132: History Of The Bible

The weird Things happened in the Weird Weird Weird. Wow. Welcome to episode one hundred and thirty two. Isn't that wild? Whoooo? Yeah, one hundred and thirty two. That's insane further than I mean, the number sounds right, but in my head, I'm like, damn, like, have we done that? I felt like we were just at one twenty. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that too. It's insane. So we've talked about a lot of topics over the last we're approaching three years of doing the

podcast, which is downright insane amazing. You know, it's like we always knew we were gonna keep doing this, but then when you actually hit these milestones, it's like, dang, I never thought i'd get this far, but I did, you know? Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I just me personally. I feel like before doing this, I was like the guy that would like start a million projects and finish none of them.

So there was always a little thing in the little back of my head, well at least towards the beginning back of my head, like, man, we actually follow through and like I hope we keep doing this thing, and like because this is just too cool. To stop doing. But like once we got in a groove, there was just no question. It was just like, oh, this is it, Like we ain't stopping this, Like no way, it's insane. Man. It gives me life for sure. Yeah, it's it is. It's a breeze to keep this going.

It's like it's invigorating and like it gives me life, Like I love it absolutely. Man. A little bit, and we've talked about obviously one hundred and thirty two different topics, you know, and earlier in the show we kind of started getting into a lot of diverse topics, and as of recently, we've been sort of trying to narrow down some of these topics and dial in on specific things and try to flesh them out more and shout out to

our BSS mothership, discord supporters, our Patreon Tier one perk. You know, we had this amazing Discord community. And for the first time, I think it was last week or the week before rather, I was just scrolling through and I saw a suggestion somebody in there I can't even remember who. I apologize, but somebody in there said, you guys should do an episode like just generally talking about the history of the Bible. And maybe it was

Jenny, maybe it was one of you guys. It wasn't me, but one of you three was like, that's a really good idea, and I was like, heck, yeah, I would love to do that. Like I never thought like that. I always thought in my head, like I've talked about some of this stuff in episodes previously, but we've never like sat down and dedicated an episode too. Yeah to like explaining the history of the

Bible. And I want to say, like, for a lot of people listening, if you think this topic is unnecessary or it's boring, you have to you have to understand, like we are in a subject matter here of exploring spirituality, the occult, the hidden mysteries of the universe, you know, the beings, the phenomenon and all this stuff. And you have to remember, despite whatever you believe or you think about the Bible or Judaism or Christianity, it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, that

is the background of the majority of the world. If you're talking about Judaism, Christianity and then you have Islam, that's like billions of billion. I mean, you could imagine you go into any room if there's one hundred people in there, at least forty percent of them we're raised or have a background in Christianity. It's a diverse topic that affects many many people, whether you have that viewpoint or not. So I would just ask that you would,

you know, kind of expand your viewpoint a little bit. This is not going to be the kind of thing where we're talking about, you know, like a church session talking about the figures of the Bible and getting deep into the stories. This is more so like the kind of subjects you have in college or academic situations where you're talking about like the actual literal historical formation of the texts and how they were disseminated to the world. So this isn't going

to be some churchy kind of thing. It's more so about history. Yeah, you know, the Bible's kind of like a collection of allegories and it's symbolic and it's not meant to be like a concrete historical document. It's you know, it was there were things that were changed, and there were things that don't exactly add up with the history, and so learning the real history. While some people might feel like oh well that you know, that might

discredit what the It's not about that. It's about like shining light on the truth, the truth of the history, like the actual recorded history right of how this all came together. And there's importance in that. There's a lot

of importance in that. So the main reason I wanted to talk about this was because, you know, especially us two, coming from like really strict Christian backgrounds, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the like belief towards the Bible from a fundamental Christian perspective and why I think this kind of topic of conversation is valuable. So, like you know, in my experience growing up in the Pentecostal Church, the thing that was taught is that every

word of the Bible is infallibly literal. Like there was literally, I'm saying, we literally were taught that the earth is six thousand years old because somewhere in the sixteen hundred some archbishop decided that, you know, if you sit down and you look in the Book of Genesis where it talks about all the ancestors leading up back to Adam, and you count the number of years they were alive, and then you trace it to Jesus, which was two thousands

years ago, they're like, oh wow, we're Earth is six thousand years old, you know. And it's like these kinds of things exist where someone a long time ago said like this is the truth, and all these years later, we're still having this, like we're having this kind of like fantastic stick view of the Bible as this like perfect literal text that contains all the

secrets of the universe. And my perspective is like when you look at the history of it and how it came together, it demystifies a lot of that and you realize, like, I think a large majority of the events that happened in the Bible truly did happen. I think that a lot of the

elements of the Bible are true. But when you understand how the system or the religious doctrines and protocols were put into place by certain rulings and proceedings by different emperors and etcetera, etcetera, you start to say, well, maybe I can look at you know, the Bible is not necessarily a completely perfect text, but rather a good guide. Absolutely, you know what I mean,

It's a guide. It's yes, absolutely, it's interesting. And this might shock you a little bit but just like a few days ago, my brother and I had like a two hour long conversation about this wow, which is like, you know, he doesn't really talk about like deep stuff a whole lot. He's he's just like simple day to day like you know whatever. We had a long time. He was basically just talking to me about like, man, some some stuff doesn't add up to me. Like,

you know, I feel bad saying that. You know. He kind of said that you're not supposed to question exactly. He's like, but you know, I always felt like if these preachers and priests and stuff are telling me this stuff and they're like supposed to be close with God and understand God, than it like I'm supposed to take it as true, right, But stuff wasn't matching up to me, and so I think that things things might have been changed. And I was like, oh, bro, And two hours

later we were deep in the convo. Yeah, we're having like conventions and you know the three hundreds and and beyond where they're like, I don't like

these books. Let's let's conclude these books. You know, there's there's there's there's only sixty six books in the Bible out of way, way more, yeah, way more that we're actually written at the time by all the same people, by the same groups of people and temple priests and mystics and YadA, YadA, YadA, And it's like, but we're only supposed to accept that only these sixty six books from a you know, from a genuine Christian

perspective, they're supposed to be the only true books like in the universe. Right. That doesn't quite add up. That's that's that's not quite that's not quite open minded enough for me. So I just wanted to talk about a little bit of the history. So when you think about the Bible, and when you think about like the beginning of the Bible, you think Genesis, right obviously, So when you talk about like the Old Testament and Judaism,

it's known as the Torah, that's there. That's their like their main texts. And then you have obviously like the all the like the we talked about this in the Kabala episode. You have their like mystical texts that are a little more secretive a lot more yeah, yeah, cabalistic texts and the chariot texts and all that stuff. And then you have other talmud too, and

that's a very complicated text. So when you think of the Bible, you think of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and then when you break up the Torah a little more, you have what's known as the Pentateuk,

which is the first five books. Now, the belief from a Christian perspective, meaning you go to church and you're just like, you know, you're you're not really learning about the Bible, You're just going to church, right, Yeah, Mostly the common perspective, right, sure, it's that the name on the text is actually the author, right, right, right. The belief is that Okay, Moses wrote this text. Oh, this is the Book of John, the Gospel of John. John wrote this text.

