Why Would the Church Endorse a FULLY PAGAN HOLIDAY? Rabbi Tovia Singer - 1772

Paul is was not fictitious. He was a very real person. His personality comes across immediately. He's highly temperamental, highly disagreeable. He couldn't get along with anyone. He considered himself, identified himself as a person who God chose to go to Gentiles. In truth, he went to goam because from Jews, he's not going to get anything. But non-Jews was a perfect audience because they didn't know anything.

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Welcome to Tanak Talk. I'm your host, William Hall, broadcasting live out of Kingsland, Texas, USA. Another episode brought to you by Toia Singers. Let's Get Biblical Q and A, coming to you from the Holy Land. Rabbi Toby Singer, welcome back, my friend. How are you today?

Hey, doing really good. Good. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. Yeah, all right. Sure did miss you and, uh, glad to be back in action right here.

No doubt. Um, so how, how have you been doing? How's, how's life in your world? Briefly, I know people want to hear some good content, but they want to know how you're doing.

Yeah, in the Holy Land. So Jerusalem is very peaceful, you know, except for the occasional missionary that decides to start screaming on the street corners of our most popular intersections. It's fairly quiet. And I know people watching this going, what are you talking about? There's a war going on. There is a war going on, but it's about 60, 65 miles away. Gaza is, is southwest of Jerusalem. So you wouldn't know it here in the north is, you know, who we're not sure what's going to happen. But Jerusalem is a fairly quiet place. But people are, uh, um, people are pensive. They're concerned. And also people are con, very concerned about, of course, you're, you're deeply concerned about the situation with the hostages. That's on the minds of many people. So it's a very, that's, that's a very intense issue.

Right. Me, in, in quickly. Very good. All right, my friend. Well, we will kick this thing off with our first question of the day. Here we go.

Hello. Um, hope everyone's having a great day. And I have a comment and a question. My name is Deian Sanchez. I'm from Manti, Utah, um, at Central Utah. And I want to say thank you to the Rabbi for speaking the truth. I came out of Mormonism five to six years ago and I'm now a born-again Christian. And I just want to say thank you so much for being a light to all the nations. And sadly, I'm, I'm, I'm finding that the New Testament has a lot of problems. Do I need to completely renounce Christianity to be saved? And is the Hebrew Bible the actual living written word of God above the Christian Bible? And that those are my thoughts and my questions. Thank you so much and have a very blessed day.

That's great. All right. Right. Take it away, guys. The number is going to be on your screen. 855-952-4253. Be sure to call in. All right, Rabbi, take it away.

Yeah, you shouldn't say sadly. I've discovered that there are problems in the Christian Bible. You say happily, because so many of your co-religionists haven't figured it out yet. And see the Jewish people as a nuisance at best, rather than a light, which is the role of the Jew. Isaiah 49:6, Isaiah 42:6, Isaiah 60, well, verse everything. So you really should rejoice. Rejoice that you discovered the God of Israel. You were a Mormon, which is another accretion of idolatry on top of lowercase o Orthodox Christianity. And you are created in the image of Hashem. You're a daughter of, you're a child of God. So of course, of course, you should renounce Christianity. Forgive me, don't be offended. But it's like you ask a doctor, I, and I stop doing heroin, but because I smoke cigarettes? No, it's, it's of course you should rid yourself of all this. You know, Isaiah uses the language of, "Wash yourself, touch nothing unclean." So of course, the Christian Bible teaches ideas that the Messiah came and died for your sins. Well, no one could die for your sins. The Almighty loves you, and He has the power to forgive you if you'll talk to Him. You know, if you have children, you know how important it is for you to hear from them. You don't want to have an intermediary. So the Almighty, blessed be His holy name, loves you. You're a daughter of Hashem, and He wants to be close to you, and He doesn't want anyone between you and Him. No one, just you and Him. And all He wants to do is hear your prayers. And as it says in the Bible, "Do not put your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation." Psalm 147:3. It's there. So the Christian Bible is filled with ideas that are, it's not that they're just inconsistent with the Hebrew Bible, and I'm not interested at all that it is riddled with mistakes. That's not an issue at all. Let's say a Christian Bible would say didn't have mistakes. Let's say there was only one gospel instead of four, so it was internally consistent. Let's just, it would make a difference. The ideas that are laid out in the Christian Bible are at war with Tanak. And the only thing you should trust in is the word of Hashem, which is the Hebrew Bible. Tanak is the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim, the Writings. Why it's divided into three parts is not germane right now. That is the word of Hashem. And the Greek Bible is not. And it's not, it's, it is not, um, just simply, it fails the test, the standard of the word of God. It is at war with the God of Israel. Meaning, as I explained, the notion that the Messiah is supposed to die and rise on the third day, and if you believe in him, you're saved, and if you don't, you're damned, which it says openly in, in the Christian Bible. That is all opposed by the prophets of Israel, who openly state that the innocent cannot die for the sins of the wicked, and that if the wicked person turns away from his sinful ways, Hashem will hear your prayers in heaven, forgive you for all your transgressions. See, First Kings 8:46-50. And the context there, King Solomon is saying, when you don't have a temple, when you're exiled in the land, no sacrificial system. The idea that the Messiah is supposed to be the Son of God, as a deity. Now, one caveat, the Christian Bible, the authors of the Christian Bible did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. That's a later Christian development. It's a later Christian, it's a self-inflicted wound from which the church has never recovered. Mormonism just spikes it up even more by spreading the notion of the Father somehow, uh, causing Mary to become pregnant through a human interaction, through a, a physical interaction. So it's like more on top of more on top of more. So of course, you should renounce Christianity. But know that Hashem has the power to forgive you. In fact, His mercy exceeds our mercy. And Christians will tell you that, you know, God can't forgive you, you're a sinner, He's perfect, you can't. This all, this is nonsense. All this is a, a dualism. The notion that God, who's the creator of all things, is inaccessible, and therefore you needed an incarnation. That's what all Christianity is, that Jesus is a mediator. And this, its source of this idea is in the Christian Canon, 1 Timothy 2:5. "There is one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ." And it doesn't mean like the Jews didn't have priests. It means that "No one comes to the Father but by Me." That's John. That's in the Gospels. It's very clearly there. That's all error. And that's all foreign worship. And of course, later iterations of Christianity, including the largest denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, they would add more mediators. Jesus isn't enough of a mediator. So the Roman Catholic Church would add in Mary as sinless, sinless, as the Roman Catholic Church teaches. The Orthodox also teaches that she was born without the stain of original sin. I mean, that's the vast majority of Christians. And she's worthy of veneration. They call it veneration because they don't, they're trying to make it like it, it's, it's worship. They worship Mary. They call it all kinds of names, but they're worshiping Mary. And they, and all kinds of saints. And of, I deserve all of that. All these things is the most disgusting abomination possible. Because Christians all believe in the Father as the true God, but then they, that means they're married to God. They have that bond with God. They're believers in God. But then they add in another person in the Triune Godhead, or two persons. Now they use odd language, person. So that's a weird, it's an unconventional way of using, using the word. It's a philosophical term that was developed after the Christian Bible. The Christian Bible was fully written. So the Christian Bible is, it's not only at odds, but it is an enemy of Tanak. People think that the Christian Bible, and I think Christians also understand the Christian Bible, they view it as just a somewhat different orientation than the Hebrew Bible. It isn't. It is at war with the, the God of Israel. And it's very important for you today to say, "Shema." Deuteronomy 6:4. "There is one God. No one else. I serve You alone. I pray to You alone. I kneel to You alone. There's no one else. No one. Only Kadosh, only the Holy One, blessed be His name." And if you do this, if you do this act of repentance and say to God, "I confess my sins between You and God." No, you don't need anybody. You say to Him, "I sinned against You." Don't add anything else. "And I regret my sin. I renounce my sin. From here on, I will only worship You. I will only pray to You. I will only look to Tanak as a source of enlightenment and what I believe." Not, don't pray for the truth. This is a big mistake. I hear Christians talk this way. "I'm going to pray for the truth." Would you pray? You don't pray for truth, or else what do you need a Bible for? Don't become a prophet. It's really very important because Christians talk that way. They don't mean bad, but they say, "I'm going to pray for an answer." What the heck? Pray for an answer. You don't pray for answers. All the truth is in the Torah, in the Holy Torah. That's it. There's no new mitzvah. There's no new commandment in Isaiah or Jeremiah. None. If they would have added one commandment, they would have been put to death as a false prophet. They only tell you you're putting emphasis here and ignoring this. That's it. They give you advice, but never doctrine, never else. What do you need for? So we don't pray for the truth. You go to Tanak. And that's so you pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's not enough to say, "I believe in one God." Person. Say, "I believe in one God." But that God's a banana. That's no good. You have to only pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's it. You do ask God, very important, after you have encountered Him and recognize Him as your only Lord, your only Savior. Isaiah 43:10-11. No, before. No one after. Then you do the first thing you do. And every, listen to me, after you acknowledge you're standing for the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, after you acknowledge Him, the first, the first thing you always ask for before you ask anything is wisdom. Always the first request. Not health, not this, not for children, not for mate. The first, first, you acknowledge who, who He is. This is the way prophets prayed. This is the way the prophets prayed. First, you understand to know before whom you are standing. And the first thing you ask for is wisdom. Always number one, first thing. And then after you have wisdom, because without, without wisdom, you don't even know what to ask for. You ask for a wife, you ask for a husband. If you have no wisdom, you wouldn't even be, wouldn't know what to look for in a man. So you need wisdom that you ask for. But never doctrine, never, never, never, never. "I'm going to pray for the truth." Don't do that. The sudden, if you do that, Satan is so happy. He's got a customer. If Satan sees someone is saying, "Lord, would you show me the truth?" It's like a guy's a shopkeeper, and he sees a rich person walk in who's got all kinds of jewelry and a big fat wallet. He right away closes his door after the customer walks in, puts on the clothes, locks it so no one else can bother him. And he knows he's going to have a great customer there, the perfect customer, someone's going to pray for the truth. Don't, never do that. You pray for wisdom, and then you pray for health and other things, and the redemption and so on. But first, wisdom. So it's very important. If you, at this moment now, you talk to say, "I confess my sin, I renounce my sin, and I will worship You alone. Never again will I worship, venerate anything else, anyone else. Don't walk into a church. It's not a holy thing. Stay far away from it as you can." And worship Him. Not only will He immediately forgive you, but if you do that out of love, out of love, now there are many reasons people repent. They do it out of fear, too. And that's great. If you do it out of fear, it's a great thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't, but if you do, which means you repent out of love for God, not because you're afraid of the consequences, out of a pure act of love, every sin that you ever committed, every time you went to church in your life, be in your former life, turns into a mitzvah. It's an amazing thing. It is very good to repent because you just, you fear punishment. Nothing wrong with that. But if you do it as a pure act of love, wow. So, my dear sister, turn to now, serve Him alone, praise Him alone. Your mouth is holy now. And may He inspire you to inspire the world that we should see the redemption, the coming of the true Messiah, quickly in our time. Thank you.

