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(person roaring)
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(dramatic piano music)
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(soothing piano music)
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- If you're one of the world's
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2.2 billion Christians
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wow, that's a lot of people.
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You probably think that
around 2,000 years ago
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here in the Nazareth mountains,
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in the Galilee region of modern Israel,
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a man known as Jesus Christ was born.
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You probably think of Him as the Messiah,
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the son of Yahweh, the God of the Jews.
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But, if you're one of the other
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5 billion people on the planet,
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you probably just think of Jesus
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as some kind of wise man
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who had a religious cult
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built up around him after his death.
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Or maybe you're one of those people
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who believe he never even really existed
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he's just some kind of literary myth,
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like a Hercules or King Arthur.
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But whichever camp you're in,
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I think we can all agree
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that Jesus is one of the most influential
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and intriguing figures
in all of world history.
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About 40 years ago,
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when I was a good little Catholic boy
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going to Sunday school,
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I was taught the story of Jesus.
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It went something like this.
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- [Narrator] About 2,000 years ago,
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a young married woman, still a virgin,
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was made pregnant by the God of the Jews.
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She gave birth to a baby in a barn.
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And three wise men found
Him by following a star
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so they could worship Him
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and give some gold and scented oils.
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When He grew up, Jesus
walked around Judea,
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telling thousands of people He was God
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and performing miracles,
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such as magically making
fish and bread appear,
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turning water into wine,
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and raising people from the dead.
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One night, He told his
friends to eat some bread,
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which was His flesh
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and drink some wine, which was His blood.
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Then, the Jewish authorities
who were angry with him,
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turned him over to the Romans
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who actually wanted to let Him go.
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But the Jews convinced
them to crucify Him.
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But then a few days later,
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He rose from the dead
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and told His friends
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that dying was secretly the plan all along
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because His death wiped
out the sins of the world.
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His friends wrote down what happened
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in a book and started a new religion.
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But then, the Romans
started persecuting them
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until one day, the Romans
changed their minds
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and decided to become Christians instead.
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At the end of the world,
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Jesus will return to judge
the living and the dead.
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- To be honest when I was a little kid,
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the story didn't make
a lot of sense to me.
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I remember thinking,
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so this dude has magical
powers, and he's invisible,
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and watching me when I sleep at night?
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It all seemed a little bit creepy.
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But as an adult, I started learning more
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about the history of early Christianity.
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As I read the Bible more carefully,
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and read the works of modern
New Testament scholars
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and ancient historians,
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I started to realize
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that the Sunday school
version of the Jesus story,
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was vastly different to the story
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as it appears in the Bible.
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The actual story is far more complicated,
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and far more interesting.
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So I thought I'd go out
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and interview a range of
world-renowned biblical scholars,
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and historians and academics.
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And ask them to help me tell the story,
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of how Christianity
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went from being some sort of
fringe Jewish personality cult,
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from the backwaters of the Roman empire,
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to a point where it was the
state religion of that empire,
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wielding enormous power over
the emperors themselves.
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00:04:01,610 --> 00:04:05,320
So let's get back to the Sunday
school version of the story.
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What do scholars think about
how accurate that version is.
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- Research that was happening
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at the beginning of the 20th century.
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A German scholar Walter Bauer,
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came to the conclusion
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that in fact, that picture
is a very manufactured one.
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- And it's not like Jesus
was walking around Palestine
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saying, "Hi, I'm God.
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"I'm gonna die for your sins soon.
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"But until then, how about I tell you
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"a few good cracking
Sunday school stories,
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"and then afterwards you can
get down with worshiping me."
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That may be the basic view,
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but that's not quite what happened.
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- [Cameron] So how did it happen?
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How did that version become the story
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most of my Christian
friends seem to believe?
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- A lot of Christians don't
actually read the Bible.
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And if they do read the Bible,
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they don't read it historically.
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They don't read it thinking about,
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what the story is telling you
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about the origins of Christianity.
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- They look at this uplifting passage
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or that uplifting passage.
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They don't compare the
Gospels to one another.
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They don't look at the really weird stuff.
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So they feel like they know the Bible,
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but it's a very selective knowledge.
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It's a sort of greatest hits
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or the most uplifting,
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most seemingly relevant
stuff to the 21st century.
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- They're looking for a single verse
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that will inspire them for
their journey that day.
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And that's perfectly fine,
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there's no criticism of that.
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But the problem with that approach,
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is that you're not
actually reading the Bible
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as it's intended to be read.
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- Christians read bits,
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but do they read it systematically?
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Well, systematically but not necessarily
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for historical reasons.
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Systematically to clarify their beliefs.
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- And they just sort of don't get to see,
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all the really strange stuff,
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all the contradictions,
all the discrepancies.
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- How do you go from being a religion,
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that celebrates somebody who
has died on a Roman cross,
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to a religion that celebrates that cross
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and takes that cross forward into battle?
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That's the story of
Christianity within 300 years.
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Going from a superstition
to being the state religion,
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that's absolutely extraordinary.
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And that is what the early
Roman historians called it,
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they called it a superstition.
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- But before we get
into the story of Jesus,
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I think we need to wind the
clock back a little bit,
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and talk about the world
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into which Christianity was born.
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(calm ancient music)
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A long time ago,
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there was a man known as Lord,
Liberator, Redeemer, Savior,
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simultaneously, fully
human and fully divine.
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The son of God and God.
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The bringer of peace and salvation,
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sent into the world in the form of a man
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to forgive the sins of the people.
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(lively orchestral music)
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♪ Hallelujah. ♪
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That's Augustus Caesar.
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If you ask most people
living in the Roman empire,
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right about the time Jesus was born,
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who the Son of God was,
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most of them would have
told you it was this guy.
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Augustus was the adopted son
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of the original JC, Julius Caesar.
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The great Roman general
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who was stabbed to death in 44 BCE.
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After he was assassinated,
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the Roman Senate declared
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that he ascended into the
heavens to become a god.
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And Augustus as his adopted son
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was therefore called?
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- Divi Filius, the son of the deified.
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It was new to Rome,
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because it was Augustus himself,
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who saw what he thought was the soul of,
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or a part of Caesars'
going up to the heavens.
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And that's why he can then claim
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that he is the son, the adopted son
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not the natural son, clearly,
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the son of a divinity.
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- [Cameron] Another title
bestowed upon Augustus was savior,
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because he ended a 100 years of civil war.
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- He brought peace, he
brought peace to Rome.
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He brought peace to the empire.
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- And then, according to tradition
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somewhere around the middle
of the reign of Augustus,
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Jesus was born.
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(lively orchestral music)
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So several decades before Jesus
even appears on the scene,
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Romans are pretty familiar with the idea
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that somebody can die and become a god,
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or be the son of a god
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and the savior of mankind.
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So who exactly was Jesus?
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Well, it kind of depends on who you ask.
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Some scholars believe he
was an apocalyptic preacher
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or a political troublemaker.
201
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Others think he was more of a wise sage,
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or a hippie pacifist who
preached love and brotherhood.
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It's a little bit strange
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that after 2,000 years,
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scholars still can't agree
on exactly who Jesus was.
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One thing they all do agree on though,
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Jesus was a Jew.
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(playful instrumental music)
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If you look at pictures of
Jesus in most churches today,
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you'll see a white guy
with long brown hair,
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neatly trimmed beard, blue eyes.
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But Christianity started out
as a Jewish personality cult,
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Jesus was a Jew.
214
00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:23,830
So he probably would
have looked more like,
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I don't know, DJ Khaled than Jared Leto.
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He would have been a dark-skinned,
217
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brown-eyed Palestinian.
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Let's put it this way,
219
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if Jesus returned and
tried to board a plane
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00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:37,810
in the United States today
221
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he'd probably get taken
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into a little room and randomly
screened (siren ringing)
223
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And when I say Jesus was a Jew,
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I don't just mean ethnically a Jew,
225
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I mean a religious Jew.
226
00:09:49,230 --> 00:09:51,450
In fact, he was a very religious Jew,
227
00:09:51,450 --> 00:09:54,380
and so were most of the
early members of his sect.
228
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- Jesus is Torah observant,
229
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Peter is Torah observant,
230
00:09:57,870 --> 00:09:59,830
James is Torah observant,
231
00:09:59,830 --> 00:10:01,790
and Paul is Torah observant.
232
00:10:01,790 --> 00:10:03,970
- [Narrator] The Torah
is the first five books
233
00:10:03,970 --> 00:10:05,380
of the Hebrew Bible.
234
00:10:05,380 --> 00:10:08,110
What Christians call, the Old Testament.
235
00:10:08,110 --> 00:10:11,930
- Jesus and the guys who
ran his group after he died,
236
00:10:11,930 --> 00:10:13,730
Peter, the guy he left in charge,
237
00:10:13,730 --> 00:10:16,420
and James, who according to tradition
238
00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:18,740
was one of Jesus' brothers,
239
00:10:18,740 --> 00:10:21,880
were Jews, not Christians.
240
00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:25,220
And they weren't trying
to start a new religion.
241
00:10:25,220 --> 00:10:27,850
They weren't trying to reject Judaism,
242
00:10:27,850 --> 00:10:29,930
they were just trying to fix it.
243
00:10:29,930 --> 00:10:32,320
- Jesus was not only Torah observant,
244
00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:35,780
he actually made the law
stricter rather than looser.
245
00:10:35,780 --> 00:10:37,300
The law says, "Don't commit adultery,"
246
00:10:37,300 --> 00:10:39,920
Jesus says, "Don't think
about it," that's harder.
247
00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:41,290
The laws says, "Don't murder,"
248
00:10:41,290 --> 00:10:43,390
Jesus says, "Don't be angry."
249
00:10:43,390 --> 00:10:48,390
- Jesus was a first century
AD Galilean Jewish prophet.
250
00:10:48,550 --> 00:10:49,860
He was a prophet who believed
251
00:10:49,860 --> 00:10:51,970
that God was about to intervene
252
00:10:51,970 --> 00:10:53,960
decisively in human history.
253
00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:56,740
- And being a religious
Jew in the first century,
254
00:10:56,740 --> 00:10:58,690
must have been pretty depressing.
255
00:10:58,690 --> 00:10:59,940
For hundreds of years,
256
00:10:59,940 --> 00:11:04,040
Jewish prophets had promised
that their God, Yahweh,
257
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:08,070
really thought they were
pretty, pretty special.
258
00:11:08,070 --> 00:11:09,660
They were his favorite tribe.
259
00:11:09,660 --> 00:11:11,210
He had their back,
260
00:11:11,210 --> 00:11:14,270
and he was gonna make
sure they ruled the world.
261
00:11:14,270 --> 00:11:17,610
But for some reason,
Yahweh hadn't delivered.
262
00:11:17,610 --> 00:11:19,520
Century after century,
263
00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:22,350
the Jews had been invaded and conquered.
264
00:11:22,350 --> 00:11:25,850
In fact, just a few years
after Jesus was born,
265
00:11:25,850 --> 00:11:30,810
his homeland had finally become
an official Roman province.
266
00:11:30,810 --> 00:11:31,940
- Jewish people could see
267
00:11:31,940 --> 00:11:34,350
that things were not
going particularly well,
268
00:11:34,350 --> 00:11:36,170
things were not flourishing.
269
00:11:36,170 --> 00:11:39,030
They were subject to external powers,
270
00:11:39,030 --> 00:11:42,450
whether they'd be the great
kings, the solicit kings,
271
00:11:42,450 --> 00:11:45,200
or whether it be the Romans later on.
272
00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:47,090
- Instead of coming to the conclusion,
273
00:11:47,090 --> 00:11:49,620
that their prophets were wrong,
274
00:11:49,620 --> 00:11:52,690
or that Yahweh had lied to them,
275
00:11:52,690 --> 00:11:56,160
the Jews just decided they
must have disappointed Him
276
00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:01,100
and He was ignoring them or
not answering their prayers.
277
00:12:01,100 --> 00:12:04,890
So anyway, the Jews decided
they had to be better,
278
00:12:04,890 --> 00:12:09,488
and make Yahweh happy
with them again, but how?
279
00:12:09,488 --> 00:12:13,238
(playful instrumental music)
280
00:12:14,969 --> 00:12:17,260
- The most important thing to know,
281
00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:19,830
is that there was no agreed standard,
282
00:12:19,830 --> 00:12:22,780
of what being a good Jew
was in the first century.
283
00:12:22,780 --> 00:12:24,240
- Just like there are hundreds
284
00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:27,660
of different versions
of Christianity today,
285
00:12:27,660 --> 00:12:30,370
and they all think that
they are the right one.
286
00:12:30,370 --> 00:12:31,540
We know that in the first century,
287
00:12:31,540 --> 00:12:35,760
there were lots of different
versions of Judaism as well.
288
00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:37,840
And they were all trying to figure out
289
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,040
the magic trick to get them back,
290
00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:42,530
into Yahweh's good book.
291
00:12:42,530 --> 00:12:44,370
- This is a situation
292
00:12:44,370 --> 00:12:46,730
that is eventually going
to be rectified by God.
293
00:12:46,730 --> 00:12:48,930
Destroy the Roman oppressors,
294
00:12:48,930 --> 00:12:52,170
think end of "Raiders of
the Lost Ark" for instance,
295
00:12:52,170 --> 00:12:55,236
where the fire comes down
and burns up all the Nazis.
296
00:12:55,236 --> 00:12:56,840
That's probably the view
297
00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,230
that a decent number of Jews had.
298
00:12:59,230 --> 00:13:01,670
- Now, some Jews living
in the first century,
299
00:13:01,670 --> 00:13:05,940
believe that God was going
to send someone to save them.
300
00:13:05,940 --> 00:13:08,453
They called that person, the Messiah.
301
00:13:08,453 --> 00:13:11,036
(gentle music)
302
00:13:14,210 --> 00:13:17,470
- So how do you know who's a Messiah?
303
00:13:17,470 --> 00:13:19,730
Different people will give
you different answers,
304
00:13:19,730 --> 00:13:22,519
and there were different
messianic candidates to follow.
305
00:13:22,519 --> 00:13:24,830
(pages fluttering)
306
00:13:24,830 --> 00:13:28,230
- Oh, I'm just looking
for the official guide
307
00:13:28,230 --> 00:13:30,410
to knowing who the chosen one is.
308
00:13:30,410 --> 00:13:33,950
I'm sure it's gotta be in here
somewhere (pages fluttering)
309
00:13:33,950 --> 00:13:36,300
- There's no messianic
checklist in Judaism,
310
00:13:36,300 --> 00:13:38,090
as if, you make sure
your mother is a virgin
311
00:13:38,090 --> 00:13:39,230
when you're conceived,
312
00:13:39,230 --> 00:13:41,560
walk on water, raise the dead,
313
00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:42,950
die a sacrificial death
314
00:13:42,950 --> 00:13:45,440
come back after three days, and ascend.
315
00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:48,100
Some Jews were expecting a shepherd,
316
00:13:48,100 --> 00:13:50,870
others were expecting the Angel Michael,
317
00:13:50,870 --> 00:13:53,210
still others were expecting a priest,
318
00:13:53,210 --> 00:13:55,050
and still others, a warrior.
319
00:13:55,050 --> 00:13:57,810
Some people thought John
the Baptist was the Messiah,
320
00:13:57,810 --> 00:14:01,360
and he doesn't fit any of those
categories (book slamming)
321
00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:02,738
- When you use the term Messiah,
322
00:14:02,738 --> 00:14:05,050
Messiah is fine, it means anointed,
323
00:14:05,050 --> 00:14:07,760
it means that God has
anointed this person with oil.
324
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:09,040
But when you're talking about Messiah,
325
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:10,970
you're really talking about somebody
326
00:14:10,970 --> 00:14:13,010
who is a king, in the line of
327
00:14:13,010 --> 00:14:16,180
the greatest of all the
Jewish kings, King David.
328
00:14:16,180 --> 00:14:18,090
And lots of Jews believed that,
329
00:14:18,090 --> 00:14:19,770
a King David-like figure,
330
00:14:19,770 --> 00:14:22,450
would establish himself in Jerusalem,
331
00:14:22,450 --> 00:14:25,760
and he would transform Israel.
332
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,400
- Restore the kingdom
politically was part of that.
333
00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:30,480
Bring the people back from exile,
334
00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:32,433
set up the homeland again,
335
00:14:33,350 --> 00:14:37,720
restore their independence,
drive out the foreign invader.
336
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:39,250
- [Cameron] Some Jews thought the Messiah
337
00:14:39,250 --> 00:14:40,820
was gonna be a great warrior
338
00:14:40,820 --> 00:14:43,700
to lead them to a military victory.
339
00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:47,120
Others thought he might
be a charismatic preacher,
340
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:49,520
who would convince the entire world
341
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:50,973
to believe in Yahweh.
342
00:14:51,820 --> 00:14:56,010
Others, they didn't think
about the Messiah much at all.
343
00:14:56,010 --> 00:14:58,620
- Not all Jews wanted a Messiah.
344
00:14:58,620 --> 00:14:59,940
Because normally if someone's going around
345
00:14:59,940 --> 00:15:01,130
calling themselves a Messiah,
346
00:15:01,130 --> 00:15:02,430
it's gonna lead to war,
347
00:15:02,430 --> 00:15:06,150
war means death, famine,
bloodshed, that type of thing.
348
00:15:06,150 --> 00:15:08,110
So not everyone wanted a Messiah,
349
00:15:08,110 --> 00:15:09,670
not everyone even believed in one.
350
00:15:09,670 --> 00:15:12,580
- So there's a variety of expectations.
351
00:15:12,580 --> 00:15:13,660
Certainly the dominant one,
352
00:15:13,660 --> 00:15:16,630
is this political military figure.
353
00:15:16,630 --> 00:15:18,503
- So why is this important?
354
00:15:18,503 --> 00:15:20,770
Well, when Jesus is dragged
355
00:15:20,770 --> 00:15:25,270
before the Roman Governor
of Judea, Pontius Pilate,
356
00:15:25,270 --> 00:15:27,020
the charges laid against him,
357
00:15:27,020 --> 00:15:30,890
are that he's claiming to
be the Christos, the Christ.
358
00:15:30,890 --> 00:15:33,840
Which is just the Greek word for Messiah.
359
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:38,720
In other words, he's claiming
to be the King of the Jews.
360
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:41,777
- [Narrator] Mark 15:2,
"Pilate asked Jesus,
361
00:15:41,777 --> 00:15:44,440
"Are you the King of the Jews?"
362
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:47,810
- Judea at the time was ruled by Rome.
363
00:15:47,810 --> 00:15:50,390
They didn't have a king of their own.
364
00:15:50,390 --> 00:15:52,420
They had a governor who reported
365
00:15:52,420 --> 00:15:56,070
to the Roman Emperor, Tiberius Caesar.
366
00:15:56,070 --> 00:15:57,340
Claiming to be the Messiah,
367
00:15:57,340 --> 00:16:00,650
was an act of political
rebellion against Rome.
368
00:16:00,650 --> 00:16:02,630
A modern equivalent would be,
369
00:16:02,630 --> 00:16:07,630
declaring you're the rightful
King of the United States.
370
00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:09,140
Now the important thing to understand
371
00:16:09,140 --> 00:16:11,530
about the Jewish concept of a Messiah,
372
00:16:11,530 --> 00:16:14,020
was that he wasn't supposed to be divine,
373
00:16:14,020 --> 00:16:16,470
and he wasn't gonna have magical powers,
374
00:16:16,470 --> 00:16:19,390
he was just gonna be a regular man.
375
00:16:19,390 --> 00:16:21,870
- They did sometimes
talk about the Messiah
376
00:16:21,870 --> 00:16:22,920
as the son of God,
377
00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:25,170
but not in the later Christian sense.
378
00:16:25,170 --> 00:16:26,180
They meant son of God,
379
00:16:26,180 --> 00:16:28,130
in the sense of good Israelite,
380
00:16:28,130 --> 00:16:30,410
because all Israelites are sons of God
381
00:16:30,410 --> 00:16:32,220
in the adopted sense.
382
00:16:32,220 --> 00:16:34,220
- Anointed by God, special to God,
383
00:16:34,220 --> 00:16:36,930
but like their kings David, Solomon,
384
00:16:36,930 --> 00:16:40,660
and the other good
kings, yeah, fully human.
385
00:16:40,660 --> 00:16:43,900
- Somebody that God has
placed on the throne,
386
00:16:43,900 --> 00:16:45,920
to rule in his stead.
387
00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:47,220
But it doesn't really mean,
388
00:16:47,220 --> 00:16:48,300
somebody who has,
389
00:16:48,300 --> 00:16:49,980
from all time been sitting
390
00:16:49,980 --> 00:16:51,610
at the right hand of God, the Father.
391
00:16:51,610 --> 00:16:53,080
It's a different concept from that,
392
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:54,040
it's much more Jewish,
393
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:55,670
and it's much more grounded than that.
394
00:16:55,670 --> 00:16:57,724
- The Son of God,
395
00:16:57,724 --> 00:17:00,580
would only have been used,
396
00:17:00,580 --> 00:17:04,995
I think in a metaphorical sense,
397
00:17:04,995 --> 00:17:08,400
not in the way that we come to expect
398
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:09,450
with Christian doctrine.
399
00:17:09,450 --> 00:17:13,210
- The early Christians took
that and ran with it further.
400
00:17:13,210 --> 00:17:14,510
- It really does remind me
401
00:17:14,510 --> 00:17:16,240
of how Augustus Caesar,
402
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,620
was anointed to be the adopted son
403
00:17:19,620 --> 00:17:22,030
of his father, Julius Caesar,
404
00:17:22,030 --> 00:17:24,900
and therefore became the son of god.
405
00:17:24,900 --> 00:17:28,200
Here's an interesting
thing about Jesus' name.
406
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:30,600
In Hebrew, his name was Yeshua,
407
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:35,600
which basically translates
as God saves or savior.
408
00:17:35,770 --> 00:17:38,907
And as we've already seen,
Christ means Messiah,
409
00:17:38,907 --> 00:17:41,990
and the Messiah was
supposed to be the Savior.
410
00:17:41,990 --> 00:17:43,950
So Jesus, the Christ,
411
00:17:43,950 --> 00:17:47,210
translates as Savior, the Savior.
412
00:17:47,210 --> 00:17:50,560
According to the Jewish
historian Josephus,
413
00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:52,640
there were actually quite a few guys
414
00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:55,300
who people thought might be the Messiah,
415
00:17:55,300 --> 00:17:56,980
walking around Judea,
416
00:17:56,980 --> 00:18:01,020
roughly around about
the same time as Jesus.
417
00:18:01,020 --> 00:18:04,610
None of them succeeded, they all failed.
418
00:18:04,610 --> 00:18:06,620
They were all killed,
419
00:18:06,620 --> 00:18:09,030
and can you really be the Messiah
420
00:18:09,030 --> 00:18:11,020
if you don't achieve anything?
421
00:18:11,020 --> 00:18:12,810
- Which is why the vast majority of Jews
422
00:18:12,810 --> 00:18:15,520
in the middle of the first
century don't follow Jesus.
423
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:20,040
- Because a Messiah was not
supposed to die on a cross,
424
00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:21,660
executed by the Romans,
425
00:18:21,660 --> 00:18:22,770
because this is somebody
426
00:18:22,770 --> 00:18:27,010
who's supposed to lead a
successful military victory.
427
00:18:27,010 --> 00:18:31,560
If you just get executed
as a revolutionary,
428
00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:34,280
in the eyes of most
Jews that rules you out.
429
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,110
- [Cameron] Can't possibly be the Messiah.
