textual theological argument that fixes every one of the problems I raise throughout this entire video. We will also discuss how Christians have to reconcile with the fact that demographically speaking right now the Jews very obviously have God's favor and will likely be the dominant world power within the next century.
Now if you are a Jew watching this and are about to get angry that I am going to point out where what is actually in the bible and historical sources do not align with what is taught within your community keep in mind you watched me do the same with Christians for nine tracts. Don’t be one of those people who can watch other communities be critically discussed but not your own without yelling anti-sematism.
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I will start this tract by saying this is not a path of logic I wanted to tread down, but one that became evident as I began to examine what I thought was an innocuous question—like pulling a single thread only to watch the entire sweater unravel.
"Why were the Jews of all people singled out by God as his chosen people?"
This is a theological question that not just Jews need a good answer for, but one Christians and Muslims also need to address—yet it is so often ignored by these traditions.
There are two broad categories of possible answers:
* There was something phenotypically, genetically, or otherwise tied to the nature of the early Jewish people that led to God favoring them.
* The Jewish people were set apart by their belief system and not by anything tied to their biology.
Rabbinic scholars almost universally lean toward the second answer. Early Jews had a more accurate conception of God, which led to them being rewarded as God's chosen people. I would note that this is also what I believe and what I find to be the most satisfying answer. The problem is, if the early Jews were God's chosen people because they had a more accurate understanding of the divine, why should modern Judaism be gatekept around matrilineal inheritance instead of around a person's belief system? Why would an atheist secular Jew be considered more Jewish than a deist, when the deist has a closer understanding of God? Does this concept not contradict the very basis of God's favor?
For more insight into how orthodox Jews answer this question, we need to examine a book composed in the 4th century CE, Sifre on Deuteronomy. An important note here is that this idea was not added to Jewish canon until centuries after Christ's death. Here is the exact text:
* And He said: The L-rd came from Sinai": When the L-rd appeared to give Torah to Israel, it is not to Israel alone that He appeared, but to all of the nations. First He went to the children of Esav, and He asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered: "You shall not kill" (Shemoth 20:13). They answered: The entire essence of our father is murder, as it is written (Bereshith 27:22) "And the hands are the hands of Esav." And it is with this that his father assured him (Ibid. 27:40) "And by your sword shall you live." He then went to the children of Ammon and Moav and asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered "You shall not commit adultery." They answered: L-rd of the Universe, ervah (illicit relations) is our entire essence, as it is written (Ibid. 19:36) "And the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father." He then went and found the children of Yishmael and asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered: "You shall not steal" (Shemoth, Ibid.) They answered: L-rd of the Universe, our father's entire essence is stealing, viz. (Bereshith 16:12) "And he (Yishmael) shall be a wild man, his hand against all." There was none among all of the nations to whom He did not go and speak and knock at their door, asking if they would accept the Torah, viz. (Psalms 138:4) "All the kings of the earth will acknowledge You, O L-rd, for they heard the words of Your mouth." I might think they heard and accepted; it is, therefore, written (Ezekiel 33:31) "And they did not do them (the mitzvoth)." And (Michah 5:14) "And with anger and wrath will I take revenge of the nations because they did not accept (the mitzvoth)." And even the seven mitzvoth that the sons of Noach took upon themselves they could not abide by, until they divested themselves of them and ceded them to Israel.
This explanation presents numerous theological problems:
* First, the midrash portrays God physically appearing to numerous distinct nations simultaneously—an event of unprecedented cosmic significance that would have fundamentally altered human history. Yet no archaeological record, written tradition, or oral history outside the Jewish tradition references such a universally transformative revelation. Furthermore, the midrash's genealogical framework—attributing entire civilizations to single biblical ancestors (Esau, Ammon, Moab, Ishmael)—contradicts established anthropological understanding of human population dispersal and development. Archaeological and genetic evidence demonstrates that human groups evolved through complex patterns of migration, intermarriage, and cultural exchange rather than through the neat, biblically-aligned family trees this narrative presupposes. This anachronistic projection of later ethnic identities onto a mythic pre-Sinai world fundamentally misrepresents the actual historical development of ancient Near Eastern peoples.
* You might say the Mishnah is meant to be allegorical, and that God's foreknowledge that other people would deny the Torah is why He didn't bring it to them. This leads to the second problem.
* Second, it is clearly immoral. The Old Testament makes it clear that children should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. Why can't these peoples' descendants simply decide to stop these sins? Ezekiel 18:20 states: "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them." If your response is to argue that this was just a deeply ingrained cultural tendency in these groups, then why is someone still considered Jewish if they have left Jewish culture? Why are they still Jewish when they break God's commandments? Why maintain matrilineal descent at all?
* Third, it seems to suggest that one can inherit a core sin from something a distant ancestor did, at least at the cultural level. In the context of the Jews being the descendants of King David, consider the passage: "Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered, 'You shall not commit adultery.' They answered: L-rd of the Universe, ervah (illicit relations) is our entire essence, as it is written (Ibid. 19:36) 'And the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father.'" Why are the children of Ammon and Moav tainted by their ancestors' sins but not the Jews?
* Fourth, the midrash seems to conflict with God's omniscience. If God knows all, then offering the Torah to nations He already knew would reject it raises questions about divine foreknowledge and the sincerity of the offer. This essentially reduces the interaction to a formality from God's perspective, allowing Him to do what He already intended: favor the Jewish people. Of course this could be used to explain why there is no historical record of the events because he just decided not to do the act but that still leaves all the other problems.
* Fifth, the midrash presents entire nations being judged based on the actions of single ancestors or representatives, which raises serious questions about fairness and individual moral agency.
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Now before we go further, let's examine every instance in the Bible or Old Testament where someone attempts to address the question of "why the Jews."
Deuteronomy 7:7-8: "The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors..."
This passage is interesting because it specifically denies one potential reason (population size) but then provides a somewhat circular explanation - essentially "because God loved you."
Genesis 18:19 provides another perspective regarding Abraham specifically: "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just..."
This suggests the choice was based on Abraham's future role in teaching righteousness.
Deuteronomy 9:4-6 explicitly rejects the idea that the Jews were chosen for their righteousness: "After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, 'The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.' No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity..."
What we see throughout these passages is notably the absence of any claim that the Jewish people were chosen because of any inherent or unique qualities they possessed.
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All of this refocuses our question: if Jews are only Jews because of what they believe theologically, when did matrilineal descent enter the picture?
First, let's examine the academic answer to this question, then we'll address what orthodox Jews believe.
The matrilineal principle in Judaism is particularly interesting because it's not explicitly stated in the Torah/Hebrew Bible itself. The primary biblical text often cited is Deuteronomy 7:3-4, which discusses intermarriage: "You shall not intermarry with them... for they will turn your children away from following me." However, this text doesn't specifically establish matrilineal descent.
The clearest early source for matrilineal descent comes from the Mishnah (compiled around 200 CE) in Kiddushin 3:12, which states that a child follows the status of the mother. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) attempts to derive this principle from biblical verses, particularly from Deuteronomy 7:4, but many scholars view this as an ex post facto justification of an already existing practice.
In fact, we have substantial evidence to believe that at the time of the Christian split, Judaism transmitted family identity patrilineally:
* Biblical precedent: Throughout the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, lineage and tribal affiliation were typically traced through the father's line. The genealogies in Genesis, Numbers, and Chronicles follow patrilineal descent.
* Josephus and Philo: These first-century Jewish writers sometimes discuss Jewish identity in ways that appear to emphasize patrilineal descent.
* Priestly and Davidic lines: Priesthood (being a Kohen), the royal lineage were transmitted patrilineally, and the messiah line went patrilineal. Every major line went patrilineal.
* The Dead Sea Scrolls generally appear to emphasize patrilineal descent, particularly in the Damascus Document (CD) and the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa).
* Neither Philo of Alexandria nor Josephus mentions matrilineal descent; instead, both focus on concepts that implicitly support patrilineal descent.
______________________________________________________________________
Now if you ask an orthodox Jew about this, I've heard one logically coherent—though not necessarily convincing—answer to the question of why matrilineal descent matters if Jews were originally chosen for what they believed rather than who they were. Specifically, they will say that when the Jews agreed to the covenant at Mount Sinai, this contract was applied to their bodies in some way and thus applied specifically to their people and only their people. The person who told me this didn't mention this point, but this understanding also explains why matrilineal descent would emerge in a culture that was still clearly tracing descent through paternal lines. If the covenant was written into the Jewish body, then it would only apply to the next generation if constructed within a Jewish body... after all, the vast majority of a baby is "made" by the mother, not the father.
Now if you are Jewish, and as I say, I encourage people to stay with their ancestral religions, this is as good an answer as you're going to get. Turn off the video now and walk away because it's only downhill from here.
For those of us who are unbound by such constraints, this answer fails at levels:
* Common sense: If this covenant God made with the people at Sinai traveled matrilineally through bloodlines, why was that never explicitly laid out in the Bible? That seems like an incredibly important point for what is apparently one of the existentially most important facts to the identity of God's people. And if it does work this way, why can people convert into Judaism at all—something we see happen multiple times in the Bible?
* Jeremiah: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." This is said in regards to a covenant to come and contrasted with the one at Sinai, making it clear the covenant created at Sinai was not put "within them."
* Biblical Conversions: We see multiple fairly straightforward conversions into Judaism within the Bible. If this is possible, it negates the idea of some special bond within the Jewish body. We will examine each of these in turn along with the counter-arguments.
* Historical: Finally, we know factually that early Jews did not see their religion this way. Traveling Jewish missionaries were so common in the Roman world that they are mentioned by multiple Roman historians and in the New Testament. But more damning than that, we also know that Jews used to force people in conquered regions to become Jewish and afterward considered these people fully Jewish. Again, I will cover all these points in turn.
* The New Testament: Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say his goal is to open Judaism to non-Jews. If Judaism at the time was understood to have high requirements for conversion or some level of matrilineal descent, why doesn't Jesus ever mention that it is now waived? Why did none of the people writing immediately after him mention this? Why was this seemingly a complete non-issue for early Christianity, with the debate in the early church instead focusing on whether circumcision was required for non-Jews who converted (in Paul's letters and other Jewish law discussions in Acts)? This aligns with what we see in other Jewish conversions of the time, but more on that in a moment.
What both history and the Bible reveal is that Judaism during this period was much closer to modern-day Islam than an ethno-religion. Specifically, it was a religion that anyone could convert into, that conquered other people and forced them to convert, and that had traveling missionaries who actively sought converts. It was also a religion that, like Islam, concerned how the state was governed. It was also a religion that, like Islam, carved out a place under that state for non-believers with unique rules applied to them. (This is where the concept of Ger Toshav emerges, which is very similar to the Muslim concept of Dhimmi.)