Yeah, that's not the case. Yeah. And and there are some books where if you just pay a little bit of close attention, it's obvious like Paul, like Paul is letters sent to Paul or like letter you know what I mean, Like it's not him writing it, right, it's a collection of letters. Right. So there's a split in like the academic community over which of these biblical texts was actually the first one to be written. You could say most believe that it was Genesis. It's the earliest story. It's

dated. Let me see when Genesis was dated. It was I have it written down somewhere. You mean, like when it is thought to have been written written gotcha, around fourteen fifty BC to fourteen hundred BC. We're talking like three and a half thousand years ago. This text was written pretty old, yeah, but not as old as oh Eastern like, well, no, what I'm saying is like not as old as like, you know,

we're supposed to believe that these characters wrote these ds. We're supposed to believe that Genesis was written all the way back at the beginning that you know, the beginning in biblical lore would be six thousand years ago. Bah. Yeah,

But the reality of the situation is many thousands of years. Even if these events were true, after they happen, these these these conversations, these stories, they were passed orally until eventually they were written down on scrolls, most likely by no name people who's whose identity will never be known throughout history. Now, we can't prove that Moses actually wrote these texts, and yet that's what is taught, that's what is accepted in you know, like the

church community. So there's a split between which of these texts was actually written first, Was it Genesis or was it actually a text that comes much later in the canon. The Book of Job, So Job is really cool. Job is for those who don't know, Job is the story of this very devout, loyal man named Job. He's devout to God. And it's like

an allegory. It's it's a situation where Satan and God are having a conversation and they make a bet, and Satan is like, I bet that if you allow me to basically towards this man, right they he'll curse you. And God is like, well, I bet he'll never curse me. And they actually wager over the state of this mortal kind of like Greek mythology, you know. And Job the god is like, the only rule is you can't kill him. You can do anything else, you just can't kill Job.

You can kill his family, you can kill us, anything else you can harm him, you cannot kill him. So as the story goes, Satan kills his wife, his children, all of his live stock, makes him completely and famine, completely poor, completely just destitute, puts boils all over his body where he can barely even sit down or lay down in comfort. And he's completely miserable. He never curses God. So then as the

story goes, you know, he's blessed ten times. He comes back even richer, He gets another wife, he has ten children, he has way more cattle, way more you know, all this stuff, and it's like the moral of this story is faith. Yeah, exactly, like it never turn your back on God, have faith, and you know you'll be rewarded ten times. So that's very cool. It's an old story and there's a case for both. There's a split over which one was written first. I

thought this was cool. So let's see. Until the late nineteenth century, the consensus view of biblical scholars was that Moses wrote the Pentatuke. Again that's the first five books of the Bible. The church father Jerome in three hundred ish AD suggested that Ezra the Priest actually wrote the Pentateuch in the fifth century BC, based on notes made by Moses. So they're talking a few hundred

years before year zero. Maybe the Pentituke was actually written. So there's there's this huge mystery about when were these texts actually written, and yet people are going around teaching like, no, no, it was written by Moses. It was written by Abraham. It was written by blah blah, blah blah blah. No, no it wasn't. We don't know. The timeline doesn't even match up. Yeah, we really don't know. So there's a case

for and against Job being the first written text. The case against Job saying that it would be Genesis is Some will point out that Job appears to record events that took place before the existence of Moses. Based on like a historical and literary analysis, it's thought by many to be the actual oldest text of

the surviving Bible canon. However, the theological emphases of the Book of Job seem to indicate the concerns that the book is addressing are much later, perhaps from the Exilic period, whereas the Israelites were in exile and is addressed to

Israelites. So while the book may contain information about events that happened long before, the book seems to have been written much later than Genesis and the final analysis, Genesis certainly contains the oldest information in the Message of Genesis came from Moses, who was the first prophet to have his words formalized and written scripture, so it'd probably be accurate to see Genesis or perhaps the Pentitud because a unit to be the oldest book of the Bible. That's the case against Job,

the case for Job being the first text. I just thought this was super fascinating. I never knew that Job was supposedly the first text. The age of the Book of Job can also be And what is noticeably missing from the book. There are no mentions of the Covenant, which we know the covenant is like what Moses brought down on the tablets, the Law of Moses, or the priesthood. There are no mentions of the Israelite people or the

Promised Land. Instead, Job offers sacrifices himself for his sons without the use of a priesthood, temple or consecrated altar. His wealth is measured by the size of his herds in the amount of casiite casita unique silver coins he possesses. Both herds and silver were used as ancient systems of money between nineteen hundred and seventeen hundred BCE. The names of Job's sons were also uncommon in later time periods, but were common before and during the time of the Patriarchs.

Exactly when the Book of Job was written remains something of a mystery, but there's no doubt it can be considered the oldest book in the Bible. While the early chapters of Genesis cover events that happened before Job, the actual written accounts of those events were not recorded until after the Book of Job had already been composed. Fact, it's believed that the Book of Job is actually four

hundred years older than Genesis. This means is Job is not only the sole drama and the Bible, but also the oldest book by far, and of course the more fascinating for it. So just think about that. We have this book Genesis said at the very beginning, it's supposed to be the beginning of the universe, and yet we have stories that exist later in the canon that might have actually been written before it, almost half a century before that

text. If that's even possible, If that's true, that should already flip what we know about the Bible on its head. You know, the idea that we have no clue how this thing was put together, we really do. Obviously, I'm just saying, you know, from a church perspective, we have no idea. We don't know, you know, the authorship, the authenticity of these texts and yet we're supposed to believe and accept every single

word of it is true. Yeah, and like check this out, like from what we know about Moses, right, so if he wrote the pig to the first five books of the Bible? Was was Moses like a scholar? Was he like a well studied scholar? Because I bring that up because uh, people may not know the Bible was originally written in Greek, the New Testament, the Old Oh that's right, Ara, which is a dead language now it is right, so it's but still even still the timeline of

when Moses was alive, it just it doesn't add up. No, it doesn't. And actually I didn't want to go down this rabbit hole super far today because it's not about that. But there is a pretty widespread belief that Moses might not have been a genuine real person, but that he may have been actin there's an idea that that Moses may actually have been at and you know, if you think about that, that's really crazy if you study. Okay, there's several books with Moses, so I don't know them all the

top of my head. Which story was in which book? I mean, there's really a lot, you know, And so that would insinuate he's Egyptian. Mm hmm, well then how would he know Aramaic. I don't know, you know, you know what I'm saying, It's like, that's that's but go ahead. Sorry, So if you know the story in I don't know if it's numbers or if it's I really don't know, but it's one of the main Moses stories where he's bringing the ten plagues on the Egyptian people

to like free the Israelite slaves, you know. And in the Bible it talks about how there were these plagues and they are getting worse with each iteration of the plagues until finally I think it's the tenth plague, and it's like the sun blackens and the day becomes as black as night, and it's like everybody can behold, you know, the power and the majesty of God.