430
00:18:36,110 --> 00:18:39,743
- Can't be the Messiah in
that precise understanding.
431
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:42,620
So what they, they re-interpret,
432
00:18:42,620 --> 00:18:45,987
they re-invent the meaning of the word.
433
00:18:45,987 --> 00:18:49,570
(funny instrumental music)
434
00:18:51,260 --> 00:18:55,210
- A crucified Messiah was
kind of like fried ice cream.
435
00:18:55,210 --> 00:18:56,680
It's an oxymoron, it's a paradox,
436
00:18:56,680 --> 00:18:58,670
and the Messiah doesn't get crucified.
437
00:18:58,670 --> 00:19:01,070
He rises up, defeats the Romans,
438
00:19:01,070 --> 00:19:03,524
and establishes a new divided kingdom.
439
00:19:03,524 --> 00:19:04,610
- What is this?
440
00:19:04,610 --> 00:19:06,200
So you wanna be a Messiah?
441
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,950
- Well, the Messiah actually.
- Okay.
442
00:19:08,950 --> 00:19:10,990
Did you kick the Romans out of Judea?
443
00:19:10,990 --> 00:19:13,030
- Well, no, not yet, but I tried.
444
00:19:13,030 --> 00:19:15,710
- Have you converted the world to Judaism?
445
00:19:15,710 --> 00:19:17,253
- No, I'm planning on
it, but you know it's a...
446
00:19:17,253 --> 00:19:19,760
- Did you bring about world
peace in your lifetime?
447
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:20,935
- Well, not yet, no but...
448
00:19:20,935 --> 00:19:23,230
- (laughs) Boy bye, you really don't have
449
00:19:23,230 --> 00:19:26,090
the qualifications to be
the Messiah, now do you?
450
00:19:26,090 --> 00:19:27,850
Maybe you should try carpentry.
451
00:19:27,850 --> 00:19:31,770
I see you have some
experience in that area, next.
452
00:19:31,770 --> 00:19:33,760
- So someone came up with the idea,
453
00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,760
to pitch the concept of the
Messiah to the Gentiles.
454
00:19:38,770 --> 00:19:41,853
(speaking gibberish)
455
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,880
- Wait, I've got an idea.
456
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:48,226
What if we market it to Gentiles?
457
00:19:48,226 --> 00:19:51,320
(audience laughs)
458
00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:55,370
- So what you see in
early Christian writings,
459
00:19:55,370 --> 00:19:58,810
is a sort of re-definition of a Messiah.
460
00:19:58,810 --> 00:20:01,790
- Which is a pretty wacky
idea when you think about it,
461
00:20:01,790 --> 00:20:04,200
because the whole point of the Messiah,
462
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,860
was he was supposed to save
the Jews from the Gentiles,
463
00:20:07,860 --> 00:20:10,310
not save the Gentiles.
464
00:20:10,310 --> 00:20:12,860
- [Narrator] A Gentile is
someone who isn't Jewish.
465
00:20:13,820 --> 00:20:17,130
- But of course, the
Gentiles didn't know that.
466
00:20:17,130 --> 00:20:18,760
They didn't know that the Messiah
467
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:21,550
was supposed to come and defeat them.
468
00:20:21,550 --> 00:20:23,820
And they had already been indoctrinated,
469
00:20:23,820 --> 00:20:25,640
over the last 100 years,
470
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,260
with the idea that a man could die
471
00:20:28,260 --> 00:20:29,500
and become a god,
472
00:20:29,500 --> 00:20:32,920
so why not this Jesus guy?
473
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:35,230
The Greeks and Romans already accepted
474
00:20:35,230 --> 00:20:37,610
a whole pantheon of gods.
475
00:20:37,610 --> 00:20:40,910
So there was no big deal
about adding one more,
476
00:20:40,910 --> 00:20:43,040
especially if this one is promising,
477
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:45,220
that the end of the world is coming soon
478
00:20:45,220 --> 00:20:48,120
and that people who pray to him, as a God,
479
00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:50,970
will get the reward of eternal paradise.
480
00:20:50,970 --> 00:20:54,310
Something the older gods didn't promise.
481
00:20:54,310 --> 00:20:56,990
And who was the number one salesman
482
00:20:56,990 --> 00:20:59,265
for this new kind of Messiah?
483
00:20:59,265 --> 00:21:03,015
(ominous instrumental music)
484
00:21:04,510 --> 00:21:06,500
- The earliest references to Jesus
485
00:21:06,500 --> 00:21:08,940
come from the letters of the Apostle Paul.
486
00:21:08,940 --> 00:21:11,510
- [Cameron] The New Testament
contains 14 letters,
487
00:21:11,510 --> 00:21:13,980
supposedly written by Paul.
488
00:21:13,980 --> 00:21:15,730
But, many scholars only believe
489
00:21:15,730 --> 00:21:19,070
seven of those are authentic.
490
00:21:19,070 --> 00:21:20,900
Despite his letters being stuffed down
491
00:21:20,900 --> 00:21:22,910
the back of the New Testament.
492
00:21:22,910 --> 00:21:24,840
Paul is actually the first person,
493
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:28,430
who ever wrote anything about Jesus,
494
00:21:28,430 --> 00:21:30,300
at least as far as we know.
495
00:21:30,300 --> 00:21:32,680
But Paul was a bit like
that friend you have,
496
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:35,590
who just started watching "Breaking Bad".
497
00:21:35,590 --> 00:21:37,520
He was a bit late to the party.
498
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:39,940
- Paul never met Jesus,
499
00:21:39,940 --> 00:21:42,290
but he knew people who knew him.
500
00:21:42,290 --> 00:21:43,890
- One of the things that
really surprised me,
501
00:21:43,890 --> 00:21:46,110
when I started studying Christianity,
502
00:21:46,110 --> 00:21:50,490
was that the earliest and most
prolific writer about Jesus,
503
00:21:50,490 --> 00:21:53,130
never even knew him.
504
00:21:53,130 --> 00:21:56,620
Never even saw him, for that matter.
505
00:21:56,620 --> 00:21:59,330
Now Paul says that he knew people
506
00:21:59,330 --> 00:22:01,770
who said they knew Jesus,
507
00:22:01,770 --> 00:22:03,130
but did he really know them?
508
00:22:03,130 --> 00:22:05,750
We've only got his word for it.
509
00:22:05,750 --> 00:22:08,400
And before he joined the Jesus bus,
510
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,660
Paul was a hater.
511
00:22:10,660 --> 00:22:13,930
- Paul actually had letters
from the High Priest,
512
00:22:13,930 --> 00:22:17,260
that enabled him to go and
persecute earlier Christians.
513
00:22:17,260 --> 00:22:18,590
- [Narrator] The High Priest was a member
514
00:22:18,590 --> 00:22:21,190
of the Sadducee sect of Judaism.
515
00:22:21,190 --> 00:22:23,530
They controlled the
sacrifices in the temple
516
00:22:23,530 --> 00:22:25,640
and didn't believe in the afterlife,
517
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:27,423
or the resurrection of the dead.
518
00:22:28,857 --> 00:22:31,387
"But Saul began to destroy the church.
519
00:22:31,387 --> 00:22:32,607
"Going from house to house,
520
00:22:32,607 --> 00:22:34,657
"he dragged off both men and women,
521
00:22:34,657 --> 00:22:36,450
"and put them in prison."
522
00:22:36,450 --> 00:22:39,150
- In his own words, Paul
says he was beating up
523
00:22:39,150 --> 00:22:41,570
and arresting Christians because.
524
00:22:41,570 --> 00:22:46,060
- Paul says, that to him as a Jew,
525
00:22:46,060 --> 00:22:48,470
the idea of a crucified Messiah,
526
00:22:48,470 --> 00:22:52,360
the Messiah going and getting
crucified, was nonsense.
527
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:55,110
- A few years after Jesus dies,
528
00:22:55,110 --> 00:22:57,060
Paul goes from beating them up
529
00:22:57,060 --> 00:22:59,890
to becoming their number one salesperson.
530
00:22:59,890 --> 00:23:01,820
Why the change of heart?
531
00:23:01,820 --> 00:23:03,860
Well, according to his own letters,
532
00:23:03,860 --> 00:23:06,610
written in the late 40s CE,
533
00:23:06,610 --> 00:23:10,470
about 15 to 20 years after Jesus died.
534
00:23:10,470 --> 00:23:12,720
The ghost of Jesus appeared to Paul
535
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,920
and told him to go preach to the Gentiles.
536
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,070
But how do you convince a
bunch of Greeks and Romans
537
00:23:19,070 --> 00:23:21,450
to worship a dead Jew?
538
00:23:21,450 --> 00:23:25,660
Well, Paul came up with four
fantastic marketing ideas,
539
00:23:25,660 --> 00:23:28,970
that continue to resonate
with billions of people
540
00:23:28,970 --> 00:23:31,780
around the world to this very day.
541
00:23:31,780 --> 00:23:35,530
(ominous instrumental music)
542
00:23:36,817 --> 00:23:37,827
- [Narrator] "For what I received,
543
00:23:37,827 --> 00:23:40,827
"I passed onto you, as a first importance.
544
00:23:40,827 --> 00:23:44,397
"That Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures."
545
00:23:46,110 --> 00:23:49,310
- For Paul, the Messiah is
not really a warrior king,
546
00:23:49,310 --> 00:23:50,840
or a charismatic preacher,
547
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,730
he's more of a human sacrifice to Yahweh.
548
00:23:53,730 --> 00:23:56,570
See Paul seems to think
that Jesus had to die,
549
00:23:56,570 --> 00:23:58,700
so Yahweh would forgive the human race,
550
00:23:58,700 --> 00:24:01,953
for Adam having eaten the
magical piece of fruits.
551
00:24:02,900 --> 00:24:04,440
Oh, merci madame.
552
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:05,900
Now most Romans and in fact,
553
00:24:05,900 --> 00:24:07,290
most people on the planet,
554
00:24:07,290 --> 00:24:09,300
had never even heard of Yahweh,
555
00:24:09,300 --> 00:24:13,290
let alone Adam's act
of grand theft fruito.
556
00:24:13,290 --> 00:24:14,480
So it seems a little bit harsh
557
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:18,110
to sentence them to an
eternity of damnation.
558
00:24:18,110 --> 00:24:19,890
Now, listen, I know most Christians
559
00:24:19,890 --> 00:24:21,300
don't like thinking of Jesus
560
00:24:21,300 --> 00:24:23,670
as a human sacrifice to an angry God,
561
00:24:23,670 --> 00:24:25,230
but, let's be honest
562
00:24:25,230 --> 00:24:26,160
at least on paper,
563
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:27,860
that's exactly what it looks like.
564
00:24:28,730 --> 00:24:31,130
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica,
565
00:24:31,130 --> 00:24:32,970
human sacrifice is the offering
566
00:24:32,970 --> 00:24:35,923
of the life of a human being to a deity.
567
00:24:38,070 --> 00:24:39,760
Centuries before Paul,
568
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:41,640
both the Jews and the Romans,
569
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:46,460
had replaced human sacrifices
with animal sacrifices.
570
00:24:46,460 --> 00:24:49,040
But he's bringing it back baby,
571
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,750
with the greatest sacrifice of them all.
572
00:24:52,750 --> 00:24:55,190
- Not just a human, but a son of a God.
573
00:24:55,190 --> 00:24:58,030
The best sacrifice you can possibly have,
574
00:24:58,030 --> 00:24:59,810
is this superhuman sacrifice.
575
00:24:59,810 --> 00:25:01,820
And because it was given,
576
00:25:01,820 --> 00:25:04,730
that blood can save everybody.
577
00:25:04,730 --> 00:25:06,400
- And Paul doesn't stop there,
578
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,737
he's resurrecting more old ideas.
579
00:25:09,737 --> 00:25:13,487
(melancholy orchestra music)
580
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:16,340
- It comes then down
581
00:25:16,340 --> 00:25:19,820
to the fundamental thing for Christianity,
582
00:25:19,820 --> 00:25:23,190
is Jesus is raised from the dead.
583
00:25:23,190 --> 00:25:25,390
That becomes the one thing
584
00:25:25,390 --> 00:25:29,430
that makes everything else
pile into insignificance.
585
00:25:29,430 --> 00:25:32,630
Okay, he hasn't driven the
Romans out of Jerusalem,
586
00:25:32,630 --> 00:25:35,120
but God raised him from the dead.
587
00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:36,500
No matter what else happens,
588
00:25:36,500 --> 00:25:39,230
whatever failure he was in his life,
589
00:25:39,230 --> 00:25:41,890
he is approved by God.
590
00:25:41,890 --> 00:25:43,440
- Like human sacrifice,
591
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,070
the idea of a resurrected
God wasn't original
592
00:25:47,070 --> 00:25:49,520
to Paul or Christianity.
593
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:50,900
Now like every great marketer,
594
00:25:50,900 --> 00:25:52,760
Paul knows how to take a negative,
595
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:54,740
the fact that Jesus didn't
really kick the Romans
596
00:25:54,740 --> 00:25:56,530
out of Judea before he died,
597
00:25:56,530 --> 00:25:58,300
and spin it into a positive.
598
00:25:58,300 --> 00:26:00,137
He says, "Wait, wait, wait,
wait you don't understand.
599
00:26:00,137 --> 00:26:01,167
"He's gonna come back,
600
00:26:01,167 --> 00:26:05,070
"and then he's gonna destroy
every authority and power."
601
00:26:05,070 --> 00:26:07,920
He's like the Terminator,
"I will be back."
602
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,510
You know what's cooler than
a warrior king Messiah?
603
00:26:10,510 --> 00:26:13,980
A warrior king Messiah with super powers.
604
00:26:13,980 --> 00:26:15,060
But, not many Jews
605
00:26:15,060 --> 00:26:17,830
bought into the whole
super powered Messiah idea.
606
00:26:17,830 --> 00:26:20,350
They tended to call BS on all of that,
607
00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:23,920
so Paul decides he needs
to find a new audience.
608
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,265
Paul's the guy that
takes it to the Gentiles.
609
00:26:27,265 --> 00:26:31,015
(ominous instrumental music)
610
00:26:34,214 --> 00:26:35,047
- No, the original sect
611
00:26:35,047 --> 00:26:37,220
just wasn't hitting the
right market, essentially.
612
00:26:37,220 --> 00:26:41,490
And Paul figured this out,
consciously or unconsciously,
613
00:26:41,490 --> 00:26:43,410
and re-told it to be a
successful in that market.
614
00:26:43,410 --> 00:26:44,810
And that's why it exploded.
615
00:26:44,810 --> 00:26:47,430
Which I think led to the
doom of the original sect,
616
00:26:47,430 --> 00:26:50,560
because Paul had a much
bigger market to tap,
617
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:52,900
so way more Gentiles than Jews.
618
00:26:52,900 --> 00:26:55,320
Way more Gentiles who
are excited by this idea
619
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:56,750
than Jews would be.
620
00:26:56,750 --> 00:26:58,350
And so you had,
621
00:26:58,350 --> 00:27:01,290
the church has explode
in size with Gentiles.
622
00:27:01,290 --> 00:27:04,910
- Now of course, in order to
market Judaism to the Gentiles,
623
00:27:04,910 --> 00:27:08,530
Paul needed to make some
pretty fundamental changes.
624
00:27:08,530 --> 00:27:10,750
As far as all of the other early Jesus
625
00:27:10,750 --> 00:27:12,120
worshipers were concerned,
626
00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:13,650
in order to join their little club,
627
00:27:13,650 --> 00:27:16,780
you had to either be or become a Jew.
628
00:27:16,780 --> 00:27:18,840
But of course, probably the biggest hurdle
629
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:20,960
for most Gentiles in becoming a Jew,
630
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,080
was that you had to get circumcised,
631
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,670
whether you were a child or an adult.
632
00:27:27,670 --> 00:27:31,850
But Pauly Walnut says,
"Oh, forgot about it."
633
00:27:31,850 --> 00:27:34,480
- Just the marketing genius it took
634
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:36,817
to get rid of that one restriction,
635
00:27:36,817 --> 00:27:37,650
"Oh, we don't have to do that?
636
00:27:37,650 --> 00:27:40,867
"Sure, sure, I'll become
a Jew, yeah, that's fine.
637
00:27:40,867 --> 00:27:42,067
"I'll take on this new religion,
638
00:27:42,067 --> 00:27:44,738
"we don't have to chop
our penis up anymore."
639
00:27:44,738 --> 00:27:48,240
(man Walking) (drink pouring)
640
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,140
- Can I interest you in
a new form of Judaism?
641
00:27:51,140 --> 00:27:53,503
- No, thanks, heard it all before.
642
00:27:53,503 --> 00:27:54,860
- What if I told you
643
00:27:54,860 --> 00:27:59,013
that you don't have to chop
off the end of your knob?
644
00:27:59,013 --> 00:28:00,680
(glass shutters)
- Go on.
645
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,980
- Paul's type of preaching
was ideal for them.
646
00:28:03,980 --> 00:28:07,550
Oh, we can be in that Jewish trajectory,
647
00:28:07,550 --> 00:28:10,400
but without all the stuff
we don't like, sign me up.
648
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,230
- But what do the original disciples
649
00:28:12,230 --> 00:28:13,540
think about all of this?
650
00:28:13,540 --> 00:28:16,270
Well, as they were Torah-observing Jews,
651
00:28:16,270 --> 00:28:18,050
we can only imagine.
652
00:28:18,050 --> 00:28:21,320
- So, Paul, we've been hearing rumors
653
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:22,550
that you've been making up
654
00:28:22,550 --> 00:28:25,180
some fakakta stories about Jesus.
655
00:28:25,180 --> 00:28:27,740
What exactly are you telling people?
656
00:28:27,740 --> 00:28:29,760
- Just the usual stuff, James.
657
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,030
Jesus was a real mensch
who died for our sins.
658
00:28:33,030 --> 00:28:35,900
He's coming back any day
now with superpowers,
659
00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:37,460
yada yada yada.
660
00:28:37,460 --> 00:28:40,730
Oh, and Gentiles don't need
to become Jews anymore.
661
00:28:40,730 --> 00:28:42,570
- Whoa! Are you crazy?
662
00:28:42,570 --> 00:28:45,370
This is a Jews-only club, bubala.
663
00:28:45,370 --> 00:28:46,700
Anyone who wants to get in,
664
00:28:46,700 --> 00:28:49,410
needs to lose the end of his schwantz.
665
00:28:49,410 --> 00:28:52,380
Non-negotiable, you schmuck.
666
00:28:52,380 --> 00:28:56,916
- Peter, bubbee, the Gentiles
really like their foreskin.
667
00:28:56,916 --> 00:28:58,588
Let them keep it.
668
00:28:58,588 --> 00:29:01,790
- Oh, (speaks in foreign language)
669
00:29:01,790 --> 00:29:04,870
Listen up, buds, you know bupkis.
670
00:29:04,870 --> 00:29:06,680
We were his best friends.
671
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:08,840
James is his brother.
672
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:10,680
If he wanted to let the goyim in,
673
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,073
he would have told us.
674
00:29:13,140 --> 00:29:15,050
- Listen, I'll tell you what.
675
00:29:15,050 --> 00:29:17,590
You do your thing and I'll do my thing,
676
00:29:17,590 --> 00:29:20,920
and we'll just see who wins, mazel tov.
677
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,960
- I think a lot of
Jesus' original disciples
678
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:25,650
were very suspicious of Paul.
679
00:29:25,650 --> 00:29:27,210
He wasn't part of the original band,
680
00:29:27,210 --> 00:29:28,760
he didn't know Jesus
681
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:30,160
and even worse than that,
682
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,300
the young Paul had persecuted the church.
683
00:29:33,300 --> 00:29:35,910
He was trying to bring down the church,
684
00:29:35,910 --> 00:29:36,987
so why should they trust this guy?
685
00:29:36,987 --> 00:29:39,130
- Paul doesn't really seem to care
686
00:29:39,130 --> 00:29:41,700
what Peter and James think anyway.
687
00:29:41,700 --> 00:29:43,600
He says that when he did meet them,
688
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:44,960
they didn't tell him anything
689
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:46,730
that he didn't already know.
690
00:29:46,730 --> 00:29:48,350
- He is very clear,
691
00:29:48,350 --> 00:29:50,530
repeatedly in his letters
692
00:29:50,530 --> 00:29:51,363
that he learned this,
693
00:29:51,363 --> 00:29:53,180
his Gospel from no man,
694
00:29:53,180 --> 00:29:54,977
no human source whatsoever.
695
00:29:54,977 --> 00:29:57,387
- [Narrator] "I want you to
know, brothers and sisters,
696
00:29:57,387 --> 00:30:00,417
"that the Gospel I preached
is not of human origin.
697
00:30:00,417 --> 00:30:03,627
"I did not receive it from
any man nor was I taught it.
698
00:30:03,627 --> 00:30:07,150
"Rather, I received it by
revelation from Jesus Christ."
699
00:30:07,150 --> 00:30:09,163
- When he does mention his sources,
700
00:30:10,810 --> 00:30:14,260
it's the divine, it's the Lord, it's God,
701
00:30:14,260 --> 00:30:15,710
and it's the scriptures also.
702
00:30:15,710 --> 00:30:17,300
- Because he feels, well,
703
00:30:17,300 --> 00:30:20,600
I've got every bit as much of a right
704
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,740
to be called an apostle as you all have.
705
00:30:22,740 --> 00:30:24,360
But they said, "Yeah, but
you didn't meet Jesus."
706
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,247
So, his big answer to that is to say,
707
00:30:28,247 --> 00:30:29,537
"I did meet Jesus.
708
00:30:29,537 --> 00:30:32,087
"I met him on the road to Damascus.
709
00:30:32,087 --> 00:30:34,190
"I met the resurrected Jesus."
710
00:30:34,190 --> 00:30:36,150
- Paul says that the ghost of Jesus
711
00:30:36,150 --> 00:30:37,560
told him he could throw out
712
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,810
a thousand years of
Jewish law and tradition.
713
00:30:40,810 --> 00:30:42,830
But they don't seem to believe him
714
00:30:42,830 --> 00:30:46,030
anyone can claim to have a revelation,
715
00:30:46,030 --> 00:30:48,120
and he doesn't really have
a great reputation either.
716
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:49,990
It was only just a few years ago
717
00:30:49,990 --> 00:30:53,110
that he was having their
friends arrested and beaten up.
718
00:30:53,110 --> 00:30:55,590
So they all seemed to butt heads.
719
00:30:55,590 --> 00:30:58,300
- There's one story where Paul and Peter
720
00:30:58,300 --> 00:30:59,870
have a stand up row.
721
00:30:59,870 --> 00:31:02,420
A stand up row in Antioch
in front of everybody,
722
00:31:02,420 --> 00:31:05,140
because they disagree on the implications
723
00:31:05,140 --> 00:31:08,030
of the movement that they're part of.
724
00:31:08,030 --> 00:31:10,010
- According to Paul's own account,
725
00:31:10,010 --> 00:31:14,030
he started calling Peter
a fraud to his face,
726
00:31:14,030 --> 00:31:15,847
in front of everybody.
727
00:31:15,847 --> 00:31:17,397
- [Narrator] "When Peter came to Antioch,
728
00:31:17,397 --> 00:31:19,087
"I opposed him to his face,
729
00:31:19,087 --> 00:31:21,177
"because he was clearly in the wrong."
730
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,560
- Now, Peter was the first
disciple that Jesus ever had.
