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1:47
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast, I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
1:52
All right, guys, we've got a special guest on the podcast today.
1:55
Her name is Eugenia Konstantinu, but she let me call her Jeanie because we're like best
2:00
friends now, but Dr. Konstantinu holds five degrees in theology, including a master of
2:05
theology degree from Holy Cross, Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Harvard Divinity School,
2:11
and a PhD from University Leval, where she specialized in the apocalypse and the ancient
2:16
church.
2:17
She's actually a retired professor, but she has been a professor at different Orthodox
2:20
institutions.
2:21
And she was also most recently a professor at the University of San Diego, and she did
2:25
that for about 20 years.
2:26
She's the author of Thinking Orthodox, Understanding and Acquiring the Orthodox Christian Mind,
2:32
and her most recent book, which we spent the overwhelming majority of our time talking
2:35
about today, is this book here, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, the Amazing History and
2:40
Sublime Mystery of the Passion.
2:43
So I was actually turned on to her work by Zack, who you will recognize from the forging
2:48
table, and Eric Metaxas, who she was on Eric Metaxas' TV and show, I've been on that show
2:53
as well.
2:54
And you know, Eric Metaxas has a very well-known writer, and so Metaxas is a Protestant like
2:59
I am, but he's gotten a lot of value out of her work and scholarship, even though she
3:03
comes at it from a Orthodox perspective.
3:05
And we certainly talk about that because as a Protestant Christian, not raised in the
3:09
church, I was very unfamiliar with Orthodox.
3:11
I was like, okay, it kind of feels like Catholicism, but like more restricted or something like
3:15
that.
3:16
So we get into that detail, but then we really dig into this book and understanding the unique
3:22
context from which we get the first century, okay?
3:27
What is the Jewish context of what was happening in that area of the world at that time?
3:31
What was the Greek context, the Roman context?
3:34
We spent a lot of time talking about what exactly that looks like.
3:38
And then we start, we actually started our conversation today talking about manhood because
3:41
we were talking about a little bit offline.
3:43
So that's the first thing you're going to hear us talk about, which I really loved her
3:46
perspective on that.
3:48
But we also dig into the historicity of the biblical texts and why we can trust these
3:53
first generation sources and what some people say about, oh, we can't really believe in that.
3:59
There's just rampant skepticism now about the expectations of what we were able to glean
4:04
from things that happened 2000 years ago.
4:06
We spent some time talking about Jesus cleansing the temple.
4:09
You guys know how I feel about that and how much I love that.
4:11
But we talk about the weight of the term and the name Messiah that was given to Jesus.
4:18
We talk about people doubting that.
4:19
We talk about everything the chief priests tried to do.
4:22
We get into detail talking about what a Roman scourging was because we think it was like
4:27
a lashing, right?
4:28
Because that's what's been depicted rather in some modern depictions of Jesus is these
4:34
lashings, but no, what's different about a scourging?
4:37
We get into the crucifixion itself and the details through which that were to happen
4:42
and what type of anguish that would create in the human body.
4:46
And then we also talk about the significance of some of Jesus's statements from the cross
4:51
and then what we can expect from Jeannie as we move forward.
4:54
But I really, really enjoyed my time with her.
4:55
So guys, I'm not going to keep her from you any longer.
4:58
So without further ado, let's get into it.
5:00
Eugenia Konstantinu, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
5:05
Thank you very much.
5:06
Kyle is great to be with you.
5:08
Now we just met for the first time a second ago, but do I know you well enough to call
5:11
you Jeannie?
5:12
Absolutely.
5:13
That's fine.
5:14
I'm not.
5:15
I'm not very into formalities, so whatever you feel comfortable with is fine.
5:19
Okay.
5:20
Well, we'll see how it evolves as we talk today, but one thing that I want to talk about right
5:24
from the jump and then we'll get into your career and certainly the book, but you were
5:29
just talking off air about how much you like the concept of our show specifically because
5:35
culture does a really good job of looking to women and catering to women and girls to
5:42
the neglect really of catering and even having any concern for men or young men, especially.