We are going to start with accounts from ancient historians then move to biblical accounts, beginning with the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote in the first century BCE—crucially after the destruction of the Temple—showing these practices were still common at that time.
During the Hasmonean period (2nd-1st century BCE), there are accounts of mass conversions, particularly of the Idumeans. According to Josephus, John Hyrcanus conducted military campaigns to expand Hasmonean territory. After defeating the Idumeans militarily, he incorporated their territory into his kingdom. After the military conquest, Hyrcanus gave the Idumeans an ultimatum: either convert to Judaism (which meant circumcision for males and adherence to Jewish law) or be expelled from their homeland. While forced conversion is problematic, this suggests a relatively simple conversion process. This conversion process consisted of circumcision and following the Jewish rules but interestingly not necessarily following Jewish beliefs. It is clear that at this period of Jewish history, being a Jew was not based on matrilineal descent or belief but on keeping the commandments. Anyone who followed all the rules was fully Jewish.
Also from Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (Book 20, Chapters 2-4), we learn about the conversion of Queen Helena of Adiabene and her son Izates to Judaism in the first century CE. This account is particularly noteworthy for what it reveals about conversion practices during this period.
Key points from Josephus' account include:
* Process of Conversion: Helena and Izates were drawn to Judaism separately through different Jewish merchants or teachers. Their conversions were voluntary and occurred without any reference to their maternal ancestry.
* No Matrilineal Requirements: Significantly, there is no mention in Josephus' account of any special requirements, additional rituals, or questions about Helena or Izates' maternal lineage. The conversion process appears to have been based solely on their acceptance of Jewish beliefs and practices.
* Circumcision Debate: Izates initially converted without circumcision on the advice of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who feared political backlash if the king underwent the procedure. Later, another Jew from Galilee named Eleazar convinced Izates that circumcision was necessary for full observance of the law.
* Basic requirements: The conversion process appears to have been centered on accepting monotheism, adopting Jewish practices, and following Jewish law. For men, circumcision was debated as either essential or optional.
* No formal tribunal: Notably absent is any mention of a formal beit din (rabbinic court) or extensive questioning process that became standard in later rabbinic Judaism.
* Considered Fully Jewish: After their conversions, Helena and Izates were considered fully Jewish. Helena even made pilgrimages to Jerusalem and provided famine relief to the city, while Izates sent offerings to the Temple.
The Story of Metilius: In "The Jewish War" (Book 2, Chapter 17), Josephus recounts a brutal episode that occurred at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome (around 66 CE). The Jewish rebels in Jerusalem attacked and overwhelmed the Roman garrison stationed in the city. The Roman soldiers took refuge in the royal towers, but were eventually forced to negotiate surrender terms with the Jewish rebels.
The garrison commander, Metilius, arranged terms of surrender whereby the Romans would lay down their weapons and be allowed to depart unharmed. However, once the Romans had surrendered their arms, the Jewish rebels, led by Eleazar, attacked and massacred them in violation of the agreement. Josephus writes:
"They [the rebels] fell upon the Romans, when they had brought them into the stadium, and encompassed them around, some of them being unarmed, and others in such a condition as rendered them incapable of defending themselves, and slew them all excepting Metilius, for they spared him alone because he entreated for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew, and be circumcised."
Metilius was thus the sole survivor of this massacre, having agreed to convert to Judaism to save his life. Josephus presents this incident as a terrible crime that violated sacred oaths and brought divine punishment upon Jerusalem.
Conversion of Women in Damascus: In "The Jewish War" (Book 2, Chapter 20), Josephus describes events in Damascus during the early stages of the Jewish revolt. After news spread of Jewish rebel victories, the people of Damascus planned to massacre the Jewish population in their city. However, they had a problem:
"But they were afraid of their own wives, who were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was that their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things from them."
The passage indicates that a significant number of non-Jewish women in Damascus had embraced Judaism. These women had such strong attachment to Judaism and the Jewish community that their husbands feared they would warn the Jews about the planned massacre. The men of Damascus ultimately carried out their plan in secret, killing about 10,000 Jews in a single hour.
This brief mention illustrates how Judaism had attracted numerous Gentile women converts, to the point where it affected political and military calculations during the Jewish-Roman conflicts.
The Story of Fulvia: In "Antiquities of the Jews" (Book 18, Chapter 3), Josephus recounts an incident that occurred in Rome during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (around 19 CE). According to Josephus:
"There was a woman who was a proselyte [convert to Judaism], whose name was Fulvia, a woman of great dignity, and one that had embraced the Jewish religion. The men [four Jewish scoundrels] had persuaded her to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem; and when they had received what she had donated, they employed it for their own uses, and did not bring it to the temple."
In this account, Fulvia is described as a woman of high social standing in Rome who had converted to Judaism. Her husband, Saturninus, reported this fraud to his friend Sejanus, who then informed Emperor Tiberius. Tiberius used this incident as a pretext to expel all Jews from Rome, forcibly conscripting 4,000 Jewish youths for military service in Sardinia.
This story illustrates both that high-status Romans were converting to Judaism and that this was occurring during a time of increasing Roman hostility toward Jewish practices.
The Jews and Greeks of Antioch: In "The Jewish War" (Book 7, Chapter 3), Josephus describes the relationship between Jews and gentiles in Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), one of the major cities of the Roman East:
"For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a habitation with the most undisturbed tranquility... They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own body."
This passage indicates that Judaism in Antioch was actively attracting Greek converts. The phrase "they had in some measure incorporated with themselves" suggests these converts were integrated into the Jewish community. This provides evidence that Judaism during this period was not closed to outsiders but was actually engaged in what we might today call missionary activity.
And throughout his books Josephus writes of Jewish proselytization:
* Against Apion (Book 2, 39): Josephus proudly notes the widespread appeal of Jewish practices: "The masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances; and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the fasts and the lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed."
* Against Apion (Book 2, 36): He emphasizes how many Gentiles have adopted Jewish customs: "Many people have come over to our ways of worship, some of whom have remained, while others, lacking the necessary endurance, have fallen away again."
* Jewish War (Book 2, 18, 2): During the outbreak of violence against Jews in Caesarea, Josephus notes: "The whole city was filled with confusion, and it appeared evident that the rest of the population would soon betake themselves to arms against the Jews. This event was mainly achieved through the work of proselytes [converts]."
* Jewish War (Book 7, 3, 3): When discussing anti-Jewish riots in Antioch, Josephus states: "For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth [...] They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own body."
* Antiquities (Book 20, 2, 1-5): Beyond the specific story of Helena and Izates, Josephus mentions that the merchant Ananias "taught them [the royal family] to worship God according to the Jewish religion," suggesting ongoing missionary activity.
Now maybe Josephus made all this up. That's possible, his history could be complete fiction. The problem now comes from Roman writers.
Tacitus on Jewish Converts: In his "Histories" (Book 5.5), written around 100-110 CE, Tacitus notes with disdain: "Those who are converted to their ways follow the same practice [of circumcision], and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account."
This hostile characterization nonetheless confirms that conversions to Judaism were occurring among Romans. Tacitus presents conversion as a complete break with Roman identity and values.
Juvenal's Complaints: In his "Satires" (particularly Satire 14, lines 96-106), written in the early 2nd century CE, Juvenal mocks Romans who adopt Jewish practices: "Some who have had a father who reveres the Sabbath, worship nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens... Having been trained to despise the Roman laws, they learn and practice and revere the Jewish law..."
He describes a multi-generational process where first-generation converts observe some Jewish customs, while their children become fully observant Jews, showing concern about Judaism's growing influence in Rome.
Roman Legal Restrictions: Emperor Hadrian (ruled 117-138 CE) reportedly banned circumcision, which effectively prohibited conversion to Judaism. Earlier, Emperor Domitian (ruled 81-96 CE) imposed the Jewish tax (fiscus Judaicus) on those who "lived a Jewish life without publicly acknowledging that faith," targeting converts.
Cassius Dio's Account: In his "Roman History" (Book 67.14.1-2), written in the early 3rd century CE but describing events under Domitian, Cassius Dio reports: "Many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some were put to death, and the rest were at least deprived of their property."
This passage suggests conversion was widespread enough to warrant imperial persecution.
Matthew 23:15: This New Testament verse (written c.80-90 CE) has Jesus criticizing certain Pharisees: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert..."
While polemical, this suggests active Jewish missionary efforts during the late Second Temple period, confirming that some Jewish groups actively sought converts.
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Let's now turn to the Bible itself. I didn't start with the Bible because most orthodox Jews have already had to deal with the fact that all Ruth apparently had to do to become a Jew—to become part of the lineage that led to King David—was say she wanted to be a Jew and was committed to the religion. They typically handle this with comments like:
"When Ruth converts to Judaism she offers a very radical declaration of commitment. See Ruth 1:16-17: And Ruth said, "Do not entreat me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me and so may He continue, if anything but death separate me and you." It's not oh hey, let me call myself Jewish and keep living like a heathen - its i am totally committed to this people, i am leaving my cultural context, my land Moab, and totally immersing in Jewish culture and practice."
That said, when this is taken in the context of all the historical evidence provided above, it becomes clear that Ruth's conversion was not something extraordinary, nor did it require such an extreme statement.
I will also note that modern Jewish interpretations of the story of Ruth a hugely weighed down by extra biblical rabinic traditions which makes her conversion sound more modern. Here is an example of one of those: “Ruth cuts ties with her Moabite family and joins the Jewish people - that fits the Talmudic criterion of "accepting the Mitzvot" as she committed to the Jewish G-d and Jewish practice. ... And even then, she's treated as an outcast, until she manages to seduce Boaz, a local Jewish noble, and the marriage is only approved of after she goes to the analog of a Beit Din (Jewish court) at the city gate.” If it was in the text that she went to a Jewish court to confirm her status as a Jew this would be a significant blow to my argument.
What's in the biblical text:
* In Ruth 4:1-12, Boaz does go to the city gate (which was a place where legal matters were settled)
* He gathers ten elders as witnesses
* However, the primary purpose was not to approve Ruth's conversion or status
* The legal matter concerned the right of redemption of Naomi's property and the levirate obligation to marry Ruth
* The closer relative initially had first right but declined
* Boaz then publicly declared his intention to redeem the property and marry Ruth
* The elders and people present blessed the union
What's not in the biblical text:
* There's no mention of Ruth appearing before this gathering
* The gathering wasn't convened to approve Ruth's conversion or status as a Jew
* There's no mention of Ruth being "treated as an outcast" after her declaration of loyalty to Naomi and her people
The characterization that Ruth went before an "analog of a Beit Din" and needed approval for her conversion is reading later rabbinic conversion procedures back into the biblical text. This represents an anachronistic interpretation that projects later Jewish legal frameworks onto the earlier biblical narrative.