And it says in the Bible and the Egyptians were converted, for they knew that there had to be one God, like when they when they witnessed the plagues and the devastation of the Israelite people, they were converted into the belief in one God. Well, we know in real human history that the pharaoh Akonatin actually did come in to reign and restructure the Egyptian religion to be monotheistic

in worship of one God. Woa that there is a lot, Like we have this biblical claim that the Egyptians changed their belief to be one God, but we know around a similar time in history that actually was a decree by the pharaoh Akonoky. He changed their entire religion, and eventually when they did away with him, they went back to the older Egyptian system. Let me

see when Aconatin lived. That'd be really interesting. Yeah, And I guess you could surmise also, like if we follow that thread, sure Akonatin may have been Egyptian whatever it could have been. This story was transposed into Aramaic and they just assigned kind of like a gen eric Aramaic name or Hebrew name onto this character just for the purposes of like using a Hebrew name. Uh So, I mean, I don't know that that's pretty fishy though, that

those two events line up in such a way. Yeah. So aka Natin's reign was between thirteen fifty three to thirteen thirty six BC, and then it says thirteen fifty one to thirteen thirty four BC. I don't know why there's different times there. And eventually he became known as Amenhotep the fourth, which means Amun is satisfied, or as the Greeks would say, amenofis the fourth. And I'm trying to figure out if I don't know if his god was Amun or if it was a ten. Yeah, it's a ten so Akanatin,

which yeah, also the name Auten in his name. He brought everybody to the worship of the sun god Aten, which is like a similar It's similar to raw. It's like the idea that there's this one supreme being. It's the mystery shit, you know, like you know, so anyway, we don't even know if Moses as he is understood to be is what we understand him to be, right, you know what I'm saying, so already right there, it's like, you know, it gets dicey with going so

far back in history. But yeah, so I thought that was pretty cool that Moses and Notkonahan think. So let me pick up from what we've learned about ancient Egypt as well. This is like the original mystery tradition, the original like the kind of the dawn of spirituality if you will, Like in the most ancient of times, I mean the Eastern you know, they had their stuff going on, but Egyptian, like that stuff goes so far back.

I believe that the wisdom traditions believed that the spirit of It's like the idea is that you know, you had Atlantis and then it fell, and you could imagine like a spirit of this of this knowledge of this energy.

Right. They go so far as to say, like the earth has actual like Kundalini or chakra centers that when they're really active at certain you know ages in history, that the knowledge is there, which at one point it was Atlantis, and then they say, at one point it was Egypt, and then at one point it was Tibet, which is where we get all this Tibetan mysticism. Yeah, super cool stuff. Yeah, but most people don't

know this. But for let me see here six about sixty years Israel was enslaved by Babylon, by Nebukonezer. And so when you look at Jewish history, like actually for really large portions of time they were like enslaved by other nations. Like it's pretty brutal history there. They were captured by Babylon. And what most people don't know is the majority of the Old Testament as scholars today understand it, these texts were written by Jewish mystics while they were in

Babylon. So wow, So they're in Babylon like as prisoners, slaves, whatever, and they're learning about the Babylonian culture, their myth, ritual, mystery system, whatever, and they're ooh, that's a good idea. Copy it down, put it into this, you know, canon the religion of this, like you could say like pre Christian like the Judaic system, pre

Christianity. Israelites were nomadic people. They never settled into one nation for like hundreds of years, and every time they did, they would get sacked and thrown out by some ruler, whether it was the Greeks or the Romans, or the Babylonians or the Egyptians or whatever. They were constantly being dominated by these other countries. They didn't have, like you know, for very long

periods of time. They're one place of origin. They were like nomads, right, and they're going to all these different countries and they're learning things from their systems as well, and it's making it like we know, for a fact, any level of like intro to religion one oh one. I don't care what university is, You're going to learn about how Judaism never even had like a true system of heaven or hell until you know they met with this

Zoroastrian system. Things like that. You know, like other systems are bleeding into their their texts. So the majority of these Old Testament texts were written while they were in captivity by nebuconets are in Babylon right. And then, which is funny because we talked about that on the Dragon's episode, which I guess is going to come out next week. We'll come out next week, Yeah, And it goes so far like that was a pretty cool connection there.

Where in the Babylonian myth system you have this cosmic dragon Tiamot who's created in the beginning, and then you know this this son of the god Marduke or you could say he's a god too, slays the dragon and then you know reality is formed or whatever, and then you have you were talking about the Biblical story of the dragon Leviathan being created at the beginning of the universe and then slain on Judgment Day. You have like similar myth systems here you

know, you have this idea that you know, before there was a Jesus in a Mary, you had Nimrod and Tamus in the Babylonian system. There's all these different parallels between Judaism, Christianity, and these older traditions that we know that they were first hand exposed to. Whether it's from war, captivity, you know, their cultures are mixing, whatever. So the Babylonian Captivity occurred when the Jewish people faced exile from Israel, being forced to leave Judah.

They lived in Babylon between five hundred and ninety seven BCE and five hundred and thirty eight BCE. This captivity lasted until they were freed by the Persian leader Cyrus the Great. The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of this Babylonian captivity, which occurred in the sixth century BCE, based on earlier written sources and oral traditions, and that it was completed

with final revisions during the post Exilic period in the fifth century BCE. The Jews at the time would have been learning from the Babylonia Mystery religion and copying ideas and to their texts until being freed by the Persian king Cyrus the Great and being influenced by Zoroastrianism. Now what's really cool here is when you look into Zoroastrianism, it formed a thousand years before Christianity, Right, I guess

what I'm saying. I'm gonna go on a little tangent here, But what I'm really fascinated by is like the real world historical events that you can cross reference and identify how they intermingle and impact Biblical stories. That like, you're never taught that there's a connection there. We're never taught that any other religion or myth co mingles with the Bible in any good way. I've never taught that, but it's obvious that it happens quite a bit, right. I

can't help but wonder, Like, so they're in captivity in Babylon. They have this like faith that they've comprised of their own, and this sort of like religion that they've comprised of their own. What would compel them to bring We obviously don't have these answers, but I can't help but wonder what would compel them to bring the things that they're learning from their captors into their own faith unless they felt it resonated in some way, unless they felt it was

true in some way, you know what I mean. It's just like that's really fascinating, right, And in the very very early days of like the Old Testament texts, if you look through like Hebrew lexicons and codexes and actually like translate the literal original word that was used in these root languages in the Bible, actually Yahweh would have been seen as like a tribal like a storm god like Yahweh was not always this supreme deity like it became to be.

It was it was like tribal gods like you know, my God stronger than your God, God stronger than you. You know what I'm saying. Like the Jewish spiritual system all the way back then we're talking, we're talking like what's the word exoteric religion? It was it was very I mean, obviously we learned through Kabala. They had a secret system that was very deep, which you know, those texts started popping up in like the Middle Ages and

stuff. But they had a very very simple system. They had an extremely rudimentary idea of hell, which they called Shiel, which was like just this place where your body lays down in darkness forever, and there's not really any heaven or hell kind of system. I mean, it was very basic. They start getting around all these systems and you know, they get influenced by influenced by Zoroasterronism, and they're like, dang, there's there's a heaven,

there's a hell, there's a light, there's a dark. Right, there's gonna be a savior, there's going to be a judgment. Yeah. They started getting all these out there ideas and working it into their system. You know, was there like a rudimentary version of the commandments in Zoroastrianism or am I wrong on that? Yeah? It's good thoughts, good words, good

deeds, yeah kinda yeah, yeah kind of thing. But so, around a thousand years before the Birth of Christ is when we can see that Zoroastrianism began, and it was by obviously Zoroaster or his original name Zara Zara let me get this right, Zara Thustra, which means radiant star. And he as the story goes, obviously he's in Persia, which is ancient day Iran.