731
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,630
Can you imagine what must have
been going through his mind
732
00:31:28,630 --> 00:31:30,110
when this Paul guy,
733
00:31:30,110 --> 00:31:32,300
who never even knew Jesus,
734
00:31:32,300 --> 00:31:35,150
started getting up in his
face in front of people?
735
00:31:35,150 --> 00:31:38,540
Unfortunately we only have
Paul's side of the story.
736
00:31:38,540 --> 00:31:40,600
- When Paul is in a bad mood,
737
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:41,750
and he's in a really bad mood
738
00:31:41,750 --> 00:31:43,080
in the Epistle to the Galatians.
739
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,027
He wants to say, "They
didn't add anything to me,
740
00:31:46,027 --> 00:31:47,827
"there's nothing that they told me
741
00:31:47,827 --> 00:31:52,487
"that added anything to the
Gospel, which I got from God."
742
00:31:52,487 --> 00:31:54,570
But we know that this isn't true.
743
00:31:54,570 --> 00:31:55,590
- [Man] As you imagine him pacing
744
00:31:55,590 --> 00:31:58,800
up and down a room, yelling,
745
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:00,337
while someones taking it all down,
746
00:32:00,337 --> 00:32:03,360
it's the, that's the
best way to imagine Paul
747
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,274
creating Galatians, a
Letter to the Galatians.
748
00:32:05,274 --> 00:32:06,730
And it's trying to talk about
749
00:32:06,730 --> 00:32:07,970
a lot of affection,
750
00:32:07,970 --> 00:32:10,640
and love, and care as well.
751
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,015
So maybe he was bipolar, I don't know.
752
00:32:13,015 --> 00:32:16,182
(deep voice growling)
753
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,420
- And it's not just Peter and James
754
00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:23,810
that Paul's having a
problem with at this stage.
755
00:32:23,810 --> 00:32:27,970
You see, even at this early
phase of the Jesus movement,
756
00:32:27,970 --> 00:32:31,650
there seem to be a number of
different factions emerging.
757
00:32:31,650 --> 00:32:33,620
And just like today,
758
00:32:33,620 --> 00:32:37,390
they all claim to be
the one true movement.
759
00:32:37,390 --> 00:32:38,780
- So we have an example of,
760
00:32:38,780 --> 00:32:39,910
in First Corinthians,
761
00:32:39,910 --> 00:32:42,870
Paul is trying to respond to a letter
762
00:32:42,870 --> 00:32:44,210
that the Corinthians wrote to him saying,
763
00:32:44,210 --> 00:32:47,463
hey, this other Apostle, Apollos,
764
00:32:48,420 --> 00:32:50,660
came by and taught us all
this other new weird stuff,
765
00:32:50,660 --> 00:32:52,370
what's, it seems to contradict yours.
766
00:32:52,370 --> 00:32:54,120
What's what are we
supposed to make of this?
767
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,070
But you'd immediately ask
me who's this Apollos guy?
768
00:32:57,070 --> 00:32:58,910
He's not on any lists of disciples.
769
00:32:58,910 --> 00:33:02,300
- Paul calls these other
missionaries false apostles,
770
00:33:02,300 --> 00:33:06,450
even though he's the guy
that never even knew Jesus.
771
00:33:06,450 --> 00:33:08,700
Oh, the cahoneys on this guy.
772
00:33:08,700 --> 00:33:10,220
We know that in the first century
773
00:33:10,220 --> 00:33:12,970
there were a whole range
of divergent Jewish sects.
774
00:33:12,970 --> 00:33:15,070
So it seems entirely possible
775
00:33:15,070 --> 00:33:18,290
that there were a range of
savior cults running around
776
00:33:18,290 --> 00:33:19,780
at the same time as Paul,
777
00:33:19,780 --> 00:33:21,660
using similar terminology.
778
00:33:21,660 --> 00:33:23,140
Let's just keep in mind
779
00:33:23,140 --> 00:33:27,890
that both Jesus and
Messiah both mean Savior.
780
00:33:27,890 --> 00:33:29,540
- What's the name of your Savior?
781
00:33:30,470 --> 00:33:32,360
- We just call him the Savior.
782
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:34,973
- So Jesus.
- Yeah, yeah, Jesus.
783
00:33:36,140 --> 00:33:37,920
- What's the name of your Savior?
784
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,280
- We just call him the Savior.
785
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,510
- So Jesus.
- Yeah, yeah, Jesus.
786
00:33:43,510 --> 00:33:46,177
(comical music)
787
00:33:47,610 --> 00:33:49,210
- Each cult probably would have had
788
00:33:49,210 --> 00:33:52,110
their favorite Messiah stories,
789
00:33:52,110 --> 00:33:55,660
their favorite miracles and
their favorite teachings.
790
00:33:55,660 --> 00:33:57,680
Each of course would have had
791
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,520
their own missionaries as well.
792
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,500
- There were manifest
signs in the New Testament,
793
00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:03,940
about a big differences.
794
00:34:03,940 --> 00:34:05,180
And when you look at other stuff
795
00:34:05,180 --> 00:34:06,960
that didn't get into the New Testament,
796
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:08,860
it becomes real obvious.
797
00:34:08,860 --> 00:34:11,750
- At one point, Paul gets so angry
798
00:34:11,750 --> 00:34:14,060
about these competing missionaries,
799
00:34:14,060 --> 00:34:15,470
that he writes in his letters,
800
00:34:15,470 --> 00:34:18,797
he wishes they would cut
their own genitals off.
801
00:34:18,797 --> 00:34:20,617
- [Narrator] "As for those agitators,
802
00:34:20,617 --> 00:34:22,167
"I wish they would go the whole way
803
00:34:22,167 --> 00:34:26,360
"and emasculate
themselves," Galatians 5:12.
804
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,290
- Emasculate means removal of the penis
805
00:34:30,290 --> 00:34:32,010
and the testicles,
806
00:34:32,010 --> 00:34:36,670
not just castration,
but the whole package.
807
00:34:36,670 --> 00:34:38,890
So much for turning the other cheek.
808
00:34:38,890 --> 00:34:40,510
And remember, this is the same guy
809
00:34:40,510 --> 00:34:43,080
that was beating up and
arresting Christians
810
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:44,930
just 20 years earlier.
811
00:34:44,930 --> 00:34:46,340
Forget about what the disciples
812
00:34:46,340 --> 00:34:47,840
would have thought about him for a second.
813
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,820
What would Jesus have thought about Paul.
814
00:34:50,820 --> 00:34:52,890
As a Torah observant Jew,
815
00:34:52,890 --> 00:34:54,720
I suspect that he may have found
816
00:34:54,720 --> 00:34:58,230
some of Paul's rhetoric
a little bit heretical.
817
00:34:58,230 --> 00:35:01,090
- I think that if Jesus had said,
818
00:35:01,090 --> 00:35:04,240
nobody has to follow
the Jewish law anymore,
819
00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:07,660
then why would Paul have
had such a hard time
820
00:35:07,660 --> 00:35:10,330
convincing Jesus' apostles of this.
821
00:35:10,330 --> 00:35:11,490
- The Gospels record,
822
00:35:11,490 --> 00:35:13,220
certain missionary instructions
823
00:35:13,220 --> 00:35:15,150
that Jesus gave his followers.
824
00:35:15,150 --> 00:35:19,010
But they're not detailed
toward going to the Gentiles.
825
00:35:19,010 --> 00:35:21,450
- Which if you ask me is a little bit
826
00:35:21,450 --> 00:35:23,930
of an oversight on Jesus's behalf.
827
00:35:23,930 --> 00:35:26,280
- All versions of Christianity today
828
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,070
are basically descendants of
Paul's version of Christianity.
829
00:35:29,070 --> 00:35:30,280
And that was just one sect.
830
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,310
- Now Paul's not going
after the well educated,
831
00:35:33,310 --> 00:35:35,960
the Gentiles or the rich and the famous,
832
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,260
Paul's gonna take it down market.
833
00:35:38,260 --> 00:35:42,310
- It becomes a religion for
the poor and the downtrodden
834
00:35:42,310 --> 00:35:45,470
and the oppressed and the underprivileged,
835
00:35:45,470 --> 00:35:49,290
who can all find in this, a
sense of a better tomorrow.
836
00:35:49,290 --> 00:35:52,580
- The Greco-Roman religions
didn't really offer much
837
00:35:52,580 --> 00:35:54,020
in the way of an afterlife,
838
00:35:54,020 --> 00:35:57,650
unless you were some sort
of great hero or King,
839
00:35:57,650 --> 00:36:00,380
and heaven doesn't
actually turn up in Judaism
840
00:36:00,380 --> 00:36:03,510
much either, barely gets a
mention in the Old Testament.
841
00:36:03,510 --> 00:36:06,460
But Paul is saying, you can get eternity
842
00:36:06,460 --> 00:36:09,350
in paradise and he's
offering it to everyone.
843
00:36:09,350 --> 00:36:11,470
And who doesn't wanna
spend eternity in paradise.
844
00:36:11,470 --> 00:36:13,880
Hell, I'd be happy with
a weekend in paradise.
845
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,390
So Paul talks a lot
846
00:36:15,390 --> 00:36:18,800
about what Jesus is gonna
do when he comes back.
847
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,540
But how much does he have
to say about the life
848
00:36:21,540 --> 00:36:23,283
and teachings of Jesus
849
00:36:23,283 --> 00:36:25,850
during his actual time on earth?
850
00:36:25,850 --> 00:36:27,450
- Paul wrote a lot.
851
00:36:27,450 --> 00:36:30,600
He wrote a massive chunk
of the New Testament
852
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,820
and we don't even get incidental mentions,
853
00:36:33,820 --> 00:36:37,330
not even once about
miracles that Jesus did,
854
00:36:37,330 --> 00:36:39,170
healings, it's absurd.
855
00:36:39,170 --> 00:36:41,120
- Now one of the explanations
for this might be
856
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,820
that Paul's letters really
dealing with disputes
857
00:36:43,820 --> 00:36:46,990
in his communities about
how to be good Christians.
858
00:36:46,990 --> 00:36:48,740
But isn't that the perfect time
859
00:36:48,740 --> 00:36:50,980
to be quoting the founder of the firm?
860
00:36:50,980 --> 00:36:52,460
- When it comes to disputes about that,
861
00:36:52,460 --> 00:36:54,350
he could have easily,
862
00:36:54,350 --> 00:36:55,500
he could have easily said,
863
00:36:55,500 --> 00:36:57,620
Jesus said this,
864
00:36:57,620 --> 00:37:00,500
when Jesus was in Jerusalem, he said that.
865
00:37:00,500 --> 00:37:02,280
No, what we get is Paul speaking
866
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:03,940
from his own authority.
867
00:37:03,940 --> 00:37:08,650
He gets his information
directly from the Lord above.
868
00:37:08,650 --> 00:37:10,540
From his celestial Christ
869
00:37:10,540 --> 00:37:14,330
and also from the earliest scriptures.
870
00:37:14,330 --> 00:37:17,540
- Paul briefly mentions
that Jesus was born,
871
00:37:17,540 --> 00:37:20,380
died and resurrected in some form.
872
00:37:20,380 --> 00:37:21,750
But that's pretty much it
873
00:37:21,750 --> 00:37:23,870
when it comes to talking about the life
874
00:37:23,870 --> 00:37:26,000
and teachings of Jesus.
875
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:27,880
There are a few passages where he says
876
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,060
he got something from the Lord,
877
00:37:30,060 --> 00:37:33,980
but as he claims no
human told him anything,
878
00:37:33,980 --> 00:37:37,997
he might just be referring
to the ghost of Jesus.
879
00:37:37,997 --> 00:37:39,957
- [Narrator] "To the
married, I give this command.
880
00:37:39,957 --> 00:37:41,747
"Not I, but the Lord.
881
00:37:41,747 --> 00:37:44,487
"A wife must not separate
from her husband.
882
00:37:44,487 --> 00:37:46,627
"First Corinthians 7:10."
883
00:37:47,928 --> 00:37:49,180
- But Paul has zero to say
884
00:37:49,180 --> 00:37:51,860
about the miracles that
Jesus did in his lifetime.
885
00:37:51,860 --> 00:37:53,560
There's no turning water into wine,
886
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:55,350
no multiplying, loaves and fishes.
887
00:37:55,350 --> 00:37:57,040
There's no walking on water,
888
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,100
there's no healing the sick with his spit.
889
00:37:59,100 --> 00:38:00,450
There's no exorcisms,
890
00:38:00,450 --> 00:38:03,220
there's no bringing
people back from the dead.
891
00:38:03,220 --> 00:38:04,310
Which is kind of strange
892
00:38:04,310 --> 00:38:05,310
if you think about it.
893
00:38:05,310 --> 00:38:07,820
If you knew somebody who
could do all of those things,
894
00:38:07,820 --> 00:38:09,520
you'd never stop talking about it.
895
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,210
- Whether that's really strange
896
00:38:14,210 --> 00:38:16,640
or whether that's because for example,
897
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:17,710
he takes for granted
898
00:38:17,710 --> 00:38:20,653
that they know that
already, is hard to be sure.
899
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,800
- Maybe Paul assume that they
already knew the stories.
900
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:31,950
But we have to remember
901
00:38:31,950 --> 00:38:34,300
that Paul's writing his letters,
902
00:38:34,300 --> 00:38:37,690
20 to thirty years before
the Gospels were written.
903
00:38:37,690 --> 00:38:39,450
Maybe he'd never heard the stories.
904
00:38:39,450 --> 00:38:41,350
Maybe he had heard them,
905
00:38:41,350 --> 00:38:42,510
but didn't believe them.
906
00:38:42,510 --> 00:38:45,070
Maybe they were invented later
907
00:38:45,070 --> 00:38:47,860
or maybe Paul had heard the stories,
908
00:38:47,860 --> 00:38:51,080
but just didn't think
they were very important.
909
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,890
Maybe he thought they were
completely irrelevant.
910
00:38:53,890 --> 00:38:56,410
- Look at what Christian
preachers do today.
911
00:38:56,410 --> 00:38:58,450
When they wanna say what
you should be doing,
912
00:38:58,450 --> 00:38:59,290
what you should be thinking,
913
00:38:59,290 --> 00:39:00,400
what you should be behaving.
914
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:01,250
What do they say?
915
00:39:01,250 --> 00:39:03,020
They say, Jesus says this,
916
00:39:03,020 --> 00:39:03,910
Jesus says this.
917
00:39:03,910 --> 00:39:06,170
Jesus just did this, Jesus taught that.
918
00:39:06,170 --> 00:39:08,230
So why doesn't Paul?
919
00:39:08,230 --> 00:39:11,230
Why does Paul never say,
what would Jesus do?
920
00:39:11,230 --> 00:39:12,650
- What did matter to Paul
921
00:39:12,650 --> 00:39:15,560
was converting as many people as possible,
922
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:17,350
as quickly as possible,
923
00:39:17,350 --> 00:39:18,683
because he's absolutely convinced
924
00:39:18,683 --> 00:39:20,320
that time is running out.
925
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,987
(clock ticking)
926
00:39:24,505 --> 00:39:28,255
(ominous instrumental music)
927
00:39:29,300 --> 00:39:30,730
- Paul believes that the end of the world
928
00:39:30,730 --> 00:39:32,430
is dawning any minute.
929
00:39:32,430 --> 00:39:33,263
Everyday he gets up in the morning
930
00:39:33,263 --> 00:39:34,687
he thinks it could be today.
931
00:39:34,687 --> 00:39:37,637
- [Narrator] "Then we who
are alive, who are left,
932
00:39:37,637 --> 00:39:38,967
"shall be caught up together
933
00:39:38,967 --> 00:39:40,437
"with them in the clouds,
934
00:39:40,437 --> 00:39:42,650
"to meet the Lord in the air."
935
00:39:42,650 --> 00:39:45,410
First Thessalonians 4:17.
936
00:39:45,410 --> 00:39:46,950
- But then time goes on
937
00:39:46,950 --> 00:39:49,080
and the end still hasn't arrived yet.
938
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,340
So Paul, like every
doomsday prophet starts
939
00:39:53,340 --> 00:39:55,000
to hedge his bets a little.
940
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:56,770
- Suddenly now we've got Christians dying
941
00:39:56,770 --> 00:39:58,820
and that's not supposed to happen.
942
00:39:58,820 --> 00:40:00,800
Jesus is meant to return.
943
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,160
This kingdom of God
944
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,660
is meant to be ushered in
and it's not happening.
945
00:40:04,660 --> 00:40:06,500
So there needs to be a rethink.
946
00:40:06,500 --> 00:40:08,600
- Well, he says oh jeez, right.
947
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:10,242
About the resurrection.
948
00:40:10,242 --> 00:40:12,030
You see, yeah, some are gonna die,
949
00:40:12,030 --> 00:40:14,150
but Christ will come back
950
00:40:14,150 --> 00:40:17,710
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
951
00:40:17,710 --> 00:40:20,030
We'll have the, we'll be second in line.
952
00:40:20,030 --> 00:40:21,710
We'll be transformed.
953
00:40:21,710 --> 00:40:25,710
- Paul was clearly wrong,
the end didn't come.
954
00:40:25,710 --> 00:40:28,410
Paul eventually realizes
955
00:40:28,410 --> 00:40:29,440
that he's more likely than not
956
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,150
going to die before Jesus returns.
957
00:40:32,150 --> 00:40:34,250
- Paul claims the ghost of Jesus
958
00:40:34,250 --> 00:40:35,580
told him the end of the world
959
00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:37,530
would come within his lifetime.
960
00:40:37,530 --> 00:40:39,480
You'd think if God told you,
961
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,670
the end of the world was happening soon,
962
00:40:41,670 --> 00:40:46,510
you'd be pretty careful
about getting confirmation.
963
00:40:46,510 --> 00:40:48,520
- Blessed are the meek,
964
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,720
turn the other cheek.
965
00:40:50,720 --> 00:40:53,090
The world will end in your lifetime,
966
00:40:53,090 --> 00:40:54,757
let him who hath not sinned.
967
00:40:54,757 --> 00:40:57,220
(clearing his throat) -
Excuse me there the Lord,
968
00:40:57,220 --> 00:40:58,990
could you just repeat that last bit
969
00:40:58,990 --> 00:41:00,760
I'm not sure I heard you correctly.
970
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:02,380
The world's gonna end in my lifetime.
971
00:41:02,380 --> 00:41:05,280
Yeah, yeah, in your lifetime.
972
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:06,113
- Are you sure?
973
00:41:07,380 --> 00:41:11,090
- I find your lack of faith disturbing.
974
00:41:11,090 --> 00:41:12,520
- Oh, hey, okay.
975
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:13,730
Chill, big guy.
976
00:41:13,730 --> 00:41:16,060
I just hate to get
something like that wrong.
977
00:41:16,060 --> 00:41:17,860
Wouldn't want that on my conscience.
978
00:41:19,050 --> 00:41:20,320
- So as far as I can tell,
979
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,280
one of five things must have happened.
980
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,470
Either one, Jesus made a mistake.
981
00:41:26,470 --> 00:41:28,890
Two, Jesus lied.
982
00:41:28,890 --> 00:41:31,240
Three, Jesus changed his mind
983
00:41:31,240 --> 00:41:33,680
and just forgot to tell Paul.
984
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:37,500
Four, Paul misunderstood Jesus,
985
00:41:37,500 --> 00:41:41,460
or five, Paul just made it all up.
986
00:41:41,460 --> 00:41:45,060
- This is a debate among
historical Jesus scholars
987
00:41:45,060 --> 00:41:47,000
about whether Jesus believed,
988
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:47,870
that the end of the world would
989
00:41:47,870 --> 00:41:50,920
happen in his lifetime or not.
990
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:52,950
The vast, vast majority of scholars
991
00:41:52,950 --> 00:41:56,197
who say, "Nah looks pretty clear from,
992
00:41:56,197 --> 00:41:58,637
"Jesus' teachings as
preserved in the Gospels
993
00:41:58,637 --> 00:42:02,020
"that he really does
expect the end to come
994
00:42:02,020 --> 00:42:03,230
in his lifetime."
995
00:42:03,230 --> 00:42:07,580
So he seems to have been
996
00:42:07,580 --> 00:42:10,190
like many people before him,
997
00:42:10,190 --> 00:42:12,300
and pretty much everybody after him.
998
00:42:12,300 --> 00:42:13,410
Everybody who's predicted
999
00:42:13,410 --> 00:42:15,350
that the world was going
to end in their lifetime
1000
00:42:15,350 --> 00:42:17,630
thus far has been wrong.
1001
00:42:17,630 --> 00:42:20,410
And Jesus would seem to
have been one of those.
1002
00:42:20,410 --> 00:42:22,700
- Now, if you don't like to think of Jesus
1003
00:42:22,700 --> 00:42:26,140
as getting something that important wrong,
1004
00:42:26,140 --> 00:42:29,130
let's go with Paul made it all up.
1005
00:42:29,130 --> 00:42:31,460
And if he did.
1006
00:42:31,460 --> 00:42:32,370
- Maybe he's lying about
1007
00:42:32,370 --> 00:42:34,360
all this other stuff we're using him for.
1008
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,180
- Did he really meet Peter and James?
1009
00:42:37,180 --> 00:42:38,947
We only have his word for it.
1010
00:42:38,947 --> 00:42:40,290
Did the ghost of Jesus
1011
00:42:40,290 --> 00:42:41,440
really appear to him
1012
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,160
and tell him to preach to the Gentiles.
1013
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:45,630
So if Paul is throwing out
1014
00:42:45,630 --> 00:42:47,590
all of this Jewish law and tradition,
1015
00:42:47,590 --> 00:42:50,180
telling people that the end is nigh
1016
00:42:50,180 --> 00:42:54,060
and having public arguments
with the original apostles,
1017
00:42:54,060 --> 00:42:56,410
why did they tolerate him?
1018
00:42:56,410 --> 00:42:58,510
Well from how it appears in the Bible
1019
00:42:58,510 --> 00:43:01,350
it seems that James and Paul
1020
00:43:01,350 --> 00:43:05,060
agreed to some kind of payment.
1021
00:43:05,060 --> 00:43:06,410
- There's a lot of references in letters
1022
00:43:06,410 --> 00:43:08,810
to him collecting money from his churches.
1023
00:43:08,810 --> 00:43:10,750
It's clear that some of these
churches are challenging him,
1024
00:43:10,750 --> 00:43:12,190
are like, what are you
doing with this money?
1025
00:43:12,190 --> 00:43:13,207
And he has to like, justify that,
1026
00:43:13,207 --> 00:43:14,620
you know, no, no, don't worry
1027
00:43:14,620 --> 00:43:15,520
I'm not running off with it.
1028
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:17,590
I'm doing what I said
I was gonna do with it.
1029
00:43:17,590 --> 00:43:18,640
Which is, he says,
1030
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,630
taking it back to the saints in Jerusalem,
1031
00:43:20,630 --> 00:43:23,000
you know, the Holy ones in Jerusalem.
1032
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:24,900
And we're not entirely
sure what that means,
1033
00:43:24,900 --> 00:43:25,820
but you can be sure
1034
00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:26,653
it certainly meant
1035
00:43:26,653 --> 00:43:27,830
that the Jerusalem church,
1036
00:43:27,830 --> 00:43:29,100
these heads are getting a cut.
1037
00:43:29,100 --> 00:43:32,100
- Whether we wanna call that a bribe
1038
00:43:32,100 --> 00:43:35,050
in terms of, let's collect this money
1039
00:43:35,050 --> 00:43:36,810
so that the Jerusalem Christians
1040
00:43:36,810 --> 00:43:39,190
don't send missionaries,
1041
00:43:39,190 --> 00:43:41,300
to make our lives more difficult.
