Kameron Waters - Yeshua: The Vegetarian - (Pt. 1 of 2: Paul vs James) - PRE-RELEASE
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Greetings from the North, citizens of the world, welcome.

Today we are launching a new thread of investigations, which I am very enthused about. Namely, the historical Jesus and the early original Christianity. There's so much to uncover regarding this, that it will be a whole series of episodes with different experts. Today, however, our focus is somewhat unique, in that we are approaching it

with the issue of vegetarianism and the attitude to animals. For different reasons, this was and is a major issue, directly related to both the historical development as well as of the philosophy and theology of Christianity. We will get into this in the guest conversation, but let me first of all share some interesting facts with you.

If we ask ourselves how prevalent animal rights and their ethical treatment is for religions in general, we get quite an interesting list. I will now read for you many religions encouraging vegetarianism and slash or animal welfare, but it is by far a complete survey.

Jainism - Stronger emphasis on non-violence and compassion towards all living beings, often leading to strict vegetarian diets. Hinduism - Many followers adopt vegetarianism as a way of practicing non-violence and respecting all life. Buddhism - While not mandatory, many Buddhists follow vegetarian or vegan diets as a practice of compassion and mindfulness.

Sikhism. While not required, many Sikhs choose vegetarianism as part of their commitment to living a virtuous and ethical life. Taoism. Some Taoist practitioners follow vegetarian diets as part of their practice of living in harmony with nature.

Rastafarianism emphasizes living in harmony with nature and many followers follow vegetarian or vegan diets. Suryastrianism, strong tradition of animal welfare and some followers adopt vegetarian or vegan diets. Ravidassiya religion, sect of Hinduism that promotes vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Royalism promotes a vegetarian diet as part of their philosophy of respecting all forms of life. Yodo Shinshu Buddhism While not strictly vegetarian, many followers emphasize compassion towards animals and adopt vegetarian diets.

Baha'i faith. There is a strong emphasis on kindness to animals and on treating them in gentleness and care, as they believe that animals have souls and should not be subjected to unnecessary suffering or cruelty. Sufism. Some Sufi Muslims follow vegetarian diets as part of their spiritual practice, emphasizing compassion and detachment from worldly desires. Orpheism.

Ancient Greek religious movement that emphasized purity and abstention from animal sacrifice, promoting vegetarianism as a way of life. Shinto. Many followers believe in the interconnectedness of all life and practice compassion towards animals, as its teachings emphasize the sacredness of nature and the interconnectedness of all life. Many Shinto shrines have animals that are considered sacred.

Animism. Often promotes reverence for all living beings, including animals. Paganism. Some traditions emphasize respect for nature and animals. Native American spirituality. Many tribes believe in the interconnectedness of all life and practice animal welfare.

Theosophy emphasizes its interconnectedness and the importance of living in harmony with nature. They believe a vegetarian diet is more compassionate and in line with the principle of nonviolence and reverence for all life. They also argue that a plant-based diet has spiritual benefits such as purifying the body and mind and promoting a higher state of consciousness.

Qabbalistic Judaism Some practitioners of Qabbalah, a mystical tradition within Judaism, follow a vegetarian or vegan diet as part of their spiritual practice. Mandaism Ah, the followers of John the Baptist.

They believe in the sanctity of all life and the importance of treating animals with respect and practice food restrictions, particularly around the consumption of meat for religious reasons, like avoiding pork and preferring only halal or kosher. Some Andeans also follow a vegetarian diet as a way of practicing nonviolence towards animals.

Spiritism emphasizes compassion towards all living beings, including animals, who have spirit. African traditional religions, many traditions emphasize treating animals with respect and reverence. Hare Krishna movement advocates vegetarianism and non-violence towards animals as part of their spiritual practice. Jewish Renewal Movement. Some members follow vegetarian or vegan diets as part of their commitment to ethical living.

New thought. Many new thought practitioners believe in treating animals with compassion and respect as part of their spiritual practice. Creation spirituality. Animal welfare focuses on the interconnectedness of all life and advocates treating animals with care. Some followers adopt

vegan or vegetarian diets. Pythagoreanism, a philosophical movement inspired by Pythagoras that promotes vegetarianism and animal welfare, emphasizing the holism of all life and the ethical treatment of animals. Neoplatonism,

A later Pythagorean movement, supporting animal welfare and promoting compassionate approach to animals Hermeticism, an ancient spiritual and philosophical tradition that encourages vegetarianism and respect for animals Alchemy, a philosophical and spiritual tradition that emphasizes animal welfare and respect for all living creatures

Therapeuta, a Jewish sect with Pythagorean influences that emphasized asceticism, vegetarianism and living in harmony with nature.

Druze. This faith promotes respect and compassion towards animals as their teachings also emphasize the importance of living in harmony with nature and treating animals with respect. The Druze community has a long tradition of farming and agriculture and many Druze people see themselves as stewards of the land and its creatures.

Universal co-masonry, this Freemasonic order in the Francophone world, which is known as Le Droit Humain, which means human rights, is the only one accepting both women and men into the lodges, encouraging them to vegetarianism and promotes values related to animal welfare and to animal rights.

New Age spirituality. Many people within the New Age movement promote vegetarianism and animal welfare as part of their spiritual practice, as a way of living in alignment with spiritual principles such as compassion, non-violence and environmentalism, believing in the coherence of all life. The Fellowship of ISIS. An international spiritual organization which draws upon various spiritual traditions including Christianity,

and encourages vegetarianism as a way to honor the sacredness of all life. While the ancient Druids may not have been vegetarians, there is some evidence to suggest they may have had an attitude of respect and care towards animals. And Celtic mythology and folklore often feature animals as sacred or magical beings.

believing in the interconnectedness of all life. However, some modern druidic groups have adopted vegetarianism or veganism as part of their spiritual practice, often citing the importance of living in harmony with nature and promoting sustainability. And these ladies and gentlemen were 37 examples, 37 spiritual groupings.

And I'll say a majority of religions either encourages vegetarianism or at least animal welfare. Now, are the Abrahamic religions freakish outliers? Well, if we consider Judaism, we notice that Jewish teachings emphasize the importance of preventing unnecessary suffering to animals. And Jewish law includes specific rules around the humane treatment of animals.

but they are not encouraging vegetarism. And Islamic teachings emphasize compassion towards animals and prohibit cruelty to animals, but again, in general, does not emphasize a preference to vegetarism. But what if I told you that all three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, are today very different from their origins?

and have all more or less been hijacked by views not shared with those of their roots. We will get into the weeds of all this in other shows as far as Islam and Judaism goes, but today we will start looking through the cracks of the Christian, or more correctly Pauline, construct. So the next logical question then is, if the major churches are not regarding vegetarism favorably enough,

Can we find any minority streams who do within the seven major divisions of Christianity, namely Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Restorationism or Hereticism, those officially declared heretical?

Indeed, there are. Here's a list of Christian currents which encourages vegetarianism and or animal welfare. Ebionites, an early Jewish Christian sect that followed vegetarianism as part of their ascetic lifestyle. Anthroposophy, some adherents follow vegetarian or vegan diets as part of their belief in the interconnectedness of all life. Manichaeism,

Their teachings advocated for vegetarianism, encouraging followers to abstain from animal products as part of their spiritual practice, viewing such practices as contributing to the liberation of the soul from the material world. Essenes followed a vegetarian diet as part of their ascetic lifestyle and spiritual beliefs. This lifestyle choice was connected to their emphasis on purity and spiritual discipline.

Cathars. While not explicitly vegetarian, Cathar beliefs place a strong emphasis on spiritual purity and non-violence, leading many to adopt a diet that avoided meat consumption. This dietary practice was part of their broader ascetic lifestyle, which aimed to distance themselves from the perceived corruption of the material world. Unitarian Universalism.

Some Unitarian churches advocate for vegetarianism or veganism as part of their commitment to social justice and environmentalism, emphasizing treating animals with respect and compassion. Seventh-day Adventists advocates for vegetarianism as part of their health message. Eastern Orthodox Christianity, while not official, many monks and nuns follow vegetarian diets as part of ascetic practices.

Christian Vegetarian Association advocates for vegetarianism based on Christian values of compassion and mercy. Creation Care Movement emphasizes environmentalism and sustainability. Some members advocate vegetarianism. Quakers or Religious Society of France advocates

While not official, vegetarianism is quite common among Quakers, who places a strong emphasis on pacifism, simplicity, social justice and caring for God's creation, which has led many to adopt vegetarianism as a way of life, way to live out these values. In fact, they have a long history of advocating for animal rights and ethical treatment of animals. The Quaker Vegetarian Society work to promote vegetarianism within Quaker community,

and provide resources and support for Quakers who are interested in adopting a vegetarian lifestyle. Christian monastic orders: Some monks and nuns follow vegetarian diets as part of their monastic discipline. Liberal Catholic Church: Encourages vegetarianism as part of their liberal and inclusive approach to spirituality.

Gnostic Christianity. Some Gnostic Christians advocate for vegetarianism or animal welfare based on their interpretation of Gnostic texts and beliefs. Christian Community or Movement for Religious Renewal emphasizes inner mystical aspect of Christianity and incorporates some vegetarianism principles.

Christian Science Christian Environmentalists

Many of these advocate for animal welfare and vegetarianism or veganism, as they see it as part of their responsibility to be stewards of God's creation and care for the environment. This perspective emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living beings and the importance of reducing harm caused by human consumption habits.

The Waldensians had a history of promoting vegetarianism and simple living as part of their spiritual practice. Some believe that the vegetarian diet was more aligned with Christian teachings on compassion, non-violence and living a humble life. The Dukobors. This spiritual sect that originated in Russia was known for its pacifist beliefs and vegetarian diet. The Nazarene Essene Church of Mount Carmel.