I mean, you know, I think personally that the reason why the New Testament teachers say to pray for understanding and pray for whatever is because the New Testament is so scrambled, it doesn't make sense to itself. So they need an outside source, but they don't trust Tanak to give them that. And that's the whole point, right? I think you made a great. In fact, Paul says that he says that he says that, uh, because of such foolishness that that's why it must be true. He actually says that because he's got to explain it. It comes up because Paul constantly has to explain the problem of, if it's so obviously, transparently true, why don't the Jews believe in Messiah? So it's, so it's foolishness to all those who don't believe. It's a constant refrain because it's a constant problem. Because imagine if I tell you that to get healthy, you have to smoke cigarettes. So what now? I'm assuming I know for sure you're no scientist. I'm not assuming so. So, so, but so how, why would you right away know I'm a charlatan? Why would you know if I say you should smoke cigarettes? Just don't smoke menthol or whatever, some, uh, in some little caveat. Make so you right away you know. So how come every single doctor in the world will tell you it's the worst thing you could do to yourself? That cigarettes has hundreds of carcinogens that'll kill you. And so you know that this, that everybody who should know and knows the science behind it says it's the worst thing you could do. There's no benefit at all. This is the problem Paul was against. So there is every person who should know what a Messiah should look like, because they knew the text. It's their Bible. They were living there. They speak the language of the Bible. All of those people are saying, "No, it's the worst thing you can do." So therefore, he says there's some mystery, and everyone is blind to scales and veils and schales. This is Second Corinthians. He has to. Paul is constantly addressing this issue, and he takes him from every direction you want. He, in Romans, has another excuse. Romans, written a little bit later than Second Corinthians, but Romans, he's saying that there was, there's a special epoch for the Gentiles to be grafted in, and it would trigger jealousy among the Jews. He has 500 different excuses. There's a big problem in the Christian Bible. They all have to solve it. Why don't the Jews? Why do the Jews say it's bad to smoke if you're saying it's good to smoke? So you have to come with every con, or the children of the devil. And that's happening in the Christian Bible. The Jews are portrayed as villains for a reason. They would just be being mean. It was a survival tactic. It's how do you explain away the obvious question? Why are the Jews so un? It's not that they're just unimpressed by this, but they, they find the claims of the church to be so vacuous. So you have to come up with reasons. And the Christian Bible, throughout the, the canon, is addressing the issue of why don't the Jews believe this. And never will they state the following: that the Jews look at the claims of the Christian Bible, or the claims of the, and they're just, they, they're not impressed by it, or they view it differently, which is the true answer. They will never say that. Never, never. You go right now to a Southern Baptist minister asking, "Why don't the Jews believe in Jesus?" Which they're asked every day. That's like one of the big questions. Why don't the Jews believe in this? So obvious. They have 500 different reasons. Yet Christians who have YouTube channels, they have YouTube, and they sit there and tell you the Christian, why Jews don't believe in Jesus. And they come with the most convoluted reasons, and they come with every crazy reason in the world. But the true reason, they can't say the true reason because if the Jews would, if they would say the Jews don't believe in Jesus because they, they just view Tanak differently, then everyone's, "Why L, Canafa?" What these are smart people. It's their book. So the Christian Bible is constantly addressing this problem. And that's why the Jews are characterized as villains throughout the Christian Bible. Anyways, thank you for your question. I think on the cigarette thing, because I know Christians out there are going to say, "Well, there's nothing like that in the New Testament." I would strongly suggest to consider the eating the flesh and drinking the blood as being one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in the whole concept of Christianity, and taking the sacraments. That just blows my mind. That blew my mind when I was a Christian. I'm like, "Why in the world would I do that? That's bad." Any okay, caller, you are live on. Please tell your name, where you're calling from.

Uh, good morning. Thank you for having my call. Sure. I'm Andy, Los Angeles, California. Welcome back, Andy. Thank you. And my question is for our Rabbi Toby Singer. Uh, Easter Sunday, or some Christians like to call it Resurrection Sunday. And where all this origin comes from? Because I know today is, uh, celebrating Easter, and then on the 22nd, on April, it's Passover. So I'm getting confused, like, some confused. I left, left the Christian Church like four years ago, and I'm just trying to get everything right and go my straight path with God. So what's your question? Easter, Easter, the origin of Easter, like some Christians like to call it Resurrection Sunday. All right. Thank you for your question. Go ahead. Hand them down to you for answer. Thank you.