He goes to the top of the mountain. He has this vision and he communes with the light Ahura Mazda, and it speaks to him and it reveals to him that there's an evil reflection that's sort of like it's angra minu or what's the other word for it, Ariman, And that'll come up later when we do the Rudolph Steiner episode the Aromonic Deception. It's very very fascinating topic and sort of like, you know, I find it super fascinating,

very fascinating stuff. There was not really a central idea that there was like this evil oppressive spirit until you know, Araman that that that idea came around the devil, right, Yeah, the Jews didn't necessarily have like a central devil figure. Even the word satan honestly what it translates to his adversary. And even when you read the Book of Job, which was like they're probably their earliest text, God and Satan were just kind of like having a little

bet. You know. It wasn't even like fighting each other with swords and you're the devil. It wasn't like that. Yeah, it was just an angel that served God and carried out missions and tasks. It's like closer to rivals than it was to like mortal enemies, right, Yeah, it was a completely different system. Even as a kid, I remember like learning about job and being like why are they chill? Like why why is God in the devil? Like they're like old pals. Yeah, they're like chill right

now, why is this happening? Right? Yeah? Yeah, Satan was just the adversary, which would lend itself to the fact that it's way older than anything else, right, because it just sticks out like a sore thumb. Is one of those books. It's like they are very simpatico. They're like very chill with each other right now for some reason. Yeah, And like throughout the Old Testament, there's not really like a main Satan figure.

There's a couple of little references, but it's it's really just like other nations, you know. It's really like people are like going to war with other nations all this stuff. And then the idea of like this shadowy like oppressive devil didn't didn't really start crystallizing until like the New Testament, you know. Yeah, and anyway, so yeah, so it's really fascinating when you get into how the connection between Zoroastrianism and the Bible and how they influence the religion.

So, like I said, one thousand years before Christ, he had this vision and they had this prophecy that there would be a star in the east, a special star that signals the birth of the Sao Chayan, which is like the Savior of the world. He would bring this new, illuminating spiritual knowledge. And then we do our little cross reference gig here and we see, Okay, that's really cool. That sounds familiar to we know that in the Book of Matthew it was the three Magi who saw the star and

they're counseling King Herod. They're at his palace and they're like, Herod, the Savior is born, Like, there's the star. This is our prophecy. And he's like, oh God, you know, we got to kill all the babies. Yeah, because Herod, you know, Herod didn't want to his dynasty to end. Because the Jewish prophecy was that the Messiah would be like a warrior king. He would be a royal heir to the Jewish throne. He would be a part of a bloodline dynasty that would have the

right like the righteous heir to the throne. You know what I'm saying. And that's why Herod was like, okay, well we got to kill all the babies. It doesn't outright say necessarily, you know that they I think they said here lies Jesus, the King of the Jews. When they crucified him, it says it on top of his cross. They were mocking him because they were reviled by the idea. You know, they're saying, this guy's a messiah, but he's a low life scrub who hangs out with prostitutes

and centers, you know what I'm saying. Like, so they killed him, and they did the whole king mockery thing. That's why culturally they were anticipating that there would be some royal bloodline born with this this new messiah. But it's very fascinating you know that connection between the thousand years Zoroastrian prophecy, which predated the Christian prophecy, and then you know that event actually was recorded

to have happened in history. So yeah, again, my point in telling the story is not to try to you know, make people believe or disbelieve the Bible. My point is to say, we're taught to believe that the Bible is the only truth, every word of its literal YadA, YadA,

YadA. But then we have these other things of history that are influencing it right, right, and and the Bible even makes a point to like try to deter you from looking at other religions and you know, saying things like like I am a jealous God. You know, God says that in the Old Testament, like my name is jealousy. I am a jealous God.

Like I don't want you looking at the you know, and yeah, no, it's it's actually, if you think about it, if you keep a kind of open mind when you look at this other stuff, that it's corroborating information. It's like backing up information, you know. That's how I look at it, at least, it's not like I don't look at it in opposition to what the Bible is saying. I look at it as like supporting

evidence that there is a core through line of truth here somethinghere. Yeah, and it's been here for a long time, exact Like, don't get caught up in the nitty gritty details of the timeline and when did this happen and who said what and whatever, But like let's look at the center the vesica pisces of the venn diagram, and like, you know, what's the core truth exactly? Like that's that's my belief is that you know, people think too much about like I'm a Christian, I'm a Muslim, I'm a this,

I'm a that. Well, that's that's cool. You can claim all day what your title is. That's great, good for you, you know what I'm saying. But I'm more concerned about there's act a deity, there's actually a force, there's actually a being. How do we connect with that? How do we understand that? How do we try to describe that? How do we coexist with that? I don't care about like what your system

is or this or that. Like I I think that the way I see it is, if there really is a God or a higher intelligent force, it probably would be reflected because I tend to believe that God wouldn't truly choose one people, you know, one group of people to be the only ones and then you know, fuck all the rest. Yes, it's not like

that. I think that God was probably reflected on all cultures, you know, in some way or form, they were all getting some sort of profound download truth understanding of this mystical body of knowledge and they all have different cultural beliefs, you know, in the East and and and in certain uh you know, Babylon and in certain medieval civilizations they like dragons, you know, God God will appeared as a dragon, you know, or or to throw

it to the other episode or you know. They all have their different like flavor of what this force is. But there's a little, like you said, there's a through line through all of them. And that's my thing, is like trying to break people away from this one train of thought. You know how many messages I get, Like I just want to say, like I'm a Christian and I want to know, like how does the phenomenon and

you know intersect with the Bible? And it's like yeah, I mean absolutely it does, and it intersects with so much more too, right, you

know what I mean. That's my thing. But anyway, so I didn't want to focus too hard on the Old Testament stuff because I think that the New Testament formation of the Bible is where it gets really dicey when we start getting it with like official legislation about like what's canon, what's considered heresy, you know, what, we can kill people over preaching and stuff like that.

So when when we think about the Bible, right, when we think about the main part of it, we think Jesus right, we think y're zero, you're thirty, you're thirty three, depending on which hos was your favorite, we think you know Christianity. I'm just saying like phrases that flash in your mind when you think the Bible and the time period was people did not have access to the Temple scrolls. Me and you just didn't have a copy of Oh it's my favorite book, Genesis, I read it last night.