This is a small Christian denomination that emphasizes vegetarianism and non-violence. The Church of the East. They see vegetarianism as a way of developing spiritual discipline and purifying the body and mind. While not all members may choose to follow a strictly vegetarian diet, it is certainly a valued and respected tradition within the Church.

Oriental Orthodox churches. Vegetarianism and veganism are common practices here, as well as in Eastern Orthodoxy more broadly. In fact, many members of these churches observe periods of vegan fasting throughout the year, especially during Lent and other significant religious observances. The Hutterites.

an Anabaptist group that practices communal living and shares some beliefs with the Amish and Mennonites. While not all Hurturites are vegetarian, some communities do incorporate vegetarianism as part of their commitment to simplicity and non-violence.

The Shakers, or United Society of Believers in Christ Second Appearing, a religious sect from the 18th century with many members adopting vegetarianism as part of their ascetic lifestyle and spiritual practices.

The Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This group encourages its members to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet as a way to promote health, sustainability and compassion. The Taizé Community. This ecumenical Christian monastic community in France follows a vegetarian diet as part of their commitment to simplicity and solidarity with the poor.

The Jesuits, while there is no official Jesuit position on vegetarianism, many Jesuit priests and brothers have chosen to adopt a vegetarian diet as part of their commitment to social justice and environmentalism. So, in conclusion, despite not having vegetarianism as an official doctrine, it's still flourishing within Christianity today, as it has in the past.

none less than 27 mentioned here perhaps not strange if you look at it like this a cute little lamp is brought before you and your hand in a butcher's knife now ask yourself what would jesus do

And this question is a segue to tonight's episode, of which our guest is Cameron Waters, a former gospel songwriter and musician for Sony and Interscope Records, turned filmmaker.

After growing up in the Bible Belt with a family lineage of gospel singers and ministers, he was entrenched in the church from the day he was born. It wasn't until he realized how people use Christianity to justify animal abuse that he started his journey of awakening to question assumed dogmas and explore the deeper layers of truth, which we will get back to soon.

But his first passion was music, which ever since 2010 has been his main career as a professional musician. He has worked as a touring and studio drummer for multiple signed artists and a songwriter, plus studio production for multiple records. He has also created his own music as a percussionist, songwriter and

and producer. And you can find some of his songs of various genres online, like at SoundCloud. Some of his other passions include food, wellness, teaching, surfing, permaculture, and gardening. And he has also devoted much of his time to these in his profession career.

With an early interest for nutrition, in 2012 he founded his own company called Guerrilla Guac, which he is still running, as the creator of a popular Guacamole brand that supports community urban agriculture through guerrilla gardening projects.

Additionally, between 13 and 15, he worked as a marketing specialist for kale, carts, organic food. From 14 to 15, he worked as a demo specialist for rope, veggie wraps, creating product awareness in whole foods markets. In 15, he also worked as a demo specialist and kitchen prep for good bites. The same year, he also worked as an instructor for

Kapuvi Surf School and he worked as an operational specialist for Real Raw Energy and Life Foods. After this busy year he entered the documentary filmmaking sector in 16. He had already contributed as a musician to the 14th docu What the F is Cancer and Why Does Everybody Have It?

But he eventually joined forces with Kip Anderson, who had already changed the way the world looks at eating animals, after producing some of Netflix's most watched documentaries, working alongside the likes of Jacqueline Phoenix and Leonardo DiCaprio as executive producers, like Cowspiracy, What the Health, and Seaspiracy, where Cameron contributed as composer.

Kip, together with Cam, has worked for seven years on a docu called Christspiracy, which is just released as I read this. And yes, this will be the basis for our talk today, where Cameron joins me as the co-creator for this groundbreaking flick to discuss some of its contents and a wider context.

In his own words, I tell stories through film, music and other mediums to inspire truth, compassion and liberation for all beings. Welcome to Forum Borealis, Cameron. Thank you. Nice to meet you. And I'm very happy to have you on. I guess we can just come out of the closet and admit up front that I heard about you via...

I saw your horrible interview at this doofus in England. I forgot his name. Pierce something. Yeah, Pierce Morgan. Morgan, yeah, that's it. That's his name, right? Pierce Morgan. Pierce Morgan, yeah. Some say... I don't know. I think it's Pierce. Some people say Pierce, but I think it's Pierce. Pierce. Yeah, yeah. But he's...

You have to be British to hear the difference there. I know, right? But yeah, either way, no. But good advertisement for you because I noticed it. That's why I wanted you on. So you were clever to go on there. And I guess that was the only thing you hoped to achieve too, right? Yeah, that interview got around. It was quite the event to go on and be able to talk about this. And he's definitely...

You know, not one to hold back his personality and he gave it to us full on in the conversation and we're grateful for it. I'm glad it led to this. Yeah, I bet more than me picked it up. Of course, it was a complete, what did they say in English, train crash, plane crash of an interview. Not anything you guys did. He made a fool out of himself.

He just wanted to, my two cents psychoanalysis is that he wanted to grandstand and bash you. He thought he was appealing to his listeners, but in the comments, everybody was frustrated on your side. Okay, good. But that's Piers Morgan for you. I always say Piers Brosnan. That's why I was, but Piers Morgan, that's it. Oh, that's the 007 guy, huh?

Well, I mean, that's like saying Roger Moore is 007. No, no. Right, right. He was a placeholder. What else? Yeah. But I'm so happy I did discover this because coincidentally, if there are coincidences, synchronicity, Jung would say. I've just started a series on the historical Jesus. Good, good. And I want as many takes that I can.

And your take is brilliant because it's an eye catcher for one. I think I'm actually going to call this show Jesus the Vegetarian or Was Jesus a Vegetarian? I'm going to go for the sheep shot, right? What is the name of your movie, by the way?

The name of the film is Christ Spiracy. That's it. Love it. Yeah, yeah. And no, you can call it whatever you like. That's where Pierce went with it, you know, straight out of the gates. And obviously the film, as we like to say, and as we said on Pierce, is actually even deeper than that. But I totally understand the ability of that title to catch someone's attention and want to listen. So go for it. Yeah.

Actually, I've noticed that most open-minded Christians, they love hearing about historical Jesus for the simple reason that it's in vogue now to try to say Jesus didn't exist.

So at least that way they can hold on to, you know, some historicity. Right. Then you can discuss, you know, the virgin birth or the crucifixion and people would disagree, of course. But my listeners are primed for this kind of information. Okay. So they're not going to cross themselves when they hear something new and original.

At least we have our grounded... We don't do value judgment in my show. We just explore theories and let everybody make up their own mind. Okay. Whether they're Christian or not or religious or not, whether they are mainstream Christian or not, it's all up... And that's what they expect. And...

They enjoy hearing new and original takes on things. Granted that it has basis in more than, you know, you woke up one day and had notions in your head. Of course, that doesn't fly. Yeah, yeah. But it seems that you guys are actually basing this on research. So I'm very looking forward. Sounds good. All right. Now, like I said, I've only seen the trailers, of course. And we're going to begin with the beginning. But I just want to check one thing before we...

start from scratch. Are you aware of a theologist, academic or scholar on this stuff called Robert Eisenman? Absolutely, yeah. We interviewed him for the film. He's in the film.

Love it, man. I love his research. Oh, this is going to be so good. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll try to keep it within one and a half hour, but this is your doom that you admitted is, but okay. Oh, no worries. I can talk about this stuff for five hours straight probably. It's my obsession. I love it. Let's start there. You actually, you come from, you are a believer yourself, right? Yeah.

Yes, yes. I mean, I was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, in the Deep South, the Bible Belt, as they call it, you know, where all the Protestants are of all the different shades and colors. But my hometown is where the Southern Baptist Convention was actually founded. So we have a church on every single corner, it seems. And I went to probably three or four different ones. My grandfather helped found one of them.

He was a music minister, and then my mom, same worship leader, music minister, and my grandmother played the piano in church. I've grown up in a family where pretty much everybody had some role to play within the church.

And as I was raised, you know, we can go into even some of my oldest memories that probably primed me for this subject matter that I found myself being so obsessed with and then making a movie about probably later in the conversation. We'll get there. But to kind of jump through it quickly is just that. Yeah. When I was a teenager, I started to take my faith, uh,

pretty seriously. I had some different experiences that led me in the direction of, you know, going from the more infantile understanding of it and not fully, you know, grasping it all to like having deep conviction about it in my teens that leading me to essentially take on my family's kind of heritage with the music side of it and writing gospel music, playing gospel music, um,

I started to specialize in playing the drums in gospel music, but I also play all instruments and write. I really, really like to write the songs and the lyrics. So that's kind of how I got obsessed with the intricacies of scripture and really wanting to make sure that I'm saying the right thing and communicating the right thing. Because, you know, if you don't, if you write a song,

and you're not accurately depicting something, you can get a lot of backlash from people. So I spent a lot of time really studying the scripture in that regard. And then, yeah, that took me into a full-on career in gospel music, which...

I did until 25, 26, about eight years ago or so when I started. Well, I guess 10 years ago now, if you depending on when I when you count when I stopped doing it. Yeah, about eight to 10 years ago, I stopped doing that to pursue this whole kind of mission. Yeah. No, time is flying. I became first aware of the vegetarian aspect, which is the eye catcher in this thing.

I think it was Christian... Are you aware of some kind of group called Christian Science? Christian Science? Church of Christ Science? Yeah, Christian Scientists. Yeah, yeah. I am aware of them. Yeah, Mary Addy Baker or something? Right, I am aware of them. Yeah, they are vegetarians. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if they all are, but I think there is a pretty heavy... Not only that, but they... If I understand it correctly, because funny enough...