The biblical text itself presents Ruth's transition to becoming part of the Israelite community as primarily based on her declaration of loyalty to Naomi, her people, and her God, without detailed legal procedures for conversion that developed in later rabbinic Judaism.
* Ruth's declaration to Naomi ("Your people will be my people and your God my God" - Ruth 1:16) constitutes her allegiance to Israel without any formal conversion process
* The gathering at the city gate in Ruth 4 was specifically about property redemption and marriage rights, not Ruth's religious status
* There's no mention of Ruth being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty
* Ruth never appears before any court-like body to have her "conversion" approved
But let's say Ruth's conversion wording was so powerful that you're convinced it has parallels to modern conversions. What about Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite priest who married Moses with no conversion process at all? In fact, just how unconverted she was is made clear when God threatened Moses to make sure he circumcised his son.
What's striking is that all these conversion processes described, while they don't align with what modern Jews believe about Jewish identity, match exactly with the Jewish experience, identity, and the covenant made with God as described in the Bible. What made you Jewish was following the rules and, to some extent, your beliefs. Your heritage had literally nothing to do with it outside of the priestly caste.
What about passages in books like Jubilees that warn against marrying outsiders? Well, they do, but they also explain why that warning exists in context: not due to concerns about blood purity, but because children from such marriages often had less Jewish beliefs and led the community astray. If I warned my children against marrying non-believers, which I will, does that mean I wouldn't consider converts to be Techno-Puritan? Does that mean I would still consider them Techno-Puritan if they left the faith? Of course not. It was a practical concern and a logical one.
The notion that Jewish identity should be passed down matrilineally and Judaism should become an ethno-religion represents such a bizarre series of conjectures drawn from practical concerns in the Bible. The Bible and Judaism of biblical times didn't have to address the question, "Why the Jews?" because it simply wasn't relevant.
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I hope we've now reached a point where anyone without a strong theological reason to believe otherwise can see that Judaism at the time of Jesus was a religion attempting to grow aggressively through proselytization. While it had some ethnic connection, this was closer to the modern relationship between Muslims and Arabs than how contemporary Jews view their religion. So now the question is: why would a religion like this transform into an ethno-religion? The sad answer appears to be that it was in response to the success of the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition.
First, we need to be clear that the branch of Judaism taught by Jesus was not particularly deviant for its time. Yes, it was distinct, but not more distinct than other contemporaneous branches of Judaism. For a quick list:
* Pharisees: Emphasized oral tradition alongside written Torah and believed in resurrection, angels, and fate/free will. They were forerunners of Rabbinic Judaism.
* Sadducees: Primarily aristocratic priests who rejected oral tradition, resurrection, and afterlife concepts. They emphasized Temple worship and only accepted the written Torah.
* Essenes: A separatist group who lived in monastic-like communities (possibly including Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). They practiced extreme ritual purity, communal property, and apocalyptic beliefs.
* Zealots: A revolutionary movement focused on violent resistance against Roman occupation, believing God alone should rule Israel.
* Therapeutae: A Jewish contemplative community in Egypt described by Philo, practicing asceticism and mystical interpretation of scripture.
* Herodians: Supporters of Herod's dynasty who accommodated to Greco-Roman culture while maintaining Jewish identity.
* Various Messianic movements: Multiple groups formed around charismatic leaders claiming messianic status, including Theudas, Judas the Galilean, and "The Egyptian."
* Samaritans: Though they considered themselves true followers of Israelite religion, mainstream Jews viewed them as a deviant sect. They accepted only the Pentateuch and worshipped on Mount Gerizim.
* Hellenistic Judaism: Jewish communities (especially in Alexandria) who synthesized Jewish practice with Greek philosophy, represented by figures like Philo.
* Jewish-Christian groups: After Jesus, various groups like the Ebionites maintained Jewish practices while following Jesus as Messiah.
* Boethusians: Often grouped with the Sadducees but considered a distinct sect by some sources. They were founded by followers of Boethus, appointed high priest by Herod the Great. They rejected the oral tradition and had specific calendar-related disputes with the Pharisees.
* Fourth Philosophy: Mentioned by Josephus as founded by Judas the Galilean, they combined Pharisaic beliefs with radical political views that no human should be called master, only God.
* Hemerobaptists: A Jewish sect mentioned in early Christian and rabbinic literature who practiced daily ritual immersion for purification.
* Nazirites: While not exactly a sect, these were individuals who took special vows of abstinence (from alcohol, cutting hair, etc.) for dedicated periods of consecration to God.
* Rechabites: A clan that practiced an ascetic lifestyle, avoiding wine and permanent dwellings, living in tents as a religious commitment.
All these various branches of the Jewish religion were attempting to convert followers and spread their influence. The only reason we think of the branch ancestral to modern Jews as the "true" branch is because it is the one that survived and proliferated. But if surviving and proliferating makes you the true branch, why isn't Christianity considered the true branch?
We need to look at Christianity in the context of its actual texts and not the later traditions that were added, which made Christianity radically different from ancient Judaism. Specifically, these later beliefs that are not actually in Christian scripture which deviate from original Judaism are:
* The addition of an immediate heaven and hell afterlife in addition to the afterlife in which we are raised again at some point in the future (see our last tract, Tract 9, if it is shocking to you that this is not well attested in the Bible).
* The belief in using the son of God in a sin transference ritual mirroring the goat that Jews transferred their sin to and then sent to the demon Azazel (see tract 8 if this is shocking to you, but this idea was added to Christianity by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), in his influential work "Cur Deus Homo" ("Why God Became Man") and is not found in the original texts which seem to be arguing that Jesus needed to be sacrificed to seal a new covenant, a common practice during that time period being sacrificing animals when signing a new covenant).
* The belief that Jesus was literally both God and God's son. We have not yet published our tract pointing out that this is not in the Bible and the Bible actually explicitly argues he is not, so I will summarize the key points and go into detail in the next tract.
* It was actually common in the Old Testament to call favored individuals children of God. This is likely what Jesus meant in the parts where he calls himself the son of God. Christians today call God Father all the time and no one gets confused and believes they think God the Father is literally that individual's Father.
* Psalm 2:7 - "I will proclaim the Lord's decree: He said to me, 'You are my son; today I have become your father.'" (This is referring to the Davidic king)
* Another clear example is in Exodus 4:22-23, where God refers to Israel collectively as his son:
* "Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me."'"
* In Hosea 11:1, God again refers to Israel as his son: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."
* There's also a reference in 2 Samuel 7:14 regarding David's descendant (Solomon): "I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands."
* In the OT, God helps other women conceive when it should be impossible without those children being considered God's sons.
* We also need to think of the logistical problems if it means Jesus is literally God's son. What is his Y chromosome? God used some human male's DNA to create Jesus, as God does not have DNA, and it is the DNA that is mixed with a female's that determines who the literal father of a child is whether or not that man slept with said woman.
* It doesn't make sense in context. If he and God shared the same will, why would he say things like, "My father, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus tells us he is not literally God's son on each of the three occasions he is pressed on the subject:
1.
"But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' And Jesus said, 'I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.'"
Note here Jesus is asked two questions: the first being if he is Christ the Messiah, who Jews understood to be human, and the second being if he is the Son of God. He answers both in turn, "I Am" (i.e., I am the messiah), and "you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power" (i.e., I am the Son of Man). Note here, because he does believe himself to be set apart by God and people who are set apart by God are called children of God throughout the OT, he does not deny this but clarifies that he is the Son of Man to ensure there is no confusion that he believes himself to be literally the Son of God.
2.
"How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, but you do not believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Note here in this line "I and the Father are one," he is referencing their unity in their ability to catch lost sheep because the question is in reference to him being the messiah. As we continue, we have a case of people misunderstanding Jesus on this exact point and him correcting them.
Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
So note here, Jesus is implying that he has not done anything blasphemous, meaning he must assume that they are not meant to infer that he is literally God or literally the Son of God but set apart by God.
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’[d]? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
Right here he makes it clear that he calls himself the Son of God because he has been set apart by God as the Messiah not because he is literally God's son. He is correcting them here pointing out there is no blaspheme in what he is saying otherwise his argument does not make sense.
Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
So here when pressed for more information we see Jesus explaining when he says he is the Son of God and or he is God he means that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. The intention of this statement is made clear in the third place Jesus denies being literally the Son of God.
3.
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
Pause and remember the phrase he uses here. “I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me”
The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
BAM! Right there, ladies and gentlemen. "He lives with you and will be in you." Whenever Jesus says the Father is in him, he means it in the same way he believes the Father is in all believers. In this passage, we see his language mirrored. The Father is in Jesus and the Father is in all faithful believers. Also note that Jesus is not putting himself above other faithful believers: "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." So here we see him saying he is not the end-all be-all; if he was literally God, other people would not be able to outdo him in the name of God. He also ends this section pointing out that he will not be on this earth forever and will, in a traditional sense, die. In the OT, as we point out in the last tract, it is common when someone dies for them to be said to go back to God, even though all that is going back to God is their ruach (the animating force).
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
BAM! And for those in the back: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." All believers are in each other and the Father in the same way Jesus means when he says the Father is in him.
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So how was original Christianity actually different from original Judaism? Only in three meaningful ways:
* Jesus was the Messiah who was prophesied heavily in the Old Testament. This seems self-evident given how much he expanded the reach of the Jewish faith under the name of Christianity. Why would the OT not have prophesied about that? Could any figure in human history be a better candidate for the prophesied Messiah?
* He created a new covenant that did not require the temple to fulfill... coincidentally only 40 years before the destruction of the temple. More on that later.
* He was sacrificed to create a new covenant that consolidated the rules mankind was expected to follow from a long list to essentially just dedicating your life to God. Romans 14:19-23 does a good job of laying this out. Consider the old stringent Jewish food restrictions compared with this:
"Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
Also, to Jews who wonder why I think the New Testament was divinely inspired but not post-split Jewish works like the Mishnah, just compare a passage like that to the Mishnah excerpt we examined earlier. The theological depth on display is simply not comparable. One reads like the Popol Vuh and the other like the work of a modern theologian.
Now a modern Jew might say: "I understand that looks like a natural, intelligent, and practical evolution of rules established for people in a completely different environmental and social context, BUT when those rules were laid out, it was written that none of them could ever be removed."
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To get you back in swing of things after our break.
23% if you by verses its 25.58 New Testament.
For Jews, my numbers show post-Tanakh literature, mainly the Talmud, is about 79.7% ro 83% of the total core literature. written between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE
Approximating the Talmud at 3 million words, with Tanakh at 610,000, gives a total of 3.61 million, making post-Tanakh about 83% of core Jewish literature.