You have you read numbers like No. When you wanted to access these texts, you went to the temple, probably on the Sabbath or whatever day, and the priests gave you lessons on them. We weren't just reading this stuff. We weren't just having access to this knowledge. You know, you

had to go to the temple right now. The priests that wrote these scrolls and disseminated these these texts kept them in the temple, you know, the original manuscripts and all that, and there were so many Temple scrolls and then we know, I'm fast forwarding a little bit, but we know in around sixty nine a d. There was a major history event where the emperor Nero

like seized and destroyed the temple, the Holy Temple. So you had all these people in these different Jewish sects taking these temple, these temple scrolls and fleeing hiding them. Yeah, but then you have the Romans who came in. They got what they got and then they said boom, here you go. So, like the other thing to consider is that, you know, if we assume they made your zero zero because Jesus was born, right, and I do believe he was a real person. I think people I don't

even think it was real. Well, I think he was. There's there's so many different people in history who corroborated his existence. I mean, the question isn't was he real? The question is was he divine or was he really just like a spiritual spiritual sage. Yeah, that that's to me to

question if he was real or not. You just got to look up into more history, you gotta, you gotta start looking at all these texts, you know, verifying history seems to indicate that yeah, he was real, absolutely right, he was a person like he Yeah, we have history,

we have like documents that say like he was around. Yeah, you have multiple people from different countries and cultures confirming, Yeah, confirm, saying that they you know, they witnessed him or they witnessed his movement and things that were happening. And you know, the question is it was he real? Right? But it was many years after he died that these New Testament scrolls started actually being written. You know, So we're supposed to believe that the

Gospel of John, by Jesus' follower, was written by John. Yet we know, like, for example, the Gospel of John was written in like one hundred and ten BC add Yeah, yeah, come on, almost eighty years. Yeah. So again it's like I'm I'm begging the question here, like, are we really supposed to believe that these people whose names are on these texts wrote these actual texts? I don't know. We also know that in this time where Rome and Greece were so intermingled into and Egypt intermingled into

Israelite culture, they were hellenized. They actually had like Greek and Roman coins this currency. They basically didn't even have a nation. They were like slaves to the Romans, you know what I mean. And in this time period it was common practice. You know, I'm Socrates I have three philosophy mentors. I just got really sick and passed away. Well, not mentors, I'm you know what I'm saying, Socrates the mentor. My three little proteges

are going to continue writing and publishing under my name. That's common practice in this culture at the time, and actually it's accepted in the academic community that this is the reality of the situation here. Like they they believe the evidence supports from again analyzing the literary style and prose of these documents and cross Okay, so this one's supposed to be written by Paul. This was supposed to be written by Paul. This one's different from this one. You know,

this person writes this way. This person writes this way. They think that they're just all different people who are completely unnamed, lost in history, that are just like devout followers of these people who probably really did exist, and they're writing under their pen name. Yes, right, you see what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. And I think names in general get lost in translation as well. They're translated between cultures. A lot of people don't even

know. Like, I don't know if this is a surprise to y'all, but Jesus is not his name. It was never his name Jesus. It was yes, you are, his mom didn't name him Jesus. There's no, there's no you know, the New Testament was written in Greek originally, there's no J in Greek. Yes, you know, you know what the jay is in Greek. Yes, it's pronounced like a why. Yeah, yeah, yes, you were you know. It's like Jesus wasn't even his name. So if that name got lost in translation, you think the other

ones didn't. It's like there's also the belief that the name Jesus was like taken from Zeus. But I don't know if that's true. And I just saw that and I thought it was cool. But so in the early days of Christianity, I know already covered some of this, But in the early days of Christianity, temple scrolls were only accessible when visiting the temple. The

common man didn't have access to the temple scrolls. After the crucifixion of Jesus, the first Gospel wouldn't have even been written till about sixty nine a d. That's the Gospel of Mark. It's the first written gospel. Scholars believe that some of the gospels were actually pulling information from a mysterious document known in the academic community as Q. This is a text that predates the four Canon Gospels. It's from the German word quell, meaning source, so it's known

as the source document of the Jesus sayings. Q is a part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but not in the Gospel of Mark. According to this hypothesis, the material was drawn from the early Church's oral gospel traditions. Now here's the cool part. I didn't know

this until I started researching more into this document. We just say this on the show because we just feel it to be true and it just makes sense and it resonates We've always said, you know, Jesus is a sage. Jesus is a sage. Well, the official belief of the community, like the academic community that interprets the Q document and like analyzes it, the cross reference between it and the other gospels, the literary prose and all that stuff,

they actually view Jesus as having probably been a wisdom sage. Well, yeah, I mean it fits right in with the description like what he actually did. So Q was a document that literally had no name, and it just it's an ancient manuscript and it's just a collection of teachings from Jesus. It's not the story. It's not the whole birth story, it's not the whole death story and you know, the ascension and resurrection and all that.

It's literally just teachings things he taught. Yeah, gotcha, And that's the good shit. But you have that document, and then you have many of these teachings actually being present in the gospels Matthew and Luke. That's what this is getting at, Like, this is an actual historical document that corroborates it's earlier, like they dated to be earlier than these gospels, but the sayings

in this document are actually in yes, right, yes, yeah. So the belief is that there are authentic documents that maybe not written by Jesus but by his immediate you know, surrounding homies that are like genuinely attributed to what he was saying. The fact that there are these non canon, authentically dated documents that are actually corroborated with the canon documents, it's like, Okay, maybe there's older texts, right, maybe there's deeper texts with more you know,

original information. Yeah, it's like I want I want that source material. Like if that's that through line of truth, it's like, what's that? Well, I want more of that, right right, right, That's what I'm talking about about. So then when you get into the three original Gospels, you have what is called as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and similar or sometimes identical

wording. Like, for example, they all have a crucifixion story. You know what I mean. They all have similar narratives. Right, They're different, but they're the same. So they're the Synoptics. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is largely distinct. The Gospel of John is actually believed to be written by neo Platonists, meaning like Plato, followers of Plato,

which Plato would have lived in about four hundred ish BC. So this would be a new philosophical movement that was inaugurated by Platonists in the two hundred's AD, and he reinterpreted the ideas of the philosopher Plato, and the belief of Platonism was actually really cool. It argues that the world which we experience is only a copy of an ideal reality which lies beyond the material world,

which is contrary to what is taught in church. Most of the New Testament texts were not written by name at the beginning of the text, but they were probably written by their followers using their name. Okay, I just blended to notes there. Contrary to what I said. It is contrary contrary to what's taught in church, what I was saying earlier. In Hellenistic culture, someone writes a text and then they attribute it to you know, the master

that they brid it from, and they publish under their name. Right. But so with that being the point, most scholars in today's academic community believe that only seven of the thirteen letters written by Paul, which Paul is supposed to be like the biggest apostle, you know, he's the most praised and beloved apostle, only half of his letters are believed to actually have been written by him, and then the other ones written by fans. Yeah that sent

letters to him, apparently, like it's believed. Yeah, it's like he didn't even write them, but they're published under his name, and there's no mention of that anywhere in the Bible. Now. The thing about that that's really crazy is like before Paul came around, Paul would have been Paul never met Jesus. Like, if you follow like the story, you know what

I'm saying. Jesus was supposed to die in thirty a d. Yet if you, you know, choose the Gospel of John as your favorite, he would have died in thirty three a d. Right, Paul wouldn't have been around until like forty or fifty or even later. And even then these texts were written way after that, so who knows, right, But he never met Jesus. Paul was a dude who, according to the story, he shows up to Jesus's twelve disciples and he's like, I'm one of you.