When I was living in California, in Los Angeles, for many, many years, most of my career in gospel music was based out of California. And I played drums and wrote music for a megachurch there called Mosaic that's...

Started in nightclubs doing church services. But eventually we got a building on Hollywood Boulevard right next to the Chinese Theater almost. And it was an old Christian science building, an old Christian scientist building. And the funny thing was, is when they were doing the renovations, the bathrooms didn't have dispensers for soap.

Because they don't believe in soap and certain things around hygiene. So there's a lot of interesting things going on with the Christian scientists where it is very health-oriented, but it's like, hey, don't use all these unnatural products and all of that. Yeah, yeah. We don't have them here, but it reminds me of the anthroposophists. They are like that too. They're so deeply into health that they are rejecting most mainstream health products.

But I was thinking of Christian science because they were the first who made me aware that there is a case in Christianity for vegetarianism, which of course is obvious now when I've researched it deeper, like potential roots to Buddhism. Many think that. I kind of think it's...

I think the Essene order was actually not Buddhist. I think it was a Jewish version of the Pythagoreans that had survived. Right. And the Therapeutic. But it doesn't matter. Anyway, both those influences would have been vegetarian. But you could just see the Bible itself. It clearly states that God created animals for men to shepherd.

And like to watch over, like a big brother. And the plants for food. So that's one of many things that is not removed from the Bible that indicates this thing. And when you see that Jesus was skeptical to animal sacrifice and all that, I'm not surprised because I think most enlightened people in history have been at least animal lovers. But also in many cases, I would say,

If they're not vegetarians, then it's like strictly like the Amerindians did, like, oh, bless the spirit of the animal and thank you for giving your energy to me, etc. So respect like that in any case. So our modern society is way off the rails today.

the way we are out-switching these things. So I think it's not hard if you really are a Christian or any believer actually in the divine to understand that a realignment needs to happen. But anyway, we're getting way ahead of ourselves.

So that's your background. Now, I want you to answer two things and you'll weave one of those answers into the other answer. First, I want you to tell me how you came to be interested in the more historical, realistic version of Jesus and Christianity and also how you crossed paths with, you'll have to forgive me, but I forgot the

the name of your co-creator, but how he also fits into it. Kip Anderson, yeah. That's it. How he fits into the picture too. Right. Okay. So yeah, some would say...

I would say if we really jump back, the seeds were originally planted when I was really young, which is what I was alluding to in my background story just a few minutes ago. But basically, when I was eight years old, I was taken by my grandfather, who was the music minister of the church, to another local church in my hometown to listen to a lecture on creationism by Ken Ham.

I don't know if you're familiar with this character, but he's a guy out of Australia that basically preaches and lectures on creation science, proving that the world… Are you referencing a so-called intelligent design? I'm very open for that personally. But is that… Yeah. Or are you distinguishing between creationism and intelligent design? Some are.

Well, I'm not personally. I'm just saying Ken Ham was kind of one of the pioneers in modern times of bringing this idea that science could back creation accounts. And yeah, like you said, intelligent design. But they take it really, really literal with the Bible, like the seven-day thing and how many years the earth has been. I was eight years old when I was taken to this, but my grandfather took me there.

to listen to this guy lecture. He's from Australia, so he had the cool accent and everything, and I was super engaged. And I remember, like it was yesterday, that he's telling us, and he's using science to bolster the claims of the Bible. And one of the things that he shared was, you know, he started most of the, you know, the creation account is in Genesis, and

And here we are learning about all the days of creation, but then he stops everyone and says, look, one thing you have to realize too is that in this time, humans were vegetarian.

But not only that, all the animals were too. And I'm sure he referenced Genesis 129 where God gives humanity plant, you know, every herb bearing seed for food. But I don't remember him referencing that. I'm sure that's what he was referencing at the time. Yeah. And...

He's saying this to the crowd, and you see a lot of people start to kind of get uncomfortable. And then one guy says, you know, because part of the other claim that he was making was that if dinosaurs existed, they existed at the same time as humans, that evolutionists have got it wrong, and that this is like the behemoth and whatnot mentioned in the scripture, right? Yeah.

And so he's talking about humans and dinosaurs living together, and they say – one guy objects in the crowd. Again, I remember it was like yesterday. He objects in the crowd and says, well, wait a minute.

You were just saying that dinosaurs lived at the same times as humans. Now you're saying humans were vegetarian and all animals were vegetarian at this time. So are you saying dinosaurs were vegetarian? Clever. Yeah, clever. And so I'm just locked in, eight years old, like, oh, what's he going to say? And then he said, well, you know what? He put his hands up towards his chest, almost like T-Rex arms.

and showed how, you know, a T-Rex would have to eat from a tree and said, if you, you know, because the guy's saying that the teeth, the incisors, they're so sharp, they're for meat eating. He says, well, have you ever tried to crack a coconut with your teeth? And basically painted this picture of a dinosaur grabbing a coconut off the top of a tree and having to crack that. And whether or not that's true, who, you know, that, whatever

Whatever claim he was making, it made a deep impression on me as a kid because I saw this logical kind of reasoning argument going back and forth trying to make sense of this topic. And then also the vegetarian aspect got deeply imprinted on my brain. But as most eight-year-olds, I probably started thinking about comic books or something and I forgot about it until I was 17 or 18 years old.

Transitioning from 17 to 18. And I started my first Daniel fast. So my family together collectively started joining in on this annual Daniel fast where

which is based on the biblical prophet Daniel, where in Daniel 1, chapter 1, it says that this prophet, as he's taken into slavery into Babylon, rather than eating the king's slave food of choice meats and wine and everything, he refuses and says, I only want to eat pulses or vegetables, anything bearing seed, fruits and vegetables.

And then he goes on to be one of the healthiest, strongest, and wisest in all of the kingdom. Well, we as a family heard that there was, coming out of California, Rick Warren, this really popular pastor, made famous this whole Daniel Plan, Daniel Fast experience where you fast for 21 days like Daniel.

And through that time, you pray and you do everything. So it's kind of like a Protestant Lent or like a Protestant Ramadan or something like that. But basically, my family joined in. We started eating, cut out all the meat and animal products and everything and started eating that way.

And I just started to feel amazing. It was a really good experience physically, but I did experience some of what I would consider to be like a spiritual benefit. I became more and more intrigued by the scriptures. And one of those aspects that was the most intriguing was, again, rewinding back to probably about when I was eight to 10 years old, I also learned about a lot of scripture first through scripture.

Okay.

contained the story of Daniel in it. And they acted out the story of Daniel. So I knew the story of Daniel from that. But I happened to go back when I was doing the Daniel fast and I was like, you know, I never really knew about this diet part

Why is it that I didn't know that? And I went back to my VeggieTales tape, and funny enough, the VeggieTales story skips over the diet part. It doesn't say anything about him refusing vegetables. It just says that he prayed fervently, and he was smarter and wiser, and he didn't succumb to the ways of the kingdom. But it doesn't specify, which is ironic, because

from a show featuring vegetables so i was like what is that all about so anyhow all that to say at that time i was a hunter i was a fisherman i used to go fishing all the time in freshwater lakes around my area but i also go i also went deep sea fishing every single year 40 miles offshore were you also an animal lover i was an animal lover yeah i had you know dogs growing up um

that I was deeply, deeply connected with and yeah, always loved animals. So you were the kind of outdoors man that was like respected nature and nature.

Yeah, I respected it in the ways that I knew at the time. But I did hunt and I did go fishing and I did work at a barbecue restaurant that my stepdad owned, a family-founded barbecue restaurant where we cooked ribs and pork and everything in our backyard every single weekend. So I was around hunting, fishing, meat-eating, cooking the whole nine yards all the way up until this point.

And then essentially I came into this confrontation of, yeah, doing this Daniel fast and,

feeling the challenging nature of like, man, I don't want to give all that up. Um, not really having any ethical component to it at all. Uh, other than like you just mentioned, I did love animals, but I didn't see the connection yet. But this fast that I did kind of opened me up again. Like I said to the scripture, well, what does the scripture really say about this? You know, this is wild. I never knew this, but there's this prominent character who was like a superhero to me when I was growing up. Like I wanted to be like Daniel, um,

Then I find out I had this particular abstinence from animal products and flesh and choice foods and everything. All right. So as I was saying, yeah, I was hunting, fishing, working at my stepdad's barbecue. So I'm the least likely person to even stumble across this type of thing.

But again, having, you know, experienced what I experienced with the Daniel fast and having this inkling of understanding from the Genesis story, I began to wonder, is there more in the scripture about this angle? Is there more in the scripture about this kind of way of only eating meat?

or some ideal, you know, so to speak, of only eating plants because I was raised with the concept of dominion in the sense that it means that, you know, animals are kind of given to us for food. With the barbecue kind of lifestyle, there was a famous funny line that people used to say as a prayer, good food, good meat, good God, let's eat.