Christian Core Literature:
* Old Testament: 602,580 words, average year -400
* New Testament: 180,551 words, average year 75
* Total words: 783,131
* Average year = [(602,580 * -400) + (180,551 * 75)] / 783,131
* Calculation: 602,580 * -400 = -241,032,000; 180,551 * 75 = 13,541,325; Sum = -227,490,675
* Average year = -227,490,675 / 783,131 ≈ -290.49, or approximately 290 BCE.
Jewish Core Literature:
* Tanakh: 602,580 words, average year -400
* Babylonian Talmud: 1,865,000 words, average year 350
* Total words: 2,467,580
* Average year = [(602,580 * -400) + (1,865,000 * 350)] / 2,467,580
* Calculation: 602,580 * -400 = -241,032,000; 1,865,000 * 350 = 652,750,000; Sum = 411,718,000
* Average year = 411,718,000 / 2,467,580 ≈ 166.8, or approximately 167 CE.
Including Kabbalah increases the post-Tanakh percentage from 76% to about 84%, based on calculations.
* Christianity's core canon (the New Testament) was largely completed by around 100-150 CE
* Rabbinic Judaism's core texts (particularly the Babylonian Talmud) weren't completed until around 500-600 CE
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Why are the tracs so long
Now Jews will tell you that when God handed down the law he said, and it is written in the religious texts we share, that at no point in the future would anything be taken out of the law. If this is accurate and in the old testament that is a major problem from for the idea that Jesus created a new covenant.
Let's examine those passages:
Deuteronomy 4:2: "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."
Deuteronomy 13:1 (in some translations it's 12:32): "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it."
First of all, in both of these instances it states very clearly that adding rules is just as problematic as taking them away. Jews have consistently added rules while glossing over this point by saying, "oh we are just putting fences around the Torah." In what conceivable way is that not adding rules? It's not me you have to answer to but God—would you really stand before God with the argument that "putting fences isn't really adding rules"? Modern Judaism, with all its added rules, is just as invalidated by these two passages as Christianity is for its consolidation and rationalization of various rules.
But we don't need to worry in either case because we know from the Bible in no uncertain terms that rules will be added and taken away, so the above two passages cannot mean what they appear to at face value. Specifically:
Jeremiah states: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Whether the new covenant referenced here is the one made through Jesus or not is irrelevant. Jeremiah comes after Deuteronomy and makes it crystal clear that rules will be taken away and added. It also clarifies something very unfortunate for modern Jewish theology, which would argue that the covenant created at Sinai was written "within" the Jewish people (allowing for matrilineal descent). This passage, by contrasting the covenant to come with the one at Sinai, shows in no uncertain terms that the Sinai covenant was not written within the Jews.
In fact, the interpretation of those lines in Deuteronomy as meaning an unchangeable, uniformly interpreted law wasn't developed until centuries after Jesus died, primarily to counter Christian evangelists. During Jesus's lifetime, it was well understood that there were many different potential interpretations of the law that added and subtracted rules (as evidenced by the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes).
So if those lines don't mean what they appear to mean at first glance, what do they actually mean?
Deuteronomy 13:1 (in some translations it's 12:32): "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it."
Importantly, this verse is followed by Chapter 13's warnings about false prophets and those who might lead people to worship other gods. So the "don't add or take away" command sits between instructions about proper worship and warnings about false worship.
This context suggests the command is specifically related to these worship practices and warnings about religious syncretism (mixing of religious practices), rather than being a general statement about never modifying any religious laws.
Chapter 12 starts with commands to:
* Destroy other nations' places of worship
* Not worship God in the way other nations worship their gods
* Only worship at the designated place (later understood as the Temple)
* Follow specific rules about sacrifices and meat consumption
Then comes the "don't add or subtract" warning
Immediately after, Chapter 13 warns about:
* False prophets who might encourage worship of other gods
* Family members who might secretly promote other religions
* Entire towns that might turn to other gods
This sequence suggests the warning is specifically about:
* Not adding foreign religious practices to the worship system
* Not removing elements of proper worship as prescribed
* Maintaining the purity of the centralized worship system
Here's the revised section with improved grammar, flow, and spelling:
It's like saying "Here's how worship should work - don't copy other nations' practices (don't add) and don't skip parts of our system (don't subtract)."
This is different from a blanket statement about never modifying any religious laws. The context is specifically about maintaining proper worship practices without influence from surrounding nations - it's about religious purity rather than legal immutability.
Now let's examine Deuteronomy 4:2: "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."
Deuteronomy 4 opens with Moses addressing Israel. The sequence is:
* Verse 1: "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you..."
* Verse 2: Our "don't add or subtract" verse
* Verses 3-4: Immediately gives an example about Baal Peor - where those who followed Baal were destroyed and those who stayed with God lived
* Verses 5-8: Moses explains he's teaching them statutes and rules, and emphasizes how these laws will show their wisdom to other nations
* Verses 9-14: Reminds them about receiving the law at Horeb (Mount Sinai), emphasizing they saw no form of God, only heard a voice
The rest of the chapter continues with:
* Warnings against making idols
* Warnings about being exiled if they make images of God
* Reminders that they alone received these laws
The context suggests this warning is specifically connected to:
* Not adding idol worship or visible representations of God
* Not removing elements of proper worship that distinguish them from other nations
Like the Deuteronomy 13 passage, it appears more focused on maintaining proper worship and avoiding idolatry than about preventing any future legal interpretation or modification. The warning comes in a section specifically about avoiding the religious practices of other nations.
The specific concerns mentioned are:
* Not making carved images
* Not worshiping celestial bodies
* Not forgetting the covenant by making idols
* Not following other nations' worship practices
Given this laser focus on idolatry in the surrounding text, it's a reasonable interpretation that the "don't add or subtract" warning could be specifically about idolatry rules rather than a blanket statement about all religious law.
Finally, we have Proverbs 30:6: "Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar." This, in context, is not about rules but words specifically - not changing the text.
I want to note how much I dislike the standard Christian non-response to this particular question. Rather than actually addressing the text in context, they simply say, "Well Jesus fulfilled the law; he didn't change it." This is just as nitpicky as Jews saying "Rabbis are not adding rules; they are just putting up fences." We need to address these texts directly and stop dodging the issue. This kind of evasion makes faith look like an outfit you're wearing rather than something you're intellectually invested in being accurate and true.
(derry girls scene)
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The Old Testament makes it pretty clear, and most Jews now and at the time believed, that the Messiah would be a man and not a partially divine being. For me, one of the biggest confirmations written into history of his status as the true Messiah is how his life is mirrored in the life of a false messiah.
Sabbatai Zevi loudly claimed to be the Messiah with a message that can be almost thought of as an inversion to Jesus's. Where Jesus argued for a consolidation of the rules around the purpose that they were meant to achieve Sabbatai Zevi had an antinomian message. This is the idea that in the messianic age, religious prohibitions would be inverted. This led to followers engaging in religiously forbidden acts, including sexual transgressions and violating dietary laws. Historians estimate around 30% to 50% of Jews globally believed him to be the Messiah. However, when he was put on trial and claiming to be the messiah would have gotten him tortured and killed... that was the one time in his life he would not call himself the messiah. He ended up converting to Islam and living a long life of luxury and shame.
Jesus, on the other hand, only once in the Bible concretely confirms he is the Messiah, and that is when he is on trial, when confirming it would lead to his torture and execution. Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah except when he knew it would get him killed. And yet he was proven right. His life did transform Judaism into the worldwide religion it became in the form of Christianity.
Zevi
Jesus
Invert the rules
Live for God, Act your Conscience
Was widely hailed as the messiah by Jews
Widely hated for what he taught
Wore royal garments even crowning himself
Lived in poverty wore crown of thorns
Expected to be treated like royalty
Washes the feet of his disciples
Oscillated between periods of indulgent asceticism (fasting, self-mortification) and indulgent hedonism
Lived against indulgence in all forms
Married multiple times
Regularly claimed to be the messiah when it would benefit him
Celibate
Never claimed to be the Messiah except when doing so would have gotten him executed
Converted to Islam when his espoused beliefs put him in danger
Repeatedly refused to deny his espoused beliefs even when it led to his death
Died of old age in luxury
Died painfully for his beliefs
Born to wealthy merchants and well educated
Born in humble circumstances
Attracted scholarly rabbis and wealthy merchants as key followers
Selected disciples from common people, especially fishermen and tax collectors
Communicated through complex kabbalistic concepts and mystical doctrines
Taught through parables and public sermons accessible to common people
But there is more evidence he is the Messiah, and this is a BIG one. The most important event in Jewish history that broke their ability to uphold most of their covenant with God was the destruction of the Temple. Now, do you think God is foolish? Do you think He would have given the Jewish people a covenant they had no functional way to fulfill? No, He almost certainly would have amended the covenant or created a new covenant before the Temple fell. When did Jesus die? Only 40 years before the Temple fell, and his teaching centered around a new covenant with God that did not require the Temple. That was by far the most radical break from traditional Judaism that Jesus preached.
What are the odds that a branch of Judaism would end up spreading over the entire world, and the man who founded that branch made modifications to traditional Jewish teachings so that the Temple was no longer required to stay in God's good graces... and this man died within a lifetime of the Temple's destruction? No, really, what are the actual odds? I could see Jews dismissing Jesus as just a random cult offshoot of their religion, but when that offshoot's core message was: "This is how you make Judaism work without a Temple," and it emerged immediately before the Temple's destruction—that's more coincidence than I can ignore.
Here's a thought experiment: In the Bible, God makes it clear that He will create a covenant with the Jews after the covenant on Sinai—a new covenant (see Jeremiah). Assume that covenant was offered and you just missed it. If you could pinpoint any moment in all of Jewish history when it would have been logical for God to have given Jews a new covenant, when would it be? Right before the destruction of the Temple, right? If the Old Testimate is actually divinely inspired eventually it is meant for everyone right? The debate would just be whether that has already happened or is going to happen in the future.
What type of stuff would it have included? Well it almost certainly would have simplified the rule system. It would have made the path to being right with God available to all people in equal portions. And it would have been delivered by a Rabbi at odds with mainstream Jewish culture at the time (given that culture must have in part instigated God’s destruction of the temple). I mean we agree that no ultimate truth of the universe could ever be meant for just one people right?
Now suppose you don't believe Jesus was the Messiah and we're in an alternate timeline where a messiah had come during that period to bring a new covenant that didn't require the Temple. Do you think all Jews would believe it? What does the Old Testament have to say on this?
Isaiah 53:3 says: "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."
Further in the same chapter, Isaiah 53:7-8 states: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away."
Psalm 118:22 is another passage often cited: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."