1042
00:43:41,300 --> 00:43:42,650
It's hard to say.
1043
00:43:42,650 --> 00:43:44,090
And Paul's not even sure that.
1044
00:43:44,090 --> 00:43:46,410
In Romans, he's not even sure
1045
00:43:46,410 --> 00:43:49,180
that they're going to
accept this collection.
1046
00:43:49,180 --> 00:43:51,660
He says, he expresses anxiety
1047
00:43:51,660 --> 00:43:53,580
about taking this back to Jerusalem
1048
00:43:53,580 --> 00:43:56,860
because he thinks, well,
maybe they'll reject it.
1049
00:43:56,860 --> 00:44:00,550
So that sounds a bit like a bribe.
1050
00:44:00,550 --> 00:44:03,150
- [Cameron] And in fact,
he probably gets arrested.
1051
00:44:03,150 --> 00:44:05,237
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1052
00:44:05,237 --> 00:44:08,440
If we follow the book
of acts at that point,
1053
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:10,010
what seems to be going on
1054
00:44:10,010 --> 00:44:12,330
when he is in Jerusalem and is arrested,
1055
00:44:12,330 --> 00:44:17,320
is that, that's when he was
gonna take the collection back
1056
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:21,170
and put it at the feet of
the apostles in Jerusalem.
1057
00:44:21,170 --> 00:44:22,800
That doesn't seem to have worked out.
1058
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:27,800
Paul went to Rome and was
under house arrest there.
1059
00:44:28,630 --> 00:44:32,240
So presumably Paul got
executed by the Romans.
1060
00:44:32,240 --> 00:44:35,900
- Acts of the Apostles
written many decades later,
1061
00:44:35,900 --> 00:44:38,430
vaguely blames Paul's arrest in Jerusalem,
1062
00:44:38,430 --> 00:44:41,270
on some Jews who complained
1063
00:44:41,270 --> 00:44:45,037
that Paul was leading people, astray.
1064
00:44:45,037 --> 00:44:47,137
- [Narrator] "Fellow Israelites help us.
1065
00:44:47,137 --> 00:44:48,527
"This is the man who teaches
1066
00:44:48,527 --> 00:44:50,287
"everyone everywhere against
1067
00:44:50,287 --> 00:44:53,486
"our people and our law and this place."
1068
00:44:53,486 --> 00:44:55,730
- Of course, the people
he's taking the money to
1069
00:44:55,730 --> 00:44:58,540
in Jerusalem also fit that description.
1070
00:44:58,540 --> 00:45:03,350
They are Jews, who think that
Paul is leading people astray
1071
00:45:03,350 --> 00:45:05,540
with his idolatrous teachings
1072
00:45:05,540 --> 00:45:07,410
about abandoning the law.
1073
00:45:07,410 --> 00:45:08,450
Really in many ways,
1074
00:45:08,450 --> 00:45:10,570
I think we can say that Paul's the guy
1075
00:45:10,570 --> 00:45:14,580
that invented Christianity
as we know it today.
1076
00:45:14,580 --> 00:45:16,080
If it wasn't for Paul,
1077
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,290
I think most Christians today
1078
00:45:18,290 --> 00:45:20,458
would probably be Jews.
1079
00:45:20,458 --> 00:45:23,958
(calm instrumental music)
1080
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:31,130
Somewhere between the
years of 60 and 70 CE
1081
00:45:31,130 --> 00:45:35,600
it's assumed that Peter,
Paul and James all died.
1082
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,420
We don't really know much about where
1083
00:45:37,420 --> 00:45:39,630
or when or how it happened.
1084
00:45:39,630 --> 00:45:41,010
One thing we do know happened
1085
00:45:41,010 --> 00:45:42,150
during this period though,
1086
00:45:42,150 --> 00:45:44,020
is some Jewish zealots
1087
00:45:44,020 --> 00:45:47,090
decided to rise up
against Roman occupation.
1088
00:45:47,090 --> 00:45:50,100
And it led to a devastating war.
1089
00:45:50,100 --> 00:45:51,680
We don't know who started it,
1090
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,560
could have been the Judean people's front,
1091
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:55,550
could have been the
people's front of Judea.
1092
00:45:55,550 --> 00:45:56,530
- [Small Voice] No, no.
- We know
1093
00:45:56,530 --> 00:45:58,490
it lasted for four years
1094
00:45:58,490 --> 00:46:01,710
and the Jews got completely destroyed.
1095
00:46:01,710 --> 00:46:03,030
As it turns out,
1096
00:46:03,030 --> 00:46:06,640
Yahweh didn't send a Messiah to save them.
1097
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:08,430
As punishment for the rebellion
1098
00:46:08,430 --> 00:46:12,860
the Romans completely destroyed
the temple in Jerusalem.
1099
00:46:12,860 --> 00:46:13,770
Something else happened
1100
00:46:13,770 --> 00:46:16,330
just after the destruction of the temple.
1101
00:46:16,330 --> 00:46:19,640
The first Christian Gospel was written.
1102
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:20,770
- The earliest of the Gospels
1103
00:46:20,770 --> 00:46:22,330
is probably the Gospel of Mark.
1104
00:46:22,330 --> 00:46:24,830
Which seems to be written about 70 AD
1105
00:46:24,830 --> 00:46:25,930
maybe a few years before,
1106
00:46:25,930 --> 00:46:27,130
maybe a few years after.
1107
00:46:27,130 --> 00:46:29,270
- Ironically, the first thing I run into
1108
00:46:29,270 --> 00:46:31,050
again and again as I
traveled North America
1109
00:46:31,050 --> 00:46:32,700
and talked to people,
1110
00:46:32,700 --> 00:46:35,250
who either were Christians
or are Christians
1111
00:46:35,250 --> 00:46:36,840
and they often tell me, the first is like,
1112
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:37,990
they were shocked to find out
1113
00:46:37,990 --> 00:46:40,510
that Mark was written before Matthew.
1114
00:46:40,510 --> 00:46:41,570
They were shocked to find out
1115
00:46:41,570 --> 00:46:42,710
that the letters of Paul
1116
00:46:42,710 --> 00:46:45,140
were written before the Gospels.
1117
00:46:45,140 --> 00:46:47,790
- Here's something that
might shock some Christians.
1118
00:46:47,790 --> 00:46:49,830
Most scholars don't think Mark was written
1119
00:46:49,830 --> 00:46:51,070
by an eye witness
1120
00:46:51,070 --> 00:46:54,000
or even somebody who knew an eye witness.
1121
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:59,000
- The tradition in the second century
1122
00:46:59,540 --> 00:47:01,030
is that Mark was written
1123
00:47:01,030 --> 00:47:04,930
by a disciple of the apostle Peter.
1124
00:47:04,930 --> 00:47:07,120
And that he was sort of Peter's secretary
1125
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:08,540
who followed him around
1126
00:47:08,540 --> 00:47:11,430
and took Peter's sermon notes
1127
00:47:11,430 --> 00:47:15,763
and arranged them into sort
of a narrative about Jesus.
1128
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:19,630
Is that who Mark really was?
1129
00:47:19,630 --> 00:47:20,740
It's hard to say.
1130
00:47:20,740 --> 00:47:22,360
- If Mark had been Peter's scribe,
1131
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:24,140
Mark would say, I am Peter's scribe.
1132
00:47:24,140 --> 00:47:26,230
That's how ancient
historiography was written.
1133
00:47:26,230 --> 00:47:27,720
- And despite it being called,
1134
00:47:27,720 --> 00:47:29,720
the Gospel, according to Mark,
1135
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:33,930
the document doesn't actually
state who the author was.
1136
00:47:33,930 --> 00:47:35,390
- The difficulty with Mark's Gospel
1137
00:47:35,390 --> 00:47:38,350
is it's like the other
Gospels, it's anonymous.
1138
00:47:38,350 --> 00:47:40,490
We don't really know where it comes from.
1139
00:47:40,490 --> 00:47:42,960
Most people now think that it's unlikely
1140
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,940
that Mark is kind of taking
down Peter's dictation
1141
00:47:45,940 --> 00:47:46,920
or anything like that.
1142
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:48,540
- But for the sake of simplicity
1143
00:47:48,540 --> 00:47:50,830
let's refer to him as Mark,
1144
00:47:50,830 --> 00:47:53,180
otherwise, we're gonna end
up in Prince territory,
1145
00:47:53,180 --> 00:47:56,570
you know, the author
formerly known as Mark.
1146
00:47:56,570 --> 00:48:00,250
And how's Mark's Gospel connected
to the Jewish Roman war.
1147
00:48:00,250 --> 00:48:03,570
- Mark is kind of
obsessed with the temple,
1148
00:48:03,570 --> 00:48:06,950
as if something recent and
traumatic has happened.
1149
00:48:06,950 --> 00:48:07,960
So it makes a lot of sense
1150
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:08,880
to say that Mark was written,
1151
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,090
after the fall of the temple in AD 70.
1152
00:48:12,090 --> 00:48:13,200
- The Romans had just come in
1153
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:14,660
and destroyed the temple
1154
00:48:14,660 --> 00:48:17,310
and just ended the cult,
basically braised the city.
1155
00:48:17,310 --> 00:48:19,120
The city of God destroyed God's temple.
1156
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:20,470
So this is a big existential issue.
1157
00:48:20,470 --> 00:48:23,030
If you're a sect that stems from the Jews
1158
00:48:23,030 --> 00:48:25,330
and the Jewish God just
let heathens come in
1159
00:48:25,330 --> 00:48:27,020
and destroy his own house,
1160
00:48:27,020 --> 00:48:28,010
this is a problem.
1161
00:48:28,010 --> 00:48:29,180
This is a marketing problem, right.
1162
00:48:29,180 --> 00:48:31,167
It's a PR problem, so
how do you explain that?
1163
00:48:31,167 --> 00:48:33,490
- For Mark, a lot of Mark is structured
1164
00:48:33,490 --> 00:48:34,650
to answer that and say like,
1165
00:48:34,650 --> 00:48:35,930
well, here's the answer.
1166
00:48:35,930 --> 00:48:37,950
- They've got to reinvent themselves.
1167
00:48:37,950 --> 00:48:40,860
- [Cameron] According to the
Jewish historian Josephus,
1168
00:48:40,860 --> 00:48:43,630
who actually fought in the war
1169
00:48:43,630 --> 00:48:46,900
over a million Jews died.
1170
00:48:46,900 --> 00:48:49,870
- This is a profoundly
traumatic time for Judaism.
1171
00:48:49,870 --> 00:48:51,030
They've lost the land,
1172
00:48:51,030 --> 00:48:52,520
they've lost the temple.
1173
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,120
They've lost the sense of God's blessing
1174
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:56,420
on their everyday lives.
1175
00:48:56,420 --> 00:49:00,280
So this is really a very
difficult time indeed for Jews.
1176
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,420
- And of course the original Jesus gang
1177
00:49:02,420 --> 00:49:06,290
the disciples, were Jews
living in Jerusalem.
1178
00:49:06,290 --> 00:49:08,910
So they probably got swept
up in all of the death
1179
00:49:08,910 --> 00:49:10,650
and destruction too.
1180
00:49:10,650 --> 00:49:11,810
What happened to them?
1181
00:49:11,810 --> 00:49:13,320
We don't really know,
1182
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:15,550
there's no historical record.
1183
00:49:15,550 --> 00:49:17,590
In fact, we have nothing at all
1184
00:49:17,590 --> 00:49:20,130
written down by Peter or James
1185
00:49:20,130 --> 00:49:22,450
or any other eyewitness of Jesus,
1186
00:49:22,450 --> 00:49:26,570
nothing, zero, nada, zip, bupkis.
1187
00:49:26,570 --> 00:49:27,870
Oh yeah, sure there were letters
1188
00:49:27,870 --> 00:49:28,910
in the new Testament
1189
00:49:28,910 --> 00:49:31,230
that claim to be written by them.
1190
00:49:31,230 --> 00:49:34,640
But do scholars believe those
letters are actually legit?
1191
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:37,980
- I don't think we actually
have any extent writings
1192
00:49:37,980 --> 00:49:40,730
from Peter or from James.
1193
00:49:40,730 --> 00:49:43,750
We have documents that
claim to be by them.
1194
00:49:43,750 --> 00:49:46,870
There probably other people
writing in their honor,
1195
00:49:46,870 --> 00:49:49,230
in their name pretending
to be these figures.
1196
00:49:49,230 --> 00:49:53,400
So we are actually a little bit weak
1197
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,410
on knowing what Peter and
James actually thought.
1198
00:49:57,410 --> 00:49:59,570
We have to reconstruct what they thought.
1199
00:49:59,570 --> 00:50:01,630
- Like half of the letters
attributed to Paul,
1200
00:50:01,630 --> 00:50:03,990
that found their way
into the New Testament,
1201
00:50:03,990 --> 00:50:05,720
many scholars believe the letters
1202
00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:08,700
from Peter and James are fake.
1203
00:50:08,700 --> 00:50:12,430
That means we really
don't have any clear idea
1204
00:50:12,430 --> 00:50:15,690
of what Jesus' immediate disciples
1205
00:50:15,690 --> 00:50:17,730
actually thought about him,
1206
00:50:17,730 --> 00:50:20,140
his teachings, his miracles,
1207
00:50:20,140 --> 00:50:22,420
what he told them in private
1208
00:50:22,420 --> 00:50:25,300
or what they thought about Paul.
1209
00:50:25,300 --> 00:50:27,190
They must have been writing letters too,
1210
00:50:27,190 --> 00:50:31,223
but apparently nobody bothered
to keep copies of them.
1211
00:50:31,223 --> 00:50:33,119
- It's all erased.
1212
00:50:33,119 --> 00:50:34,920
That data had to have existed
1213
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:35,790
it had to have been written down
1214
00:50:35,790 --> 00:50:37,470
somewhere in some form.
1215
00:50:37,470 --> 00:50:38,860
It's just all gone.
1216
00:50:38,860 --> 00:50:41,340
- Well how convenient for team Paul.
1217
00:50:41,340 --> 00:50:43,090
After the Jewish Roman war,
1218
00:50:43,090 --> 00:50:46,610
they're the only major
Christian sect that's left.
1219
00:50:46,610 --> 00:50:47,900
These are the Gentiles,
1220
00:50:47,900 --> 00:50:51,240
the Greeks and Romans who aren't Jews.
1221
00:50:51,240 --> 00:50:53,220
Don't understand Judaism,
1222
00:50:53,220 --> 00:50:56,360
and quite frankly don't like the Jews
1223
00:50:56,360 --> 00:51:00,040
who kind of made fun of
their version of the Messiah.
1224
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,010
So the original disciples,
1225
00:51:02,010 --> 00:51:03,920
the people who actually knew Jesus
1226
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,360
and their movement, is pretty
much completely wiped out,
1227
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,610
within 40 years of the
death of Jesus Christ.
1228
00:51:11,610 --> 00:51:14,130
- And if we accept that most
of the New Testament writing
1229
00:51:14,130 --> 00:51:17,240
occurs post 70,
1230
00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:19,961
when the Jews have been removed
1231
00:51:19,961 --> 00:51:21,683
as an influence.
1232
00:51:23,980 --> 00:51:25,940
Then the kind of Paul line crusade
1233
00:51:25,940 --> 00:51:28,720
from 20 years earlier is gonna win.
1234
00:51:28,720 --> 00:51:32,280
- So Mark's Gospel is written
for a Gentile community
1235
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,050
not Jews and probably in Rome sometime
1236
00:51:35,050 --> 00:51:37,620
just after the reign of the emperor Nero.
1237
00:51:37,620 --> 00:51:40,020
And it's a lot of strange
stuff in Mark's Gospel.
1238
00:51:40,020 --> 00:51:42,840
One of them, is that
Jesus is walking around
1239
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:46,040
trying to tell his disciples
to keep their mouth shut
1240
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:47,780
about the miracles that he's doing.
1241
00:51:47,780 --> 00:51:50,240
Like it's supposed to be
some kind of big secret.
1242
00:51:50,240 --> 00:51:51,740
- Mark starts out his Gospel,
1243
00:51:51,740 --> 00:51:54,140
with saying something that
it just blows my mind.
1244
00:51:54,140 --> 00:51:55,710
And that's in Mark 4:11,
1245
00:51:55,710 --> 00:51:58,390
where he has Jesus
gather all his disciples
1246
00:51:58,390 --> 00:51:59,650
and say, okay,
1247
00:51:59,650 --> 00:52:04,170
I'm teaching you all these
things in secret, in parables.
1248
00:52:04,170 --> 00:52:06,910
That way, you'll know
who I'm talking about,
1249
00:52:06,910 --> 00:52:09,810
but those outsiders, they
won't be able to tell
1250
00:52:09,810 --> 00:52:11,650
what I'm talking about, otherwise,
1251
00:52:11,650 --> 00:52:13,000
and this is the kicker,
1252
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:18,000
they would turn from their
sins and repent and be saved.
1253
00:52:18,007 --> 00:52:19,217
- [Narrator] "And he told them
1254
00:52:19,217 --> 00:52:20,967
"the mystery of the kingdom of God
1255
00:52:20,967 --> 00:52:22,567
"has been given to you,
1256
00:52:22,567 --> 00:52:24,037
"but to those on the outside,
1257
00:52:24,037 --> 00:52:25,817
"everything is expressed in parable
1258
00:52:25,817 --> 00:52:28,077
"so that they may be ever seeing,
1259
00:52:28,077 --> 00:52:29,447
"but never perceiving,
1260
00:52:29,447 --> 00:52:32,197
"and ever hearing but never understanding.
1261
00:52:32,197 --> 00:52:36,780
"Otherwise, they might turn
and be forgiven," Mark 4:11.
1262
00:52:36,780 --> 00:52:38,680
- They can't handle the truth.
1263
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,120
What kind of Messiah tells his disciples
1264
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:44,390
to keep his work big secret?
1265
00:52:44,390 --> 00:52:45,640
What kind of Messiah
1266
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,920
doesn't want his disciples to be forgiven?
1267
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:50,010
According to Mark,
1268
00:52:50,010 --> 00:52:52,750
Jesus is telling secret teachings
1269
00:52:52,750 --> 00:52:54,460
only to his inner circle.
1270
00:52:54,460 --> 00:52:56,350
- And when you ask a
biblical scholar today,
1271
00:52:56,350 --> 00:52:58,740
well what are those secret
teachings that he was giving?
1272
00:52:58,740 --> 00:53:00,520
They don't know any more than we do.
1273
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:02,490
- Those secret teachings are lost forever.
1274
00:53:02,490 --> 00:53:05,320
Like the truth about who killed JFK
1275
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:08,720
and what happened to
Michael Jackson's nose.
1276
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:10,470
Maybe the whole secrecy business
1277
00:53:10,470 --> 00:53:12,320
is Mark's way of explaining
1278
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:16,643
why most people in his time
had never heard of Jesus.
1279
00:53:16,643 --> 00:53:19,930
- This is all made up by the Gospel,
1280
00:53:19,930 --> 00:53:21,760
the author of the Gospel of Mark
1281
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,840
as sort of damage control and explanation,
1282
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:28,980
for why people didn't widely
accept him as the Messiah
1283
00:53:28,980 --> 00:53:30,610
because he didn't want them to.
1284
00:53:30,610 --> 00:53:31,960
- [Cameron] So around Mark's time,
1285
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:32,970
people were saying,
1286
00:53:32,970 --> 00:53:34,120
he did all these miracles
1287
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:35,730
I never heard of any guy doing miracles.
1288
00:53:35,730 --> 00:53:37,950
He goes, well that's cause he
told us not to tell anyone.
1289
00:53:37,950 --> 00:53:40,720
- Right, exactly.
- Maybe this story
1290
00:53:40,720 --> 00:53:45,250
about parables is also a parable?
1291
00:53:45,250 --> 00:53:47,750
- You go through the Gospel
story after story, after story
1292
00:53:47,750 --> 00:53:49,210
and they look like parables
1293
00:53:49,210 --> 00:53:51,250
that has, you know, additional meanings.
1294
00:53:51,250 --> 00:53:53,990
They might not be meant to
be taken historically true.
1295
00:53:53,990 --> 00:53:55,900
And this is how mythology
is written, right.
1296
00:53:55,900 --> 00:53:57,300
You tell a story about something
1297
00:53:57,300 --> 00:53:58,560
and it's the meaning of the story
1298
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:00,210
rather than the literal
truth of the story,
1299
00:54:00,210 --> 00:54:02,320
that's actually the
important part of the story.
1300
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,250
- For instance, let's take a look
1301
00:54:04,250 --> 00:54:07,247
at the story of the trial of Jesus.
1302
00:54:07,247 --> 00:54:08,620
- And Mark tells this story
1303
00:54:08,620 --> 00:54:12,430
where a Pontius Pilate
wants to let Jesus go
1304
00:54:12,430 --> 00:54:14,580
but Mark says, this was the holiday,
1305
00:54:14,580 --> 00:54:16,640
and on the holiday, the
Romans would traditionally
1306
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,600
let go one prisoner.
1307
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:20,240
And the crowd kept calling for Barabbas.
1308
00:54:20,240 --> 00:54:21,500
We want to release Barabbas,
1309
00:54:21,500 --> 00:54:23,750
who Mark says was a notorious rebel,
1310
00:54:23,750 --> 00:54:25,040
a rebel and murderer, right.
1311
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,600
And Pilates like, no,
no, let me let Jesus go.
1312
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:29,250
And not this, this murderous rebel
1313
00:54:29,250 --> 00:54:31,340
and then it's no, release
Barabbas, released Barabbas.
1314
00:54:31,340 --> 00:54:32,950
And so Pilate lets him go
1315
00:54:32,950 --> 00:54:35,773
and then Jesus is crucified
and that's the story.
1316
00:54:35,773 --> 00:54:37,230
- When we look at the depiction
1317
00:54:37,230 --> 00:54:39,560
of Pilate in non-biblical sources.
1318
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:41,450
Pilate is venal.
1319
00:54:41,450 --> 00:54:44,880
Pilate does not care at all
about Jewish sensibilities.
1320
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,760
Pilate goes out of his way to offend Jews.
1321
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,390
Pilate is awful.
1322
00:54:50,390 --> 00:54:51,910
But when we look at the Gospels,
1323
00:54:51,910 --> 00:54:53,350
going from the earlier Gospel,
1324
00:54:53,350 --> 00:54:55,240
like Mark up to John
1325
00:54:55,240 --> 00:54:58,110
Pilate looks better and better and better.
1326
00:54:58,110 --> 00:55:00,330
I would date Pilate from the Gospels
1327
00:55:00,330 --> 00:55:03,020
because he seems like
a perfectly decent guy
1328
00:55:03,020 --> 00:55:04,710
who's simply backed into the corner
1329
00:55:04,710 --> 00:55:06,980
by a bunch of evil Jewish leaders
1330
00:55:06,980 --> 00:55:08,580
who want him to do away with the Jesus.
1331
00:55:08,580 --> 00:55:11,030
- And there's no way this
is historically true.
1332
00:55:11,030 --> 00:55:13,383
- [Cameron] So what does
Barabbas translate as?
1333
00:55:15,010 --> 00:55:16,790
- Son of Rabbas.
1334
00:55:16,790 --> 00:55:19,440
- The word Bar in Aramaic means son of,
1335
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:22,650
and Abbas comes from
Abba, which means father.
1336
00:55:22,650 --> 00:55:24,860
- And here's the best bit.