5:49
Yeah, that is certainly true inside Christianity, whether that's Orthodox Catholicism Protestantism.
5:56
We're all doing a pretty terrible job of making sure that we're ushering our young boys into
6:00
manhood.
6:01
Yeah.
6:02
I'm sure they even know what that is.
6:03
Hey, how does, and you even brought this up, Jeannie?
6:05
How does manhood play out in a Western culture and how do you make that Christ-like at the
6:12
same time?
6:13
And later in our conversation, I want to talk about the clearing of the temple because most
6:18
modern men's ministries are, Hey, let's go camping or Hey, let's get together and eat
6:22
that meat and watch this guy talk, and those are fine, but that's not men's ministry though.
6:27
It's certainly not discipleship.
6:28
So I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on that.
6:31
Right.
6:32
Well, I think that that men have been neglected in our culture because for a long time, they
6:39
were the only thing that mattered.
6:42
Everything was oriented toward men.
6:45
And so when the women's movement began in the 1970s in a series, like as it obviously
6:51
had roots much earlier, but when it really became a very serious movement in the 1970s,
6:56
there was so much emphasis on women that men were really neglected, and especially the
7:05
raising of boys and so much, sort of this, the women's movement brought out this idea
7:10
that men and women are the same, were exactly the same.
7:13
It was, which is really ridiculous.
7:15
They have a very different psychology.
7:18
But still today, people are functioning under this misunderstanding that men are men or boys
7:26
act the way they do because they've been inculturated to do that.
7:31
Well, I know that that's not true from raising my own son, you know, but you see women trying
7:35
to, or parents trying to give their boys dolls and things like that.
7:39
Boys want trucks, boys want guns, boys want things.
7:44
It's a natural thing.
7:45
I know this because I didn't try to teach my son to like cars, but he, from the time
7:49
he was little, one of his first words was car.
7:52
Okay, that's all he cared about.
7:53
From the time he was, as a matter of fact, if you ask him, "What do you want to be when
7:57
you grow up?"
7:58
He said, "A car," okay?
8:00
So that's something that we have to recognize that biology is important, and it does play
8:05
a role in shaping who we are.
8:08
So unfortunately, I do believe that men and boys have been neglected, and unfortunately
8:12
men are in a position now where they, or they're confused.
8:16
They don't know how they're supposed to behave in terms of society.
8:19
And I think that that is really directly linked to the confusion today over gender identity.
8:26
It's not that every man has to be macho all the time, and if there's any good thing that
8:31
came out of it, it is good for us to recognize that men have a right to their feelings that
8:36
they don't have to hide everything, that they can be vulnerable.
8:39
That's a good thing.
8:40
That aspect of it is a good thing, but this idea that we should treat everybody has to
8:47
be sensitive and act like a woman and share their feelings, it's really been harmful,
8:54
I think, to men, but also to women, because the expectations that women have of men are
9:01
sometimes very unrealistic.
9:02
They want their men to be like their girlfriends, and sometimes you wonder, is they're just
9:08
buying a lot in the popular culture.
9:11
So what does this have to do with Jesus Christ?
9:13
I think he's a great example of masculinity and gentleness at the same time.
9:19
He knew when to be both, when to be straight, when to be tough, when to be, we can say, strict
9:27
with, let's say, the Pharisees who are challenging him to hold his ground, and yet to do it with
9:33
integrity and also to have that gentleness about him.
9:39
One of the things that I think is important for us to understand is that these characteristics
9:47
or virtues are not masculine or feminine.
9:50
I think this is one of the reasons for the confusion, the gender confusion today.
9:56
People think, "Well, gentleness, that's feminine."
9:58
God, that's the feminine aspect of God.