Yeah, I'd be interested to know the main differences in both Easter and Passover.

So, so Easter is a fairly early Christian holiday. Unlike Christmas, they didn't, they didn't invent Christmas until the 4th century, at the end of Constantine's life, in 336. So that's when Christmas, um, developed. Uh, but Easter goes, goes way back. Now, there are different theories about its connection to Ishtar, which is a pagan god, and that's where the name comes from. There are scholars who have different views of precisely the origins of this word. Does it have Germanic origins? What is? But what, what I think people get very consumed with is like, what's the origin of the name, rather than there's an elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is the Messiah is not supposed to die and then rise. So everyone is, I often hear people are going, "What is the origins of Easter?" So it, it is consistent with pagan names, but in truth, in many, um, in many cultures, it's not even called Easter. It's called Pascha, which is after the name Passover. Because according to, according to John, only John, Jesus was crucified on the 14th day of Nisan, on the eve of Passover, because John wanted Jesus to be crucified in days that the Passover lamb was crucified. Because it was only John of the four gospels that identifies Jesus with the lamb. See John 1:29, see John 13:36. And this was actually a very big, tumultuous issue in the early church of when should the, when should Easter be celebrated? On the 14th day of Nisan, on the 15th day of Nisan? But I think people get very distracted by this and ignore the obvious. And that is the idea that the Messiah is supposed to die for your sins and then rise on the third day, and if you believe in him, you're saved. So that idea is completely alien to the Torah. Torah says innocent people can't die for the sins of the wicked. You see how we can get distracted by these issues and ignore the most important issue? The most. Now, the Easter is very striking because it is this earlier, this is an earlier Christian holiday, really, uh, certainly at the very, very beginning of the second century, and very likely actually, very likely in the first century, Christians on, on when the Jews said it was Passover, would celebrate Easter. Means they would celebrate what they would consider as the Resurrection Day. That's definitely the case. And the only issue became very strange in the churches that when, when should they celebrate this Easter, marking the day when they say Jesus rose from the dead? So they would, they would have to go to the Jews because they needed to know when Passover was. Now, you're probably wondering, why do you need Jews for that? Why can't they look it up on the calendar? And I think as I say that, you go, "Oh, it wasn't that kind of calendar." The Jews had a way of determining based on a certain calculation, which I'm not going to go into now. But the Jews, because of the Oral Torah, we know that the average length of a lunar month, the average length of a month in decimals is 29.5359. It's the most precise calendar in the world. It's our tradition goes back to Moses. And this allows us to precisely have a very precise calendar, the most precise. The non-Jews have to adjust their calendar by a second here, a second there. We don't have to do any of that. So what we have is from Moses. You may be asking yourself, why do I need any of this? It's, it's the first month, 15th day. So all you do is count 12 months, and there you go. And now you're back to Passover. It's not so simple because of Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 1. Passover must come out in the, in the springtime. So as it turns out, the lunar months do not cooperate with the seasons. 12 lunar months, 12 times 12.5 is not 365 and a quarter. It's 354. It falls short by 11 and a quarter days. So there has to be an intercalation, which occurred this year, where an extra month has to be added. It's very complicated. But the point is, the Christians had to rely on the Jews. They had to rely on the Jews. And who, this was a hot, hot issue. This Easter business was a big, hot issue. And they were, instead of these early Christians fighting over, "Should we believe in Jesus and not believe in Jesus?" That didn't occur to them. This was the hot topic. When do we follow John, who, uh, places the crucifixion date on the 14th day of Nisan, or according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels, Jesus crucified on the first day of Passover? It's, it's a big difference. It's a big difference. Was he, it means because that's the question is, for example, the Last Supper, was the Last Supper a, tell me, a Passover seder? And I bet you, you all go, "Of course, it was a Passover seder." Not according to John. That's the synoptic gospels. That's why the Eucharist in the synoptic gospels is a Passover seder. But in John, it's not. In John, it's not. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Last Supper is a Passover seder. And that's where you find the Eucharist. But John, as I told you, Jesus is crucified a day early because John wants to connect the Jesus with the lamb. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not. They don't know anything about this. So where is John's Eucharist? It's not where you would expect it in John 13, where the Last Supper is, because the Last Supper in John 13 is not a Passover seder. What's happening in the Last Supper in John is Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, which doesn't happen in the synoptic gospels. So in John 6, you have the, you have the Eucharist. Let me tell you something. Christians nearly killed each other over this. To you, this may seem pedantic. It wasn't at all to the early church fathers. Wow. They were, in fact, we, uh, across the board, they all admitted that the church could explode over the issue of when to celebrate Easter. And then there were loud voices in Rome and other parts, "Why are we relying on Jews? Like Jews? We should go to the cursed Jews who killed our Lord, and they should determine for us when we should celebrate Easter." Not kidding. This was such a battle. And this battle made its way to the Council of Nicaea. Most people think of the Council of Nicaea as a, as an event, an ecumenical council convened by Constantine in order to determine the nature of the deity of Jesus. That's true. But there were two issues on the table that had to be resolved. The calendar and Easter had to be resolved as well. He wanted that resolved. And Constantine was no friend of the Jews, and he could not stand it that through a Christians in the empire that celebrate Easter when the Jews set to, when Jews said it was Passover. And this issue was huge, huge. Forget about 145. It was huge. If we follow the Jews, and what was resolved from Nicaea was that we're not going to go to the Jews anymore. And they had a different calculation. They used a different guy. The church argued over too, the East and the West. Does as well. It's not like they all worked everything out. But the calculation had to be a lunar solar calculation, but it's not of the Jews. It'd be springtime, but they did not base on Passover. Now they can overlap. They would never, this year, but they, there are times that they can overlap. But they had a different calculation completely. And everyone misses the whole point. The belief, the belief in a dead Messiah, an innocent person, whether it's a Messiah, whether it's a baby, whether it's a virgin, all this is idolatry. All this is idolatry. And people get caught an egg, and there the rabbits and eggs, and this is pagan. The Christians know it's all pagan. Easter worship comes from all the things. But I think people enjoy these piddling issues. The big issue is that the whole concept that the Messiah should rise on the third. There's nothing like that. And if you think this is, I'm, if you think I'm straw-manning this, I'm not. The Christian Bible literally will lie through its teeth and claim that the notion Messiah supposed to die and rise on the third day is in the Hebrew Bible. Openly in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 4, it says that this is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. The term is "according to the scriptures." I assure you, 1 Corinthians 15, there's only one scripture, and that's Tanak. And if you're not convinced by what I'm saying that that's what First Corinthians had in mind, you can go to Luke 24, which no doubt copied from First Corinthians but improved on it and made it very clear. Look at Luke 24:44. It says, "According to the Torah, the prophets, and Psalms, the Messiah is supposed to die and rise on the third day." I'm not kidding. It says it. And it says it nowhere. It's completely fake and made up. So, my friends who are wondering, of course, it's all pagan. Of course, it's all pagan. But the, the key is, don't get caught up in my view, don't get caught up in the nomenclature, all the, all these little, these side issues of eggs, should we have bunnies, not bunnies? Easter worshiping a man as God. And of course, the Sunday resurrection would also replace the Sabbath. Christians then would assign Sunday to their Sabbath and reject the Saturday their Sabbath, which is insanity. Who did that? A very, very, very early church father. He was a bishop of Antioch, Ignatius. Ignatius, you know how early Ignatius is? Ignatius is very early, 2nd century. Means this is very early stuff. And he's already coming up with, he comes up, he coins the word Catholic. Is Ignatius, real proto-Orthodox guy? Roman Catholic? And the Protestants follow everything he says, even though they, the Protestants, what does the word Protestant mean? They're protesting. What are they protesting? Roman Catholicism. And they, and here I'll tell you, I'm not a fan of Roman Catholicism at all, as you know. I don't have a favorable view of it. But on this point, the Catholic apologists are right on this point. They are correct when they tell the Protestants that you guys are all following Roman Catholic traditions. What should the Bible? They saw the scripture. What is your scripture? How do you know Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the other 23 books of the New Testament are part of the canon? Other books are not. The Roman Catholic Church says so, and you follow. They're right. There is no good answer to it. None. I'm telling you, I'm not a fan of Roman Catholicism. The Pope does not call me for advice. Doesn't. People think he does. He doesn't. Baloney. But the Roman Catholic, they came up with this stuff. They came up with all this stuff that Sunday should replace Sabbath. This is all Roman Catholic stuff. And the Protestants blindly follow it and think, "Ah, look at us. We're Protestants. We're the original. We're not like those filthy idol-worshiping, Mary-worshiping Roman Catholics." All silly. All nonsense. In this case, the Roman Catholic Church, or its apologists, its defenders, they're absolutely correct. The Protestants all took it from them, and they borrowed it because they, they took the nice stuff. They plagiarized the nice stuff from the Roman Catholic Church. So it is all idolatry. A person should run from it. A person should not attend an Easter dinner. Now, if you're not Jewish, and your whole family will explode if you don't show up to some dinner, I don't want to hear that you're getting divorced over this. Don't do that. Don't pray with them. Don't do any of that stuff. But I don't want to get five emails from me asking me, "Should I get divorced?" Because no, don't do that. Anyways, thank you very much for your thoughtful question, my dear friends. Hope this message finds you well. If you like the way this channel is going, and the channel has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting the channel by going to the website, TanakTalk.com. T-A-N-A-K-T-A-L-K dot com. Thank you once again for your time and for supporting Tanak Talk. Chill.