1337
00:55:24,860 --> 00:55:26,350
- And according to the Gospel of Matthew,
1338
00:55:26,350 --> 00:55:28,900
Barabbas' first name was Jesus.
1339
00:55:28,900 --> 00:55:31,430
- Jesus Barabbas, okay.
- Jesus son of the father.
1340
00:55:31,430 --> 00:55:34,420
- Pilate says you can have Jesus Barabbas,
1341
00:55:34,420 --> 00:55:37,460
a murderer, an insurrectionist
1342
00:55:37,460 --> 00:55:39,560
or you can have Jesus of Nazareth,
1343
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:41,820
the other Jesus, Son of the father.
1344
00:55:41,820 --> 00:55:42,990
- The Jews are given a choice
1345
00:55:42,990 --> 00:55:46,610
between two Jesus, two saviors.
1346
00:55:46,610 --> 00:55:48,960
One is the violent kind of savior
1347
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:50,880
like the one who tried to overthrow
1348
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:54,500
the Romans in the rebellion of 66 CE.
1349
00:55:54,500 --> 00:55:57,230
The other is a pacifist kind of Savior.
1350
00:55:57,230 --> 00:55:59,070
Who's never hurt anything,
1351
00:55:59,070 --> 00:56:03,050
which one will the Jews choose to punish?
1352
00:56:03,050 --> 00:56:04,460
- And what happens,
1353
00:56:04,460 --> 00:56:07,040
the innocent Jesus pays the penalty,
1354
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,960
pays the ransom for the
very guilty Barabbas
1355
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:12,410
son of the Father.
1356
00:56:12,410 --> 00:56:15,090
In terms of Christian
theology it's perfect,
1357
00:56:15,090 --> 00:56:17,430
in terms of history, it's ridiculous.
1358
00:56:17,430 --> 00:56:20,553
- Two identical saviors,
one is gonna be set free.
1359
00:56:20,553 --> 00:56:22,830
One is gonna pay the penalty.
1360
00:56:22,830 --> 00:56:25,360
Now if you were a Jew
living in the first century,
1361
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:27,890
this story might sound a little familiar.
1362
00:56:27,890 --> 00:56:30,070
- Well, we know this story,
this is in Leviticus.
1363
00:56:30,070 --> 00:56:32,200
This is the whole ritual of Yom Kippur,
1364
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:33,810
which is the whole atonement ceremony.
1365
00:56:33,810 --> 00:56:36,540
- [Narrator] Yom Kippur is
usually expressed in English
1366
00:56:36,540 --> 00:56:38,743
as Day of Atonement.
1367
00:56:39,700 --> 00:56:41,920
- There are two great ceremonies
in the Jewish calendar.
1368
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:44,820
One was Passover and the
other was Yom Kippur.
1369
00:56:44,820 --> 00:56:46,510
And this one, every year
there would be this,
1370
00:56:46,510 --> 00:56:48,410
you have the two goats,
the two identical goats,
1371
00:56:48,410 --> 00:56:50,120
they have to be, look the same.
1372
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:52,160
One you would cast the sins of Israel on
1373
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:54,260
and cast it into the crowd,
1374
00:56:54,260 --> 00:56:55,920
release it into the
wilderness, and the other,
1375
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:57,420
you would sacrifice on the alter
1376
00:56:57,420 --> 00:56:58,930
in the temple its blood would atone
1377
00:56:58,930 --> 00:57:00,400
for all the sins of Israel.
1378
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:02,680
- The braveous story seems to be saying
1379
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:04,610
that the goat sacrifices,
1380
00:57:04,610 --> 00:57:08,557
which had replaced human
sacrifices in Judaism
1381
00:57:08,557 --> 00:57:11,170
are now being replaced once more
1382
00:57:11,170 --> 00:57:14,160
with the ultimate human sacrifice.
1383
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:17,140
Mark is writing for one
of Paul's communities,
1384
00:57:17,140 --> 00:57:18,870
possibly in Rome.
1385
00:57:18,870 --> 00:57:22,050
Originally it was written
to symbolize the Gospel.
1386
00:57:22,050 --> 00:57:24,370
It wasn't written to be
taken as literally true,
1387
00:57:24,370 --> 00:57:27,150
at least not by informed
insiders in the sect.
1388
00:57:27,150 --> 00:57:28,370
- This story by the way
1389
00:57:28,370 --> 00:57:31,020
is where we get the term scapegoat.
1390
00:57:31,020 --> 00:57:34,223
- Forgive me Lord, I
have committed murder.
1391
00:57:35,410 --> 00:57:37,483
- That's a terrible sin,
1392
00:57:37,483 --> 00:57:40,790
have you pushed a goat over cliff.
1393
00:57:40,790 --> 00:57:42,450
- Why yes, Lord I did.
1394
00:57:42,450 --> 00:57:46,250
- Then no problem see you next year.
1395
00:57:46,250 --> 00:57:48,890
- Now most people who read
the Barabbas story today,
1396
00:57:48,890 --> 00:57:50,260
probably aren't Jews
1397
00:57:50,260 --> 00:57:52,810
probably don't know their
Leviticus very well.
1398
00:57:52,810 --> 00:57:55,510
So the whole story about
two identical goats
1399
00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:01,350
goes right over their
heads (crowd laughing)
1400
00:58:01,350 --> 00:58:03,030
- And I think you can
go from story to story
1401
00:58:03,030 --> 00:58:05,370
through Mark and see, like,
if you look at it as history,
1402
00:58:05,370 --> 00:58:07,860
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
1403
00:58:07,860 --> 00:58:09,290
But if you look at it as allegory,
1404
00:58:09,290 --> 00:58:12,350
as something representing something else,
1405
00:58:12,350 --> 00:58:13,187
then it makes perfect sense
1406
00:58:13,187 --> 00:58:14,860
and it looks literarily brilliant.
1407
00:58:14,860 --> 00:58:17,160
- Then towards the end of Mark's Gospel,
1408
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:20,230
we find Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane,
1409
00:58:20,230 --> 00:58:22,290
where he's literally begging Yahweh
1410
00:58:22,290 --> 00:58:24,827
not to let him be killed.
1411
00:58:24,827 --> 00:58:27,227
- [Narrator] "They went to
a place called Gethsemane.
1412
00:58:27,227 --> 00:58:30,527
"He began to be deeply
distressed and troubled.
1413
00:58:30,527 --> 00:58:33,557
"He fell to the ground and
prayed that if possible,
1414
00:58:33,557 --> 00:58:35,857
"the hour might pass from him.
1415
00:58:35,857 --> 00:58:40,857
"Father take this cup
from me," Mark 14:32-42.
1416
00:58:43,910 --> 00:58:46,320
- It's a very moving story
1417
00:58:47,350 --> 00:58:51,610
until you realize that Jesus is Yahweh,
1418
00:58:51,610 --> 00:58:54,500
so this was His own plan all along
1419
00:58:54,500 --> 00:58:59,500
and He's literally begging
Himself not to kill Himself.
1420
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:02,833
Which is pretty confusing.
1421
00:59:03,700 --> 00:59:06,950
In Mark, Jesus appears to be very human.
1422
00:59:06,950 --> 00:59:11,570
He doesn't talk or act
like a God in disguise.
1423
00:59:11,570 --> 00:59:16,030
This might be an idea that
Christians came up with later.
1424
00:59:16,030 --> 00:59:19,410
Speaking of humans and parables
1425
00:59:19,410 --> 00:59:22,210
one of the stories that
we don't find in Mark
1426
00:59:22,210 --> 00:59:24,210
is the virgin birth.
1427
00:59:24,210 --> 00:59:25,920
- Mark starts his Gospel
1428
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:29,030
and says the beginning of the Gospel
1429
00:59:29,030 --> 00:59:30,963
of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
1430
00:59:31,870 --> 00:59:35,030
And then he doesn't tell us
a story about Jesus' birth,
1431
00:59:35,030 --> 00:59:39,210
but instead narrates
Jesus' baptism by John.
1432
00:59:39,210 --> 00:59:43,500
And if you look carefully at this story
1433
00:59:43,500 --> 00:59:47,420
with the Holy Spirit,
descending upon Jesus
1434
00:59:47,420 --> 00:59:49,720
like a dove and God saying,
1435
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:51,690
this is my beloved son.
1436
00:59:51,690 --> 00:59:55,040
It sorta sounds like Mark is saying
1437
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:57,910
that this is when Jesus
becomes the son of God,
1438
00:59:57,910 --> 00:59:59,290
at his baptism.
1439
00:59:59,290 --> 01:00:01,810
- In ancient Rome, birds landing on things
1440
01:00:01,810 --> 01:00:04,730
was read as a positive sign from the gods.
1441
01:00:04,730 --> 01:00:06,960
The process of deciphering the movement
1442
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:08,237
of the birds was called,
1443
01:00:08,237 --> 01:00:10,250
"taking the auspices,"
1444
01:00:10,250 --> 01:00:14,100
which literally translates
as looking at birds.
1445
01:00:14,100 --> 01:00:17,920
It's the basis by the way of
the English word auspicious.
1446
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:20,250
Now, the person who took the auspices
1447
01:00:20,250 --> 01:00:22,500
was known as an Augur,
1448
01:00:22,500 --> 01:00:24,680
which is the basis of the name
1449
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:28,220
Augustus, the original son of God.
1450
01:00:28,220 --> 01:00:31,250
So again, many people
living in the Roman empire
1451
01:00:31,250 --> 01:00:34,350
1900 years ago reading Mark,
1452
01:00:34,350 --> 01:00:37,150
would probably have
understood the symbolism.
1453
01:00:37,150 --> 01:00:41,320
- So what you see in
early Christian history
1454
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,410
is that the status of Jesus as son of God,
1455
01:00:44,410 --> 01:00:46,400
keeps getting kicked
back further and further.
1456
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:48,320
First, it's the resurrection
1457
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:50,320
then it's at his baptism,
1458
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:52,510
then it's at his birth,
1459
01:00:52,510 --> 01:00:55,320
then he's always been there
from the beginning of time.
1460
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:56,714
- [Cameron] So it evolved the idea...
1461
01:00:56,714 --> 01:00:58,010
- Absolutely.
- [Cameron] Of Jesus evolved
1462
01:00:58,010 --> 01:01:01,480
Over a century or so.
- Yes, definitely.
1463
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,110
- And that's just for Paul's communities.
1464
01:01:04,110 --> 01:01:05,070
The other factions,
1465
01:01:05,070 --> 01:01:06,940
including the one of
the original disciples
1466
01:01:06,940 --> 01:01:09,090
had different ideas all together.
1467
01:01:09,090 --> 01:01:11,240
In fact, as we'll see
a little bit later on
1468
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:14,110
at least one major early Christian faction
1469
01:01:14,110 --> 01:01:17,620
didn't even believe
Jesus was divine at all.
1470
01:01:17,620 --> 01:01:19,170
One of the other surprising things
1471
01:01:19,170 --> 01:01:21,220
that's missing from Mark's Gospel,
1472
01:01:21,220 --> 01:01:24,500
is one of the most important
ideas in all of Christianity.
1473
01:01:24,500 --> 01:01:28,260
Jesus' resurrection
appearances to his followers.
1474
01:01:28,260 --> 01:01:31,580
- It's so odd, the oldest
Gospel is Mark's Gospel.
1475
01:01:31,580 --> 01:01:34,180
Most scholars believe
that, I believe that.
1476
01:01:34,180 --> 01:01:36,110
And there are no appearances
1477
01:01:36,110 --> 01:01:38,090
of the risen Jesus to his disciples.
1478
01:01:38,090 --> 01:01:40,400
In fact, the Gospel ends in a very dark
1479
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,090
and quite mysterious enigmatic way,
1480
01:01:43,090 --> 01:01:46,330
where this young man who just
happens to be at the tomb,
1481
01:01:46,330 --> 01:01:49,810
says to the women, go
and tell the disciples
1482
01:01:49,810 --> 01:01:52,750
and Peter what's happened to these women.
1483
01:01:52,750 --> 01:01:53,952
And the women just run away
1484
01:01:53,952 --> 01:01:57,190
and don't tell anyone for
they're afraid, that's it.
1485
01:01:57,190 --> 01:01:59,180
So, I mean, if you believe Mark's Gospel,
1486
01:01:59,180 --> 01:02:01,170
no one ever found out
about the resurrection,
1487
01:02:01,170 --> 01:02:02,280
cause they didn't tell anybody.
1488
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:03,710
- [Cameron] Including Mark who
- Right, right
1489
01:02:03,710 --> 01:02:05,063
couldn't have written it down
because they didn't tell him.
1490
01:02:05,063 --> 01:02:06,990
- Yeah, yes, it's extraordinary.
1491
01:02:06,990 --> 01:02:08,960
- At some point a Christian scribe
1492
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:12,150
decided to write a new
ending to Mark's Gospel.
1493
01:02:12,150 --> 01:02:14,220
He decided to sex it up a little bit.
1494
01:02:14,220 --> 01:02:18,833
He (indistinct) like George
Lucas making Greedo shoot first.
1495
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:21,240
Have to wonder why bother,
1496
01:02:21,240 --> 01:02:24,440
why not just leave the
original ending as it was?
1497
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:27,330
- What's happening, I think
is that the secret doctrines
1498
01:02:27,330 --> 01:02:29,310
some of the secret
teachings are leaking out
1499
01:02:29,310 --> 01:02:30,880
into the public teachings.
1500
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:32,520
- First rule about Jesus' club
1501
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:35,000
is you don't talk about Jesus club.
1502
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:36,080
- These particular doctrines
1503
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:37,870
became less important to keep secret.
1504
01:02:37,870 --> 01:02:39,800
And so you see them leaking out over time.
1505
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:42,820
So you gets, the nativity idea,
1506
01:02:42,820 --> 01:02:45,230
or you get the magical incarnation idea.
1507
01:02:45,230 --> 01:02:47,000
More of their secrets are being leaked out
1508
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:48,330
and more attempt to try
1509
01:02:48,330 --> 01:02:50,420
and prove points by creating stories
1510
01:02:50,420 --> 01:02:51,830
that support your points.
1511
01:02:51,830 --> 01:02:53,530
And so you get more,
more at miracle stories,
1512
01:02:53,530 --> 01:02:56,600
you get more doctrinally relevant stuff.
1513
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:59,460
- It really makes me
wonder about the intentions
1514
01:02:59,460 --> 01:03:01,010
of these early Christians.
1515
01:03:01,010 --> 01:03:03,470
If the truth was so important to them,
1516
01:03:03,470 --> 01:03:07,740
why bother rewriting the
ending of the first Gospel?
1517
01:03:07,740 --> 01:03:11,028
And just like Paul, Mark is counting down.
1518
01:03:11,028 --> 01:03:13,695
(clock ticking)
1519
01:03:15,090 --> 01:03:18,140
- Mark's Gospel believes
just like Paul does,
1520
01:03:18,140 --> 01:03:20,430
that the end is absolutely eminent.
1521
01:03:20,430 --> 01:03:22,387
So there is a line in Mark's Gospel,
1522
01:03:22,387 --> 01:03:24,847
"Some of those standing here," Jesus says
1523
01:03:24,847 --> 01:03:26,397
"will not taste death
1524
01:03:26,397 --> 01:03:28,970
"before they see the kingdom
of God come with power."
1525
01:03:28,970 --> 01:03:32,300
It's one of these interesting
ironies of history
1526
01:03:32,300 --> 01:03:36,260
that every time there's a
delay in the Eschaton coming,
1527
01:03:36,260 --> 01:03:38,820
the faithful don't kind
of give up on the idea.
1528
01:03:38,820 --> 01:03:41,890
They become all the more eager
1529
01:03:41,890 --> 01:03:43,590
in thinking that it's about to happen.
1530
01:03:43,590 --> 01:03:46,090
- [Narrator] The Eschaton
means the end times,
1531
01:03:46,090 --> 01:03:48,253
the end of the world, as we know it.
1532
01:03:50,540 --> 01:03:52,370
- [Cameron] Like a modern UFO cult.
1533
01:03:52,370 --> 01:03:54,780
- Yeah, modern religious cults as well
1534
01:03:54,780 --> 01:03:55,970
I mean, they do this all the time.
1535
01:03:55,970 --> 01:03:57,340
When disappointment comes,
1536
01:03:57,340 --> 01:03:59,580
they don't say, we must have been wrong.
1537
01:03:59,580 --> 01:04:01,930
Or at least they don't say
we must have been wrong
1538
01:04:01,930 --> 01:04:03,500
in our fundamental identity.
1539
01:04:03,500 --> 01:04:05,540
They just, we may have gotten
the timetable a bit wrong.
1540
01:04:05,540 --> 01:04:07,800
So you revise it, you change it.
1541
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:09,740
And the early Christians
were no different from that.
1542
01:04:09,740 --> 01:04:10,960
- Those Christians who believed
1543
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:13,530
that the Bible is literally true
1544
01:04:13,530 --> 01:04:15,310
must have a hard time explaining
1545
01:04:15,310 --> 01:04:17,600
why the world hasn't ended yet.
1546
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:20,810
- It's one of the things
that I think many Christians
1547
01:04:20,810 --> 01:04:23,380
across the centuries have
really struggled with,
1548
01:04:23,380 --> 01:04:25,970
the fact that Jesus appears to say
1549
01:04:25,970 --> 01:04:29,070
that he is coming back within
the lifetime of his followers.
1550
01:04:29,070 --> 01:04:30,400
And that clearly didn't happen.
1551
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:31,520
It clearly didn't happen.
1552
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:33,020
You can spiritualize it,
1553
01:04:33,020 --> 01:04:36,350
you can kind of try and find
some sort of fine fancy way
1554
01:04:36,350 --> 01:04:38,800
of saying in a very real sense
spiritually, he did come.
1555
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,570
But, the fact is that he didn't return
1556
01:04:41,570 --> 01:04:43,960
in the lifetime of his followers,
1557
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:45,630
as he had said that he would.
1558
01:04:45,630 --> 01:04:47,860
And this is something that has always been
1559
01:04:47,860 --> 01:04:51,320
at the heart of some real
anxiety in Christianity.
1560
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:52,750
It's almost like a kind of a trauma
1561
01:04:52,750 --> 01:04:53,980
trying to come to terms with,
1562
01:04:53,980 --> 01:04:55,550
how can it be that Jesus said this
1563
01:04:55,550 --> 01:04:56,910
when it didn't actually happen?
1564
01:04:56,910 --> 01:04:59,360
- Yeah, definitely, you
can see a trajectory
1565
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:00,810
in the New Testament writings
1566
01:05:00,810 --> 01:05:04,360
as you move from letters like Paul's.
1567
01:05:04,360 --> 01:05:05,820
So the earliest writings we have
1568
01:05:05,820 --> 01:05:09,710
to writings composed in the first half
1569
01:05:09,710 --> 01:05:11,020
of the second century
1570
01:05:11,020 --> 01:05:13,800
where the apocalyptic expectations,
1571
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:16,670
just continue to get sort of toned down
1572
01:05:16,670 --> 01:05:20,110
and there become sort of
an increasing recognition
1573
01:05:20,110 --> 01:05:24,520
that Jesus is not coming
back anytime soon.
1574
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:25,877
- Each generation of Christians
1575
01:05:25,877 --> 01:05:26,710
was probably led to believe
1576
01:05:26,710 --> 01:05:28,850
that it would happen in their time,
1577
01:05:28,850 --> 01:05:30,670
just like still happens.
1578
01:05:30,670 --> 01:05:33,080
And they may not even have noticed
1579
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:34,570
that there had been a delay.
1580
01:05:34,570 --> 01:05:38,520
It's not like most people had
copies of the Bible to read.
1581
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:41,060
So they only knew what
they heard in church.
1582
01:05:41,060 --> 01:05:42,270
- Don't worry though,
1583
01:05:42,270 --> 01:05:47,270
the end of the world
is coming any day now.
1584
01:05:47,487 --> 01:05:50,154
(ominous music)
1585
01:06:02,780 --> 01:06:05,000
The next Gospel to be written was Matthew
1586
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:08,060
probably 10 or 20 years after Mark,
1587
01:06:08,060 --> 01:06:10,630
around 80 or 90 CE.
1588
01:06:10,630 --> 01:06:12,400
So who was he?
1589
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:17,400
- Gospel of Matthew is
attributed to Matthew,
1590
01:06:18,070 --> 01:06:20,670
one of the 12 disciples.
1591
01:06:20,670 --> 01:06:25,200
But it's improbable that
this was actually written
1592
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:29,270
by an eyewitness, because Matthew's Gospel
1593
01:06:29,270 --> 01:06:32,340
is using as one of its
major sources, Mark.
1594
01:06:32,340 --> 01:06:35,310
And if Mark is not written
by a disciple even,
1595
01:06:35,310 --> 01:06:38,930
why would a disciple, an
eyewitness to Jesus ministry,
1596
01:06:38,930 --> 01:06:41,940
use somebody else's secondhand reports.
1597
01:06:41,940 --> 01:06:44,260
Why wouldn't they just
tell their own story?
1598
01:06:44,260 --> 01:06:47,080
So it does not seem
1599
01:06:47,080 --> 01:06:49,360
that Matthew is actually
written by an eyewitness.
1600
01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:51,220
- And also Matthew again
is writing in Greek.
1601
01:06:51,220 --> 01:06:52,560
- Matthew is written,
1602
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:55,230
I think by a Jewish Christian
1603
01:06:55,230 --> 01:06:58,070
who he kind of likes Mark's Gospel.
1604
01:06:58,070 --> 01:07:00,450
He copies his whole passages verbatim.
1605
01:07:00,450 --> 01:07:02,930
So he clearly quite likes Mark's Gospel,
1606
01:07:02,930 --> 01:07:05,190
but I think he thinks Mark
got some things wrong.
1607
01:07:05,190 --> 01:07:08,470
- For Mark, who's firmly in Paul's world
1608
01:07:08,470 --> 01:07:10,380
of Christian Gentiles,
1609
01:07:10,380 --> 01:07:12,950
Jesus doesn't appear to be very Jewish.
1610
01:07:12,950 --> 01:07:13,890
Matthew on the other hand,
1611
01:07:13,890 --> 01:07:15,370
calls BS and all of that.
1612
01:07:15,370 --> 01:07:17,810
In Matthew, Jesus is quite clear
1613
01:07:17,810 --> 01:07:20,897
that he's only interested in the Jews.
1614
01:07:20,897 --> 01:07:22,757
- [Narrator] "I was sent
only to the lost sheep
1615
01:07:22,757 --> 01:07:24,207
"of the House of Israel.
1616
01:07:24,207 --> 01:07:26,397
"It is not right to take
the children's bread
1617
01:07:26,397 --> 01:07:30,657
"and throw it to the
dogs," Matthew 15:24-26.
1618
01:07:30,657 --> 01:07:34,267
"These 12 Jesus sent out with
the following instructions,
1619
01:07:34,267 --> 01:07:36,147
"do not go among the Gentiles
1620
01:07:36,147 --> 01:07:38,457
"or enter any town of the Samaritans.
1621
01:07:38,457 --> 01:07:43,457
"Go rather to the lost sheep
of Israel," Matthew 10:5-6.
1622
01:07:43,530 --> 01:07:44,980
- Which makes Paul's claims
1623
01:07:44,980 --> 01:07:46,230
that the ghost of Jesus
1624
01:07:46,230 --> 01:07:50,020
told him to go and preach to
the Gentiles, pretty suspect.