It's like what the good old boys would say at church after church before the meal and everything. So, you know, this was quite new to me, in some ways uncomfortable for me to think about giving up meat. Why would I want to do that? But if the Bible has some thread of this, I wanted to know what it was about. So I went into it from that Daniel fast scenario. But over time,

When I was touring and playing bands with gospel music and I was on the road, you know, having to find plant-based options for my Daniel fast, that at this point was an extended Daniel fast that I was doing, I would come across conversations with people who would ask me about why I was eating that way. I would share with them. It's the spiritual kind of experience that I've been doing, you know, having learned from Daniel and Genesis. And I would get these really, really

kind of uncomfortable responses from them too. Like, hey, this is kind of strange that you're going down this path. This has nothing to do with Christianity. I don't know why you're saying it does. And I'm like, well, it talks about it in Genesis. It talks about it here. No, that's not what we believe, this type of thing. So that kind of, you know, pushed me to go deeper and deeper still and ultimately land. Ah, rebel spirit, huh? Yeah, yeah. And it ultimately landed with, hey, look,

The rubber meets the road with our faith in Christ is kind of where all the conversations would go. Like, well, Christ redeems all of that, and we don't need to worry about what we're eating and what we're drinking and all of these things. So that's Protestants, right? Yeah, exactly. Because we get the same thing. The Catholics couldn't get away with that.

They use another kind of excuse, but I remember just quick when I was in the children's school, there's these two Christian girls were bullying a blind boy in class. And I said to them,

Look, you girls are proud Christians with a badge. So why are you doing this? Yeah, but we are baptized. So we will be forgiven. See? Right. This is an extreme, right? But it's always the go-to excuse. Whereas the Catholics have more emphasis on action.

So for them, that's not – they could go to confession maybe and get rid of it. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah. I got you. Yeah, and the idea within kind of the Protestant way, and I think too in general Christianity is that though Christ has this redemptive quality over sin, still the love and compassion of Christ –

should be measured in how you act in the world. Like, even if you are, you know, redeemed from your past sins, you are called to move forward in a way which reflects the life of Christ and the value system of Christ. And with that at the very, very center being compassion for all, ultimately, I began to question, well,

what would Jesus do about this? I used to wear the brace. I'm still wearing the bracelets right now as we speak. What would Jesus do on my wrist? But I, again, eight, nine, 10 years old is when that movement started, the what would Jesus do movement. And I had a,

a Bible study where I would ask my friends on the playground at elementary school, what would Jesus do? And I would give them little flashcards and say, if you find a wallet on the ground and you don't know whose it is, what would Jesus do? And see what they'd say. Would Jesus take it and keep it for himself? Would Jesus figure out who the owner was? So I was all into that when I was a kid. This is a clever approach. Jesus becomes a placeholder for their conscience. Yes.

And the only people who will fail that test, because everybody will know those answers, are those who are not in contact with their conscience, popularly called psychopaths. But you actually played that card on Pierce, I think. Right. When he denied it. And it was so funny because there were some seconds. It actually worked on him. And he knew for sure that...

Jesus wouldn't do that thing you asked. It was, I don't know, butchering or something, right? Yeah. But he had to... He went quick on his feet and he distracted from it. But it's very effective. Right. So the central thesis, which became the thesis of the film, is what would Jesus do when it comes to killing an animal? If Jesus...

wasn't worried about eating animals or even if he himself ate animals, what would he do to kill an animal? Because he was a rabbi and rabbis typically, if there was a lamb, they would do the killing amongst the group of their people. You know, they would use the ritualistic system or whatever it would be. So what does that really look like and how can we visualize or imagine the most compassionate human being to walk the earth, the prince of peace as he's called, the

killing an animal? What's the peaceful, compassionate way to do that? And it's quite a hard question to answer. So with that question in mind and that kind of essence in mind, also, you

being fueled on the sidelines for many, many years with this hunt through not only the scriptures, but eventually while I was on tour with these gospel bands, I was spending every waking moment looking through Eusebius, Irenaeus, Josephus, all of these historical documents trying to understand the historical Jesus just in general, because that is, to answer your question, how my

fascination with the historical Jesus was opened up was through this question. But what I began to find is that all over the historical record, there was just more and more clues and nuggets pointing in the direction that this was a really important question. And so I, and we can get into all that in this conversation, but essentially to wrap it up,

Yeah.

I realized that when I was done with my shift at the conference that there was a screening of the film Cowspiracy, which is all about animal agriculture and its impact on the environment. And I had seen it. Wasn't that one on Netflix? Yes, it was on Netflix. It's still on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great one. Right, right. And so I was impacted by that film. I thought it was powerful in its exploration of animal agriculture, which I became very fascinated with, with this question, how would Jesus kill an animal? It's not long after that.

Asking that question that you come to realize that 90 billion land animals are killed every single year for food.

And that's not including fishes. And that's not even the worst of it. I mean, the way they are raised and live and killed, it's horrible. Well, 99% of them globally are in factory farms. We know this. You can look up ourworldanddata.org. So 99% of 9 billion animals. And that's not even including the fishes in the fishing industry. That's trillions. We're talking trillions in the fishing industry, plus all the buy-kill and everything. So...

what would Jesus do about that? It's a pretty massive... What I like to say is it's an ethical dilemma of biblical proportions. I mean, it's as big as it gets. So armed with all of that energy, I found myself going and attending this Cowspiracy screening and Q&A session with the director. And as you can see in the film,

uh, pose this, this question was posed. How would Jesus kill an animal? It sparked a really healthy conversation between myself and Kip, the co-director. He, for the first time, when I was trying to have this conversation with all my peers and the church and everything, and I kept feeling kind of like it was uncomfortable and it didn't really go anywhere. He just wanted to talk about it more. He was super fascinated by it. He wanted to know more. And then he said, you know what? Uh,

And at the time, I told him, I said, well, you know, I'm planning on writing a book about this. I had been kind of collecting the information for a book. And he said, well, I think this would make a really good movie. And at the time, he had been planning to follow on. He was just about to release his second documentary, What the Health, which is all about the health implications of animal agriculture.

And then he was considering making a film on ethics and maybe a tinge of spirituality because he comes from a background of yoga and a little bit of Eastern stuff just from growing up in San Francisco. But his dad was an ex-Mormon, so he didn't really have any Western religious background. So when he heard all of this, he said, well, this is fascinating. And what I told him is what really –

I feel landed kind of the conditions for making the film, which is this. Cowspiracy and What the Health, his previous films, what made them so interesting and I feel popular amongst the masses is that it doesn't just look at, you know, in Cowspiracy, the environmental impacts of animal agriculture, but it looks at the overall

nonprofit organizations of environmental causes that should be telling you about this fact regarding animal agriculture, but they aren't because they're being paid under the table to stay silent about it by animal agriculture so that they can continue business. Similarly, in what the health industry

There are these issues with carcinogens in certain processed meats and this and that. And these nonprofit health organizations like the American Cancer Society and Diabetes Association and all of these, they should be telling you about these concerns. Yet they're promoting some of these same products as food and recipes on their websites.

Because again, there is some collusion with pharmaceutical industries and animal agriculture to not have this cat out of the bag, so to speak. So what I told Kip is I said, hey, if you're going to make a film on ethics, who are the nonprofit organizations of ethics?

And essentially, it's religions in a grand scale, so to speak, you know, all around the world, no matter what culture you live in, even if you're not religious yourself here in the West, you have a value system that you've been steeped in from the time that you were born that's based on some kind of Jewish Christian hybrid value set that

And there's no escaping it, whether you're religious or not. So you take that idea in the West and then you apply it to the East. It may be Hinduism in India. It may be Buddhism. It may be Islam. But so to speak, our values... Even Daoism in China. Exactly, exactly. So these things frame our ethical and moral understanding as a society. So we realized it was really important to make a film that...

And Kip saw that as well. And then that's when we decided, you know, my passion was to understand it from the Christian perspective. But then in teaming up with Kip, we realized, let's cover all the perspectives. So though the film is called Christ's Spiracy, it's not.

We look into all the major five religions and their perspective on animal killing, but Christ is the thread. And that's why we ended up calling Christ Spiracy because the historical Jesus is so compelling and the story around this is so compelling. And my story on uncovering it in my backstory kind of helps thread the film. So that's, that's why we landed on that. And that's how I met Kip. Yeah. Okay. So your, your, your backstory is featured as a part of the film. Yes, it is. Interesting. Yeah.

Well, this gives a new dimension to the film because, I mean, for the Muslims...

which is going to be the nut to crack. But the thing is, Muslims are completely recognizing Christ. They put him as the most important prophet next to Muhammad. Of course, the Shias, really, I think they actually prefer Ali to Muhammad. But they too, certainly the Shias agree that Christ is the big one. And what they probably will not acknowledge is

You know, the more I go into historical revisionism, meaning finding the real truth of things, the more I see that everything is upside down. And also for religion, for all religions. And for Christianity, there's so much. But for Islam, there's one very interesting thing. And not many Muslims will acknowledge this. Not many Christians either. And that's that it seems that Islam started out as a renegade Christian sect. And so...

Whether they acknowledge it or not, because I don't know anything about, I know they have the kosher thing, they call it halal, but whether Muhammad ate meat or not, definitely they need to, they will connect with both Moses and Christ. Right. So, but can you make a case for that all the avatars were vegetarian?

I think there's a pretty strong case that you can make for it being a very strong possibility. I mean, proving it in an ultimate sense is like near impossible given the fact that we're so far removed from some of these people and their writings. But I think there's a really, really strong case. I mean, even from Muhammad, who we have tons of firsthand writings about and everything, there's, he's the hardest person.

I would say, but there's still, even if you can't outright prove that, just looking at the writings themselves, the level of compassion towards animals and the dominance of that language throughout those writings is so pronounced that it might as well be, you know, you think about 500 AD, some odd, like that's a really hard time to be completely honest.

you know, vegetarian and in that time with everything going on. So the fact that someone is even talking about compassion towards animals was such a

But what I'll say, I mean, even, yeah, look at your statement just now that this idea that potentially Islam started as a renegade kind of form of Christianity or maybe another renegade form of Judaism, because that's kind of what Christianity was anyways in its roots. Early Christianity was just alternate Jewish sects kind of starting to think differently. Yeah.