Okay, just rounding a bunch of calls here. Thank you all for your patience. Um, good for business, a lot of phone calls. Okay, let me pick up the one I actually had on here. Uh, let's go with Wayne. Wayne, you're live. Go ahead with your question for Rabbi.

Yes, sir. Um, thank you. Uh, so this is in the same vein as the question that you just answered. Uh, you said that, uh, Mark and John do not agree on the day of the month which Jesus was crucified, but they, but Mark and John mention a the body needing to come down in preparation for the Sabbath. So, in, in John's gospel, chapter 19, verse 14 and verse 31, I'm wondering, is, is this, is this Passover a Sabbath, or is the Passover a Sabbath itself? So would it be Saturday?

All right. This is a very easy question. Thank you very much for your question. Thank you, Wayne. Go ahead. Hand them down to you for answer. Thank you.

Okay, now I'm going to get hate mail on this. I'm not kidding. It's insanity. Like, people. So there are people who disagree with this, and they're not correct. According to all four gospels, Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Okay? This is very important. However, according to John, that Friday was the 14th day of Nisan, which means that night is the Passover, the night of his crucifixion, that night. See? So all four gospels place Jesus's crucifixion on Friday, and his resurrection on Sunday. Now, I know some of you going to go, "But according to John, it was still dark." Will ignore those minor details. I don't think those are important. But they're all saying Friday, and resurrection on Sunday. All of them are. I know there are some people out there that, I don't know why, but I get such hate mail. People say, "No, he's really crucified on Monday afternoon." I'm joking. Some scholars say it's all very problematic. But let's just take, like, for example, you brought up John. So the, the Jews' unwillingness to enter the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate, meaning like the palace, because they did not want to be defiled, right? Because they wanted to eat from the Passover. This happens by the time of the crucifixion. Where do you find that? So the Praetorium is mentioned not only in John, but that they would not enter because they didn't want to be defiled because they wanted to be able to eat the Paschal sacrifice. That's only an issue in John, the Passover sacrifice. So you understand what's going on. And I'll show you something really big, big, big, very big. If you go to John 13:29, so Judas is carrying, is taking, is leaving with the bag of money, right? What, what is the comment? What happens in John 19, excuse me, 13:29, and found nowhere else, as you would expect. Remember, if, if that's not a Passover seder in John, that means it's the night of the 13th, not the night of the 14th, which is the 15th, sorry. But the, in, in Judaism, the day changes at nightfall, not at midnight. 12:00 PM is, excuse me, 12 AM, midnight, 12:00 AM doesn't mean anything. It means when is nightfall? So only in John, and please look it up for yourself, this is at the Last Supper, when they see the, when the other disciples will see Judas Iscariot leaving with a bag of money, what do they think? They think, "What is he doing with the money? Certainly he's going to buy all the needs for the Passover meal." That can't happen in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels. Why not? But they just ate it. You see how everything changed like this? So in John, it would make sense that, uh, this, I mean, these stories are just created in sense. So what happens is John has a certain belief. Now, John did not invent this belief. This is a big surprise to people, but actually the notion that Jesus is our Passover predates all the gospels and appears already in Paul's, in Paul's letters. 1 Corinthians 5:7. It, but the synoptic gospels are completely unaware of this. So these ideas, like all these, uh, ideas just develop in different areas, and some people know about some people don't. But then they send them an email, get a call. You're living in your world. In the ancient world, these things didn't exist. People didn't travel much. People didn't know. And a myth, just very quickly, very quickly, we just saw epic events happen in Israel not that long ago. All crazy stories developed. 9/11. I remember after 9/11, within, I don't know how long did it take for people to come up with convoluted stories that the Pentagon, there was open, the Pentagon is something else that I'm not kidding. And I interviewed people like this who believe these things. And that happened immediately. You imagine the ancient world. Minutes, things just spread in the ancient world. And the, and what they did was, is they, it's called, they created data to match their doctrine, what they believe. So if you believe that Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover, which is a Friday, you then create your stories to comport with that. Paul's letters does not do not have these kinds of stories in it. They're just not there. Like all the Passion narrative, that's not in Paul's letters. Paul's is not aware of it. Not he's probably not aware of it. So they don't have that. Paul just says, you know, he, you know, when he was crucified. So on that's in there, but the whole elaborate thing. So that's what's going on. They, they, all the gospels hold that Jesus was crucified on Friday. The only question is, was it the eve of the Passover? It definitely was the eve of the Sabbath. So according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, um, it was the first, that Friday was the first day of Passover, which means the 15th day of Nisan, the first month, which means they ate the Passover meal the night before the crucifixion. You got it? And that's why there's no concern in the synoptic gospels about entering the Praetorium, because a, a house of a Gentile, especially a Praetorium, was problematic. Why? Because the go, the non-Jews, they would bury dead people in their houses. They would, you know, this all defiled. There was all, this is no prohibition of coming into contact with the dead ordinarily. But if you can eat the Passover sacrifice, it becomes a huge concern. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there's no concern. Why isn't there concern? It all works perfectly. It's like a math equation. They're not concerned because they ate the Passover meal last night. So it doesn't matter anymore if you come into contact with the dead or don't. You walk into a house of a defiled go or not, doesn't matter. But in John, it's very important because they're eating the Passover seder Friday night. You understand? Okay. Thank you for your question.

Okay, all right. Let me wrap this next caller. Second. Okay, Michelle, you are live on here. Go ahead with your question.