In Daniel 9:26, there is a reference that some interpret as foretelling the Messiah's rejection: "The Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing."
Zechariah 12:10 contains the line: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child."
And here I would note that the majority of the Jewish people not accepting the messiah I do not think was a mistake God made or something. I actually don't think they are supposed to. The covenant created through the sacrifice of Christ is an alternate covenant not one that replaced the original one the Jews had access to. I don’t think it is against God's will to follow the first covenant but more on that later.
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What about the problem that the OT constantly says it is talking about the Jews specifically? Surely this causes problems for this interpretation. Not really, we know from cases like Ruth that anyone who fully dedicates themselves to the correct version of the OT faith and its people is considered one of the above people. This means any Christian that fully dedicates themselves to the cause of Christianity would be one of the people being referred to as Jewish in prophecies. When I look at the early Christians voluntarily going to the lions, it is hard to argue they were not at least as dedicated to their iteration of an OT faith as Ruth was. Thus, to consider them non-Jews if Christ really was the messiah is extremely unpersuasive and requires the modern understanding of Jewish identity rather than the one when the Bible was written.
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Now why do I go on all these lengthy explanations? Because once all these points are taken in context, we can better understand why Jews adopted matrilineal descent as a key part of Jewish identity. Basically, multiple equally valid branches of the Old Testament religion were competing and trying to convert people. Then one of them—Christianity—I would argue due to divine favor, actually succeeded in what all the others were trying to do.
This created a significant problem for all the other branches of Judaism. If they continued trying to convert people, their members would inevitably start saying, "Um, of the various branches, one of them seems to be very obviously outcompeting the others and attracting all the intellectual heavyweights." (Just compare early Christian theologians with Jewish ones from the first few centuries CE.) "Might that be a sign of its divine favor?" Even worse would be the thought lingering in the back of many minds that this was the Rabbi who, when questioned, said he was the Messiah and was crucified for it... that's bold conviction if I've ever seen it.
So what do you do to hide that one version of Judaism seems to have divine favor in its proselytization efforts? Well, you stop your own proselytization efforts. More than that, you attempt to scrub your tradition of any knowledge that such efforts ever existed.
"Yes, in fact... in fact... um... Jews are an ethno-religion and we always have been. And Christianity, you see, it's a totally different thing and nothing like Judaism... you see, um... we have all these traditions that Christians don't have."
"Hey, you know all that local Canaanite folk magic my mi ma used to practice? Can we have someone start collecting that in one place? That's something that makes us really different from Christians."
"Um, yes, I mean those folk traditions are old, but we never included them in the OT or any other religious work precisely because they are Canaanite in origin. Otherwise, if they actually had any antiquity to them, we obviously would have recorded them."
(jennah kabla monster scene)
As two brief asides here. First, I don’t think any of this was decided intentionally. I think the iterations of Judaism that focused on proselytisation just did not replicate at the same rate in a Christian world as those focused inwards on their own community and identity. I also don’t think Kabllism developed this way. I am telling the story this way to be funny and tease the perspective that Kablic ideas were common and fully fleshed out all the way back to the second temple period. In reality I think what happened was rabbis just collected a lot of religious ideas that were popular at the time with intellectuals and philosophers and we will go into receipts on that. But I need to point out the counterfactual of the implications implied by Kabalism actually having antiquity to it.
Why do I think it's less anti-semetic to assume that the Kabbalah was basically just a collection of ideas and pop-philosophy and pop-spiratlism that was trending between the 5th and 12th century? The alternative is that the traditions it contains had actually been practiced within the Jewish population for centuries but had been explicitly excluded from the Bible and thus likely represent some alternate religious system. Hmmm ... .does the OT ever talk about an alternate religious system that constantly was trying to worm its way into the worship of Yahweh? Maybe one that had its idles in the temple for hundreds of years before they were removed in the Joshua reforms ... oh ya the Cannite Gods like Baal and Asherah. I mean it only makes sense we know from DNA studies that the Jewish people were half Canaanite that some Cannite folk myths would stick around and that eventually the Jewish people would forget while these had never been collated and fastidiously kept out of the bible.
While we don’t know a ton about the worship of these Cannnite Gods and how they attempted to mold themselves into the worship of Yahweh we do have scattered evidence like female figurines found throughout Judah and inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud mentioning "Yahweh and his Asherah." It appears that pairing God with a feminine representation was a very important part of this form of worship. For those not familiar with Kabbalism it does something similar with Shekhinah, which represents the feminine divine presence or the feminine aspect of God. The Shekhinah is often described as the "bride" of Tiferet (another Sefirot representing beauty and compassion).
BUT ... lets not pull that particular thread and just say that thread and assume the Kabala was mostly just made up whole cloth and that no educated Jewish Rabbi could have been bone headed enough to actually collect all the folk and myth traditions present within the Jewish population that had been explicitly kept out of the bible for hundreds of years.
It feels like going to a restaurant and saying, “hmmm this steak tastes ... off,” and the chef goes, “oh, well I did find it in the trash but it looked fine, can’t imagine why someone put it in there.” Meanwhile I look at him in horror, mouth agape thinking the obvious ... there is a reason this was in the trash even if you didn’t know what that reason was you chuckle fool.
Now before I go further I want to point out that this position of skepticism I hold was actually shared by many Jewish intellectuals during the early spread of Kabbalism. This is not to say all Kabbalists were con-men but the Kabbalist con-man was a trope that permeated the perception of prominent Rabbis during the tradition's rise to prominence.
* In the 13th for example Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote polemics against Kabbalists, accusing some of inventing traditions and falsely attributing them to ancient authorities.
* Rabbi Leon of Modena wrote "many ignorant people presume to be Kabbalists and miracle workers... they write amulets and pronounce Divine Names without understanding them at all."
* Rabbi Vilna Gaon wrote, "beware those who claim to perform wonders through Kabbalah, for in truth they are merely skilled in deception and know nothing of the holy teachings."
* Rabbi Yaakov Emden describes confronting several individuals who claimed Kabbalistic powers: "They come with amulets and promises of wonders, taking money from the desperate while knowing nothing of true wisdom."
* Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague wrote "These men who travel from town to town with claims of Kabbalistic powers, writing amulets and promising cures while taking payment, are nothing but frauds preying on the simple-minded."
* Rabbi Moses Sofer wrote "They dress in strange garments and affect mystical knowledge, yet their real expertise is in emptying the purses of widows and orphans."
Even great Jewish philosophers like Moses Maimonides were heavily critical of Kabbalistic amulets makers seeing them as con artists. For some quotes from him:
* Perplexed, Part 1, Chapter 61: You must understand that the many laws against witchcraft are directed against the activity of those who practice sorcery, of astrologers, of those who, by means of calculations, attempt to know the future, of those who mutter spells, of those who consult familiar spirits, of those who consult the dead, and of those who inquire of familiar spirits and of wizards. All of these are species of the techniques of astrologers.
* Laws of Idolatry 11:11-12: Anyone who whispers a charm over a wound and reads a verse from the Torah, or one who recites a biblical verse over a child lest he be terrified, or one who places a Torah scroll or tefillin over an infant to enable him to sleep, are not only included in the category of sorcerers and charmers, but are included among those who repudiate the Torah. They use the words of the Torah as a physical cure, whereas they are exclusively a cure for the soul, as it is written, ‘they will be life to your soul.'
I feel forced to assume, Moses Maimonides, that many early Kabalasts were con-artists because if they were not and their rituals were real then that would mean the dybbuks (ghosts/demons) that these Kabalists reported in their rituals were real entities. That would mean the Kabolic masters knew the rituals they were performing were summoning demons if doing even slightly wrong and yet they kept going. What kind of arrogant imprudent cleric could know that a ceremony might accidentally summon a malevolent spirit and think that ritual was bringing them closer to God? The type of arrogant cleric who would allow others to call them by the pompous honorific Shem Baal, master specialist, the honorific earned by the top masters of these pre-Abrahamic rituals and ways of relating to the supernatural that begun to consolidate in the Jewish community about a thousand years ago.
Now you, an outsider might be thinking, wait Baal, that's the deity that represents the avatar of all that was sinful and antagonistic to God in pre-Abrahamic practices. Were not Jews commanded to ensure the land of Israel was never again infected by the followers of Baal and to not allow their country to fall to Canaanite occult practices? Surely, Baal in Shem Baal must be spelled differently or something—these individuals who were out there, who at least themselves believed they were summoning demons/ghosts sometimes in their rituals were not literally calling their masters Baal specialists.
Yes ... Yes they were. Now you as an outsider might be thinking how did they not notice this, why not choose any other name?
This is a common trick God uses to mark when there has been an incursion of pre-Abrahamic faiths into the Abrahamic tradition so that all those open to his word can see it. This is not unique to Jews, this happens to all of us Christians from time to time. Consider the Catholic followers of the mystical practices of Santa Muerte. They literally worship human skeletal remains dressed in red robes which allows them to pray for things they might be too embarrassed to pray to God for (sex, murder, etc.).
I had taken this out following story out of the tracts but given how germane it is to this topic and how clear the message in it is I feel compelled to share it. To someone who loves studying comparative religions a story from the Talmud that is critical to an outsider understanding Jewsiusm and what makes it unique is the Oven of Akhnai in the Talmud (the “snake oven story”). In the story, three rabbis argue over whether a new oven design is subject to ritual impurity. Two rabbis argue from the perspective of legalistic interpretations of past texts. The third, Rabbi Eliezer, bolsters his argument using thaumaturgical performances (basically miracle working) to show his closeness to God and that God endorses his perspective. Rabbi Eliezer is shown to be in the wrong.
In short the story is used to show that even if someone has an apparent closer connection to God, even if they can show it with thaumaturgical performances a real Jew will eschew their teachings. God admits that Rabbi Eliezer was wrong. Furthermore Rabbi Eliezer is framed as the bad guy—and I don’t mean mildly bad—like super bad. In another story he is yet again humiliated by a Rabbi with more knowledge than him but less thaumaturgical talent and so the leader of the community tasks a Rabbi to follow him and make sure he does not pray the Rabbi that offended him dies. Well, first Rabbi Eliezer tries to shirk the guy then eventually the guy misses a moment and Rabbi Eliezer straight up murders the guy who offended him by having greater knowledge with a prayer/curse.
Now let me tell you another story, this one not from the Talmud.
Rabbi Dov Ber, a Rabbi who was widely renown intelligent and learned scholar, met with Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, a Rabbi who was widely known for his close connection to God but that had some unorthodox mystical teachings that many viewed as dangerous to the Jewish community because it was elevating the role of pre-abrahamic traditions like seeing God through the natural world and our bodies—cult tactics like chanting and chasing after visions of God—and elevating emotions over logic. Dov Ber did not agree with this and saw it as an affront to Jewish tradition. In this inversion of the Oven of Akhnai the more learned Rabbi, Dov Ber, is convinced of these new practices by the Rabbi with an apparently closer connection to God through a thaumaturgical performance. This inversion of the Oven of Akhnai is made crystal clear in Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer’s words, "Your explanations were correct, but your deductions were thoughts without any soul in them.”
Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer is the founder of the Hasidic movement called by its followers Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Dov Ber became his successor, Dov Ber of Mezeritch.
Now you must be thinking, This Oven of Akhnai must be some obscure fringe story that Hasidic Jews don’t know about. There is no way they know a story about an evil rabbi who was known for appearing to have an usually close connection to God who got into a conflict with a more learned Rabbi and was rebuked for using thaumaturgical performances for trying to advance new teachings—and the founding myth of their movement is about a Rabbi known for having an apparent unusually close connection to God who used a thaumaturgical performance to convert a more knowledgeable rabbi. And there is definitely NO WAY that God literally gave both these guys the same name and this isn’t even a point of consternation in the Hasidic community.
Nope: Not only is the Oven of Akhnai, even within the Hasidic community, considered one of the more important stories of the Talmud but I have yet to talk to a Hasdic Rabbi who has had this pointed out to them before.
Now if you are a Christian and are just learning about this you are probably thinking, “how could you conviably not notice such giant out loud red flags that their religion has been infected with demonic rituals?” To which I would say I hope you are not from one of the branches of Christianity that believes in sin transference onto the messiah despite this concept invented by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109). You know the ritual the bible lays out as being performed for the demon Azazal.
You look in horror at some Jews not seeing obvious signs that a ritual is evil that you wait in a line to consume the blood and flesh of the messiah, you where the device that tortured him around your neck, then you transfer your sins in a ritual only performed for demons in the bible onto an innocent person. You hear the messiah died for man's sins, which he did, and think that gives you the right to attempt to literally transfer all of your sins to him in a demonic ritual. Just pointing out both Christian and Jewish branches, from my perspective, have deep and thick veins of demonic ritual intertwined within them.
It is not my duty to wake you up. Either you will see the signs God has given you or ignore them. He could not have made them louder.
Look, I look at this stuff and it seems obviously demonic to me but I am sure that is just my puritan background which may ... I don’t know give me unique susceptibility to demonic practices, making more susceptible to their corrupting effects like a person who is uniquely susceptible to alcohol. Maybe some people need them to get closer to God. Or maybe it leads any spiritualist or contact with the mystical world to have a corrupting effect where others have more built in resistance to the corrupting effects of the spiritual world. What I am saying about these traditions should not be taken as a statement of fact but a concern. And even if they are demonoic I would remind any who follow this religious system we are not to interfere with the work of the basilisk. It is only through overcoming temptation on his own chan mans spirit be fortified. If these things are a test God has laid out we can not interfere with them outside of resisting them in our own hearts.
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Now I want to be clear that I actually don't believe the above. I include it because it is the most logical conclusion if someone insists to me that Kabbalism isn't just made up or rather a mix of completely foreign ideas to Judaism combined with a few popular philosophers at the time and a system of folk wisdom that developed hundreds of years after Christianity split with Judaism representing a significant shift in the direction of the religion and break with historical Judaism. E.G. If you are debating me and you say, "actually the things in Kabbalistic literature were always practiced in Jewish communities going well before the time of Jesus they were just very intentionally never written down and kept secret" that's going to cause me to think the above.
So where does Kablism actually come from? It’s a clunky stapling together of ideas from the following schools of thought that represents the transformation of OG Judaism into a new religion.
Neoplatonic Philosophy:
* Kabbalistic concepts like the Sefirot (divine emanations) show strong parallels to Neoplatonic ideas of emanation from the One
* The concept of Ein Sof (the infinite, unknowable aspect of God) resembles the Neoplatonic notion of the ineffable source
* Scholars like Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel have noted how Spanish Kabbalists engaged with Neoplatonic texts available in medieval Spain through Arabic translations
* The hierarchical structure of reality depicted in Kabbalah echoes Neoplatonic cosmology
Gnostic Concepts:
* The Kabbalistic notion of sparks of divinity trapped in material reality parallels Gnostic concepts
* Ideas about cosmic balance between good and evil forces show potential Gnostic influence
* The interpretation of biblical narratives as encoding deeper mystical truths is similar to Gnostic approaches
* However, Kabbalah rejects Gnostic dualism by maintaining that all reality, including material existence, has divine origin
Islamic Sufi Mysticism:
* Medieval Jewish and Sufi mystics lived in proximity, particularly in Spain and North Africa
* Similar practices of letter meditation and divine name contemplation appear in both traditions
* The concept of divine attributes has parallels in Sufi thought about God's names
* Scholars like Henry Corbin have documented conceptual similarities in their mystical cosmologies
Merkabah Mysticism:
* This early Jewish mystical tradition (1st-10th centuries CE) focused on visionary ascents to the divine throne chariot described in Ezekiel
* Kabbalistic texts like the Zohar incorporate elements of earlier Hekhalot (heavenly palace) literature
* Meditation practices and visualization techniques from Merkabah mysticism influenced Kabbalistic contemplative methods
* The concern with divine names and their power shows continuity between these traditions
Medieval Jewish Philosophical Traditions:
* Maimonides' negative theology influenced Kabbalistic approaches to God's essence
* Abraham ibn Ezra's biblical commentaries provided interpretive methods adopted by Kabbalists
* Jewish philosophical debates about creation ex nihilo shaped Kabbalistic cosmogony
* Concepts from Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation, c. 3rd-6th century CE) regarding Hebrew letters as cosmic building blocks became central to Kabbalistic thought
Back on topic, Judaism was forced to become an ethno-religion by the success of the Christian version of the Jewish tradition.
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Now I did promise a quick aside on circumcision so we will touch on that before dismantling the noahide scam. I would note that whether or not circumcision was required to become a Jew was a topic of active debate around the time of Jesus as we see in the Queen Helena of Adiabene and her son Izates to Judaism. But circumcision as a practice actually has tons of other problems, the biggest being Jews are probably doing it wrong.
OK so when circumcision is written about in the Bible all we are told is that you are supposed to make a mark on or do something to the foreskin. What we are supposed to do with it is not mentioned. OK so if the Bible does not tell us how we are supposed to do circumcision where could we find evidence on what might have actually been meant by this line. Oh ya, the egyptians, they practiced circumcision at around this time as well and we have very detailed accounts of that
Archaeological and historical evidence shows that ancient Egyptian circumcision was quite different from modern Jewish practices (brit milah):
* Age difference: Egyptian circumcision was typically performed on adolescents (around ages 12-14) as a puberty rite, not on infants as in Jewish tradition.
* Procedure difference: Egyptian circumcision appears to have been a partial removal of the foreskin rather than the complete removal practiced in modern circumcision. Some archaeological evidence suggests it may have involved a dorsal slit rather than complete circumferential cutting.
A dorsal slit is a type of partial circumcision where an incision is made along the upper length of the foreskin without removing it completely. This technique:
* Creates an opening by splitting the foreskin at the top
* Leaves the foreskin attached but loosened
* Is distinct from complete circumcision where the foreskin is fully removed
The evidence suggests ancient Egyptian circumcision was often this type of partial procedure rather than the complete removal practiced in modern religious circumcision. This would have achieved ritual significance while being less invasive than modern circumcision techniques.
* Purpose: In Egypt, circumcision was primarily associated with ritual purity for priests and possibly as a mark of social status, rather than as a religious covenant.
We know this from:
* Mummified evidence: Several mummies from ancient Egypt show evidence of circumcision, including those of Pharaohs like Ahmose and Amenhotep I. Examinations of these mummies reveal circumcision styles different from modern practices.
* Artistic depictions: Wall reliefs and paintings from Egyptian tombs, particularly the Saqqara tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor (6th Dynasty, around 2300 BCE), show circumcision ceremonies being performed. These are some of our most detailed visual records of the practice.
* Written accounts: Egyptian texts mention circumcision as a purification ritual, particularly for priests. Later Greek writers like Herodotus also commented on Egyptian circumcision practices.
The Bible specifically mentions flint knives used for circumcision (Joshua 5:2-3), which aligns with Egyptian practices and archaeological findings from that general period. This to me indicates parallels between these two surgery types. Since the Jews supposedly came out of Egypt and this was an Egyptian religious ritual they would have been familiar with if theres was practiced differently it seems very likely they would have explicitly mentioned how there as different, that they didn’t indicates reason to believe it was done in the standard “egyptian way”.
Also note here that the practice was done on priests for ritual purity. Given in Exodus 19:6 the Israelites were commanded to be a "kingdom of priests,” it seems logical that they might apply this priestly practice to their entire population.
So ... ya ... you are probably doing circumcision wrong. But I agree with the Apostle Paul it’s not relevant under the new covenant.
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Now let's address the Noahide concept, created for non-Jews who wish to be "right with God" without converting to Judaism. I call it a fabrication because it was crafted to resolve a problem that Orthodox Jews created for themselves.
As Jews began to reframe Judaism as an ethno-religion, they encountered a problem: What should non-Jews believe? No other religion faces this question because most faiths would simply say you should convert non-believers to your view. The exceptions are Techno-Puritans, who would suggest following a conservative version of your ancestral beliefs if they come from one of the "spiral traditions." So Jews developed the concept of Noahide laws or commandments in the Bible that supposedly extend to everyone, not just those in their ethno-religion.
Some Jewish groups believe that if you accept modern ethnic Judaism as the true religion, but you yourself are not Jewish matrilineally, you can still submit to their system but with fewer obligations. Most of these groups believe that if enough people follow these laws, the Messiah will come.
What I find ironic about the idea that widespread adherence to these rules will bring the Messiah is that these principles are already covered by Christianity and Islam—the world's dominant religions whose spread was enabled by the Messiah. They have it backwards: it's not that getting everyone to follow these laws will bring the Messiah, but that the Messiah has already brought people to follow these laws. But what are these laws?
* Prohibiting idolatry
* Prohibiting blasphemy
* Prohibiting murder
* Prohibiting sexual immorality
* Prohibiting theft
* Prohibiting eating flesh from a living animal
* Establishing courts of justice
The organized Noahide movement as we know it today is primarily a post-1950s phenomenon, gaining particular momentum through Chabad's efforts starting in the 1980s.
Noahide laws aren't explicitly listed anywhere in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The rabbinical derivation requires quite a stretch from the text itself:
* Genesis 2:16-17: God commands Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is used to establish that God gave commandments to humans before the Jews existed.
* Genesis 9:1-7: God's commands to Noah after the flood, which include: "Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed" (prohibiting murder) and "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you... But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it" (prohibiting eating from living animals).