You look at the Mandaeans in their own way. They're kind of somewhat Islamic, but they follow John the Baptist heavily, and they're heavily, heavily vegetarian. And the Druce, I think. Isn't the Druce also a vegetarian? The Druce?

Yeah, they are, the Jews are in Lebanon, Israel, you know, some places in the Middle East. And they have, they are not Islamic per se, but there are a weird mix of different traditions, among others, Islam. Yeah, and there's historical documentation of, I believe...

I believe the prophet or one of those who knew the prophet and I think wrote one of the Hadiths or something that came across the early...

Christians or like an offshoot Jewish sect in the kind of Saudi Arabian desert, and they intermingled and exchanged ideas. And one of these, you know, they sounded like quote-unquote Christians or early Jewish Christians, and there was talk of vegetarianism and these types of things. And I often think that a lot of these, you know, like the Mandaeans, when these sects

they get so persecuted in the empires in which they sprout that they kind of have to go underground. And over time, they splinter, they become so many different factions. And then some of those factions become really, really extremists with certain ideologies. And then those are the ones that end up surviving while the other ones dissipate and go, you know. So we can have a whole conversation about all of that. But I think that's all fascinating that you've connected those dots yourself. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But I want to say, while we stay on Islam, that, you know, most people today think of Islam as this warring, crazy fundamentalist. You know, it all started, I'll make a long story short. Okay. The Brits needed to control, they wanted to crush the Ottoman Empire, they wanted control over the Holy Land, and they wanted the oil and whatnot. So...

They took these crazy degenerate animals out of the desert in Saudi Arabia, the Al Saud family, and they pushed the Wahhabism religion that nobody knew about them or believed in. Islam had been like this advanced academic, civil things for hundreds of years. And then they put that and tried to boost it. Now, of course, it didn't.

It didn't spread. I mean, nobody took it seriously, but they gave them power. They took the real king of Arabia. Faisal, I think was his name. Beautiful man, both in his soul and in his face and everything. And he was talking about how Christians, Jews and Muslims were brothers and blah, blah, blah. He was the real king of the Arabs. They toppled him and they put in these cave dwellers, crazy people.

But that wasn't enough. Then I think the next people who boosted them were the Nazis. They needed them to put them against the Jews. So they forged bonds with them in the 30s and onwards, even after the war. And then America took over, CIA, etc. Now, given these three empires and their need to construct a boogeyman,

Between them, they managed to successfully create this monster that is Saudi Arabia today and Wahhabism in particular. And Wahhabism and Salafism has become like a scourge, like a virus taking over so much of Islam. We see a backlash today, actually. Sufism is on the...

No, finally, the pendulum is swinging. Younger people are now looking at deeper stuff like Sufism. Right. And I think that's where we have to look to find the spirit of Islam. Right. Because the more I'm exposed to Islam, the more I notice that

It's actually, you know, there's a religion of peace, religion of peace. Well, it's the mercy that they, I notice Muhammad is speaking so much about mercy. Yeah, they have some weird quirks, but when it comes to, you know, even how they are treating the enemies, etc., there's always mercy, mercy, mercy. So if there is mercy as a strong virtue,

There's no reason to think that wouldn't also apply to animals. Right. So at worst case scenario, I think they would have like an Amero-Indian story.

certainly not a factory farming attitude, but at least let's thank them for this gift. I mean, they cared enough to implement this halal thing. So at least that is a thing. But rewinding now to Christianity. So you started to look into the historical Jesus. I think we should pick up the thread there because

There's so much to discover. And I'm assuming you, of course, went outside the canonical gospel and looked at all the gospels. Yes. But I do not know if you also looked at, you know, there's one thing is the apocryphal, but there's Buddhist sources, there's Islamic sources, there's Sanskrit sources. Yeah, there's a whole list I have of sources about Christ that

and the early Christianity from other religions. And people, you have to remember, the reason it's popular now to say that Christ didn't exist is that the Pole religion, which is what we call Christianity today, they've had 2,000 years of destroying everything

that did not agree with what they eventually agreed would become Christianity. And I would say that those who have created the modern, polite Christianity is three people we can thank for that. One is Paul, but that wasn't enough. It also required Constantine, but that wasn't enough. It also required Irenaeus. And I think between those three we have the modern Christianity. And everything after, I would say from year 20,

or 390 and onwards. From there on, everything they found that did not align with the church, because that's what we're talking about, the church's take on

would be burned, hidden away, censored. So that's why you can't find so much. And still we find so much, despite that havoc they've caused in destruction. And even without the apocryphs, we find so much in other religions. And I know I've thrown a lot out there, but take anything you want and comment upon it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, so my journey definitely brought me through exploration on so many different sources. And where I found, I think, what we can start with that I found to be one of the most interesting, which is a huge kind of linchpin on the film. And I'm going to be careful because I don't want to give too much away because I want...

I want all of your listeners to watch the film and be able to have the experience. But I'll give as much as I can and maybe hold back in some ways that I can. We're still keeping it fascinating, so they have to see it. Yeah, fair enough. Essentially, this idea of kind of early Christianity, some people call it Judeo-Christian,

early Jewish Christianity, um, but the sects that, uh, Irenaeus wrote about, and in particular, the, uh, Nasserines and the Ebionites, um, which are known to be almost synonymous with each other in different forms from Eusebius and, uh, you know, uh,

Josephus and those who wrote about them. But this idea that Jesus was Jesus the Nazarene, right? Well, Jesus of Nazareth. We know it as Jesus of Nazareth from our English Bibles, right?

And that's how I was raised. It's almost like the one thing you know is about Jesus. If you don't know anything else historically, it's that he was from Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth, right? Although he was born in Bethlehem. Right. Well, that's where it gets confusing because you can have that be so propagated, Jesus of Nazareth, and you can still... I play this game with people. It's actually something that I've been doing to create content for the film called Jesus Jeopardy. And I ask people, where is Jesus from? And it's like...

Oh, he's from Bethlehem or he's from Nazareth or he's from Capernaum. Cause that, or it's, he's like, he was born in Bethlehem. He was from Nazareth. He preached in Capernaum. He, you know, fled to Egypt, uh, all the different things. It's kind of just so many of these different stories where there is kind of this, huh, what, what's going on here? It's just even in the canonical gospels. But, um, but historically speaking, what I came to realize is, uh,

is that there's no record of a town named Nazareth until 200 years after the death of Christ. And it's not mentioned in the Talmud. It's not mentioned in the Old Testament. It's not on any maps. Josephus does a

massive account of Galilee in that area. And he mentions all these small little hamlets and villages, but he doesn't mention Nazareth in his account. I mean, it's crazy. So it's nowhere. So I'm like, huh. And often mythicists, you know, who want to disprove the existence of Jesus at all and, and kind of make him out to be this kind of,

I don't know, a hodgepodge of Hellenistic stories and ancient stories. They'll use this and say, well, look, there's no existence of any town called Nazareth. That right there is an extra proof that if there was no place, then there's no man.

Obviously, I didn't agree or believe that because there's too much evidence there for the existence of this person. But I was still left with, well, what's this hang up with this Nazareth thing? And so come to find out if you actually look behind the English Jesus of Nazareth to the Greek.

It's Jesus the Nazarene or Jesus the Nazarene translated properly. It's never Jesus of Nazareth. It's always Jesus the Nazarene. And it's saying something more about who he is, not where he's from. Both of the spellings in Greek actually, they complicate any derivation of

of a place of origin, that to be a Nazarene means you're from Nazareth. It's definitely alluding to this religious title. And we know from the scriptures that there was a Nazarene sect, that it was this sect of Judaism that had a particular way. And then one has to ask, okay, well, is it just a sect of people that was formed by being followers of Christ, the Nazarene?

Uh, but then you come to find out through reading into Irenaeus, uh,

And his Panorion Against Heresies, the famous book where he chronicles all the different sects of early Christianity and deems all of them as heretical, except for the, you know, ones that agreed with the formation of, you know, the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodoxy of the time. There's a number of them that are the Nazarenes or the Nazarenes spelled differently. You know, they have multiple different spellings, but...

That's also confusing. It's also confusing. But they're claimed to be even before Christ, this sect, that they were before Christ. So then it's like, okay, well, what's that all about? So the film goes deep into this question. And what you find in Irenaeus is that the separation of these, this group was just like the Jewish sect in every way, but they were vehemently against Jesus.

animal sacrifice in the animal sacrificial ritual. And even in an extension of that, the eating of flesh is

as they deemed it unlawful to do so. Irenaeus, sometimes he's, I don't know how to pronounce his name properly. Is it Irenaeus, right? Or Irenaeus? How do you? You know, both are anglophonic versions. Right, right. They wouldn't say either. But here it would be natural for me to say Irenaeus. Irenaeus, I'll go with that. It doesn't matter. We're butchering his name either way. Right, right. Irenaeus. So he speaks about them

in his Panoram and discloses this bit of information, which is key. And not only that, he talks about how they not only didn't support animal sacrifice and the eating of the flesh, but they also believed that all the stories of the patriarchs

Right.