1625
01:07:50,020 --> 01:07:53,330
I mean, if that was
Jesus' original intention,
1626
01:07:53,330 --> 01:07:55,730
you think he would have told his apostles.
1627
01:07:55,730 --> 01:07:58,130
- So Matthew's engaged in
this fascinating project
1628
01:07:58,130 --> 01:08:00,230
of re-jewdianising Jesus.
1629
01:08:00,230 --> 01:08:01,380
And quite interestingly,
1630
01:08:01,380 --> 01:08:02,780
because Jesus was a Jew
1631
01:08:02,780 --> 01:08:06,060
and because he was probably
quite faithful to the law,
1632
01:08:06,060 --> 01:08:08,950
Matthew in a away is also
re-jesusizing Mark's Gospel.
1633
01:08:08,950 --> 01:08:11,500
He is actually bringing
it a bit back around
1634
01:08:11,500 --> 01:08:13,190
to what Jesus was probably more like.
1635
01:08:13,190 --> 01:08:14,800
The historical Jesus that is.
1636
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:16,700
- [Cameron] A Jew preaching to Jews
1637
01:08:16,700 --> 01:08:18,380
about being a good Jew.
- Right.
1638
01:08:18,380 --> 01:08:20,610
- It is an irony of history
1639
01:08:20,610 --> 01:08:25,610
that the most popular
Gospel in Christian history,
1640
01:08:25,810 --> 01:08:27,770
far and away has been
the Gospel of Matthew.
1641
01:08:27,770 --> 01:08:31,933
And yet it presents the most Jewish,
1642
01:08:34,323 --> 01:08:35,960
of the four Gospels
1643
01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:38,510
and probably would have been quite hostile
1644
01:08:38,510 --> 01:08:41,670
to the kind of law free Christianity
1645
01:08:41,670 --> 01:08:44,020
that Paul is proposing.
1646
01:08:44,020 --> 01:08:47,490
These two sources, Paul
and the Gospel of Matthew
1647
01:08:47,490 --> 01:08:51,210
would definitely come into conflict
1648
01:08:51,210 --> 01:08:54,180
over whether a Gentile Christians,
1649
01:08:54,180 --> 01:08:55,780
should follow the law.
1650
01:08:55,780 --> 01:08:58,340
But Paul definitely says, no they don't.
1651
01:08:58,340 --> 01:09:01,520
Matthew says yes, absolutely, they do.
1652
01:09:01,520 --> 01:09:03,750
- And it's one of the amazing
things about Christianity
1653
01:09:03,750 --> 01:09:06,060
is that, most people just ignore that.
1654
01:09:06,060 --> 01:09:07,460
Most people just ignore it,
1655
01:09:07,460 --> 01:09:09,980
but it was a very important
strand in early Christianity
1656
01:09:09,980 --> 01:09:11,487
and emerging Christianity,
1657
01:09:11,487 --> 01:09:14,930
that saw the Christians duty
1658
01:09:14,930 --> 01:09:17,720
as being not just to be loyal to Jesus,
1659
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:19,940
but also to be loyal to the Jewish law.
1660
01:09:19,940 --> 01:09:22,250
And they were loyal to the law
1661
01:09:22,250 --> 01:09:23,470
because they believe
1662
01:09:23,470 --> 01:09:25,230
that's what Jesus had taught them to do.
1663
01:09:25,230 --> 01:09:28,800
- So Matthew's position is,
if you're not going to temple,
1664
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:32,600
you're not circumcised and
you're not eating kosher food,
1665
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:33,920
you're doing Jesus wrong?
1666
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:34,753
- That's right, they have to get,
1667
01:09:34,753 --> 01:09:37,570
well at the very least have
to get a copy of the Talmud
1668
01:09:37,570 --> 01:09:39,670
and start learning Hebrew.
1669
01:09:39,670 --> 01:09:41,050
- [Cameron] Wear a yamaka.
- Yeah.
1670
01:09:41,050 --> 01:09:44,150
- The Matthew Gospel is where
some of those most famous
1671
01:09:44,150 --> 01:09:47,860
and dubious Jesus stories first turn up.
1672
01:09:47,860 --> 01:09:49,180
Remember how in Paul's day
1673
01:09:49,180 --> 01:09:51,270
there seemed to be lots of factions
1674
01:09:51,270 --> 01:09:53,730
telling different stories about Jesus.
1675
01:09:53,730 --> 01:09:55,740
Matthew seems to have included stories
1676
01:09:55,740 --> 01:09:59,420
he had heard that Mark either hadn't heard
1677
01:09:59,420 --> 01:10:01,300
or just didn't like.
1678
01:10:01,300 --> 01:10:04,010
Stories like the sermon on the Mount,
1679
01:10:04,010 --> 01:10:06,030
the resurrection appearances
1680
01:10:06,030 --> 01:10:08,440
and the massacre of the innocence.
1681
01:10:08,440 --> 01:10:10,960
Where Herod the great, King of Judea,
1682
01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:14,750
orders the execution of all
male babies around Bethlehem.
1683
01:10:14,750 --> 01:10:15,800
Historians by the way,
1684
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:19,810
have found no other evidence
of that ever happening.
1685
01:10:19,810 --> 01:10:22,220
Matthew probably just made it up
1686
01:10:22,220 --> 01:10:24,650
to sound like the similar story
1687
01:10:24,650 --> 01:10:27,180
about Moses in the Old Testament.
1688
01:10:27,180 --> 01:10:29,400
Matthew is also the first person
1689
01:10:29,400 --> 01:10:32,440
to mention the virgin birth.
1690
01:10:32,440 --> 01:10:34,930
- So fully half a century appears
1691
01:10:34,930 --> 01:10:37,607
before we ever get anyone
writing about a virgin birth.
1692
01:10:37,607 --> 01:10:39,110
- The story of the virgin birth
1693
01:10:39,110 --> 01:10:41,530
I think is is baffling.
1694
01:10:41,530 --> 01:10:43,990
You heard in Matthew's Gospel,
1695
01:10:43,990 --> 01:10:48,680
this genealogy that connects
Jesus right back to Abraham,
1696
01:10:48,680 --> 01:10:49,820
going through David.
1697
01:10:49,820 --> 01:10:51,630
- [Cameron] King David,
the possibly mythical
1698
01:10:51,630 --> 01:10:55,450
second King of the United
Kingdom of Israel and Judah,
1699
01:10:55,450 --> 01:10:58,603
who supposedly killed a
giant with a slingshot.
1700
01:10:59,660 --> 01:11:02,490
- All going through Joseph, Jesus' father.
1701
01:11:02,490 --> 01:11:04,280
Then the very next story
1702
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:06,340
is about how Joseph isn't Jesus' father.
1703
01:11:06,340 --> 01:11:08,430
I mean, religious people are very good
1704
01:11:08,430 --> 01:11:10,270
at getting their head
around contradictions,
1705
01:11:10,270 --> 01:11:11,470
but there's a big one
1706
01:11:11,470 --> 01:11:13,700
right there on the very first
page of the New Testament.
1707
01:11:13,700 --> 01:11:16,380
It's fascinating, what did
Matthew think he was doing?
1708
01:11:16,380 --> 01:11:19,570
Why is he telling a story
about a virginal conception,
1709
01:11:19,570 --> 01:11:20,760
when he also wants to tell us
1710
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:24,660
that Jesus was descended
from David via his father?
1711
01:11:24,660 --> 01:11:27,560
I don't know, I think it's a mystery.
1712
01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:30,160
- Did he just hope no one would notice.
1713
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:32,580
- And so Jesus is the
descendant of King David,
1714
01:11:32,580 --> 01:11:34,870
because Joseph is his father?
1715
01:11:34,870 --> 01:11:37,120
But I thought Mary was a virgin?
1716
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:39,640
- Yeah, look over there, it's the Messiah.
1717
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:41,690
- Where?
- No, no, it's just Larry
1718
01:11:41,690 --> 01:11:43,150
they got the same beard.
1719
01:11:43,150 --> 01:11:45,800
- No, no, no, now I lost my place.
1720
01:11:45,800 --> 01:11:47,140
- Hey, don't worry about it,
1721
01:11:47,140 --> 01:11:49,150
let's go get a kosher kebab.
1722
01:11:49,150 --> 01:11:51,120
- And the fact is lots
of people don't notice.
1723
01:11:51,120 --> 01:11:53,320
Many Christians will happily affirm,
1724
01:11:53,320 --> 01:11:55,330
Jesus is the son of David.
1725
01:11:55,330 --> 01:11:56,163
They will also affirm
1726
01:11:56,163 --> 01:11:58,420
that Jesus was conceived by a virgin.
1727
01:11:58,420 --> 01:12:02,330
- Scholars believe that
Matthew's idea of a virgin birth
1728
01:12:02,330 --> 01:12:05,930
is possibly based on a bad
translation of the Old Testament.
1729
01:12:05,930 --> 01:12:09,770
See, in the Hebrew version
of the prophet Isaiah,
1730
01:12:09,770 --> 01:12:12,530
he predicts that a baby boy will be born
1731
01:12:12,530 --> 01:12:16,070
as a sign that God is going
to destroy his enemies.
1732
01:12:16,070 --> 01:12:19,620
And the Hebrew word that
Isaiah uses to describe
1733
01:12:19,620 --> 01:12:22,720
the mother of the boy is Almah.
1734
01:12:22,720 --> 01:12:27,030
Now Almah just translates
as a childless young woman,
1735
01:12:27,030 --> 01:12:31,070
but Matthew wasn't using the
Hebrew version of Isaiah,
1736
01:12:31,070 --> 01:12:34,330
he was using a Greek translation,
1737
01:12:34,330 --> 01:12:38,670
which mistranslated Almah into virgin.
1738
01:12:38,670 --> 01:12:41,670
Another unfortunate thing
about Matthew's Gospel
1739
01:12:41,670 --> 01:12:45,130
is despite it being fairly pro Torah,
1740
01:12:45,130 --> 01:12:50,130
it's also inspired 1900
years of antisemitism.
1741
01:12:52,170 --> 01:12:53,770
- In Matthew's Gospel,
1742
01:12:53,770 --> 01:12:57,500
you have this ideal of a kind of loyalty
1743
01:12:57,500 --> 01:13:00,010
to Torah, loyalty to the synagogue,
1744
01:13:00,010 --> 01:13:02,230
to all of these Jewish traditions.
1745
01:13:02,230 --> 01:13:05,470
And yet also, this bitter,
1746
01:13:05,470 --> 01:13:08,507
bitter vitriol against fellow Jews.
1747
01:13:08,507 --> 01:13:11,910
- Now keep in mind that
although Matthew is a Jew
1748
01:13:11,910 --> 01:13:15,200
and he's writing for a
community of Jewish Christians,
1749
01:13:15,200 --> 01:13:17,403
they're an extremely fringe, sect,
1750
01:13:17,403 --> 01:13:21,620
kind of like the way that
Catholics view Mormons today.
1751
01:13:21,620 --> 01:13:24,380
And he's writing 10 or 20 years
1752
01:13:24,380 --> 01:13:27,020
after this big Jewish Roman war,
1753
01:13:27,020 --> 01:13:31,110
so Jews are probably pretty
unpopular across the empire.
1754
01:13:31,110 --> 01:13:34,260
And the Jesus Jews,
wanna distance themselves
1755
01:13:34,260 --> 01:13:37,080
from the traditional
Jews as much as possible
1756
01:13:37,080 --> 01:13:38,430
for political reasons.
1757
01:13:38,430 --> 01:13:42,670
And Matthew just like
Mark and Paul before him,
1758
01:13:42,670 --> 01:13:44,480
believes that the end of the world
1759
01:13:44,480 --> 01:13:46,268
is gonna happen very soon.
1760
01:13:46,268 --> 01:13:49,708
(clock ticking)
1761
01:13:49,708 --> 01:13:52,700
But keep in mind by the time he's writing,
1762
01:13:52,700 --> 01:13:56,510
most of those original
disciples are probably dead
1763
01:13:56,510 --> 01:14:00,749
and yet there's still no sign of Jesus.
1764
01:14:00,749 --> 01:14:04,499
(amusing instrumental music)
1765
01:14:06,090 --> 01:14:07,370
According to most scholars,
1766
01:14:07,370 --> 01:14:09,620
the next Gospel to be written is Luke.
1767
01:14:09,620 --> 01:14:14,590
Written somewhere between 10
and 30 years after Matthew.
1768
01:14:14,590 --> 01:14:17,940
Luke, by the way also wrote
the Acts of the Apostles,
1769
01:14:17,940 --> 01:14:21,120
which is kind of a sequel to the Gospels.
1770
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:24,110
- Luke's writing, I think this
really big epic narrative.
1771
01:14:24,110 --> 01:14:25,840
He wants to tell the story of Jesus
1772
01:14:25,840 --> 01:14:28,160
and the story of the early church.
1773
01:14:28,160 --> 01:14:30,650
Luke, according to tradition,
1774
01:14:30,650 --> 01:14:33,290
was a traveling companion of Paul.
1775
01:14:33,290 --> 01:14:36,150
He was a Gentile, a physician,
1776
01:14:36,150 --> 01:14:37,830
a doctor in the ancient world.
1777
01:14:37,830 --> 01:14:38,663
So he was definitely a,
1778
01:14:38,663 --> 01:14:41,500
what we would call a second
generation Christian.
1779
01:14:41,500 --> 01:14:45,020
- He says, this is the stuff
that was handed on to us
1780
01:14:45,020 --> 01:14:47,120
and written down by earlier generations.
1781
01:14:47,120 --> 01:14:49,730
And I'm, working with it myself.
1782
01:14:49,730 --> 01:14:52,050
- In reality, we know he's not using oral
1783
01:14:52,050 --> 01:14:56,110
or we know he's using the
previous books, Mark and Matthew.
1784
01:14:56,110 --> 01:14:58,850
So yeah, so the traditional attributions
1785
01:14:58,850 --> 01:15:01,000
are clearly late legend,
1786
01:15:01,000 --> 01:15:03,480
and mainstream scholarship
has long since realized that
1787
01:15:03,480 --> 01:15:05,530
and gotten off that wagon.
1788
01:15:05,530 --> 01:15:07,530
- Acts of the Apostles, Luke's account
1789
01:15:07,530 --> 01:15:10,360
of what happened after Jesus died,
1790
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:14,240
tries to white wash all of this tension
1791
01:15:14,240 --> 01:15:18,220
and conflict that obviously existed
1792
01:15:18,220 --> 01:15:21,210
between Paul and the original Jesus gang.
1793
01:15:21,210 --> 01:15:23,660
- Luke undoubtedly is trying to present
1794
01:15:23,660 --> 01:15:27,330
an idealized account of the
early Christian community.
1795
01:15:27,330 --> 01:15:29,670
Certainly at the end of Acts, chapter two,
1796
01:15:29,670 --> 01:15:32,320
you've got everyone gathered
around the apostles teaching,
1797
01:15:32,320 --> 01:15:34,440
breaking bread, worshiping God,
1798
01:15:34,440 --> 01:15:36,480
finding favor of God and all the people.
1799
01:15:36,480 --> 01:15:38,760
So it's definitely an idealized account.
1800
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:41,880
- All of the anger, tension and bribery
1801
01:15:41,880 --> 01:15:43,780
that we see in Paul's letters,
1802
01:15:43,780 --> 01:15:47,630
either disappears in
Luke or gets toned down.
1803
01:15:47,630 --> 01:15:48,960
It's kind of like he's saying,
1804
01:15:48,960 --> 01:15:52,800
Oh, it was no where near as
bad as you've probably heard.
1805
01:15:52,800 --> 01:15:56,110
- So I think he does
try to paint generally,
1806
01:15:56,110 --> 01:15:58,140
a rosy picture of it.
1807
01:15:58,140 --> 01:16:01,290
But it's certainly not
a complete white wash,
1808
01:16:01,290 --> 01:16:05,590
he does include some instances
of division and differences.
1809
01:16:05,590 --> 01:16:08,440
And I mean he does portray
Paul as quite a hothead.
1810
01:16:08,440 --> 01:16:10,720
- By the time Luke's writing Acts
1811
01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,860
towards the end of the first century,
1812
01:16:12,860 --> 01:16:13,693
the Paul line community,
1813
01:16:13,693 --> 01:16:17,290
had tried to strengthen their credentials.
1814
01:16:17,290 --> 01:16:19,590
Trying to solidify their connection
1815
01:16:19,590 --> 01:16:21,690
to the original founders, Peter and James
1816
01:16:21,690 --> 01:16:24,400
who were probably dead at this stage.
1817
01:16:24,400 --> 01:16:27,040
Their community is pretty much wiped out
1818
01:16:27,040 --> 01:16:29,300
and so they can't fight back.
1819
01:16:29,300 --> 01:16:32,600
Winners get to write the history.
1820
01:16:32,600 --> 01:16:37,600
All in all, Luke's not a very
credible historical source.
1821
01:16:37,740 --> 01:16:41,890
And Luke just like Matthew,
Mark, and Paul before him
1822
01:16:41,890 --> 01:16:43,460
believes the end of the world
1823
01:16:43,460 --> 01:16:45,532
is gonna happen anytime soon.
1824
01:16:45,532 --> 01:16:48,267
(clock ticking)
1825
01:16:48,267 --> 01:16:49,307
- [Narrator] "Truly, I tell you,
1826
01:16:49,307 --> 01:16:51,590
"this generation will not pass away
1827
01:16:51,590 --> 01:16:55,733
until all these things are
fulfilled." Luke 21:32.
1828
01:17:00,770 --> 01:17:02,770
- The last of the full
Gospels to be written
1829
01:17:02,770 --> 01:17:07,770
is John, probably written
around 100 or 110 CE.
1830
01:17:08,460 --> 01:17:10,370
Compared to the other three.
1831
01:17:10,370 --> 01:17:12,353
- John is different.
1832
01:17:12,353 --> 01:17:13,186
Think of it this way.
1833
01:17:13,186 --> 01:17:14,410
The synoptic Gospels.
1834
01:17:14,410 --> 01:17:16,530
- [Narrator] The Gospels
of Mark Matthew and Luke
1835
01:17:16,530 --> 01:17:17,810
are called synoptic,
1836
01:17:17,810 --> 01:17:20,873
which means they share a
common vision of Jesus.
1837
01:17:22,250 --> 01:17:25,150
- New York, LA, Chicago.
1838
01:17:25,150 --> 01:17:29,000
John is basically New Orleans, okay.
1839
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:32,690
He's just, he's doing something
very different down there.
1840
01:17:32,690 --> 01:17:36,050
- With John, this whole
thing is so obviously
1841
01:17:36,050 --> 01:17:37,810
a literary creation.
1842
01:17:37,810 --> 01:17:39,620
Jesus in the Gospel of John,
1843
01:17:39,620 --> 01:17:42,570
does not sound like he
does in the other Gospels
1844
01:17:42,570 --> 01:17:45,670
and, all the characters in
John sound the same way,
1845
01:17:45,670 --> 01:17:47,590
like you're watching a Woody Allen movie,
1846
01:17:47,590 --> 01:17:49,750
everybody's talking like Woody Allen.
1847
01:17:49,750 --> 01:17:51,830
And its, 'cause he wrote everybody's part.
1848
01:17:51,830 --> 01:17:56,830
And, and it's obvious this is
not anybody's recollection.
1849
01:17:57,930 --> 01:17:59,060
- Instead of telling everyone
1850
01:17:59,060 --> 01:18:02,410
to keep the stories about
his miracles, a big secret.
1851
01:18:02,410 --> 01:18:04,277
- He might as well have on a t-shirt,
1852
01:18:04,277 --> 01:18:06,200
"I am God," written in big letters
1853
01:18:06,200 --> 01:18:07,033
and you have to wonder
1854
01:18:07,033 --> 01:18:09,090
well, didn't they have
blasphemy laws then,
1855
01:18:09,090 --> 01:18:11,947
why wasn't he stoned to death
five minutes out of the gate?
1856
01:18:11,947 --> 01:18:13,797
- [Narrator] "The woman saith unto him,
1857
01:18:13,797 --> 01:18:15,447
"I know that Messiah cometh
1858
01:18:15,447 --> 01:18:17,377
"He, that is called Christ.
1859
01:18:17,377 --> 01:18:21,097
"When he is come, he will
declare unto us all things.
1860
01:18:21,097 --> 01:18:22,867
"Jesus saith unto her,
1861
01:18:22,867 --> 01:18:27,867
"I that speak unto thee am He," John 4:25.
1862
01:18:28,567 --> 01:18:32,800
"I and my Father are one," John 10:30.
1863
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:35,870
- John's Gospel contains no parables,
1864
01:18:35,870 --> 01:18:37,260
no last supper,
1865
01:18:37,260 --> 01:18:39,530
no sermon on the Mount.
1866
01:18:39,530 --> 01:18:41,070
But it's the only one
1867
01:18:41,070 --> 01:18:44,380
with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
1868
01:18:44,380 --> 01:18:48,970
And it's the most
antisemitic of the Gospels.
1869
01:18:48,970 --> 01:18:50,620
As for the second coming,
1870
01:18:50,620 --> 01:18:53,270
as far as John's concerned,
1871
01:18:53,270 --> 01:18:54,984
it's happening right now.
1872
01:18:54,984 --> 01:18:58,206
(clock ticking)
1873
01:18:58,206 --> 01:19:01,956
(amusing instrumental music)
1874
01:19:10,740 --> 01:19:14,580
Why is John so different
from the other three Gospels?
1875
01:19:14,580 --> 01:19:15,970
No one really knows,
1876
01:19:15,970 --> 01:19:17,250
but if we look at Paul
1877
01:19:17,250 --> 01:19:19,810
and the four Gospels
in chronological order,
1878
01:19:19,810 --> 01:19:24,330
we can kind of see how the
Jesus story evolved over time.
1879
01:19:24,330 --> 01:19:27,090
In Paul, he doesn't do any miracles
1880
01:19:27,090 --> 01:19:29,650
and become special after he died.
1881
01:19:29,650 --> 01:19:31,370
In Mark, he becomes special
1882
01:19:31,370 --> 01:19:33,000
when a bird lands on him,
1883
01:19:33,000 --> 01:19:35,980
walks around being a secret miracle worker
1884
01:19:35,980 --> 01:19:38,990
whose body disappears from a cave.
1885
01:19:38,990 --> 01:19:42,670
Matthew and Luke making the
product of the divine pregnancy
1886
01:19:42,670 --> 01:19:44,690
who comes back from the dead
1887
01:19:44,690 --> 01:19:49,240
and in John he's proudly
out of the God closets.
1888
01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:52,230
But if you think the variation
in these stories is strange,
1889
01:19:52,230 --> 01:19:53,340
wait till you see the stories
1890
01:19:53,340 --> 01:19:56,026
that didn't even make it into the Bible?
1891
01:19:56,026 --> 01:19:59,693
(gentle instrumental music)
1892
01:20:01,080 --> 01:20:04,910
- So one of the things that
many Christians don't know,
1893
01:20:04,910 --> 01:20:08,000
is that in addition to
the four canonical Gospels
1894
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:12,920
there's a number of other early
Christian Gospels out there.
1895
01:20:12,920 --> 01:20:15,803
- [Narrator] Canonical means
approved by the Vatican.
1896
01:20:17,230 --> 01:20:18,460
- In the early centuries,
1897
01:20:18,460 --> 01:20:21,420
there were some fairly
significant Christian factions.
1898
01:20:21,420 --> 01:20:24,377
The Ebionites, the
Marcionites and the Gnostics.
1899
01:20:24,377 --> 01:20:29,377
And they all had pretty different
ideas about who Jesus was.