I had an experience. I was traveling on the road, you know, from Damascus or Tarsus or whatever, and I saw a bright white light and Jesus spoke to me and said, I got to stop killing Christians and change my name from Saul to Paul. And now I'm like one of you,

guys, I'm an apostle. I'm actually greater than all of you. Yeah, And basically I can't say that, but the idea is that Paul was the greatest, right, But it's silly because actually the twelve Disciples that like literally knew Jesus when he was alive and like continued his mission after his death, they were so irritated and annoyed with Paul they sent him away. They sent him, You're gonna go minister to the gentiles, You're gonna go speak

to the to the foreigners. You know what I'm saying. But they stuck him with the shit job. But half of the New Testament is the letters of Paul. There's twenty what is it twenty, I don't know if the top of my head, it's like twenty seven or something. New Testament texts, thirteen of them are by Paul. And yet now we're kind of like opening our minds to the idea that like half of those he didn't even write.

Yeah. Well, when you get into the New Testament, you start to learn that a lot of the really really kind of out there stuff comes from Paul. The idea of a rapture ye, the idea of women are to be silent and not to speak up in church. The idea of the only way that your soul can ever be redeemed is if you with your lips literally with your mouth or your lips. You have to speak out loud and

confess verbally that Jesus was the son of God. He died on a cross, he descended for three days, then resurrected and ascended to be, you know, at the throne of God. It's like according to you know, the writings of Paul, they had all these like gibber jabber rules that you have to like jump through all these fiery hoops to like make it to Heaven.

It kinda before Paul, it was teachings of Christ. You have these alternative gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Gospel of John, you know, these gnostic gospels that were deemed heretical later by the priests class. You have like the Q Document, all these things that were sayings. They were like philosophical, spiritual sayings of Jesus. Then Paul comes around, He's like, no, no, no, no, you guys got it all wrong. We have to worry whip Jesus as God. Yeah, we

have to confess that he is God. I think it's Roman ten to nine. You know, you have to let every mouth confess that, you know, the whole process. Died, virgin birth, resurrected, YadA, ada, YadA, that's the only way you can be saved. H He's like, trust me. I met the guy. I talked to him. It's like, yeah, and you'll be caught up in the twinkling of an eye,

you know, in the final days with judgment. It's like a lot of these out their ideas came from the apostle Paul, who, according to the original Twelve Disciples, he was an annoying pest and they're like, go

away, like you are really getting on a freaking nerves. And so in the academic community, you could say that this is the split from when it became Christianity, a system of people who believed in in what Jesus was teaching as a spiritual philosophy on how to reach a level of enlightenment and like communion with God through your your your deeds, you know, compassion, loving God, loving your neighbor, being kind and humble and merciful. But then it

turned into Christology. Yeah, oh, the worship of Christ as a deity, as a god, as some sort of supernal mythical being that that you you literally have to worship worship. And I think that single act has fucked the whole world up. Meanwhile, Jesus is like, do not worship me, do not bow to me, don't bow to anyone, don't take a rabbi, don't take a master. Like it's just God like just yeah. They're like, do not wait, explicitly saying like, don't worship me.

And then Paul comes along and he's like, dude, he told me you have to worship him. It's like, come on, dude, you're annoying. Go go speak to the speak to the other people. Yeah. Actually, uh, there's a scripture quoting Jesus. That's uh. I think it's Revelation twenty two nine, or maybe it's Revelation nineteen ten. Nope, that's the wrong one. I don't know if I can find it easily on the spot, Revelation twenty two nine. Jesus says, see now that scripture is

an angel. I know there's a part in one of the Gospels. I would have to dig to find it. But there is a scripture where he's like, don't ever bow to me, don't take a rabbi, don't take a master. You know, we we worshiped God, we worshiped the Spirit.

You know what I'm saying. And then Paul came around, and it's like, you know, that's just where it turned into this like focus of you know, it's like we're all just gonna take Paul's word for it, right right, Why don't we just listen to Jesus, the guy who was like the sage exactly what's this telephone? What did he actually say? What did Jesus actually say versus what these other figures were saying about him many years after he died? And these rules and these regulations. I think people get

too caught up in the rules. Man. I remember being in church and being so obsessed with in the Pentecostal church, which we know that's hardcore. Down in the nitty gritty, there's a system here that I believe was never attainable, and it was like, first you have to be saved, right, you have to like give your life to Christ, and you know, say all this stuff, you know, the confession that like what Paul said. Then you have to be sanctified. Then you have to be filled with

the Holy Ghost. So it's like this these steps, that's like, you know, what did Jesus actually say? There's two commandments, Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And love your neighbor, do unto them as you would do unto yourself. You know. It's like I genuinely believe that Jesus was a wisdom's age and he was sort of like dispelling people's negative beliefs about God and the higher forces, and he was teaching them

how to connect with it. I think he was. I think Jesus was like trying to dispel There are several examples of him like actually shit talking the old way of like the Jewish system and and you know, the Temple texts and the Ten Commandments. He even says at one point, the law is cursed, and I bring a new law. Right. If he was trying to convince you to be part of like his religion, he wouldn't be saying, you know, the law is cursed, right. He said, there's

only two who laws. Love God, Love your neighbor. He didn't say worship me. He didn't say, you know all this shit, you gotta get baptized, you have to be saved, you have to yeah, none of you know, he didn't say any of that. It was just like every one of his teachings and parables were about like, for example, he tells a parable you know, when you harm someone physically, the sin is not in the act, it's in your heart. It's in the heart,

it's in the intention. Yeah. Or like when you speak to someone with negativity, you cut them. Your tongue is like a sword, Like you can cut people's soul with your negative intentions. Jesus's focus was all about the intention of the soul and how that reflects on other people. It was like, you know, I think about it, like you know, him trying to convince people like we're all divine, you know, why would you hurt you know, other people. You have to be loving to other people,

treat them as you would treat yourself. And then you know, my whole point here is they come around later and it's cut to you know, twenty twenty four and you go to church and it's thank you Jesus, thank you, Jesus. Praise Jesus, thank you Jesus. Yeah, we bless you, we worship you. Our wires got crossed. You know what I'm saying. People coming around after Jesus was dead and saying this stuff. Yes,

it's saying he appeared to me and said this. Yes, It's like, uh, well, we're just gonna throw away everything he actually said and take your word for it. Like, yes, what. So the deeper I get into this, the more I'm genuinely believing, like there is no one true system because I believe that God is beyond all the systems. You see what I'm saying. Like, I think that we've had it way the fuck

wrong. Yeah, and I think in the Age of Aquarius, we're going to step away from all these Like I think, like you can, you can have a religious system. I think it's natural for for you know, people have an NFL team, Dude, I was thinking that earlier. I was gonna make the fo I always make the football reference. People have a favorite musician, a favorite Like it's okay to have a system. Yeah, I'm not cursing. I'm just saying it's not the way, It's not the

only way. Like, yes, I think I think as long as you have that connection within yourself to God and to the light and to you know, to helping other people, and you know, that's what matters. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you've been baptized, it doesn't matter if you've done communion, it doesn't matter if you've been circumcised and all the shit. Like, it's about your inner being. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It's not about where you go to church or temple or whatever. Yeah.