Throughout the ancient Hebrew tradition that objects animal sacrifice, and you don't even have to go to Irenaeus to see it. It's in the Hebrew Bible. All over the Hebrew Bible, you've got Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Micah. They're all at some point or the other.

you know, talking about how the animal sacrificial ritual was not something that God wanted, uh, and, and that it's unnecessary in some form or the other. And that builds into this whole story of Christ and what he ultimately did and his disruption of the temple and the animal sacrifices, which is really the basis of the depth and the deepest story of our film is what really happened on that historical event when he stormed the temple, uh,

So, yeah. Interesting. There's so many ways to go there because, and I'm not going to press you for yours, because one take or approach to the historical Jesus is that he was all about peace and love. The quintessential hippie, like the Essenes, oh, it's love, man. The other take is that it is more like the Zealots because they

The Nazareans and the Ebionites, which is what, you know, the Christians, just so you know, guys, the Christians didn't refer to themselves as Christians, not at the beginning, especially not Christ, of course. He wasn't a Christian, but they referred to themselves up until they agreed upon the word Christian. They referred to themselves as, Cameron just said, Nazareans or Ebionites.

which were also names for earlier sex because Jesus was initiated into the creme de la creme of spirituality at the day. But some scholars connect them also to the salots. The salots, to remind you,

And many people have probably got their education on this from Monty Python. But the Zealots were the more warrior type, those who wanted to fight against the Romans. There was one of his main disciples was a Zealot. And some also think that Judas was a Zealot.

Because it seems that Iscariot may have been like a name of some elite zealot soldiers. Right. Whatever that may be, that's the Jesus, the revolutionary, the political figure kind of approach. Then there's the Jesus, the peace and love and Buddha type. That's all the Essenes. They were peace and love. They were peace and love. But it may seem that, first of all, the Essenes were huge, much bigger than we thought.

and they had just like the Templars for example later on in history had many departments the Templars had a banking department a farming department a

Sacred architecture and mason department, of course, Voriad. So they had all sorts of... The same is true for the Essenes. When something gets big enough, you get sections, right? So they may have had a revolutionary aspect. They may have had a mere spiritual aspect. You can see the same in Tibet and other places where they are huge. So

Maybe there was a reason for having different names like Nazarenes and Ebionites. But to what you say about the Jewish thing, you know, I'm so ambivalent on Paul because on the one hand, he's this crazy Jew who didn't meet Jesus, who was slaughtering Christians and then subverted the whole thing by putting... I'm preaching it to the Gentiles.

So I'm taking liberties and I'm using established myths that pagan people knew about. Like there's three figures before Christ who was born of a virgin and who was sacrificed and resurrected. All that stuff was known.

So on the one hand, and they called him, the first church in Jerusalem referred to him as Paul the liar. Now, I'm ambivalent because on the one hand, he did all this stuff. He took his own notion of it and created a new religion, which is preposterous compared to what was really going on. But on the other hand, Cameron,

he did one very convenient thing for you and me. He said, everybody can. You don't have to be Jewish. You don't have to get your tip of your penis chopped off. You don't have to do any of these things. So in a way, I have to kind of say that that's actually to my advantage. So I'm ambivalent on him. But I want to say to back up what you said. James the Just, brother of Jesus, said that if you change one law,

you change them all. That's how they were adhering to the law, to Judaism. And Jesus himself said, I did not come to overturn, but to renew, I think was the word he chose, right? So everything points to this being. And if he was of which everything seemed, I even have, I don't know if you went this deep. I'll read it for you later. But I have his genealogy.

And he was from double sacred lineage. So if he was this Hebrew royal Jew from spiritual and royal lineage, then it makes all the sense in the world that he tried to restore Judaism to what at least they thought it originally was, but had been lost throughout all this horrible history they've had and being, you know, purged here and there. So,

Oh, it's a complex matter, but you want to comment upon any of this? Oh, yeah. There's so much to comment there from the comments of Paul and the ambivalence, which in a lot of ways I agree with. He brought so much good and there's so many challenges as well, especially with the topic of this film. And we address Paul in the film, but maybe we can get into that in a bit. We can take it a little bit chronologically here. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that getting into the Essenes and, like you said, the Zealots and all of that, we could go into all of that. I'm sure your listeners probably have at least some base knowledge of some of that stuff. I think what would be cool would be— Don't assume it, because we just started this series. We've been deep-diving into a lot of other stuff, but not historical Jesus. Okay, okay. Well—

Sticking right now with the Nazarenes and Ebionites, one thing that I would share to just kind of qualify that, because you mentioned...

You mentioned that the term Christian didn't come until much later, which is true, and a lot of that's associated with Antioch and Paul and the whole movement there. But the Ebionites, there's a lot of debate on where that name comes from. There's some belief that there was a guy named Ebion. That's what Irenaeus talks about, and he's actually related to the Nazarenes. He grew up in a Nazarene sect.

So that shows their connection right now. But a lot of people also say that they became the Ebionites because that word means the poor, the poor ones. And in fact, there's documentation that says that this was more of a...

Kind of like a slang term used to discredit them, like, oh, that's just the poor people, those Ebionites, you know? But they took it on themselves to be like, okay, fine, you know, yeah, we're the poor ones, but blessed are the poor, right? As Jesus said. Yes.

So that's where these terms came from, and the Ebionites specifically—you bring up James the Just, believed to be the brother of Jesus, or documented to be the brother of Jesus—he has strong, strong connection to the Ebionites. There's multiple documents that connect him as the potential leader of these Ebionites, and in fact—

Paul is going to Damascus when he has his big conversion event, there's even some documentation between the Clementine homilies and some other documents that allude to the fact that maybe on his way to Damascus, Paul was actually hunting down these Ebionites and even James himself, because there's connection to Paul having an altercation with James at the temple and

and pushing him down, and him falling down some stairs, leading to his stoning to death, and these kind of things. And then basically the Ebionites, when Paul, you know, if you were to go to Damascus, you'd pass by Qumran, and there's this idea that the Ebionites went up and hid out this really awesome documentarian,

what's his name? Jacobovich. His last name is Jacobovich. He did The Naked Historian, I believe it is. He goes into how the Ebionites maybe hid out in Qumran during that time and Paul missed them headed towards Damascus. Paul has the conversion event and the next thing you know, you've got Paul's kind of

going to preach to the Gentiles at odds with this kind of James, Ebionite, Peter kind of message as well. Yeah, they refer to him as Paul the liar. Right, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, yeah. Yeah. So...

But that was later because he was a novice among, from what I understand, he actually joined these guys. Right. He joined the church of James, the first church in Jerusalem. Right.

It seems that when they say, you know, I think they, what you say, expelled him from the country. Right. But he took it seriously. That's what they didn't gamble on, that they thought, okay, well, let's send him to the Gentiles. He's probably going to be beaten up or even killed. But he actually did a great job building up a bigger church there than at home because he bypassed the you have to be a Jew thing. He could never have pulled it off in Rome if they would have to be Jewish. Right.

Right. That's his genius in organizing, that he bypassed that thing. Right. Well, so what I want to do is, that kind of lays the foundation to some extent, if your listeners are trying to understand all of this, that there's these just different ideas that are flowing off of the back of this kind of Jesus movement, so to speak, which again, as we all know, that's the

of English version of the Greek version of the real name of Christ, which is probably closer to Yeshua or whatnot. But we'll just use Jesus for now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some say that even that's a title, like it's a double title. Right. Because I think Jesus means...

Salvation, yeah. Salvator, yeah, and Christ, the anointed one. So it could be a double title, but it could also be a name because Yehushua was a name. Right, right. So we've got these different ideas of these sects following in the years just after Christ's death and resurrection and resurrection.

Basically, the ideas are fanning out, and one of the main points of contention is this idea around eating animals or not, eating animal products or not. And you have it all over Paul's writings. And in fact, the way I was raised, and then once I started asking these questions, was met with a lot of these verses. Paul famously quotes in Romans and Corinthians and a number of these other letters that Paul

Christians are that if one eats only vegetables, they're weak in their faith and that one should eat whatever meat in the marketplace without question of conscience, which funny enough, we should note that the word meat in English in these translations actually typically just means food. It doesn't even mean animal flesh. It's just the English term for food. But there's this idea still, though, historically speaking, that there were

a significant number of these early followers that believed in abstaining from animal flesh so significant that it had to keep being brought up. And Paul is saying,

Which I believe Paul himself wasn't even necessarily saying that he took this position because in, I believe, Colossians, he goes on to say, you know, even I won't eat animal flesh. And in this particular instance, the word here literally means animal flesh. He says, even I won't eat animal flesh ever again if it causes my brother to stumble or causes my brother to be caught in a snare.

And we can get into kind of what that means in a bit, but there's some other verses that I would cross-reference with that. But essentially, Paul's showing the arguments that are happening in the church, and he's saying, hey, there's this massive argument of people that say you should, the people that say you shouldn't. Most modern Christians or even a lot of theologians would assume that this is just all about idol worship, that there are these Christians in the church that are scared or concerned that the Hellenistic—

Right.

But the reality is it's much deeper than that because the Ebionites documented specifically by Irenaeus and Eusebius are listed as vegetarian. They believed that it was unlawful to eat meat at all. It didn't matter. And their own meat, it's not just pagan idol worship. They didn't believe in the meat from the Jewish temple either. Right.

So where does this come from? Okay, so now that we've laid that framework that this was this contention, and might I add, before we move on, I find it interesting that Paul's documenting this argument. And when he's saying these people who believe that you should only eat vegetables, etc., he's referring to James the Just. And according to the Clementine writings, Peter as well, because it's recorded in the Clementine writings that Peter lived on olives and bread.

Yeah, but you would expect that from Peter since he had actually, he knew Jesus. Right, right. And they both, yeah, exactly. And same with James. And so he's speaking about these people, but the one note I was going to make is, wouldn't it be easy if Paul wanted to shut this argument down for good just to say, well, hey, our Lord Christ, he ate flesh, so don't worry about it. Right, right. But he never says that, does he? No.

He does not. And we also have to always keep in mind that Paul's number one job was to spread this new religion among the Gentiles. Right. And if he would impose vegetarianism upon them, you know, not as a choice, but as a mandatory thing.