1900
01:20:29,660 --> 01:20:31,860
Their Gospels were all destroyed
1901
01:20:31,860 --> 01:20:35,900
by Imperial decree, around 400 CE.
1902
01:20:35,900 --> 01:20:38,050
However.
- One suspects,
1903
01:20:38,050 --> 01:20:40,620
that some monk in upper Egypt
1904
01:20:40,620 --> 01:20:45,500
decided I can't do this to,
1905
01:20:45,500 --> 01:20:47,280
I've spent my entire life writing them out
1906
01:20:47,280 --> 01:20:49,463
for example, I can't do this to that.
1907
01:20:50,540 --> 01:20:52,400
So I'm gonna gather them up
1908
01:20:52,400 --> 01:20:53,780
and put them away safely
1909
01:20:53,780 --> 01:20:55,700
and say that they're destroyed, whatever.
1910
01:20:55,700 --> 01:20:58,230
- But the wonderful thing
that happened in 1945,
1911
01:20:58,230 --> 01:21:02,120
is there was the discovery of 12 codices,
1912
01:21:02,120 --> 01:21:04,830
12 ancient leather books
1913
01:21:04,830 --> 01:21:08,230
found in a jar in Nag Hammadi in Egypt.
1914
01:21:08,230 --> 01:21:11,520
- Some of them and the
ones that I love the most
1915
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:13,100
are infancy Gospels.
1916
01:21:13,100 --> 01:21:16,470
So stories about Jesus'
birth and childhood.
1917
01:21:16,470 --> 01:21:18,830
And one of the most interesting of these,
1918
01:21:18,830 --> 01:21:20,740
is a text that is generally known
1919
01:21:20,740 --> 01:21:23,070
as the infancy Gospel of Thomas.
1920
01:21:23,070 --> 01:21:25,100
And what this text seeks to do
1921
01:21:25,100 --> 01:21:30,100
is say, what would Jesus
have been like as a child.
1922
01:21:30,490 --> 01:21:32,250
If he's a divine being,
1923
01:21:32,250 --> 01:21:33,890
which this text believes him to be,
1924
01:21:33,890 --> 01:21:36,629
if he's a divine being from the beginning,
1925
01:21:36,629 --> 01:21:39,730
he's got all this miraculous power.
1926
01:21:39,730 --> 01:21:41,130
What does he actually,
1927
01:21:41,130 --> 01:21:44,290
what does a kid like that look like?
1928
01:21:44,290 --> 01:21:46,360
According to the infancy Gospel of Thomas,
1929
01:21:46,360 --> 01:21:47,920
it's not a pretty picture.
1930
01:21:47,920 --> 01:21:49,530
- It's Jesus, the bot Simpson
1931
01:21:49,530 --> 01:21:51,760
of the kind of the early Christian world.
1932
01:21:51,760 --> 01:21:53,050
He's really a brat.
1933
01:21:53,050 --> 01:21:55,160
- One story in the
infancy Gospel of Thomas
1934
01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:57,070
says that when Jesus was five years old,
1935
01:21:57,070 --> 01:21:58,750
he was sitting by a pool of water
1936
01:21:58,750 --> 01:22:01,870
making clay sparrows
which were coming to life
1937
01:22:01,870 --> 01:22:03,457
and when another kid came
1938
01:22:03,457 --> 01:22:05,560
and messed with his pool of water,
1939
01:22:05,560 --> 01:22:09,023
Jesus cursed him and he
withered up and died.
1940
01:22:10,060 --> 01:22:12,490
He's basically a little super villain.
1941
01:22:12,490 --> 01:22:13,930
- Yeah, I'd say so,
1942
01:22:13,930 --> 01:22:17,530
because he essentially gets angry
1943
01:22:17,530 --> 01:22:19,100
at a number of his playmates
1944
01:22:19,100 --> 01:22:22,020
for different things and kills them.
1945
01:22:22,020 --> 01:22:24,900
And so he kills one playmate,
1946
01:22:24,900 --> 01:22:26,510
he kills another playmate.
1947
01:22:26,510 --> 01:22:30,770
Then the villagers start to complain
1948
01:22:30,770 --> 01:22:31,730
to Mary and Joseph.
1949
01:22:31,730 --> 01:22:34,750
- What's kid Jesus' response to all this?
1950
01:22:34,750 --> 01:22:37,913
He makes his accusers go blind.
1951
01:22:39,175 --> 01:22:40,497
(child zapping) - Oh what the?
1952
01:22:40,497 --> 01:22:41,937
(child zapping) (mumbling)
1953
01:22:41,937 --> 01:22:42,770
(child zapping) Oh I can't see
1954
01:22:42,770 --> 01:22:44,270
(child zapping) What's going on?
1955
01:22:44,270 --> 01:22:45,537
- Why, why would you do (people mumbling)
1956
01:22:45,537 --> 01:22:49,740
- As Ron Burgundy says, "That
escalated rather quickly."
1957
01:22:49,740 --> 01:22:52,840
So it's a fascinating story
1958
01:22:52,840 --> 01:22:57,360
and yet, if we think
that the story is saying,
1959
01:22:57,360 --> 01:22:59,130
Oh, Jesus had these sort of,
1960
01:22:59,130 --> 01:23:02,440
immature things that he had
to work out of his system.
1961
01:23:02,440 --> 01:23:03,410
I don't think that's what
1962
01:23:03,410 --> 01:23:05,610
the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is saying.
1963
01:23:05,610 --> 01:23:08,250
It's essentially saying
that's who Jesus is.
1964
01:23:08,250 --> 01:23:10,570
He's got all the power of God
1965
01:23:10,570 --> 01:23:13,870
and if people are jerks to him,
1966
01:23:13,870 --> 01:23:16,550
he can strike them dead.
1967
01:23:16,550 --> 01:23:19,870
This is how they viewed Jesus,
1968
01:23:19,870 --> 01:23:22,670
weird and upsetting to
us as it seems to be.
1969
01:23:22,670 --> 01:23:25,760
And I love, I love Joseph's
instructions to Mary
1970
01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:27,100
after all of this has happened.
1971
01:23:27,100 --> 01:23:30,500
He takes Jesus, puts him in their house
1972
01:23:30,500 --> 01:23:32,660
and tells Mary don't let him outside
1973
01:23:32,660 --> 01:23:35,290
because those who annoy him end up dead.
1974
01:23:35,290 --> 01:23:36,300
- Oh, you might think,
1975
01:23:36,300 --> 01:23:38,440
well, that's an unbelievable story.
1976
01:23:38,440 --> 01:23:40,880
No wonder if didn't end up in the Bible,
1977
01:23:40,880 --> 01:23:42,410
but is it any crazier
1978
01:23:42,410 --> 01:23:44,890
than stories about walking on water
1979
01:23:44,890 --> 01:23:47,240
or turning water into wine
1980
01:23:47,240 --> 01:23:49,390
or raising people from the dead
1981
01:23:49,390 --> 01:23:52,970
or zapping demons into a herd of pigs.
1982
01:23:52,970 --> 01:23:56,710
Why do we say these
magic stories are crazy,
1983
01:23:56,710 --> 01:23:58,750
but these other stories about magic,
1984
01:23:58,750 --> 01:24:00,410
well, they're just fine and dandy.
1985
01:24:00,410 --> 01:24:03,730
Back then, they were
arguing over what Jesus was,
1986
01:24:03,730 --> 01:24:05,000
who he was.
1987
01:24:05,000 --> 01:24:06,970
What was his relationship to God,
1988
01:24:06,970 --> 01:24:09,130
all the controversies about Christology.
1989
01:24:09,130 --> 01:24:11,230
And this included of course,
1990
01:24:11,230 --> 01:24:13,500
whether Jesus was even a human being.
1991
01:24:13,500 --> 01:24:15,490
- Just a really interesting human being
1992
01:24:15,490 --> 01:24:18,200
who somehow became possessed by God.
1993
01:24:18,200 --> 01:24:19,940
Others thought he was an angel,
1994
01:24:19,940 --> 01:24:23,090
still others thought he was part of God.
1995
01:24:23,090 --> 01:24:25,110
Still others thought he
was just a good teacher.
1996
01:24:25,110 --> 01:24:26,060
They didn't know.
1997
01:24:26,060 --> 01:24:28,900
- One of the really big
early Christian factions
1998
01:24:28,900 --> 01:24:32,440
the Ebionites, might've closely resembled
1999
01:24:32,440 --> 01:24:34,830
the original Christians, team Peter.
2000
01:24:34,830 --> 01:24:37,910
- The Ebionites again,
that means the poor,
2001
01:24:37,910 --> 01:24:39,560
they claim to be the descendants
2002
01:24:39,560 --> 01:24:42,600
of the Jerusalem
Christians, maybe they were.
2003
01:24:42,600 --> 01:24:44,820
- To be a true Christian,
2004
01:24:44,820 --> 01:24:47,160
you had to obey the Jewish law.
2005
01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:48,880
They seem to have denied
2006
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:50,680
the idea of the virgin birth
2007
01:24:50,680 --> 01:24:53,100
and they had a kind of Gospel,
2008
01:24:53,100 --> 01:24:58,040
that sounds very much like
a Jewish Christian Gospel.
2009
01:24:58,040 --> 01:25:00,460
Maybe one of the earliest
forms of the Gospel.
2010
01:25:00,460 --> 01:25:02,700
- We have people who were
following Jewish law,
2011
01:25:02,700 --> 01:25:04,440
honoring the Sabbath on Saturday
2012
01:25:04,440 --> 01:25:05,590
and keeping it Holy.
2013
01:25:05,590 --> 01:25:07,110
Circumcising their kids,
2014
01:25:07,110 --> 01:25:08,730
and they're worshiping Jesus.
2015
01:25:08,730 --> 01:25:11,900
- The Ebionites declared Paul a heretic.
2016
01:25:11,900 --> 01:25:13,590
On the other hand,
2017
01:25:13,590 --> 01:25:15,360
another one of the major early factions
2018
01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:17,760
the Marcionites loved Paul,
2019
01:25:17,760 --> 01:25:19,347
but really hated Judaism.
2020
01:25:19,347 --> 01:25:20,976
- The Marciones said
2021
01:25:20,976 --> 01:25:25,976
that Jesus had come from a different God,
2022
01:25:26,000 --> 01:25:28,920
not the Hebrew God, not the creator God,
2023
01:25:28,920 --> 01:25:30,910
not the Torah giving God.
2024
01:25:30,910 --> 01:25:32,760
- The God of the Old Testament.
2025
01:25:32,760 --> 01:25:34,149
So the God of the old Testament
2026
01:25:34,149 --> 01:25:37,720
was a wicked God who made the world.
2027
01:25:37,720 --> 01:25:39,710
I mean, that's why the
world was so messed up.
2028
01:25:39,710 --> 01:25:42,700
- The Gnostics claimed to
have a special teaching
2029
01:25:42,700 --> 01:25:45,890
from Jesus that only they knew about.
2030
01:25:45,890 --> 01:25:47,560
- Well, the word Gnostic really means
2031
01:25:47,560 --> 01:25:49,420
somebody who's claiming to have knowledge.
2032
01:25:49,420 --> 01:25:50,320
- But it's basically,
2033
01:25:50,320 --> 01:25:54,710
the idea that this world is bad and wicked
2034
01:25:54,710 --> 01:25:56,450
and we have to get away from it.
2035
01:25:56,450 --> 01:25:58,490
And getting a certain secret knowledge
2036
01:25:58,490 --> 01:26:00,220
of the universes origins
2037
01:26:00,220 --> 01:26:01,672
and your own cosmic origins
2038
01:26:01,672 --> 01:26:03,550
is how you get away from all.
2039
01:26:03,550 --> 01:26:05,380
- So why didn't all of those Gospels
2040
01:26:05,380 --> 01:26:06,590
make it into the Bible?
2041
01:26:06,590 --> 01:26:08,310
Well, a common Christian view
2042
01:26:08,310 --> 01:26:09,420
is that the ones that made it in
2043
01:26:09,420 --> 01:26:11,550
were the real stories,
2044
01:26:11,550 --> 01:26:12,900
and the ones that didn't,
2045
01:26:12,900 --> 01:26:14,730
were just made up.
2046
01:26:14,730 --> 01:26:19,550
- Well, when it comes to
the stories of Jesus' birth
2047
01:26:19,550 --> 01:26:22,260
and childhood, it's all made up.
2048
01:26:22,260 --> 01:26:26,830
If you talk to most New Testament scholars
2049
01:26:26,830 --> 01:26:28,480
about the infancy narratives,
2050
01:26:28,480 --> 01:26:32,180
the Christmas story in Matthew's
Gospel and Luke's Gospel,
2051
01:26:32,180 --> 01:26:36,130
they'll say, there's not
much historical basis
2052
01:26:36,130 --> 01:26:37,260
behind any of that.
2053
01:26:37,260 --> 01:26:39,030
There's no census,
2054
01:26:39,030 --> 01:26:41,210
there's no slaughter of
the innocence by Herod,
2055
01:26:41,210 --> 01:26:43,437
there's no star of Bethlehem, no wise men.
2056
01:26:43,437 --> 01:26:45,820
Jesus probably was not born in Bethlehem,
2057
01:26:45,820 --> 01:26:47,830
he was probably born in Nazareth.
2058
01:26:47,830 --> 01:26:50,240
Those stories are all propaganda
2059
01:26:50,240 --> 01:26:51,950
that are designed on the one hand
2060
01:26:51,950 --> 01:26:54,890
to present Jesus as a divine being
2061
01:26:54,890 --> 01:26:56,150
from the moment of his birth
2062
01:26:56,150 --> 01:26:57,330
and also to say,
2063
01:26:57,330 --> 01:27:00,100
he can fit the
qualifications for a Messiah
2064
01:27:00,100 --> 01:27:02,300
because he's born in the city of David.
2065
01:27:02,300 --> 01:27:03,710
- Of course, all of these factions
2066
01:27:03,710 --> 01:27:06,100
believe that their version of Christianity
2067
01:27:06,100 --> 01:27:07,680
was the correct one.
2068
01:27:07,680 --> 01:27:09,900
Just like they all do today.
2069
01:27:09,900 --> 01:27:12,170
- There are many different
Christianity's today.
2070
01:27:12,170 --> 01:27:14,765
There were many different
Christianity's back then.
2071
01:27:14,765 --> 01:27:18,432
(gentle instrumental music)
2072
01:27:20,740 --> 01:27:23,530
- Eventually team Paul sold there soul
2073
01:27:23,530 --> 01:27:27,070
to the first Christian
emperor, Constantine,
2074
01:27:27,070 --> 01:27:31,790
who fought his way to
power in the year 305 CE.
2075
01:27:31,790 --> 01:27:34,970
According to his
contemporary Bishop Eusebius,
2076
01:27:34,970 --> 01:27:38,640
the so-called father of church history,
2077
01:27:38,640 --> 01:27:41,730
Jesus appeared to Constantine in a vision
2078
01:27:41,730 --> 01:27:44,200
and said he'd help him defeat his rival
2079
01:27:44,200 --> 01:27:46,990
for the throne in a bloody war.
2080
01:27:46,990 --> 01:27:51,990
Hallelujah, Jesus is finally
the warrior King Messiah
2081
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:55,100
that the Jews had been waiting for.
2082
01:27:55,100 --> 01:27:57,750
According to Christian
sources from the time,
2083
01:27:57,750 --> 01:28:00,390
Jesus used his supernatural powers
2084
01:28:00,390 --> 01:28:05,260
to help Constantine kill
thousands of Roman citizens
2085
01:28:05,260 --> 01:28:09,510
and consolidate his
control over the empire.
2086
01:28:09,510 --> 01:28:10,600
- Winners are grinners.
2087
01:28:10,600 --> 01:28:15,600
And so, because the, a
version of Christianity
2088
01:28:16,360 --> 01:28:20,840
secures Imperial supported
early in the fourth century.
2089
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:22,830
They are able to suppress their opponents
2090
01:28:22,830 --> 01:28:24,050
ever more effectively.
2091
01:28:24,050 --> 01:28:27,650
- Once Christianity and
Orthodox Christianity
2092
01:28:27,650 --> 01:28:30,130
became the official
religion of the empire,
2093
01:28:30,130 --> 01:28:32,241
they had official patronage.
2094
01:28:32,241 --> 01:28:35,550
You then could use Imperial power
2095
01:28:35,550 --> 01:28:37,690
to put the thumbscrews down
2096
01:28:37,690 --> 01:28:39,810
on any dissident Christian groups.
2097
01:28:39,810 --> 01:28:42,080
- The final selection of books
2098
01:28:42,080 --> 01:28:43,350
that made it into the Bible,
2099
01:28:43,350 --> 01:28:48,240
wasn't actually decided upon until 400 CE.
2100
01:28:48,240 --> 01:28:51,420
It seems like a number of
competing Christian factions
2101
01:28:51,420 --> 01:28:54,840
might have merged into
some sort of mega church.
2102
01:28:54,840 --> 01:28:57,330
- Each of these Gospels
has a faction behind it.
2103
01:28:57,330 --> 01:28:58,320
There's a lot of people
2104
01:28:58,320 --> 01:29:00,150
like they have their own favorite Gospels.
2105
01:29:00,150 --> 01:29:01,280
It's like everybody has their own favorite
2106
01:29:01,280 --> 01:29:03,220
Harry Potter novel or whatever.
2107
01:29:03,220 --> 01:29:06,080
And so, if you want to win this battle
2108
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:07,050
for control of the church,
2109
01:29:07,050 --> 01:29:09,260
you want as many people on your side
2110
01:29:09,260 --> 01:29:11,020
to outnumber the other side.
2111
01:29:11,020 --> 01:29:13,090
And the best way to do
that, is to pick Gospels
2112
01:29:13,090 --> 01:29:15,180
that had a lot of supporters behind them
2113
01:29:15,180 --> 01:29:16,700
that were not too deviant.
2114
01:29:16,700 --> 01:29:20,600
- The other Gospels
were declared fake news.
2115
01:29:20,600 --> 01:29:23,560
- Constantine does not enforce
Christianity on everybody.
2116
01:29:23,560 --> 01:29:25,650
Constantine allowed pagan temples to stand
2117
01:29:25,650 --> 01:29:26,620
and pagans to worship,
2118
01:29:26,620 --> 01:29:28,150
and he let Jews be Jews.
2119
01:29:28,150 --> 01:29:30,470
- But he does favor just
one Christian faction
2120
01:29:30,470 --> 01:29:32,640
and tries to shut down all the rest.
2121
01:29:32,640 --> 01:29:35,670
And this one faction has no hesitation
2122
01:29:35,670 --> 01:29:37,870
at putting their head of the Roman empire,
2123
01:29:37,870 --> 01:29:39,240
the same Roman empire
2124
01:29:39,240 --> 01:29:42,520
that killed Jesus, Paul, Peter and James
2125
01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:44,780
at the head of their church.
2126
01:29:44,780 --> 01:29:45,750
- And so Constantine,
2127
01:29:45,750 --> 01:29:47,150
I think he treats Christianity
2128
01:29:47,150 --> 01:29:48,930
as any emperor has treated
2129
01:29:48,930 --> 01:29:52,560
any other religious kind of group,
2130
01:29:52,560 --> 01:29:55,570
by saying, well, I'm the head of religion.
2131
01:29:55,570 --> 01:29:57,570
I am the Pontifex Maximus.
2132
01:29:57,570 --> 01:30:00,423
So therefore, I'm the
head of this community.
2133
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:05,150
The Bishop seemed to agree to that
2134
01:30:05,150 --> 01:30:07,580
without much hesitation.
2135
01:30:07,580 --> 01:30:11,290
- Overnight, the persecuted
become the persecutors
2136
01:30:12,210 --> 01:30:14,820
and the first group that they persecute,
2137
01:30:14,820 --> 01:30:18,910
are other Christians who
they now declare heretics.
2138
01:30:18,910 --> 01:30:22,120
- You're only a heretic if you
lose the historical battle.
2139
01:30:22,120 --> 01:30:24,780
And it takes the church
about three to 400 years,
2140
01:30:24,780 --> 01:30:27,290
to figure out who's in and who's out.
2141
01:30:27,290 --> 01:30:30,090
- About 50 years after Constantine,
2142
01:30:30,090 --> 01:30:33,000
another Roman emperor, Theodosius
2143
01:30:33,000 --> 01:30:36,020
drove the final nail into the cross
2144
01:30:36,020 --> 01:30:38,010
and made Catholic Christianity,
2145
01:30:38,010 --> 01:30:40,980
the state religion of the empire.
2146
01:30:40,980 --> 01:30:45,373
- So not only are preexisting varieties
2147
01:30:46,380 --> 01:30:48,670
or versions of Christianity wiped out
2148
01:30:48,670 --> 01:30:51,500
or put on a banned list,
2149
01:30:51,500 --> 01:30:53,580
new dissident groups emerge
2150
01:30:53,580 --> 01:30:57,410
and a dealt with this new
kind of Imperial authority.
2151
01:30:57,410 --> 01:30:58,980
- Temples were shut down,
2152
01:30:58,980 --> 01:31:01,310
pagan priests if they
wanted to keep their job
2153
01:31:01,310 --> 01:31:03,340
became Christian priests.
2154
01:31:03,340 --> 01:31:05,910
Jews had their movements restricted,
2155
01:31:05,910 --> 01:31:07,840
were not allowed to join certain guilds,
2156
01:31:07,840 --> 01:31:10,150
had their synagogues burned down.
2157
01:31:10,150 --> 01:31:12,080
And the empire becomes Christian
2158
01:31:12,080 --> 01:31:13,250
and it remains Christian,
2159
01:31:13,250 --> 01:31:15,580
because of the force of the state
2160
01:31:15,580 --> 01:31:17,183
and the force of the army.
2161
01:31:18,790 --> 01:31:20,640
Was this a good thing or a bad thing?
2162
01:31:21,500 --> 01:31:22,920
It was a thing.
2163
01:31:22,920 --> 01:31:25,650
And it's something we have to deal with.
2164
01:31:25,650 --> 01:31:27,800
- To put a modern perspective on it.
2165
01:31:27,800 --> 01:31:31,960
Imagine that the Scientologists,
were able to get Tom cruise
2166
01:31:31,960 --> 01:31:34,090
elected president of the world,
2167
01:31:34,090 --> 01:31:38,723
and he passed a law making
Scientology mandatory.
2168
01:31:39,780 --> 01:31:43,770
And that's what team Paul
did around about 400 CE.
2169
01:31:43,770 --> 01:31:46,720
The Roman empire became a theocracy,
2170
01:31:46,720 --> 01:31:48,450
not unlike the caliphate
2171
01:31:48,450 --> 01:31:49,850
that ISIS has been trying to set up
2172
01:31:49,850 --> 01:31:52,510
in the middle East in the last few years.
2173
01:31:52,510 --> 01:31:54,560
It's not that hard to
be a successful religion
2174
01:31:54,560 --> 01:31:56,990
when you're the only game in town
2175
01:31:56,990 --> 01:32:00,040
and everything else is
pretty much outlawed.
2176
01:32:00,040 --> 01:32:01,050
So that's the story
2177
01:32:01,050 --> 01:32:04,350
of how Christianity went
from being irrelevant
2178
01:32:04,350 --> 01:32:09,350
to inescapable, but in the
words of a different God,
2179
01:32:09,420 --> 01:32:11,943
wait, there's one more thing.