My name is Michelle, and my question is, was Paul somehow a plant to replace Christ? Because like in Acts 9:15, it says that he was a chosen vessel, and then Acts 9:16, it says that he must, um, suffer for, for, um, for Jesus' sake. And I was kind of wondering, did somehow Luke and Peter and Mark make him up? Because in Second Peter 3:16, it says that the people that do not believe in, uh, some of his, um, scriptures, they are, they are unlearned, they are unstable, and they wrestle with it, with it, like the rest of the scriptures.

Okay, all right. Listen to me. Thank you for your question. Go ahead. Hand them down for answer. Thank you.

That's a good question. So listen very carefully. Of all the contributing authors to the Christian Bible, the only author whose personality, which is very real, is that of Paul. The other books, and if you read the Gospels, you don't really get a sense of what kind of person is behind it. You can get a sense of what they're, uh, they're, um, what they may be focusing on, for sure, um, but you don't get a sense of the author because it's, it's overlaid over, overlaid with myth on top of myth. It's so rewritten, and they're so edited. I mean, you know, Matthew and Luke are using multiple sources. You know, they're using not only the two sources, they're using Mark and another source which didn't survive, it only survives through Matthew and Luke, but then they had their own source. So it's so, it's such a, you don't, when you read those books, you just don't get a sense of what kind of personality wrote it. With Paul's letters, it really is very different. It's a whole different ball game. And Paul's very real. His personality is very tense, very temperamental, and very distinct. And, and his style is so unique that you can identify his writing immediately. And that's why of the 13 letters in the Christian Bible that the author claims it was written by Paul, seven of them are called the undisputed letters of Paul. Why are they called undisputed? Because the other six are disputed. The other six are, there are many Christian scholars who believe at least three of those other six are written by Paul. Most don't. But there are many who believe that Colossians, Ephesians, and Second Thessalonians was written by Paul. The majority, majority of Christian scholars really go with that. The Pastoral Epistles, Titus and First and Second Timothy, were not authored by Paul. In my view, in my view, I think that Paul certainly, he wrote the seven letters that are undisputed. But in my view, um, he contributed to, edited, or was responsible for Colossians and Ephesians, maybe Second Thessalonians. And I, I'm perplexed as to why I'm perplexed as to why Christian scholars. So the Christian New Testament scholars are really all over the place on this. I'm just telling you what the consensus is, but I don't understand why. And I disagree, humbly disagree with the assertion that the other six are not, because we see that Paul had, uh, secretaries who were writing for him or editing for him. For instance, he had Timothy who contributed to the Book of Romans, which everyone agrees is from Paul, right? But look at Romans chapter 16, verse 22. So we have explicitly in the undisputed letters of Paul that they were editors and secretaries. So that would explain away the linguistic differences that we find. But there are features of Ephesians and Colossians that are so strong, that are so strongly Pauline, that, and there, by the way, there are great scholars that hold that the Pastoral Epistles are from Paul too. That's not the consensus, but there are, there are held that way. There are a lot of big guys who held that way. This, I'm going off the rails here. The key is that Paul is, was not fictitious. He was a very real person. His personality comes across immediately. He's highly temperamental, highly disagreeable. He couldn't get along with anyone. He considered himself, identified himself as a person who God chose to go to Gentiles. In truth, he went to goam because from Jews, he's not going to get anything. But non-Jews was a perfect audience because they didn't know anything. And you find that in Galatians, many places. Galatians 1:16, "He was set aside for the non, for the Gentiles." And he, he's a very real person. And he didn't get along with people. Didn't get along with, uh, Peter. And completely, it's written down there. Peter was a hypocrite. And he was not afraid to tell Peter that directly to his face. In Galatians 2:11, he says it. He wants you to know that he's the super-apostle. And what he has, unlike those in Jerusalem, he has it from Jesus Christ directly. And mocks or belittles the other apostles as they have it through chains. He has it directly. And because he's fighting with them, he's fighting with everyone. He's fighting with Barnabas. You know how outrageous that is? Barnabas was the fellow who introduced Paul to the Jerusalem Church. He was the one who got him in, you know, it's like someone wants to be an actor, but they have to work in a delicate test, and someone discovered him and connects him to someone in Hollywood. I, Paul owed Barnabas a lot, and he wouldn't, he didn't want anything to do with him or his cousin John Mark. Now, you ask me, how do I know it's true? I'm saying all of this as though it's true. I'll tell you, they're for sure true. Why? Because they're so embarrassing, they have to be true. Really. And that's, my friends, the only rigorous methodology you can use that's rigorous to know that there's something that these things are, um, are historical. Because there's no way in the world that these embarrassing things would have been invented. Do not try to apply this methodology of embarrassment or, but there's a few names for this method, which is very important. Like, how do you know when you read an ancient document anyway, it's true? There's usually often some historical features in it. So this is, this works for Paul. It does not work for Jesus. Scholars try to, you know, this, this similarity or embarrassment, whatever you want to call it. They try to find who, the quest for the historical Jesus. So it doesn't work because you don't know what the original intent is. You follow. So there's all this question, who was the real Jesus? Was he a really a?

Rabbi, he was this, he that, and they tried to use this criteria of embarrassment to figure that out, and it will not work because you don't know what was embarrassing with regards to Jesus. It doesn't work. But with Paul, it's very clear. So what I'm conveying is that Paul is not an invented figure. Paul was someone who people had a lot of trouble getting along with. Um, and in fact, the passage you mentioned in Second Peter 3:16 was put there for one reason, and that is to convey that everyone's on the same page.

One of the things I've shared with you is that what you find in the Christian Bible is all apologetics. It's a defense. That means early Christians who are loading this stuff up. Very, I don't believe Peter wrote Second Peter or First Peter, okay? Very few New Testament scholars believe. I don't even know any that believe Second Peter was written by Peter unless they're fundamentalists. I don't know anyone who does. First Peter, I don't believe it. Second Peter was written to address the issue. But I thought Peter and Paul were fighting with each other. They were wrestling with. They hated each other. So the point of that passage was to say everyone's on the same page. And the book of Acts, um, is doing the same thing. That they're, every, they're all on the same page. They're all in agreement.

Peter, he has his own way of figuring out the truth. He needs a sheet coming down with him on of unclean animals, and he's told by a voice in heaven, "Peter." But Peter is after one-third of the book of Acts is done, Peter disappears, and the rest of it, it's all about about Paul. So Paul is very real, and Paul knew where his bread was buttered, and that was among non-Jews. Why? Because they did not have the ability to discern between chaff and wheat, between authentic, uh, scripture hermeneutics and fakery. And therefore, Paul got away with it with the non-Jews, and he rose to be the most important convert to Christianity, who shaped the way Christians, what Christians believe. Almost all Christian doctrine from the first century, all comes from Paul. Paul, and the stuff that develops later is built upon Paul. There's really very little theology in the Gospels. There is, but not much. It really, really is all Pauline. And Paul was a very, very real person with a very distinct personality, and it comes across clearly in his letters. His tense, you know, people like this who just can't get along with anyone, that was Paul. And, and it, it screams. This screams. And as I said, they, they use the term is seven, uh, undisputed letters because people, the other letters are disputed. Is now Hebrews is, you didn't ask it, but Hebrews is a totally different kind of book. The early church went with the idea they liked the book of Hebrews. So not everyone was on board, but the argument was that Paul wrote it too. That's no way in the world. Um, yeah. And also, all right, I, I don't want to get more sophisticated. So Paul's definitely behind these. He's a real, real person who really loved Paul. He loved himself very much, and he had to be the center of attention constantly. And anyone who would disagree with him, they're not a real Christian, false gospel. He was preaching Christ Jesus. That's what the term Christ Jesus comes from, comes from the mouth of Paul, not from anyone else. That phrase.