It will be ruined. The whole project will be ruined. Yeah, it's a non-starter. You will never get the romance onto that. Exactly. Okay. So what I want to do now, if I can, is I want to jump back in time a little bit to something that I think could be really fascinating for your listeners of how could this ever become an argument? Why would this ever be so important? Okay. So as we know, we discussed earlier in the podcast that

Um, it's very, very clear in the Bible. If you go open it right now, any translation, Genesis one 29, God prescribed a plant-based diet in the garden of Eden and the garden of Eden is seen to be an ideal, right? It's, it's understood that it's an ideal, but then, um,

Yeah.

references that this kingdom of heaven doesn't contain any animal slaughter in it as well. That it returns to this kind of ideal state. So it's like the story starts in a garden with peace and no need for slaughter and death and consumption of other beings and

And it ends in somewhat cities of gardens or organized gardens, as it kind of says in the Greek, with the tree of life again around the river of life and all these manner of fruits. And the lion will eat straw like the ox and the wolf will lay with the lamb and all of these types of prophetic imagery, right? So it's this peaceable kingdom with no animal slaughter. So that's

The bookend of the Bible that we have right now sitting on your desk or in your hotel side table or whatever it is, that's how the Bible starts and how it ends. So we frame it with that. Now, what happened? Where did all of the animal slaughter come in? And where does this idea that there's this warring kind of contradictory position in the early church around it? Well,

If you look again in your scriptures as we have them, you have all of these references, like I said, of animal sacrifice coming into the text. And we could get into specific references for every single one and the interesting anomalies there. But let's just sum it up that there's all of these references about animal sacrifice as if God commanded animal sacrifice. Yet you have a complete contradiction there.

in multiple other instances from the prophets, Jeremiah 7, 22, he says, God never commanded sacrifice on the day he called you out of Egypt. And what's the day he called him out of Egypt? Well, that's the Passover. That's when they slaughter all the lambs, right? Then you've got Amos 5, 25, Amos, the famous prophet. He, uh,

He said, in 525, it's a rhetorical question, did you perform any sacrifices in your 40 years in the desert? And the implied answer to the rhetorical question is obviously no in the context of the scripture there. So you've got Jeremiah saying God never commanded sacrifices on the day he called you out of Egypt. You've got Amos 525 saying they never did them in the 40 years in the desert. Well, what's that all about?

Then you start to see Hosea 6.6. He says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I would rather you obey my voice.

then offer burnt offerings and sacrifice and that's what Jesus quotes later in the Gospels when he says go and learn what this means I desire mercy not sacrifice right and there's so many instances I don't even want to take up all the time but it's time and time again time and time again throughout all of the prophets where these prophets speak against animal sacrifice right right well

your modern theologian or your average Christian who maybe studies this a little bit more and doesn't just go to church on Easter and Christmas who actually thinks about this stuff.

They would probably say something to the effect, well, they're all talking about idol worship sacrifice. They're all talking about, you know, God doesn't want sacrifices to all these pagan gods. But if your heart is right and if you're solid with God, God wanted sacrifices to him at that time. Obviously, until Jesus comes along and then now Jesus is the last sacrifice and we don't need it anymore. Right? Right, right.

But let's lay that foundation that, again, Jeremiah doesn't say it specified. These verses, many of them don't specify idol worship. Jeremiah said, I didn't, God did not command you to do any, to do sacrifices at all the day he brought you out of Egypt. I want to take you on a little journey about a recent discovery that may shape this narrative in a whole new way. Okay. So,

In the book of Kings, 2 Kings 22, there's an account where Hilkiah, the high priest during the reign of Josiah, King Josiah, finds a scroll of Moses that says,

seemingly no one knew was there next to the Ark of the Covenant inside the temple. He finds it there and he pulls it out. That's where it would be, right? Right, right. If anywhere. Right. I know, right. So he finds it there. He takes it out and it says that he and the priest read it from like morning until evening with all the commentary and everything. Well, okay. First challenge with that.

What we would know today to be the scroll of Moses would be the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. And there's no way to read those in that amount of time with commentary. So first challenge is whatever the scroll of Moses is that he found, it was shorter. It was shorter than what we have now. Hang on. There are pseudepigraphs called the sixth book of Moses, the seventh book of Moses, etc. I think up to 10 actually.

But, you know, I'm just saying. Right, right. Well, it says the book of the law. So in a sense, yeah, yeah. In a sense, we can gather that he's talking about some version of what would have been that kind of Pentateuch, that kind of the law, the Torah. So it says the book of the law. But what happens is they read it. They're kind of alarmed by what they read, should I say. And then they take it to Josiah and...

And Josiah rips his clothes in almost like a lamenting action and essentially says, I'm paraphrasing in just modern English, but something to the effect of almost like we've been doing it wrong. And I believe fast forward into Samuel or somewhere you end up hearing or reading that this scroll is then burned. It's lost. It's gone. Yeah.

So they pulled a Catholicism on it. That's, you know, just so people know that there's two types of people in any religion. There's those who actually take it to heart and want to know. Like you said, what would Jesus do?

But that's honest, sincere people, those with a heart in it. Then there's the dogmatics who want to, you know, preserve what we've got going here. Yeah. The dogmatists, right? Right. And they are always in power in all religions. And those are the people who eventually got a say in that case, obviously. Right, right.

Absolutely. And that's why I start with the scripture, because we're going to get out of scripture into some historical documentation and some storytelling for a minute. But I want to start in the scripture in 2 Kings 22. It's even documented within Samuel that this is a Hebrew Bible story that we know is there that I was never told growing up, that there was this lost scroll of Moses found by the Ark of the Covenant and that the king read it and

What happened? Okay, so now let's come to understand that Jeremiah is from a priestly lineage and his father is deemed to be Hilkiah.

Well, most theologians have put the dots together on this, but like I said, in 2 Kings, it's Hilkiah the high priest that finds this scroll. And based on the genealogy and the timing, it's probably most likely Jeremiah's dad that found this scroll, right? Well, Jeremiah has these...

sayings in his book where he comes out saying, you know, Jeremiah 8, verse 8, the lying pen of the scribes has falsified the Torah. That's Jeremiah 8, verse 8. The lying pen of the scribes has falsified the Torah.

And so he's almost alluding. He knows. Yeah. So he says later on, he says, I found the scroll of Moses and I found the scroll and I ate it up. I devoured it. He says, so he's alluding to the fact that he got a chance to read the scroll before it was destroyed. Right now, what else does Jeremiah just go on and on about more than almost any prophet? God never commanded sacrifices coming out of Egypt, right?

Right.

Again, I don't want to give too much away. We go into this in the film, but it's not that word thieves. It's something else. It's much more condemning. Okay. And we cover, we cover this in the film. We go deep into the Hebrew and to the lexicon of all of this. You have to, but essentially what I want to paint the picture of is there's this law scroll. Jeremiah has found that he's speaking out against the animal sacrifices after he's read this and he's, uh,

saying the law of Moses has been falsified by these scribes, right, that have been copying it over the ages. Okay, let's put a pin in that. Now, I just recently, through making this film, came in contact with an evangelical biblical archaeologist and researcher named Ross Nichols, who wrote a book called The Moses Scroll.

And it accounts how research that not only he has done, but simultaneously similar, almost exact research has been done by a Harvard theologian, a

Ivan Dershowitz. Both of them got into this research during COVID era with all of their spare time from being locked inside and ended up meeting each other and realizing that their research and findings were aligned. But all of this research was around a scripture that was found in the 1800s by, ironically, a man named Moses Shapira, an antiquities dealer who found

scroll that he believed to be a lost ancient ancient book of the Bible and tried to sell it off to British antiquities so he this man named Moses let me jump into his story and then we'll come back to the research and the findings from Ross Nichols and Yvonne Dershowitz but essentially Moses Shapira was this antiquities dealer living in Jerusalem and

And he helped properly translate the Siloam inscription. He was a profound and respected guy for his accuracy and his passion for what he was doing. Some Bedouin shepherds went into a cave and

And found a scroll and brought it. This is before the Dead Sea on Nag Hammadi? It is. It is. And it's wild because it matches the story, right? This is in the 1800s, okay? Right, right, right. Mid to late 1800s. So...

They find this scroll and they bring it to him because he's the guy that looks at these things and deals them. And he does his own investigation into it and he feels confident this is a real scroll. And what is it? It's a it's these strips with paleo Hebrew.

You know what a circumpunked is? It's like a little dot in between the words, kind of like when you see on the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the little dot in between the Hebrew words. Circumpunked, paleo-Hebrew, with this sticky substance on it, found in these caves in the lower side Moab area of the desert, right? The lower side of the Dead Sea across the Jordan. Yeah.

And he deems them to be real and starts to transcribe them. Come to find out it's basically a similar carbon copy almost to the book of Deuteronomy, but way older, way older than the oldest version we have, right? Right.

So he takes it to British antiquities and he puts a hefty price on it, right? He says, I'm going to sell this to you because I know I've got something. Of course. British antiquities, a little skeptical. They take it. They say, hey, we want to do our own science on this. They come back. They have a number of scientists behind them that say, hey, this is a forgery. We're not going to – That's what – it's the catechism to say that about anything deriving too much. But please tell me that they took copies.

They did what? Took copies. Copied it. Oh, copied. Yes. We have copies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. And we'll get into that. We'll get into that. Oh, yeah. But basically, just to tell you his story in a nutshell, he...

his ground. He didn't accept their low. They still wanted to buy it at a lower price. He didn't accept it. They turned around and they smeared him in the newspaper. He was Jewish. They did the Jewish tropes. So that he couldn't sell it to anyone else. Exactly. Exactly. So then he's found sometime later in Amsterdam in a hotel having committed quote unquote suicide. Right. He was upstained very early. Right. I see.