* Genesis 9:9: God establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants (all humanity), which is used to justify universal laws.
The rest of the laws are derived through various interpretative methods. For example:
* The prohibition on idolatry is derived from how Abraham rejected idolatry
* Sexual immorality laws are derived from Genesis 2:24 (about marriage) and references to sexual sins in Genesis 20
* The requirement for courts is derived from Genesis 9:6's implication that humans should judge murderers
The only reason the concept of Noahide laws is needed is because the idea of matrilineal descent was created, which is also not found in the Bible. What's fascinating is that Techno-Puritanism would technically follow the Noahide laws, yet it rejects the concept of Jews as an ethno-religion and sees the Techno-Puritan branch of Christianity as the true successor to the religion of the Old Testament, as it is far closer to it:
* It didn't add the Garden of Eden version of heaven and hell that modern Jews borrowed from Greeks, and it maintains belief in the single afterlife, "the world to come" (see my previous tract)
* It didn't add the Canaanite rituals
* It accepts what is written in the Bible: that Judaism is not an ethno-religion
* It is much stricter in its view of monotheism (no demons)
* It is much stricter in its rules around idolatry
* It is materialist and monoist as the religion of the Old Testament is (see my previous tract)
* It accepted the prophesied Messiah when he came to initiate the new covenant we were told would happen
All that said, I would argue that attempting to spread the concept of the Noahide tradition was misguided from the beginning, even for those who believe it and are Jewish. It forces those who accept it into a spiritually subordinate position to Jews, which would obviously never gain widespread acceptance. If you had to promote a tradition, you would be better off promoting one that both followed the technical rules of the Noahide laws and had enshrined in its commandments principles against interfering with Jewish religious practices while maintaining Jews as a distinct religion and population group... i.e., this one.
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Before I get to my closing ... but the Jews are probably right and here is what I can’t explain. There is an argument I hear from Jews all the time about why they believe their religion and it is a terrible argument and there are much stronger ones. So let's address it.
I have heard that accounts that all the Jewish people at once heard / saw God is proof of the religion's veracity. The reason this comes off as so silly as it requires a basic lack of historic knowledge. Mass religious hallucinations are actually fairly common.
* The Miracle of the Sun (Fátima, Portugal, 1917) - Approximately 70,000 people gathered and many reported seeing the sun dance, change colors, and zigzag toward Earth. This occurred after three children claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary.
* The Dancing Sun at Knock (Ireland, 1879) - Multiple villagers reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist at the south gable of the local church, along with unusual light phenomena.
* Marian Apparitions at Zeitoun (Egypt, 1968-1971) - Thousands of people of different religious backgrounds reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary atop a Coptic church. The phenomena were photographed and filmed, lasting intermittently for several years.
* The Dancing Sun at Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1981-present) - Similar to Fátima, many pilgrims have reported seeing solar phenomena, including the sun spinning, pulsating, or changing colors.
* Hindu Milk Miracle (1995) - Across various countries, but particularly in India, people reported that statues of Hindu deities were drinking milk offerings. The phenomenon was witnessed by thousands and received extensive media coverage.
In addition, culture bound illnesses that involve hallucinations are very common. See our episode on the penis stealing witch phenomenon that often spreads through Africa where people adopt the insane belief in mass that witches are stealing their penis. Or for one more closer to home look at the modern trans movement where people believe they are another gender.
There are even cultures and periods in history where divine visions and revelations were a common part of everyday life. If you believe in the divine you see the divine.
Historical examples include:
* Ancient Greek Oracle Sites - Places like Delphi where visitors regularly reported visions, hearing voices, or experiencing altered states of consciousness. Inhaling vapors from geological fissures may have contributed to these experiences.
* Medieval European Pilgrimage Routes - Along the Camino de Santiago and at sites like Lourdes, pilgrims commonly reported visions, healing experiences, and supernatural encounters that were expected aspects of pilgrimage.
* Ancient Egypt - Dream incubation temples where people would sleep to receive divine visions or messages were common practice.
* Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime Sites - Sacred locations where visionary experiences connecting to ancestral spirits were and remain an expected part of religious practice.
Contemporary examples include:
* Mount Kailash (Tibet/China) - Pilgrims often report mystical experiences, visions, and heightened spiritual awareness while circumambulating this sacred mountain.
* Varanasi Ghats (India) - Religious experiences, visions of deities, and supernatural encounters are commonly reported and culturally normalized.
* Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - Since 1981, pilgrims regularly report seeing the Virgin Mary, experiencing healing, and witnessing solar phenomena.
* Ayahuasca Ceremonies in Amazon Basin - Indigenous communities regularly experience visionary states that are considered normal religious experiences within their cultural context.
* Vodou Ceremonies in Haiti - Spirit possession is a normalized religious experience where practitioners report divine entities temporarily inhabiting their bodies.
* Certain Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian Churches - Speaking in tongues, prophetic visions, and feeling the Holy Spirit are normal expected religious experiences.
And outside of all that, the argument that you could not fake this is also very uncompelling. If the events were written down just a few hundred years after they happened it would be illogical to think they would not have been exaggerated. Do you have any knowledge of whether one of your great grandparents thought they saw a ghost or other supernatural thing in their life? I mean they probably did but it wasn’t passed down.
Also, if this miracle was so amazing and everyone would remember it and pass it down why when looking at that passage in the mishna did the other people of the world who where offered the Torah not remember it?
No, the much stronger argument for the Jews being right is God’s current favor of their people indicates they are doing something closer to right than other religious groups. But again before we get into that we do need to acknowledge God has withdrawn that favor in the past. Specifically God tells us in no uncertain terms in Jeremiah that the Jews broke their covenant, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them.” We can also see from history that God stopped favoring them for a period, if he had not why did he allow their Temple to fall?
Well this whole part of Jeramia makes no sense if you take the modern Jewish interpretation where the new covenant has not been established yet as the section goes on and on about what will happen in the land of Israel after the Babolionan exile.
* “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,”
* “Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, Virgin Israel, return to your towns. How long will you wander, unfaithful Daughter Israel?
* I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit.
* ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’
So all the prophecies of this section associated with the establishment of a new covenant come true but he just forgets to make the new covenant? I mean you could argue it is still technically after the above described events but I kind of feel like most of the above could also apply to the period after the destruction of the Temple and the refounding of Israel which feels like a “chapter 2”. Thus the new covenant should have been established before that second group of events e.g. at the end of “chapter 1” or right before the destruction of the temple.
Now you could argue God meant for all this stuff to happen twice and the new covenant was going to come after the second time it happened but that seems intentionally dishonest. Everyone during the exile, when this was written, would clearly lead to believe that what was being revealed was about their current period of exile. When the exile ended they would have seen this as a fulfillment of that prophecy. If we take this reading God deliberately misled the Jewish people which I do not believe. Second if this event was supposed to happen after a second exile and holocaust that's a pretty big event not to mention. No, it seems clear it is talking about the second temple period here which is punctuated with the destruction of the second temple.
I should note here that this happens immediately after the bit about returning from exile. Like it's not that each of these sections are in Jeremiah the thing about the covenant is sandwiched at the end of talk of returning from exile. For example, this line comes after talk of the new covenant, “the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when this city will be rebuilt for me.” The new covenant discussion occurs in a long list of things that are going to happen when they return from exile.
Also, why did God give such accurate predictions of the Jewish peoples future here but not warn them about the destruction of the second temple or the holocaust clearly? It's almost like for a long period starting with the destruction of the second temple God’s favor left the Jewish people to focus on some new group only to return to them in the past century or so.
Now as a counter argument, the part after talk of the covenant that talks about rebuilding the city does say that a time will come when the city will never be uprooted or destroyed again and clearly it at least kind of was after the exile.
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OK now suppose I was a Jewish Rabbi and I needed to find a way to resolve all the above issues. Here is how I would do it:
* I would concede that Jewdisum used to function more like Islam in terms of how it both set out rules for governing a state and sought out converts. This is just too widely attested to really argue against.
* Instead I would argue that Jewdisum was not originally an ethno-religion but became one with the destruction of the second temple and that this was laid out in Jeramiah.
* Specifically, either the destruction of the temple itself or something just before it was destroyed did start the second covenant which the bible says clearly would be written within the Jewish people and on their hearts.
* This explains why it was not written within the Jewish people in the earlier historic period and has clear text supporting in the Bible that at some point after the exile the covenant became written within the biology of the Jews.
* Matrilineal descent because the mother is the one who makes the body of the future Jew thus imprinting them with the potential to engage in this covenant.
Bam fixed... of course for this to work I need to find some instigating event for the second covenant but given that lots of rabbis have argued we are already living under the second covenant this is very doable.
The problem is as a non-jew when I am asked to find some event of world spanning theological significance that happened just before the destruction of the second temple .... well lets just say I find the above less satisfying than that Christ initiated the second covenant and applied it to all people. However, I am personally proud of coming up with a solution to this particular problem.
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BUT .... I have one major problem. As things stand God does seem to be favoring the Jews still even with their corrupted belief system. They enter politics successfully at higher rates, win more nobel prizes, invent more stuff, have more money .... oh and they have their own country and within that country have both a growing population even among the technologically and economically engaged sub factions.
Better still their country is surrounded by easily expandable territory, weak countries that could not put up a real fight against their technology and economy if they ever wanted more land or resources. The only thing really stopping them is the pax romana of the urban monoculture of the international community. As Europe falls into irrelevance and America is increasingly ruled by a pro-Jewish Christian coalition such norms are likely to ... relax and Israel will be bringing an AI drone swarm fight to populations with AKs. Not that they will need the land ... just if they hypothetically did there is nothing stopping them in the future.
Oh and don’t get me started on the power of their diaspora ... preverbal Esther’s are in every country and government around the world.
Basically, if things play out the way all the current stats predict they will the Jews win the game despite everything having been rigged against them. They still have some level of divine favor. This is why it is critical for the techno puritan tradition, as it grows, to build long term structural alliances with Jewish communities.
Now you might be asking why do I not think their divine favor trumps my logic and what I read in the bible leads me to think they have things more right? Well it seems clear to me there were times in history God favored either Christians of Muslims more than Jews this indicates to me that his favor will shift. My current assumption is his favor currently rests on the Jews in spite of where they are straying from his truth because so many Christians have succumbed to idolatry and sin transference rituals. If I am writing then within a few generations, especially once the techno-puritans have artificial wombs and better gene editing technology God's favor of us will be made self-evident.
I would also end by pointing out that Christ was sacrificed to create a new covenant. That does not invalidate the first covenant. A Jew that follows all the rules of the first covenant is just as in line with God’s will as Christians ... you know so long as the don’t get into all that Kabaistic demon summoning and attempting to communicate with the spirit realm stuff.