Thank you for your question. Call, you live on air. Uh, please tell his name where you're calling from. Felix from Florida. Oh, yeah. Felix, I got you. Go ahead with your question. Oh, yeah. Um, First Kings 9:5 says, "Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, you shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel." Um, the question is, because of the Babylonian captivity, isn't this promise falsified? But because of Jesus, he fulfills and saves this promise. But if Jesus is not ascended, doesn't this verse, um, falsify Judaism because there's nobody on the throne? Good question. Okay, okay. Thank you for your question. Go hang on out to you if you answer. Thank you. That's a good question. It's a very good question. And this question is expressed differently. So what I am going to do is, um, bring it down to its core element, to what the question is. So we have the promise of the Davidic Covenant. And usually the language is a little odd, you know, the, the scepter will not depart from between Judah's feet until Shiloh comes. Why phrase it why in this negative? All these texts are written the same way. So there are two ways to understand these passages that are the Davidic Covenant. One way is what Christians try to do, is not correct, but it could be misunderstood, where it's saying that there'll always be a king from the House of David sitting on the throne, always, at all times. Okay? That's one way, and it's not correct. What the text is saying in the Davidic Covenant, which really goes back to to the Torah itself. In fact, the second mention of Messiah in all the five books of Moses is in Genesis 49:10. Yes, Genesis 49:10. Yes. Uh, we have another one in the, that's appears early. We have a second one. These are, you know, it's not as clear as other, but it's fairly clear that's Messiah. The other is in the fourth Oracle of Balaam in Numbers 24:17. But I want to stay focused here. Tanakh is not saying that at all times, it would always be a descendant of David who would sit on the throne of, who would sit on the throne ruling over Israel. It's not saying that. What it is saying is whenever there would be a, a legitimate king who would rule over Israel, it would have to be from David. Once David becomes king, prior to David, Saul was not from the, from the tribe of Judah. But as soon as David becomes king, so every single legitimate king had to be a descendant of David. And Solomon built the second temple, excuse me, the first temple. And it says openly, "The son who will build this house in my name." And that's the context of 2 Samuel 7. Is remember, 2 Samuel 7 is David wanted to build a temple himself, and Nathan made a mistake and said, "Go do it." That's really how it starts. And God comes to Nathan to go back to him. You see, people think they know when the time of the end is. They're making a big mistake. Even the prophets made a mistake on this when they were not speaking B in prophecy. And this should speak to every one of you. You have to go when you want to know, are we living in the Messianic age or not? This is not an issue that you look up in, in a code of Jewish law. You have to go back to the Nevi'im itself, always. And that's why it's interesting. This very important caveat, because we are living in a Messianic period now, and people don't understand what's happening. Is that the source has to be the Nevi'im. And in the cases, there were cases. Nevi'im were people. They were the greatest examples of mankind that ever lived, the greatest men and women that ever lived were prophets. But they were humans. And sometimes they were asked a question, and they were not speaking in prophecy. They just, these were the greatest people that ever lived, but they did not have prophecy at that moment, and they, they would say what they thought. And then later, God would say to them, actually, they wouldn't. God wouldn't take long because people would act very quickly when someone like that would say Hashem would come. Went to Nathan, said, "Well, go back and tell David he can't build this house." Why is not important? This is a very big signal. People quoting this Rabbi, that Rabbi, forget all that. And not for, not forget that when it talks about Messiah, you have to go only in the Nevi'im. That's it. Chazal, the ancient Rabbis said, "We can explain to you what Isaiah is saying, you know, what's happening, but only when it happens will you fully understand it." There's a big thing. I'm, you know, why am I telling you this? I'm doing this with a wink. Going back, these chapters, these passages referring to all the Davidic Covenant, what they're conveying is that all, all Davidic kings, all legitimate kings would be from the House of David. Now, there were, so that does not mean that there would always be a king. As you correctly pointed out, there was no Davidic king during the Babylonian exile when Daniel was alive and was communicating with. There was no, there was no Davidic king. Babylon was empty of its Jews. There were no Jews in Israel for for 50 years from the destruction of the first temple until Cyrus. There were no Jews in the land of Israel. The only time since Joshua crossed the Jordan opposite Jericho until that point that that the land of Israel didn't have a Jew in it. So during Babylonian, during Daniel's lifetime, and Christians really should pay attention to this because Daniel was a righteous man, and God called him beloved. And Daniel explained very well how God would forgive your sins and didn't involve bringing sacrifices. And if you're a Christian and you love God and you really want to do the right thing, you really ought to be asking yourself, how is that possible in Christian theology? It's not possible. Why do I go off track? Because I care about you guys. I really, really care about you guys. Guys, I care. And I know you care too. And I know if you're a Christian, you care about Daniel. And I'm talking from my heart to your heart. I talk to you because I care. During the Second Temple period, there was no king. There was no king. Now, there were pretenders to the throne. There were people who seized the title and the authority of king, such as tragically, members of my tribe, who were priests, who were members of the Hasmoneans. They were priests. They had no right to do it. And Herod wiped them out. They didn't, they didn't make it. It was Herod himself. Herod himself was not, did not have a Jewish mother. He was an Edomite. I know people that, well-meaning, and they think in those days the Jews went by the father, not by the mother. It's not correct. There are a lot of people I really love and respect who say that, and it happens not to be correct. That Jewish identity is conveyed only through the mother. It goes all the way back to the Torah, explicitly. It's just tribe identity that's conveyed through the father. That's it. In Deuteronomy 13:7, "If your brother, who is the son of your mother, not the son of your father." It's really very explicit. They teach the stuff at colleges because they want to show that Judaism has evolved. Nothing evolves. If it evolves, we run, run away from anything that evolves. It can't evolve. Truth can't evolve. So, um, so what the text means is that as long as there is a legitimate king, it will be from the House of David, from David and Solomon. It does not mean that there would not be periods, which means epochs, that there would be no king at all. And they would, it doesn't mean that there would be periods where people wouldn't say, "I'm a king." They could call themselves whatever they want. Herod wanted to call himself a king. He was really, the Romans were very happy with Herod because Herod did his job, built and built all monuments, and he was terrific and brought in the money. So call yourself whatever you want. You can call yourself the F, you call yourself, you know, a pitcher for the New York Yankees. They wouldn't care less what they, what he called himself. Call yourself what you want, just make sure. Take it. And Herod knew what to build, um, to show honor to Rome. They knew. Everybody knew. But these are not legitimate kings. So what these passages all mean is that whenever there would be a legitimate king, that king had to be from David and Solomon. That's all it means. It doesn't mean that there would never be periods where there was no king at all. And in fact, Hosea 3:4 and 5 openly says it's very important. Hosea 3:4 and 5, you know, when Hosea lived, lived during the Assyrian Empire. He was a contemporary of Micah, Amos, and Isaiah, same time. And he said that the one day, the children of Israel will spend a very long time without any king, without a priest, without any sacrifice, without offerings, until Messiah, until the end of the, till when they'll return to God and David, which is Messiah. So that's a really great question. I'm asked in many ways, but everyone's basically asking the same question. That's what it means. And that's why the language is odd. It does not mean there'll always be a king. It means rather, when there's a legitimate king, it'll always, always be from David. Thank you for your question. Very good.