Right. That's the speculation. We can't prove it just yet, but we're, you know, I'm working with Ross Nichols, the guy who did this research on potentially doing some type of film or investigation around this. This should be a follow-up movie. Absolutely. Anyway. So here's the deal. What we know is that, and Ross covers this much more in depth, he's an expert in all of this, but

During his time, Ross Nichols, this friend of mine now, he got obsessed with this story. And was this really a forgery? So in the COVID era, he went deep into the science on this and said,

The blessing of all blessings, without even having to go that deep, is this was the 1800s. This was before the Dead Sea Scrolls. So what were they using to determine that this was a forgery? They said, oh, it's written in Paleo-Hebrew. Oh, the way these strips are cut looks like he would have cut them off of some other scrolls. There's circumpunks, like I told you, between the words. They only use circumpunks in stone. They wouldn't have done that on a scroll. Well, guess what?

when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, paleo-Hebrew, circum-punks, the same type of strips, all of these things. So now we've applied this from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ross and Ivan Dershowitz have gone even more particularly into some of the arguments that these original scientists made to find that they're completely false or extremely questionable at best.

to the point where The Bar, the biblical archaeology review, has now even posted articles from Professor James Tibor and Ivan Dershowitz. Professor James Tibor is in our film. He's a great early… Wait a minute. I think I've invited him on my show. I can tell him to come on. Yeah, you should because… Yeah, yeah. I'll tell him to come on. I know I invited Eisenman, but he's so old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing that he's still with us.

But I think Tabor is the other guy I have already agreed. I think he said he would come on. But yeah, you should sure give him a nudge. But I just want to say, before you go on, this was before the forgery industry happened.

It would be like quite an elaborate, nobody could expect anything from it. After the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi, some forgeries did surface, but there was no notion of a forgery industry back then. So that alone, you know, and bedrids. Right, right. No, it's,

Yeah. Yeah. It's a complete outlier. Yeah. So all that to say Ross and he done Dirk switch, did all this work. They, they got the biblical archeology review to even share this writing, raising the question that this potentially wasn't a forgery. Um,

And they've even gone – Ross has looked into the aftermath and understanding like, yeah, he was in Amsterdam where he was found dead. That just so happened to be at the same time where the World's Fair was. And at the World's Fair, there was a biblical archaeology meetup with all the scientists who said that they were – who said it was a forgery as if he was going to try to prove himself dead.

All these pieces kind of come together. But long story short, after he passes, we know that the leather, the strips of these writings, there were like 16 strips, I believe. 15 of them went to England and wound up in an estate. Funny enough, a Masonic lodge has claimed to them now. And then one leather strip actually went in his luggage back to his wife, Moses Shapira's wife.

Wow.

these uh these fragments and do some carbon dating and finally put the uh put the forgery argument to bed but all that to say this is all a big build-up for the big mic drop so the big mic drop on this is what did the text actually say let me say if the text agreed with the official book

Nobody would have died. Nobody would have said forgery. Everything would be a cakewalk. So I expect it's deviating. Right. If it's worth killing over, it's deviating big time. Well, here's the big kicker. It's, it's very similar to the book of Deuteronomy in many ways. It's, it's different in just a few ways. One is it, uh, gives like a timeline of events sort of in the beginning. That's kind of interesting. Um,

But this matches other writings that we have about the way the original writings of Moses were. But the big kicker relevant to this conversation and the setup that I've given is that it contains zero sacrificial ritual. Zero animal sacrificial ritual. No prescription of animal sacrifices at all. But it doesn't condemn it?

No, it doesn't condemn it at all. It just doesn't mention it. Well, there's one mention of animal sacrifice, and it's from the Midianites, I believe. It's talking about the Midianites sacrificing to Baal, you know, and highlighting it in a bad light, that they're sacrificing these animals to this god sort of thing. So what does that mean? Why is that interesting? Well—

Well, there's no excuse for one. There's no excuse anymore. Right, right. Well, if this book is real, if this scroll is real, could it be the scroll that Jeremiah, or at least a copy of the scroll that Jeremiah is talking about when in 2 Kings that was found by Hilkiah the high priest? Well, here's what's interesting, is though they say it burned,

It says in Maccabees, you know, the Maccabees, the book of Maccabees? Yeah. It says in Maccabees, I believe in 2 Maccabees, like chapter 2, chapter 1 or 2, it says that Jeremiah had this scroll or a copy of this scroll and took it and hid it in a cave in the south across the Jordan. Wow. Now, you put all this together and you come to understand that...

The, in Samuel, when the Hebrews are leaving the desert, like I said, Jeremiah says, God never commanded sacrifices the day you came out of Egypt. Amos says that they never sacrificed while they were in the desert, which matches this text. They're just eating the manna and living off of God's way, the way as it was traditionally called then. And then they find themselves across the Jordan,

waiting to get in. And finally, they make it into the promised land and the Canaanites are there doing all of this crazy Moloch and Baal worship and all this stuff. And you've got Baal and Yahwehism starting to

you know, converge together. The animal sacrificial ritual comes in. Most of these Hebrews can't read or write. So the Levitical priesthood kind of takes its liberties. There's a whole system that can be built around this. It's a fertility God kind of cult thing with these animal sacrificial rituals. But what do you have in Samuel? You have the tribe of Ruben and Gad. It says in Samuel that they go back across the Jordan to Moab and they built an altar there.

Like their forefathers, not for sacrifices, right? So there's this something special about this land of Moab. Well, here's what's interesting. All this comes full circle to the Irenaeus document that I told you about before, the Panorion, when he talks about the Nazarenes.

and how they existed before Christ. They're just like Jews in every way, except they completely reject animal sacrificial ritual. They don't eat meat because they believe it's unlawful to do so. And they believe in the stories of all the patriarchs, but they believe the stories have been foraged. And it says they believe that there is a book of Moses of the law, but not this one that has been perpetuated. This.

This is Jesus' lineage. And here's the really interesting part. They mingled around the Transjordan, which is that area of Moab. So is there a possibility that there is a sect of these people who were able to determine where Jeremiah hid that scroll, or before even Jeremiah, that there's this understanding of these people that

carried either by oral tradition or by actually knowing where the scroll was this understanding and this is part of the tradition that comes in through John the Baptist who's coming and he's giving an alternative to animal sacrifice with baptism he's condemning it then you've got Jesus and you've got James the brother of Jesus afterwards who only eats plants it says clearly in Josephus and the writings about him so

Yeah. And then all of that, all of that hangs on this event. What's the event? And this is what, again, sorry, I know I've been talking for a while, but I want to wrap it up into the, to the nature of the, the nature of the film is that our film hangs on the most important piece of this whole equation, which is Jesus's disruption of the temple, the cleansing of the temple. And what most scholars deem is,

I'll be at news to me when I first heard about it, because I wasn't taught this growing up, but this happened for most likely somewhere around four days before his crucifixion. And most likely was the event that predicated the crucifixion. It was the reason that they were able to get him charged was because of that act and because of that event. And what was he doing really wrong?

What statement was he making, really? What was happening in that temple, really? We've learned they were turning the tables, right? But there's something else there. What were they selling? What was really happening that ties together to this whole narrative which we discover and discuss in the film that could completely shift our entire understanding of what

a central message of Christ, of Yeshua. Right, right, right, right. I'll not even answer that question because I don't want to ruin the movie, but perceptive listeners have got it.

But what's really clicked for me now is that there's actually... Because now I can see why Jesus, coming from an older lineage, wanting to restore Judaism. Because he was belonging to those who remembered, those who obviously must have been a minority at the time then. And of course, it's oral tradition, like you said. Most things were oral back then. Not to say there wasn't...

Well, Jesus said, Jesus often in the gospel says, in your law it is written, but I say. Right, right, right, right. What does he mean by that? Right. It's becoming clear now. And people have to understand how much is hinching on. Look, we know there are, of course, censorship. And with that, I mean, they destroy scriptures. And that didn't start with the Catholics. That goes back.

But we also know that because you have to understand the psychology of these people, folks, you and me talking, not just you and me, but the listener too. We would like, wow, something new about the guy. I'm like trying to, he's my ideal. I'm trying to emulate his lifestyle. And here's something more I can learn. That's, that would be a positive for most people. But for these people we're talking about, the power people, the powers that be in any given time in religion,

for them it's a tragedy for them they are scrambling to try to you know if they can just get away with it but brute censorship that's what they're going to do hence a huge secret compartment in the Vatican library

But in addition to the censorship, there has been alterations. Yes. Forgeries, direct forgeries. In addition to this, even in Josephus, which isn't even a religious scriptures. But in addition to the alteration, we also have to understand the horrific scandals around many translations. And this is relevant to what we're talking about here too, because I'll give you two examples.

In John's creation, it says in the beginning was Logos and Logos was with God and Logos was God. Now, if they had meant, because you talked about the Greek error of translation, that's common. If they had meant the word word, like we are using colloquially now as something you're speaking, they would have used the word rhema.

But logos means so much more in ancient Greek. And it can mean law. It can mean sound, vibration, thought, idea. And it can mean mind. And all those are connected. It starts with the mind and it ends up as a spoken word. So logos is like in geology, in different disciplines,

ending in Lord G. That means the teaching of this discipline. So there is an argument to be made that what it really then says is in the beginning was the idea or in the beginning was mind. Cool. And the mind was with God and the mind was God. And that's just the first example. But before I go on, should we take a quick break? Yeah, that's fine. And come back ASAP. Okay. Sounds good. Very well. See you soon folks. Back for more. Okay.

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