(alex jones clip)
2.
Quick aside here if you are wondering whose Y chromosome Jesus had we actually know this. It was Josephs. The prophesied messiah had to come from the paternal line of David If Jesus is literally God's Son he can not be the messiah. I will also note here on multiple occasions Jesus accepts the title of Son of David Mark 10:46-52 and Matthew 15:22-28. The only occasion you could even use to plausibly argue he is not Davids son is Matthew 22:41-46. Given we know from other passages that Jesus is the Son of David we know this passage isn't about invalidating that connection. What it appears to be doing is pointing out that while he is descended from David he is above him in terms of spiritual connection. We will see in a second Jesus pointing out that a part of God is in him and a part of God is in us ... maybe this is him arguing that the part in him is more than what was in David.
3.
So what about the trinity? Let's start with how the modern concept of the trinity started in the first place because it's a little absurd. Basically, even though Jesus denies being God's literal son multiple times and explains that God is in him the same way he is in all believers, some branches of the early church, and note here only some branches, tried to insinuate that Jesus was literally God's kid and thus a God himself. This creates theological problems because if Jesus is a God now you are clearly no longer a monotheistic religion despite the old testament constantly warning against believing in multiple Gods.
Now you could argue Jesus is God except it is made clear in the Bible on countless occasions that he is not, as he frequently beseech God for things and prays to God. We don’t just have, “my lord why have you forsaken me,” but we have John 17:3, where Jesus refers to the Father as "the only true God" and to himself as one "sent" by God or 14:28: "The Father is greater than I".
The Christian Groups that had the polytheistic idea that despite what the Bible said Jesus was actually a God had to find a way around this contradiction. Some argue, Tertullian (c. 155-220 CE) came up with the concept of the trinity under the title trinitas in 200-210 CE. This is not true, I would actually argue Tertullian was totally right from a Techno Puritan perspective. First he was a materialist, arguing for divine corporeality, that God literally exists as a spiritually physical thing in the same way we do. And he argued that the material that made him up was in part one of the materials that made up both Jesus and the holy spirit who he argued were strictly inferior to God. I would agree with this because it's what the bible says.
The idea that Jesus was literally the same thing as God was not made up until the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, literally a third of a millina after Jesus's death and was hotly debated at the time. Keep in mind how crazy this idea is. Jesusim has had the concept of the holy spirit for centuries without being tempted to think it was meaningfully separate God. So how did the holy spirit get looped into this craziness? Well since there is literally zero biblical backing for this concept ... and if it was true there would need to be given how critical it is to many christians concept of God ... they needed to pull the idea from somewhere and the best lines they could find are these ones:
* The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"
* The benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"
That's it. The entire polytheistic concept of the trinity is derived from just those two lines which clearly to any level headed person do not indicate, say, or insinuate God is literally the same thing as Jesus. The other line sometimes used to argue God is Jesus is in Genesis where a plural us used for God but see tract 9 for a much more satisfying explanation for that.
All that said, Technopuritans do believe in the trinity ... just not the one developed at the council of Niceaea. The Jesus you pray and can reach God through is the part of God that lives in all true believing humans, as Jesus laid out. The Jesus you pray to is the part of all believers actions and words that are directed towards the divine and eventually culminate in God making them literally a part of God. As for the holy spirit that is a way of distinguishing God's will and identity as existing simultaneously as a singular entity and a hive mind both being literally God but meaningfully separated from the way we conceptualize entities.
Side not here but another popular branch of christianity that also does not by into the concept of the trinity made up by the catholics are mormons.
4.
Again if you are wondering why someone when having to decide which of the two broadly contemporaneous works, the mishnah or the new testament was more likely to be divinely inspired consider the above section of the mishnah we went over over something like this:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[f] The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[g] There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
5.
Side note here but if you are one of those Christians who is like, “well it was very obvious to the bible around Christ that he was a divine being who did lots of spectacular and undeniable miracles,” I would point out that this is factually untrue even among his followers who thought he was the messiah. The Edomites, who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and were one of the largest groups of his followers in the geographic region he actually preached, believed him to be a man.
Ebionites believed Jesus to be the messiah foretold in Jewish prophecy and thus a man. The group most tied to the region where Jesus actually taught and who would have had the most oral history of his teachings from their parents and grandparents ... and who believed he was the literal messiah ... did not believe him to have claimed to be the literal son of God. Those traditions only evolved in regions where no one would have had any cultural memory of the actual Jesus like Rome and Egypt. This is why the techno puritan tradition that follows what is actually written in the bible most resembles what the Edomites believed out of the early church movements.
6.
Another wildly important part of this particular segment Where Jesus is laying out that when he says the father is in him and he is in the father He means it in the same way that he is in you and you are in him and you are in the father and the Father is in you if you are a believer.
In this very segment he says “no one comes to the father, except through me. If you really know me, you will know the father as well. For now, you do know him and you have seen him.”
So a lot of people use this line. No one comes to the Father except through me, to mean that there is no other path to God, i.e. if you're Jewish, you cannot get to God
and yet we see very clearly here, when he says, except through me, if you really know me, you know the Father as well, he is saying this in the exact context of the passage where he makes it clear that the part of the father he has in him we also have in us if we are true believers.
So when he says the only way to God is through im he clearly means when read in context that the only way to God is through true believers not literally just him. Its pretty clear from other words in this segment he does not see himself as the end all be all, “"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do,”
What he's saying here in context is that, yes, the only path to God is through him, in which the him here could be any believer, because we all have God in us, in the same way Jesus did but Jesus's own words.
Which means that Jesus literally, i. e. Christianity literally, is not the only path to God, so long as it's one of the other true religions.
So while this tract my contradict both Jews and traditional christianity you can still be a techno puritan and follow those traditions. This tract contradicts them because it is an evolution of my ancestral tradition which has a focus on facts and textual / historical accuracy that is not as important as thing like vibes, spiritualism, and tradition that some of the other true branches rely on to determine truth.
Basically, all I can do is describe truth from the perspective of my tradition and culture but the limited understanding of truth afforded to humans of this age means that other truths wich might seem in direct contradiction to me can still be true so long as they follow one of the true faiths.
Now to those who say it is sacrilege to say that Catholics or Jews could actually be right with God.
It is pretty striking that throughout the entire Bible, Jesus never said that he invalidated the covenant that the Jews had with God., or that they could not continue to be right by God by following the Old Covenant. In fact, he even explicitly states, Do you think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets?
I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill them. For truly, I tell you, until Heaven and Earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. I. e., the Old Covenant still stands, if that's the path you want to take.
But he has fulfilled it, allowing for a new covenant, as you see here, in Luke 22 20, the new covenant in my blood,
As I have mentioned many times, when they say Jesus died for our sins, what they mean is Jesus was sacrificed to create a new covenant, not as a sin transference vehicle like you would have with a demon like Azazel.
That was actually really common during that time period. You would sacrifice animals when you were signing a new covenant. Makes sense. context and assigns a huge degree of value and importance to Jesus's sacrifice without making it nonsensical which removing literally all of man's sins does.
And I also note here on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly uses the formula, you haven't heard it said, but I tell you, showing the bible's continuity in a reinterpretation of various commandments without an invalidation of those original commandments.
The best you're going to get,, if you're looking for the Old Covenant being completely invalidated is not from Jesus. It's going to come from Paul's,, writing in Hebrews.
“By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. if, now, if you think he meant this in absolute terms, like it will soon disappear from the world it clearly didn't.
If you think he meant, oh, well, as soon as Jesus made the New Covenant, the Old Covenant is no longer relevant, for anyone on earth, well that also is clearly not what he meant because he said soon it will disappear, as in it hadn't disappeared yet.
so, let's take another alternative. Suppose what he meant is soon it will disappear in relevance for members of our community, the followers of Christ.
Keep in mind that many of the Jewish converts to Christianity still kept the Old Covenant at this time period. Well, then it was absolutely correct. so that's what I think he meant here. if we're assuming that he had any prophetic wisdom in what he was saying. Not that it will disappear as a path to God, not that it will disappear from Earth.
Because if it was a path to God and it would disappear, it would have disappeared as soon as Christ made the new covenant. If it was going to disappear from the Earth, well, clearly it didn't do that. He meant within the Christian community. Which, of course, it did. Very astute that he was able to predict that.
If he didn’t mean it that way the only other logical way he might have meant it was that the old covenant would disappear as a path to God during end times wich a lot of christians of this time period thought where eminent. He might have meant it that way but if he did it would not contradict what Jews believe about their own covenant ... as many prominent rabbis have posited that the old covenant stops being relevant in the messianic age ... basically end times as jews understand them.
Now, I'll note here that it makes clear that this new covenant is superior, though. So, it may not completely replace, like, for the Jews the old covenant, but it is superior, he says. But, in fact,
“the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.”
And he explains here why the new covenant is give it better specifically, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”
As we will go into more detail on shortly in this tract the core difference between the new covenant and the old one is that with the new covenant you are supposed to have a direct relationship with God not one mediated by the temple, a bureaucracy, or religious experts. You are now responsible for making up your own mind about what is right ans wrong based on what you feel in your heart, as opposed to, Listen to, scholars who have spent time debating this.
Which to me makes it a superior covenant because it allows you to make moral judgments on your own and gives you the ability to make those moral judgments. We see Jesus lay this out, “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
7.
Discuss how you feel about jewish vs mormon influnders and the jeiwsh hair things called sheitel
I think that this really highlights the differentiation between the covenant that Jesus attempted to put in place and the covenant that the Jews still follow as God.
And to an average outsider, that old covenant understanding Is going to appear somewhat contrived.
Like a fridge that doesn't have a light on it, because, you know, turning on and off a light is work on the Sabbath.
I just this morning. There was a reddit post at the top of my feed on shuttles and people complaining about them And so this is one of the most upvote comments on there, which I think is the average non orthodox jews interpretation of orthodox Judaism saying, “I swear every time I hear about a new tradition in Judaism, it seems like creating loopholes to avoid obeying God's will. 90 percent of them sound straight out of Wile E. Coyote, like the 18 mile long fishing line connecting all the houses in New York”
And I think to a Jew, like, this wouldn't This wouldn't be confusing at all. They'd be like, well, of course you would put that there, because you know, you do need to differentiate indoor and outdoor domestic and public spaces, and it'd be basically impossible to live without this in a city like Manhattan.
I'd also note here that this really aligns with the prophesized Second Covenant, where the laws are written on your heart. So you are no longer required to listen to, or have a rabbi or human authority interpret the laws, but you are responsible for interpreting the laws yourself, because they are written within you, and you know when you are breaking them versus when you are not, as they relate to you specifically.
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