All right, moving on. The next caller, Alicia, you should be live on air. Tell us, Rabbi, your question. Hi, Rabbi. My name is Alicia from Buffalo. Um, just a little background, I grew up in the Jehovah's Witness community, but I was never baptized. And I started watching your videos within the last two weeks, and your explanation on why Jesus is not the true Messiah caused me to see the truth of that. It just was logical. So my question to you is, how are we supposed to interpret the New Testament? Meaning, do we look at it as a conspiracy? Were the writers working together to achieve a specific goal? How do people interpret that? Okay, this will welcome home. He's a true. But it's amazing, really. Go ahead. Thank you, Alicia. All right, go ahead, sir.

So this is, you know, a very important point. The Christian, the authors of the Christian Bible wanted one thing, and that is they wanted you to be a Christian. That's all. And in fact, if you're not sure what I'm saying, the Christian Bible says so in the Book of John. The last passage of chapter 20, it says that "all these things are written that you should believe in Jesus." That was it. Is it a conspiracy? So it's not, so conspiracy would imply that whoever wrote the Book of John wasn't really a Christian. So I don't think that's the case. The Book of John is an example. Was written at the very end of the first century. He had all sorts of material in front of him. There's a debate among scholars whether he had access to some of the synoptic Gospels. Probably did. Uh, bear in mind, in the ancient world, just having any book was a massive issue because someone had to actually write it by hand on very expensive material. And like books were not bound. I mean, it could have been like we have great, the giant Codex Vaticanus. I mean, but people couldn't afford that. I mean, so these people were simply adding and layers on top of layers on top of layers that developed. And these stories developed. But all the Christian Bible was written in order to convince people to believe in Christianity. Paul wrote his letters not thinking that he was writing a Bible. Paul's letters were written to churches that he usually, that he had established. In a number of cases, he didn't establish them, like Romans. But Paul did not think of himself as writing a Bible. He was trying to convince people to believe his version of the story and not everyone else's version. That's why Paul's chief interlocutors are Christians. The people he argued with also believed in Christianity, but believed in a different Christology. Usually hinged on an issue: do Christians have to keep the ritual commandments? That was the big, big, big, big topic. There were other issues that came up that were just, um, about just how people should behave, how churches should be structured, problems in churches. His letters to Corinth certainly, he was addressing so. But Paul thought he was writing letters to churches. These letters were sometimes sewn together in different parts. Second Corinthians really multiple letters that are sewn together, definitely from the same person. But the reason why the Christian Bible was authored, it was authored by highly literate Christians. We don't know if they were Jewish or not. There's no way to know that. And people will tell you they know it, they don't know what they're talking about. They're just repeating of what they learned in school. But they were all, all the four Gospels were written by highly literate Christians at the end of the first century who wanted to convince their readers that they should be Christians and believe these things as Christianity would develop. The beliefs of what Christians, uh, seized, uh, as it developed. So the story just snowballs, and it becomes more and more embellished. You know, in Jesus' CV, his resume. So when Mark was written, definitely at toward the end of the first century, people place Mark at around 70. I used to believe, think that, I think it's a little bit later than that now. But regardless, he did not know that Jesus was supposed to be born of a virgin, so he doesn't mention it. And in fact, in Jesus' baptism in Mark 1, Jesus himself is directly informed that he is God's son. There's no virgin birth in Mark. There's no Joseph in Mark. Joseph didn't have to be invented yet. Joseph doesn't appear in Mark, and certainly not in any of Paul's letters, uh, Joseph, the putative, um, husband of Mary. But then it would develop further, and it would, it would develop into other communities. So Matthew, whoever wrote Matthew, whoever wrote Luke, um, they want to convince you that Jesus became the Son of God at his conception, and they independently made made up their own stories that, um, that are not related to each other. The very different stories, the infancy narratives, two chapters in Matthew, two chapters in Luke. But they both want you to think that their stories are the truth. That's why they did it. And, and whoever wrote John had a very much higher Christology. The Book of John probably has many, many authors to it. It's very unlikely that John 21 was written by whoever wrote John 20. It's very unlikely that whoever wrote John 1-8, mean chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 18, also wrote other parts. It's possible, it's just unlikely. But all of them are there to convince you that you should believe in this, this idolatry. There are some themes that run throughout. One theme is that the Jews are the bad guys. They all are on board when it comes to, you know, we hate the Jews. It's like the United Nations. There, you have everyone's walking in lockstep. We hate the Jews. Meaning the Jews are wrong. They're the enemies of Christ. They're the villains. That's it. They are the antagonists of this, of the, of every story. And they all portray the. So one thing should darken the, what they all have in common. Only people who went to know what I just said. But what they have in common is all sought to do damage to the Jews. Why? Because if you think the Jews are bad, then you won't want to listen to Jews. Why would you listen to Jews unless it helps you? Then you quote the Talmud. So the Christian. Now, did they really believe this stuff? I presume so. Except for Paul. Paul, see, the problem is what I said to another caller. When you read the Gospels, it's really nearly impossible to tell anything about the writer. And in John, it becomes even more difficult because even the voices sound the same. That means the verbiage used in that, that Jesus' words, what would appear in red in a red letter Bible, the disciples, everybody's using the same language. So John is even more impossible to know anything about the writer. And but they, Paul is the person who really is the big question mark. How much of this did he believe? Because he really lied through his teeth. He was not a nice fellow, and he had a lot of enemies at every turn. And who are the enemies? Fellow Christians who thought he was a faker and a fraud, right down the line. And that's why Paul is protesting this constantly, and he's saying, "I'm the true disciple." So Paul, really, what was key for Paul is his honor, his arrogance. It has to be my way. And you have met people like this in your life who just, you do not want to eat dinner with them. And when they show up for a family occasion, you go to the other side of the room. That was Paul. And Paul was a very angry fellow. And in fact, in Galatians 4, he even, he's angry at the Galatians, as to these people who he set up a church for in a, in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, says, "When you greeted me the last time I was sick, you took care of me. You treated me like I was an angel of God, like I was Jesus Christ himself." He literally says that. Who talks that way? That was his arrogance. He was a very arrogant fellow. What he actually believed, so I don't think he really believed much of this stuff at all. He was rather synchronizing, uh, Greco-Roman ideas, dualistic ideas, mystery religion ideas, and synchronizing those with a Jewish outline, and he was fusing that together. And his interest was power. What, what the typical stuff. So him, I don't think he really believed much of what he was saying, but he loved the attention. That's why you see that when Acts and Paul disagree. So Acts, two-thirds of Acts is about Paul. And when Paul's account of his travels disagree sharply with Acts' accounts of Paul's travels, what is the difference between them? The difference essentially falls upon how frequently did Paul visit Israel, visit Jerusalem. To Paul, it was important to say, "I went once for a couple of weeks." He says that in Galatians. But it's not there. Acts, he was there quite a bit. In Acts, he's going to, to Israel to show he's circumcising Timothy and he's bringing offerings. You would, Paul would never admit to this kind of stuff. So you see Paul's trying to show his independence of the Jerusalem Church. And, you know, the, the so-called pillars of the church, he met, he spent a little time with Paul. He spent time with James, brother of Jesus. So Paul, I don't think was a, a good-faith actor. I don't believe he believed in almost anything he said. The writers of the Gospels, I, I can't tell you anything about them. I just know their theology. And did they actually, what they were trying to do is convince people to believe in what they wrote. That was what they, they wanted to make, uh, people into Christians. That was it. They're later. It means they're not eyewitnesses. They're much later. They don't identify themselves as eyewitnesses. They don't say, "I saw anything." They don't even make such claims. So they're all late, late, late. There are some scholars who put Luke in the second century, and that's becoming popular now. That's all very, very late stuff, highly developed. And they just want you to be a Christian. It's like the Pope. What does he want you to be? He wants you to be Catholic. That's all. Thank you for your question. Welcome home.