2180
01:32:12,792 --> 01:32:16,375
(happy instrumental music)
2181
01:32:20,510 --> 01:32:23,510
It wasn't that long ago,
that most historians believe,
2182
01:32:23,510 --> 01:32:25,930
that the characters in the old Testament
2183
01:32:25,930 --> 01:32:28,850
like Abraham or Moses
2184
01:32:28,850 --> 01:32:31,150
or figures from literary history
2185
01:32:31,150 --> 01:32:36,150
like King Arthur were
also based on real people.
2186
01:32:36,400 --> 01:32:39,070
But today, most historians think
2187
01:32:39,070 --> 01:32:42,010
they are completely mythical.
2188
01:32:42,010 --> 01:32:44,923
So what about Jesus?
2189
01:32:44,923 --> 01:32:47,820
- Well, when I started as a historian
2190
01:32:47,820 --> 01:32:50,650
and I was actually quite certain
2191
01:32:50,650 --> 01:32:52,720
that Jesus existed as a
historical person, and I thought,
2192
01:32:52,720 --> 01:32:55,070
anyone who suggested
otherwise was a crackpot.
2193
01:32:55,070 --> 01:32:57,410
And what happened was, the
more I looked at the evidence,
2194
01:32:57,410 --> 01:32:58,350
the worse it looked.
2195
01:32:58,350 --> 01:32:59,570
The more you pull up the threads,
2196
01:32:59,570 --> 01:33:00,710
the more it falls apart.
2197
01:33:00,710 --> 01:33:02,150
And I started to realize by the end of it,
2198
01:33:02,150 --> 01:33:04,250
it's like actually unbalance of evidence
2199
01:33:04,250 --> 01:33:05,760
it looks like it goes the other way.
2200
01:33:05,760 --> 01:33:10,180
- It just seems to me,
the weight of probability
2201
01:33:10,180 --> 01:33:12,630
is that there was no Jesus.
2202
01:33:12,630 --> 01:33:14,000
- One thing that struck me
2203
01:33:14,000 --> 01:33:18,320
is just the case for this
figure is extremely poor.
2204
01:33:18,320 --> 01:33:22,070
The main sources we have are the Gospels.
2205
01:33:22,070 --> 01:33:25,240
Over time, we found even more
reason to doubt the Gospels.
2206
01:33:25,240 --> 01:33:27,490
They're just really, really poor sources.
2207
01:33:27,490 --> 01:33:29,040
They're not what we want.
2208
01:33:29,040 --> 01:33:30,710
E.P. Sanders says that ,
2209
01:33:30,710 --> 01:33:32,700
Jesus is better attested in history
2210
01:33:32,700 --> 01:33:34,023
than Alexander the great.
2211
01:33:35,410 --> 01:33:37,300
When you actually compare the evidence
2212
01:33:37,300 --> 01:33:38,550
for both of those figures,
2213
01:33:38,550 --> 01:33:40,390
that's not even close to correct.
2214
01:33:40,390 --> 01:33:42,250
And actually the evidence
for Alexander the great
2215
01:33:42,250 --> 01:33:44,440
is way better than for Jesus.
2216
01:33:44,440 --> 01:33:46,790
- Obviously a lot of evidence gets lost
2217
01:33:46,790 --> 01:33:48,540
or destroyed over the years,
2218
01:33:48,540 --> 01:33:51,400
like the letters of team Peter.
2219
01:33:51,400 --> 01:33:53,480
So historians are trying to piece together
2220
01:33:53,480 --> 01:33:56,210
what happened using sketchy evidence
2221
01:33:56,210 --> 01:33:59,660
or evidence that's been
corrupted, like Mark's Gospel.
2222
01:33:59,660 --> 01:34:00,810
- And the trick to that
2223
01:34:00,810 --> 01:34:02,927
is that you look at that body of evidence
2224
01:34:02,927 --> 01:34:04,760
You got to look at it all,
you can't leave anything out,
2225
01:34:04,760 --> 01:34:06,200
even stuff that's weird
2226
01:34:06,200 --> 01:34:08,350
and say is that the
evidence that should exist,
2227
01:34:08,350 --> 01:34:11,550
if this hypothesis existed,
is it what we expect?
2228
01:34:11,550 --> 01:34:13,050
And, and that's what you look at.
2229
01:34:13,050 --> 01:34:15,220
And you can measure that,
in the sense of your feeling
2230
01:34:15,220 --> 01:34:17,930
of how expected is this evidence,
2231
01:34:17,930 --> 01:34:20,760
or how weird is this evidence
given that hypothesis?
2232
01:34:20,760 --> 01:34:22,170
- And then you look at all of the theories
2233
01:34:22,170 --> 01:34:23,140
and try and decide
2234
01:34:23,140 --> 01:34:26,023
which one does the evidence support best.
2235
01:34:27,990 --> 01:34:29,730
- And if you're stuck in this situation
2236
01:34:29,730 --> 01:34:31,700
where the evidence is equally expected
2237
01:34:31,700 --> 01:34:34,700
on all your hypotheses,
then you don't know.
2238
01:34:34,700 --> 01:34:36,350
It could be any one of those hypotheses
2239
01:34:36,350 --> 01:34:37,890
and we just kind of have to settle on
2240
01:34:37,890 --> 01:34:39,850
well, it's one of those we don't know.
2241
01:34:39,850 --> 01:34:42,010
- So how does the evidence stack up
2242
01:34:42,010 --> 01:34:46,050
with the theory that
Jesus actually existed?
2243
01:34:46,050 --> 01:34:47,100
- I think on balance,
2244
01:34:47,100 --> 01:34:48,180
he probably didn't exist.
2245
01:34:48,180 --> 01:34:50,050
I think the hypothesis that
2246
01:34:50,050 --> 01:34:51,530
he started out a revelatory being
2247
01:34:51,530 --> 01:34:53,760
and became historicized later,
2248
01:34:53,760 --> 01:34:55,020
I think fits the evidence better.
2249
01:34:55,020 --> 01:34:56,450
It makes the evidence more expected,
2250
01:34:56,450 --> 01:34:58,050
especially a lot of weird stuff.
2251
01:34:58,050 --> 01:34:58,970
- So in other words,
2252
01:34:58,970 --> 01:35:01,810
Jesus appeared as some kind of an angel
2253
01:35:01,810 --> 01:35:04,530
in visions to people like Paul.
2254
01:35:04,530 --> 01:35:06,680
And then later on, people decided that,
2255
01:35:06,680 --> 01:35:09,460
well, he must have been real.
2256
01:35:09,460 --> 01:35:11,180
But of course this kind of a view
2257
01:35:11,180 --> 01:35:14,370
is still a minority amongst scholars,
2258
01:35:14,370 --> 01:35:16,490
but will it always be that way?
2259
01:35:16,490 --> 01:35:18,330
- We saw the same thing
with the challenging
2260
01:35:18,330 --> 01:35:19,950
of the historicity of Moses, right.
2261
01:35:19,950 --> 01:35:21,060
In the seventies,
2262
01:35:21,060 --> 01:35:23,340
everybody said, that's
fringe, that's crazy.
2263
01:35:23,340 --> 01:35:25,020
Now it's the mainstream consensus
2264
01:35:25,020 --> 01:35:28,205
at least agnosticism about
the historicity of Moses.
2265
01:35:28,205 --> 01:35:30,490
And that took, 20, 30 years.
2266
01:35:30,490 --> 01:35:33,170
So I always tell people,
2267
01:35:33,170 --> 01:35:34,830
come back to me in 20 and 30 years,
2268
01:35:34,830 --> 01:35:36,450
and then we'll see if
that's still a situation
2269
01:35:36,450 --> 01:35:37,730
or if it's changed since then.
2270
01:35:37,730 --> 01:35:42,730
- This kind of talk get some
people pretty, pretty cranky.
2271
01:35:43,970 --> 01:35:46,410
- Well, look, my blunt response to that,
2272
01:35:46,410 --> 01:35:48,520
the whole Jesus mythicism thing
2273
01:35:48,520 --> 01:35:52,440
to be frank, I consider it
mental masturbation for atheist.
2274
01:35:52,440 --> 01:35:53,963
That's the best way I can describe it.
2275
01:35:53,963 --> 01:35:55,770
It's the ultimate get up,
2276
01:35:55,770 --> 01:35:58,810
telling your arch enemy that
their superhero didn't exist.
2277
01:35:58,810 --> 01:36:01,130
It's with the joy, of
going up to some bratty kid
2278
01:36:01,130 --> 01:36:03,517
you don't like and saying,
"Hey kid, guess what,
2279
01:36:03,517 --> 01:36:05,010
"there's no Santa Claus."
2280
01:36:05,010 --> 01:36:07,910
- Telling a little kid
that Santa doesn't exist
2281
01:36:07,910 --> 01:36:11,490
might be mean, but it's also true.
2282
01:36:11,490 --> 01:36:13,853
Look, the fact is that
the historical evidence
2283
01:36:13,853 --> 01:36:15,850
that Jesus existed
2284
01:36:15,850 --> 01:36:19,000
is pretty slim to say the least.
2285
01:36:19,000 --> 01:36:21,150
But the evidence that
the stories about him
2286
01:36:21,150 --> 01:36:23,060
were all over the place
2287
01:36:23,060 --> 01:36:27,023
and kind of evolved over
time is incredibly strong.
2288
01:36:28,870 --> 01:36:30,860
Make from that what you will.
2289
01:36:30,860 --> 01:36:33,527
(ominous music)
2290
01:36:36,270 --> 01:36:37,240
So let's take a look
2291
01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:41,653
at what our new updated Sunday
school story looks like.
2292
01:36:42,840 --> 01:36:44,170
Around 2000 years ago,
2293
01:36:44,170 --> 01:36:46,670
the Romans decided that
dead men could be gods
2294
01:36:46,670 --> 01:36:49,010
and living men could be sons of gods.
2295
01:36:49,010 --> 01:36:51,110
Meanwhile, in the backwaters
of the Roman empire,
2296
01:36:51,110 --> 01:36:52,960
the Jewish people were
waiting for their God,
2297
01:36:52,960 --> 01:36:54,540
Yahweh to send a warrior King
2298
01:36:54,540 --> 01:36:56,930
they called the Messiah
to kick out the Romans.
2299
01:36:56,930 --> 01:36:58,730
But the Messiah was a no show.
2300
01:36:58,730 --> 01:37:00,235
Eventually several generations later,
2301
01:37:00,235 --> 01:37:02,950
a small fringe Jewish sect said
2302
01:37:02,950 --> 01:37:05,030
this is our guy, Jesus Christ,
2303
01:37:05,030 --> 01:37:06,197
which means Saving the Savior
2304
01:37:06,197 --> 01:37:07,770
was a very Jewish Jew,
2305
01:37:07,770 --> 01:37:10,070
but had two problems in
his messianic resume.
2306
01:37:10,070 --> 01:37:11,780
He had not defeated the Romans
2307
01:37:11,780 --> 01:37:13,400
and he was already dead.
2308
01:37:13,400 --> 01:37:14,430
A few years later,
2309
01:37:14,430 --> 01:37:17,630
Paul who'd been busy beating
up early Jesus' worshipers
2310
01:37:17,630 --> 01:37:19,070
suddenly changed his mind
2311
01:37:19,070 --> 01:37:21,740
and invented his own
version of the Jesus sect.
2312
01:37:21,740 --> 01:37:23,090
He reinvented the Messiah,
2313
01:37:23,090 --> 01:37:25,640
to be a super powered
celestial warrior King
2314
01:37:25,640 --> 01:37:27,761
for non Jews, who could
keep their fore skin
2315
01:37:27,761 --> 01:37:29,720
and still get into heaven.
2316
01:37:29,720 --> 01:37:31,600
The OG Christians weren't impressed,
2317
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:34,190
this is fake news, Paul
didn't even know Jesus.
2318
01:37:34,190 --> 01:37:36,170
This is the Jews only club bubala.
2319
01:37:36,170 --> 01:37:38,470
According to Paul Jesus
spoke to him in visions
2320
01:37:38,470 --> 01:37:40,560
and any day now, JC
would come down to earth
2321
01:37:40,560 --> 01:37:42,920
with supernatural powers
to defeat the Romans
2322
01:37:42,920 --> 01:37:44,900
and anyone else who didn't worship Him.
2323
01:37:44,900 --> 01:37:48,420
Unfortunately, Jesus didn't
return within Paul's lifetime.
2324
01:37:48,420 --> 01:37:50,270
And despite writing lots of letters
2325
01:37:50,270 --> 01:37:52,130
in his 30 years of missionary work,
2326
01:37:52,130 --> 01:37:53,630
Paul never mentioned anything
2327
01:37:53,630 --> 01:37:56,330
about Jesus' life teachings or miracles.
2328
01:37:56,330 --> 01:37:58,920
But the Jews did get their
war against the Romans
2329
01:37:58,920 --> 01:38:01,270
and got their butts badly kicked.
2330
01:38:01,270 --> 01:38:02,777
No warrior King Messiah showed up
2331
01:38:02,777 --> 01:38:05,180
and their temple was torn down.
2332
01:38:05,180 --> 01:38:07,350
The original disciples
of Jesus were all dead,
2333
01:38:07,350 --> 01:38:09,180
leaving not a single written record
2334
01:38:09,180 --> 01:38:10,740
of what they thought about Jesus
2335
01:38:10,740 --> 01:38:11,970
or his teachings.
2336
01:38:11,970 --> 01:38:13,950
After the war, one of Paul's community
2337
01:38:13,950 --> 01:38:16,070
did document some stories about Jesus
2338
01:38:16,070 --> 01:38:17,780
in which he appears as a human,
2339
01:38:17,780 --> 01:38:20,040
but with super powers and a big secret,
2340
01:38:20,040 --> 01:38:21,970
who begs Yahweh not to let him be killed,
2341
01:38:21,970 --> 01:38:24,040
but Yahweh ignored his prayers.
2342
01:38:24,040 --> 01:38:25,780
Many other versions of the Jesus story
2343
01:38:25,780 --> 01:38:27,900
were recorded over the next 100 years.
2344
01:38:27,900 --> 01:38:29,690
None by actual eye witnesses
2345
01:38:29,690 --> 01:38:31,963
or people who knew eye witnesses
or people who knew people
2346
01:38:31,963 --> 01:38:34,200
who would, you get the idea.
2347
01:38:34,200 --> 01:38:37,060
As time passed, these stories
grew more far fetched,
2348
01:38:37,060 --> 01:38:39,400
suddenly including miracles
like walking on water,
2349
01:38:39,400 --> 01:38:40,420
the virgin birth,
2350
01:38:40,420 --> 01:38:42,527
the resurrection of violent teenage Jesus
2351
01:38:42,527 --> 01:38:45,360
and Jesus raising people from the dead.
2352
01:38:45,360 --> 01:38:46,720
All these authors were still certain
2353
01:38:46,720 --> 01:38:48,660
that the Messiah would come
to defeat their enemies
2354
01:38:48,660 --> 01:38:49,630
within their lifetimes,
2355
01:38:49,630 --> 01:38:51,330
but he still didn't come.
2356
01:38:51,330 --> 01:38:52,330
For 300 years,
2357
01:38:52,330 --> 01:38:54,960
various Jesus' factions fought
against the Romans lines
2358
01:38:54,960 --> 01:38:57,250
and amongst themselves about who Jesus was
2359
01:38:57,250 --> 01:38:58,640
and how to worship him properly.
2360
01:38:58,640 --> 01:39:00,677
Until one of these groups
met with the Roman emperor
2361
01:39:00,677 --> 01:39:02,900
and said, give us
protection and tax breaks,
2362
01:39:02,900 --> 01:39:04,937
and we'll make you the
head of our religion.
2363
01:39:04,937 --> 01:39:07,040
- "That's an offer I can't refuse,"
2364
01:39:07,040 --> 01:39:08,500
said the emperor Constantine.
2365
01:39:08,500 --> 01:39:09,560
And within a hundred years,
2366
01:39:09,560 --> 01:39:12,730
this group managed to take
control of the entire empire.
2367
01:39:12,730 --> 01:39:14,400
They burned competing Gospels,
2368
01:39:14,400 --> 01:39:16,890
tore down temples, killed
pagan philosophers,
2369
01:39:16,890 --> 01:39:18,240
and banned other religions,
2370
01:39:18,240 --> 01:39:21,290
including competing
versions of the Jesus club.
2371
01:39:21,290 --> 01:39:23,730
And that my friends
2372
01:39:23,730 --> 01:39:26,430
is the slightly more accurate story
2373
01:39:26,430 --> 01:39:30,393
of the triumph of Christianity, Amen.
2374
01:39:33,000 --> 01:39:35,030
Well, isn't that a far
more interesting story.
2375
01:39:35,030 --> 01:39:36,990
And it's also one that's supported
2376
01:39:36,990 --> 01:39:40,860
by historical evidence
and biblical scholars.
2377
01:39:40,860 --> 01:39:44,440
So what does the next century
hold for Christianity?
2378
01:39:44,440 --> 01:39:47,100
Peace and love or another theocracy.
2379
01:39:47,100 --> 01:39:49,440
I guess only time's gonna tell
2380
01:39:49,440 --> 01:39:52,860
unless of course, Jesus
does come back soon,
2381
01:39:52,860 --> 01:39:55,350
which I've been told
with very good authority
2382
01:39:55,350 --> 01:39:59,701
should be happening any minute now.
2383
01:39:59,701 --> 01:40:02,368
(clock ticking)
2384
01:40:05,738 --> 01:40:08,321
(lively music)
2385
01:40:16,080 --> 01:40:17,567
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2386
01:40:17,567 --> 01:40:19,219
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2387
01:40:19,219 --> 01:40:20,571
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2388
01:40:20,571 --> 01:40:22,299
♪ I have a friend in Jesus. ♪
2389
01:40:22,299 --> 01:40:23,665
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2390
01:40:23,665 --> 01:40:25,557
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2391
01:40:25,557 --> 01:40:28,723
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2392
01:40:28,723 --> 01:40:31,669
♪ He taught me how to live,
my life as it should be. ♪
2393
01:40:31,669 --> 01:40:33,275
♪ He taught me how to turn my cheek ♪
2394
01:40:33,275 --> 01:40:35,002
♪ When people laugh at me. ♪
2395
01:40:35,002 --> 01:40:36,423
♪ I've had friends before ♪
2396
01:40:36,423 --> 01:40:38,067
♪ And I can tell you that, ♪
2397
01:40:38,067 --> 01:40:42,271
♪ He's one who will
never leave your flat. ♪
2398
01:40:42,271 --> 01:40:43,478
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2399
01:40:43,478 --> 01:40:45,368
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2400
01:40:45,368 --> 01:40:46,852
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2401
01:40:46,852 --> 01:40:48,456
♪ I have a friend in Jesus. ♪
2402
01:40:48,456 --> 01:40:49,950
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2403
01:40:49,950 --> 01:40:51,618
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2404
01:40:51,618 --> 01:40:54,490
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2405
01:40:54,490 --> 01:40:57,691
♪ He taught me how to pray,
and how to save my soul. ♪
2406
01:40:57,691 --> 01:40:59,314
♪ He taught me how to praise my God ♪
2407
01:40:59,314 --> 01:41:00,971
♪ And still play rock and roll. ♪
2408
01:41:00,971 --> 01:41:02,358
♪ The music may sound different ♪
2409
01:41:02,358 --> 01:41:03,906
♪ But the message is the same. ♪
2410
01:41:03,906 --> 01:41:08,265
♪ It's just that instrument
who praise his name. ♪
2411
01:41:08,265 --> 01:41:09,472
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2412
01:41:09,472 --> 01:41:11,320
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2413
01:41:11,320 --> 01:41:12,680
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2414
01:41:12,680 --> 01:41:14,459
♪ I have a friend in Jesus ♪
2415
01:41:14,459 --> 01:41:15,851
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2416
01:41:15,851 --> 01:41:17,728
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine.. ♪
2417
01:41:17,728 --> 01:41:21,100
♪ Six feet two, eyes are blue, ♪
2418
01:41:21,100 --> 01:41:23,965
♪ Jesus Christ he was a Jew. ♪
2419
01:41:23,965 --> 01:41:28,331
♪ Has anybody seen my Lord? ♪
2420
01:41:28,331 --> 01:41:29,950
♪ Big hook nose, ♪
2421
01:41:29,950 --> 01:41:34,165
♪ There he goes preaching
so that everyone knows. ♪
2422
01:41:34,165 --> 01:41:38,385
♪ Has anybody seen my Lord? ♪
2423
01:41:38,385 --> 01:41:41,533
♪ Speared in the abdomen by a Roman. ♪
2424
01:41:41,533 --> 01:41:44,086
♪ Blood gushing out. ♪
2425
01:41:44,086 --> 01:41:45,456
♪ Rose from the dead, ♪
2426
01:41:45,456 --> 01:41:46,843
♪ So it is said. ♪
2427
01:41:46,843 --> 01:41:49,741
♪ People believe without a doubt. ♪
2428
01:41:49,741 --> 01:41:52,584
♪ Jesus died still a Jew. ♪
2429
01:41:52,584 --> 01:41:55,307
♪ Still a Jew so why aren't you? ♪
2430
01:41:55,307 --> 01:41:58,136
♪ Has anybody seen my, ♪
2431
01:41:58,136 --> 01:42:00,939
♪ Has anybody seen my, ♪
2432
01:42:00,939 --> 01:42:04,606
♪ Has anybody seen my Lord. ♪
2433
01:42:06,096 --> 01:42:08,679
(lively music)
2434
01:42:13,279 --> 01:42:14,559
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2435
01:42:14,559 --> 01:42:16,207
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2436
01:42:16,207 --> 01:42:17,636
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2437
01:42:17,636 --> 01:42:19,332
♪ I have a friend in Jesus ♪
2438
01:42:19,332 --> 01:42:20,847
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2439
01:42:20,847 --> 01:42:22,553
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2440
01:42:22,553 --> 01:42:25,454
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2441
01:42:25,454 --> 01:42:28,631
♪ He taught me how to live,
my life as it should be. ♪
2442
01:42:28,631 --> 01:42:30,329
♪ He taught me how to turn my cheek, ♪
2443
01:42:30,329 --> 01:42:32,022
♪ When people laugh at me. ♪
2444
01:42:32,022 --> 01:42:33,466
♪ I've had friends before ♪
2445
01:42:33,466 --> 01:42:34,990
♪ And I can tell you that, ♪
2446
01:42:34,990 --> 01:42:38,955
♪ He's one who will
never leave you flat. ♪
2447
01:42:38,955 --> 01:42:40,492
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2448
01:42:40,492 --> 01:42:42,300
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2449
01:42:42,300 --> 01:42:43,751
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2450
01:42:43,751 --> 01:42:45,471
♪ I have a friend in Jesus. ♪
2451
01:42:45,471 --> 01:42:46,912
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2452
01:42:46,912 --> 01:42:48,577
♪ Jesus is my friend. ♪
2453
01:42:48,577 --> 01:42:51,610
♪ Jesus is a friend of mine. ♪
2454
01:42:51,610 --> 01:42:54,620
♪ He taught me how to pray
and how to save my soul. ♪
2455
01:42:54,620 --> 01:42:56,247
♪ He taught me how to praise my God ♪
2456
01:42:56,247 --> 01:42:57,829
♪ And still play rock and roll. ♪
2457
01:42:57,829 --> 01:42:59,466
♪ The music may sound different ♪
2458
01:42:59,466 --> 01:43:00,919
♪ But the message is the same' ♪
2459
01:43:00,919 --> 01:43:05,919
♪ It's just the instrument
who praise his name. ♪
189813
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