And I mean I know many people who are hip to this stuff and who still subscribe to, you know, a mainline exoteric religion, and it works great for them. Yeah. And like, the all that really matters is that the genuine connection that you feel inside is true and and the core is there. And it doesn't matter if you're Christian or Muslim, or it doesn't matter Buddhist whatever. If the core connection to God is there, then practice

however, you know, within whatever system works for you. There's no wrong answer, you know, unless the core is not there. I think elements of multiple of these are true, you know what I'm saying. Like, I do believe in angels. I believe a lot of the miracles in the Bible happened. I also believe a lot of the Buddhist miracles happened. Absolutely, I believe. You know, maybe in Mexico they were seeing mysterious things in the sky and they described them as snakes, betrayals, you know,

Like I think I think a lot of these things were happening. Yeah, you see what I'm saying. That's my point. Don't get so caught onto one. But I'm gonna move on here. For the first three hundred years after the death of Jesus, Christians were brutally persecuted by the Romans, especially by the Emperor Nero, who had an extreme disgust for Christianity. They were

tortured and slaughtered mass numbers by the thousands. Early Christianity, meaning like before it was officially you know, made the state religion, before it was even legal, it was actually what is known as a cult. It was literally a cult. It was a secret system that you know, if you were openly a Christian, you were executed. Yeah, literally like nope, you're

dead. And because they were under Roman rule and they were brutal, so they functioned in secret in literal like sepulchers, underground like terms, in people's private domiciles, wherever they could meet in secret. They shared the teachings of Jesus, you know, and it was a very strict, tight community. It was secret for hundreds of years while they're still being you know, slaughtered. In three hundred and twelve, the Battle of the Milvion Bridge takes place

between Emperor Constantine and Emperor Maxentius. Before the battle. Excuse me. Before the battle, Constantine praised to the Christian God. He's like, I need a miracle, you know, if you're real, give me favor in this battle. The legend goes, it's the miracle of the Son. He sees this symbol overlaid into the sun, and he takes it as a sign from the Christian God. He has all of his soldiers paint this symbol on their shields. You've seen the symbol. Everyone's seen the symbol. It's the little

symbol with the P and then the X on it. That's the symbol. And he won the battle. Constantine actually won the battle, so he conversed to Christianity. I think it's in three hundred and thirteen a d by that point. One year later, Constantine being the emperor, especially in more power now because he defeated Maxincius and took his you know, his domain or whatever, he decreed the Edict of Milan, which officially legalized Christianity. No more

persecution. But dude, three hundred and thirteen from zero, well, you know, thirty something, from thirty something to three hundred thirteen for three hundred years, and I'm going somewhere with this. Christians are being their skin peeled off and being burned alive, beheaded, put on crosses upside down, crucified, bled out, starved, tortured for three hundred years. Then the Emperor comes around. It's like, you know, I really like this. Actually,

let's go ahead, and like, I'm gonna be this. I'm gonna take this system. I know I've been killing y'all, but I really like this. I'm gonna be this. So he legalizes it. Then next thing, you know, he starts having like the Nicean Council and Constantine starts saying, okay, guys, here's how we're gonna be Christian. You know that that shit that I just converted to. So here's the rules. Okay, I'm gonna take y'all's religion that we've been you know, snuffing out for three

hundred years. And here's the creed. All these other versions of Christianity like the Gnostics, yeah, the Marcian Knights, the Evian Knites, the the Platonists, and there was another one. I can't remember the word off top of my head. It was another little heretical sectyall We're all dead. If you preach those other versions, You're gonna do this version, and only these texts are included. And you have to say the Creed, which you remember

the Creed, Yeah, the nice and Creed. You have to all that stuff that Paul said, like, you have to confess all that stuff. And then by three hundred and okay, so three twenty five is when the nice end is the niceeing Creed, the our Father who are in heaven Hell, that's the Lord's prayer. Oh right, right, okay, I forgot the nice and greed already. Three hundred and twenty five a d the council that I say it takes place, which is what I was just talking about.

They established the rule about how Jesus would be worshiped, how the religion would be you know, carried out, and the decree that Jesus is the divine Son of God. He decrees, yeah, Constantine decrees. All right, we're gonna celebrate Christmas. Uh. You know, I don't know that they called it Christmas. We talked about that in the previous episode last year. We talked about the origin of Christmas and where the word came from.

But Constantine decrees Okay, Jesus's birth is gonna be the same day as my previous god that I worshiped in the Roman pantheon, sol Invictus, who was of the Sun and had a virgin birth. Well, his birthday was December twenty fifth, So now Jesus is that day too. Scholars believe Jesus was probably born in August or September, you know what I'm saying. So like, he changed the system to where we would all observe it on this day,

changed the rules about it completely, took over. And then by three hundred and eighty, Emperor Theodosius the First officially decrees that Christianity is the state religion of the Roman Empire. And then we get into like the Roman Catholic territory where we start getting the popes pop up. The emperor eventually would dissolve and now you know, we have the pope, Like eventually they merged and

you started losing the emperors because the power went into the church. So like, I don't think people realize, like, sure, you might not be Catholic, but it don't matter, Like that's where your text, that's where the history of your text and your whole religious system comes from, you see

what I'm saying. So, like the people who were killing Jesus and snuffing him out and reviled his original message are the ones all these hundreds of years later Toko he was saying, it was like, here's the rules, follow it this way. Then it would be for hundreds of years before the Bible was even given to the common man. Oh yeah, where he could take it home and read it. And by the way, the Bible wasn't even published until I think like the three sixties or something like that, So it

was hundreds of years these different bodies of texts. We don't you know, the Roman people who were killing them. Now they're in charge. They're saying, we don't like this one, we don't like this one, all this gnostic stuff, we don't like that, we don't like that these sixty six these are what you get, and this is how you're gonna believe it. And uh, we'll kill you. Yeah, we were killing you for being Christian. Now we're gonna kill you if you do it a different ways.

So wild, Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. I don't think people like really realize that, like realize that's where the text comes from. It's It's also interesting that it went that way because if you look at the timeline, it's not it's not like exactly right next to each other, but it is right around the same time Rome was beginning to fall, like the grip, the Roman grip on the world was beginning to buckle a little bit, and within easily within a hundred years of that, Rome was just it fell.

It is. It was not they were not in power anymore. It's almost like what if, like the Roman Empire never like fell, it just became the Church. That's exactly what I think happened. It just they were like, we got to do something with all this money, with all this stuff we stole, with all this power we've established, we can't just let it die. Let's just hide it in the Vatican, just hide it in the church. Let's bastardize this stuff, and let's see, let's see if we

can do something here. The other thing I want people to consider is we have to understand the Romans had a system that was very similar to Greece. That was, you know, it was just like you have the main gods that are typically based on the planets. You have like zeus Hera, all that, but they have different names, like Jupiter Venus. Yeah, it's the same thing. They took it. They took their stuff, changed the name, and they're like, uh, you know, we're killing people who

aren't into this, but now we're gonna take Christianity. Wait a minute, but I really liked Hercules how he was this kind of like semi divine figure who came from God. Okay, so let's let's do the same thing with Jesus. You see what I'm saying. Like they took this dude who they killed, literally ponscious pilot, the Roman governor killed him, and they're like, but I like the divine element. I missed that, you know what I'm saying. You remember that shit that was cool? And they made Jesus

this like Hercules, you know, demi god. It's because like Hercules was like Heracles was like the champion of the people. It's like he wasn't a god, but he was at this. He's a person, so the people can get behind him, but he's also godly and so it's something to aspire to. It's like inspiring, you know, It's like that archetype people. It was really easy for people to get behind Heracles so they were like they're onto something there. Yeah, and then you know, condemn everybody that doesn't

believe it this way. It's just it's it's really insane, like it's it's super insane. So then at some point, let me, let me see exactly when this happened. But they had the Second Council of Constantinople. I spelled that wrong, Second Council of Constantinople in five hundred and fifty three.