All right, we got time for one more question. Caller, you live on the air. Go ahead with your question. This is Joseph Arar. Okay, so my question is, it's kind of dovetails with the last one about Paul. And that's, um, is it possible that Paul was a Herodian infiltrator acting on behalf of the empire of Rome? Or is it possible that Paul was actually the Shimon Keha spoken of in the Midrash as, I mean, I guess that means Simon Peter. But is it possible it was actually Paul sent in by the sages to undermine the movement and distance the movement because of its insurrection undertones? Thank you for your question. Go and hang on down to for your answer. Thank you.

So, those of you who just want to stick around. Short. So the short answer is, the answer to your to your first question is yes, and the answer to your second question is no. If you don't want to stick around, that's the short answer. So that Paul was working with Rome. Now, Paul doesn't claim to be a Roman citizen, but that claim is made for him in the book of Acts. In the first century, it wasn't a simple matter to be a citizen of Rome. Later on, it was much more common in later centuries. But in the first century, but was Paul working on behalf of Rome? No question about it. No question about it. And in fact, Paul says the astounding, in an undisputed letter, in his last letter, not coincidentally, addressing churches that he had never had not yet visited in Rome. And he urges the churches in Rome, he says, "Every, he urges them to be completely subject to the Roman Empire." And, and there is in, "Why should you conform to whatever the, um, to the authority of the Roman Empire?" So no, scholars will say, "Don't start in with the Roman Empire." Why? Because there, it's pragmatic. The Roman Empire will kill you. No, he says openly that there is no authority except from God, and that the empire was, was instituted by God. And if you rebel against Rome, then you are rebelling against God. And I encourage you, please read Romans 13:1 and 2 and 3. There are much more than this. Paul is definitely acting on behalf of Rome. That, I mean, he says it openly. He says that the empire, the, of the empire, Titus, Vespasian. Now, he wasn't alive at that time. He was a contemporary of them. But that's what would emerge. It's unbelievable. He was pro-Roman. Very much so. These are not conspiracy theories. Paul explicitly says that the empire, the of the empire. Your second question was, Paul the same person as Shimon that's identified in rabbinical literature? The answer is absolutely not. Simon was Peter. And that means he was a plant, according to this legend. I've chosen every word carefully. It's a Jewish legend, but it's a strong legend. I can't prove it. This is a very strong legend that the real historical Shimon, the real historical Peter, Simon, was really never believed in any of this stuff, and he was planted by the rabbis to move Christianity out of the synagogue. Early Christianity was in the synagogue. Means it was a heretical sect of Judaism. It was a big, big, big problem, and they did not want it in. Legend goes that they asked this fellow Shimon, "Get it up and get it to Rome, get it out, because this is, this movement will metastasize. Can't have it in." And actually, he was, the legend goes, he was very disconcerted that he would have to infiltrate the early Christian movement to do this, as you can imagine. And he was assured that he has a place in the world to come if he would carry out this task. So goes the legend. It may be. This explains why Peter comes off as the schlemiel in the Christian Bible. He's a highly inconsistent figure who, in one way, is presented to us as a preeminent apostle, a preeminent disciple. He's there at the transfiguration. He's there wherever he's making a big speech. He's right dead center, everything. He's the one who we are told Jesus says, "To this church will be, you're the rock," hence the name, "and the church will be built on you." And this is where the Catholics take that. There's a Pope from this. So in one sense, this is very interesting, and those of you who've been Christians will appreciate this. So in one sense, he appears as a preeminent, um, apostle. But on the other hand, he's constantly just tripping and making mistakes, and he's, he's getting everything wrong. He's like, he's denying Jesus how many times? It depends which, but he's denying him. It was, why do you have this weird, complicated personality? He doesn't, he thinks he shouldn't eat with Gentiles. He doesn't know any better. He has to have a vision of a sheet lowering down from heaven with unclean animals, with, with a voice from heaven saying, "Kill them and you may eat it," and he's arguing, "What do you mean? This is not kosher." Really? He's like, it's two polar opposites. On one hand, he's portrayed as he is in the Catholic Church, as a preeminent personality. On the other hand, he's like, wrong about everything. And Paul says, "You're wrong about everything." And I, so you wonder to yourself, what would contribute to this, of this complex, conflicting narrative about? So this legend, I'm not saying I believe this legend, but this legend would explain it away. This legend would be, would, uh, be consistent with that. If Paul was definitely into this, Paul was not a plant, not any of those things. Paul was in it for Paul. Paul wanted to be the center of attention. He was a, um, a vicious person all of his life. He was vicious when he wasn't a Christian. He was, was vicious. I don't believe the story about Stephen that he stood by or took part in the assassination of Stephen. I don't believe Stephen. I don't believe that story ever happened. I don't believe it ever happened. That story is completely concocted to show how Christians should be willing to die for their religion, which is very important to the author of Luke-Acts. What Luke-Acts is consumed with is martyrdom and how to die properly as a Christian, which would be consistent with views of the dating of of Luke-Acts. So I don't believe that story. But Paul was just, wherever he was, he was trouble. He was a troublemaker here, and he's a troublemaker there. You see people today, right? How many people you know, they were once Muslim, and they were troublemakers there, and then they become a Christian, they're troublemakers there, and then they jump to another Christian, they're troublemakers wherever they go. They get themselves all kinds of crazy trouble. They're Muslim becomes a Christian, they're always just fighting with everybody. They can't get along with anybody. You know, a lot of people like this, they just are troublesome personalities who are always adding to their importance, and no one can get along with them. And maybe that explains why Paul had female companions because women did not pose a threat to him. They weren't going to challenge his authority, but men did. So Paul was not on board at all. Paul was into Paul. He wasn't an infiltrator. The legend is on Simon, on that. I don't, you, I can't tell you. It is, and the reason I can't tell you, I wouldn't say more, is it is a fantastic claim. This legend, it's really quite fantastic. And fantastic claims require fantastic evidence, and that level of evidence is not strong enough. It certainly is pointing us in a direction, would be consistent with it. It does solve a lot of issues. It's like systems theory, but in studying the Bible, where you have, or any text that purports to be a religious text, so you have this conundrum, and you're looking for a solution. And very often, the solution that is correct, it's like a razor, is the one where one solution seems to solve all the problems. It's the same thing in engineering and math and in any science. You can apply it to this also, that you have these all these problems, and if you have one solution, it solves all the problems. So that tends to get everybody's attention. So, uh, so the answer to the first question is definitely Paul's on board with Rome. Definitely. And he was even describes his being in prison, you know, like he was in the Howard Johnson's. I mean, that's how the intent of a is. And, and he definitely was not working on behalf of the Jews. He was working on behalf of Paul, and he was a, a very highly insincere person for whom I would not want to meet or have dinner with. Thank you very much for your thoughtful question. Well said, well said. Guys, thank you all for tuning in. Uh, be sure to tune in every Sunday, 9:30 to 11 Central for each fresh new show. Don't forget to go to Rabbi Singer's website. It's on your screen, OutreachJudaism.org. Uh, there you'll find everything associated with this work. Uh, even a place here to donate. So if you want to go to, where to go support our work, click that tab right there. You'll see options of, uh, of how you can donate to Rabbi Singer directly, specifically for him. And also, if you go right here to the free audio tab, uh, you'll find all the matching titles for what's in your books. If you don't have the books, you need to buy them. This is not the same thing. These are not audiobooks. Uh, the audio files came first, the books came later with all the extra information. So you really should have all these together. 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