So we have evidence that one of the main Christian writers at the time that this council took place was named origin And back in the day when when Christianity was still in its early phases, you know, as it was back then, you had different sects, right, You had this writer, you had this writer, Augustine Origin, YadA, YadA, YadA, and they all

had their like little different ideas about it. Originism. One of the main tenets of Originism was transubstantiation of the soul, meaning we reincarnate to God. That was an official position of Christianity in the five hundreds, which was so popular at the time that even the Pope at the time was known to be into Originism. Right, So then we have in five hundred and fifty three the Second Council of Constantinople. One of the main tenets of this council they

banned organism, They made it heresy. Yeah, you talk about reincarnation now and the last thing people think is the Bible or Christianity or Jesus. Yeah, because they snuffed it out. Ye, and they removed it from history. If they did it once, look they did it twice. You know. Yeah, they're just pulling whatever they don't like, whatever they can't use to control people, you know, pull it out and you know, ban it. Tell people you'll kill them if they believe it. Right, evil.

But you know the point here is like, okay, so we know that the Romans who were killing Christians had a completely different religion, took it, changed it, made the rules, made the laws, didn't even let you have the book in your house until it was translated for the masses, and like I don't know, the fifteen or sixteen hundreds, you know, by King James, and then by the way they translated a lot of that stuff out and simplified it. And then you know, I grew up in

the Pentecostal Church. The King James versions the only true version Yep, I have heard that in my whole life. I only read the King James. You know, all the other ones are from sin, They're from hell. You ever try to translate, like just talking about the New Testament, at least, you ever try to translate Greek to English. It don't happen very easy. There's a lot of weirdness when you translate that stuff over. But it's like it's sacred, it's it's the word of God. King James is

the only word of God. Yeah, all the other ones are born from the fires of Hell. Absolutely. Yeah. I heard that my whole life. Oh yeah, dude. I used to think, like it's so deep, Like in the King James version, the official phrases the Holy Ghost. Yeah, remember that, I'm filled with the Holy Ghost. Well it's like, okay, well, the Holy Spirit is commonly not in the King James Bible, so we don't say the Holy Spirit that's in them charismatic churches.

We only believe in the Holy Ghost. It's like what I used to feel guilty if I said the Holy Spirit, you know what I mean? Really? Yeah, because no, because that's not how it is in the King James. It's the Holy Ghost. Wow. See. I mean it's deep Pentecostal, so they're real, real serious about it. It was never that deep with like I heard Holy Spirit just as often as I heard Holy ghosts.

There was no weirdness there. That's wild because that like it ingrained it in you that if you said the word spirit that well it's not that they said it's not that they said that. But I questioned, like, Okay, yeah, I'm reading from you know, a bad books, like I shouldn't say this. That's not how it is. You see what I'm saying. And it's like like if you just zoom out and you look at it all, it's like people are killing each other over this shit. Oh yeah,

have been for thousands of years. Yeah and then still are yeah, still are literally And like, dude and I just had the brilliant idea, we need to do a Gnostic Wisdom Tradition episode. We've never done a full episode on gnosticism dude, period, Like, we have never done a full lips The closest thing we've done is episode eighteen Lord of the Rings with Gnostic themes, right right, we need to do We need to do Anostic episode. I'm gonna go deep for that. Because it's it's it's a topic that

I'm passionate about. But like, I think the gateway to opening your mind from like being so strict about how to understand and perceive the Bible is understanding that Gnosticism was a real historical movement. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, and I'll spare the details for a later episode. But essentially, they are texts that were authentically dated purported to be written by people in Jesus's vicinity, you know, his friends, his followers, They're just as old as

the real gospels. And yet at the time, you know, when these emperors were creating the Bible and creating these creeds in these conventions, they were decreeing that gnosticism was heretical, and they were burning people at the stake for teaching this. Yeah, what did the Gnostics say? Oh, well, how about the Secret Gospel of John that says, you know that he had a private conversation with Jesus and it was about how we exist in the nightmare

realm and this world is an illusion. It's like your body is born into a prison and the goal is to ascend through lifetimes to return to the mind of God. You know the all the universe or whatever. It has its own terminology, and it's crazy man. And then you poke open through the gnostic system, and it just basically turns out according to that view, Jesus was a sage who was teaching like love and light, how to reach enlightenment,

to cease the necessity for reincarnation. The basic principle is, like you're born here, it's a test. It's like a nightmare. It's like a bad dream. The matrix, you could say, and the whole purpose is to Jesus says something to the effect of, like the way I've lived, the way I am, you know, use that as your example, like be like me. Basically, be like me, and your light will be lit and you'll awaken. You won't need to reincarnate here anymore. The nightmare

will be over. You'll go home to the source, you know. So it's a completely different view from canonical Christianity. And yet these texts are authentically as old and they're found in clay pots in the desert of nagh Hamadi, Egypt, in like nineteen fifty two or something like that. So I understand when when you know all of these elements and then you look at like the formation of the Bible, the counsels, the rulings of how these texture considered

canon. This is doctrine, this is heresy. It's just a big mess. Yeah, And it's just it feels so interesting that like they would go to the lengths of burning and torturing and killing these people, like, you know, you would think if it was just a matter of you have to

you know, you should be believing the same stuff we are. It's like, are you really are they really going to spend all that time and resources hunting people down just for not believing, or are they worried that they're spreading the truth and they don't want the truth to get around, right, because they'll lose their grit, right, that seems more likely. Why would they

ban reincarnation Why, oh, because it's evil? Well yeah, but I mean if people believed that, oh man, this life really is an illusion. And like, you know, I've I've been here many times, and I'm ascending to higher levels of consciousness and trying to like I have a genuine reason over my head other than fear of hell and death, to like try to be good and enlighten people around me. Maybe the Emperor would have a little bit less control over how I think and how I view the world and

how I see things. Yep, you know, and the belief there is. Emperor Justinian was concerned, you know, that there would be too much free thought if they, you know, were aware of reincarnation. Free thought is like the death of control, right, Yeah, they can't have that. Yeah, it's so it's it's fucked out super deep. I hope you guys enjoyed that one. I'm all out of notes, so yeah, that

was that was comprehensive. That was That was really cool. Yeah, I dug that and oh my god, gnosticism that will be that will be just as cool. Yeah, that'll be a fun one, especially when we like pick like how we did with previous Wisdom Tradition episodes and like read from the text. Yeah, that's gonna be like what Yeah, there's there's some deep story that should be like the next Mystery Traditions. I'm down, I'm I'm down. Yeah, all right, sweet bye guys, love y'all. Bye,

guys. Weird things happen in the backyard of Bletsoe House. Yeah, god, it's so weird. You're coming cluster to her like smirring on the inside of it. No one knows man just come right over side being a happy