10:01
No, that's not, it's neither masculine nor feminine.
10:03
That is divine, love, timeness, mercy is not feminine.
10:10
It's a characteristic of God.
10:13
So men have all of those things too, and it's important that they not feel like they're
10:18
becoming feminine by showing those qualities.
10:23
And likewise, women have to recognize that men don't have to be women to have those
10:30
empathy, these kinds of qualities.
10:33
Well, there's so many good things there, and one thing that I would even point to, and
10:36
you alluded to it there, is Jesus was lamb and lion.
10:41
He was grace and truth, and when sermon content or books put out by Christian publishers or
10:47
Christian music, when it focuses on grace, grace, grace, grace, lamb, lamb, lamb, then men
10:52
that are a little rougher, a little tougher that may be more naturally lion, more naturally
10:57
truth, naturally courageous or strict or whatever.
11:01
They're going to look at Jesus as this wimpy, wispy, haired, European white guy with soft
11:07
features.
11:08
And it's like, no, he was a rough Middle Eastern Jewish construction worker.
11:12
And have you ever been, have you ever had a look in your eye where a mob pushed you to
11:17
the edge of the city and was about to throw you off a cliff and you just walked right
11:21
through him and said, "Not today."
11:23
I'm sorry, I love that scene, I love that scene in the Gospel of Luke.
11:29
Absolutely.
11:30
I think that's very, very good.
11:32
Yeah.
11:33
We're going to dig way more into that, but I think another thing you bring up is, so the
11:36
different qualities that are typical masculine, typically feminine, typically more men, typically
11:41
more female to do it.
11:42
I think the biggest one, and I don't want to go off in left field before we even really
11:46
get started here, but stoicism, and no, I don't mean the philosophy.
11:51
I mean stoicism for young boys, they don't understand when they're allowed to do that
11:56
now.
11:57
Yes.
11:58
And even women, they don't understand when, okay, if I show my emotions, am I just being
12:02
a crazy woman or a guy, if I'm just showing my emotions, does that mean I'm gay?
12:06
Like we have this cultural confusion over emotions.
12:09
And I think stoicism and being able to be resilient is one of those deals.
12:14
But to back up just a little bit, you were part of Orthodox Christianity, and I would
12:19
say the overwhelming majority of our audience is Protestant.
12:24
And like me, maybe very little familiar, er, reading with the Orthodox faith and how it
12:28
differs from Protestantism or Catholicism and like, what's Greek Orthodox?
12:33
What's Eastern Orthodox?
12:34
Like why are their churches so beautiful and mine so ugly?
12:36
Like those types of things.
12:37
But could you give us, I guess, a 30,000 foot overview of the differences and I guess because
12:43
we don't have all day to get into that, so give us a primer on that.
12:50
Okay.
12:51
Well, okay.
12:52
Orthodox Christianity is the oldest continuous Christian church.
12:56
Now Rome, the Catholic church also has that it was and there's a direct link back to the
13:01
time of the apostles.
13:02
And the difference between us and the Roman Catholic church is that the Roman Catholic
13:07
church has changed tremendously since the time of early Christianity.
13:12
And we have changed much, much less now.
13:16
Sometimes people refer to the Orthodox churches because they are independent, they're self-governing,
13:22
there's a church of Greece, there's a church of Cyprus, there's a church in Russia, there's
13:27
a church of Orthodox church in Japan, in America.
13:30
So we are, we have the same faith, we have the same beliefs and we have the same liturgy,
13:39
that we don't come under one single figurehead, the way Catholics, Roman Catholics all look
13:44
to the Pope, because that was not the model that was used in the era of the early church.
13:51
So whenever the early church believed and did and worshipped in their ascetic practices,
13:56
this is what we continue to do.
13:58
So most Protestants think that we're just Catholics without the Pope because they see
14:05
bishops and priests and sacraments, but the early church had all of those features.
14:12
And so Catholics also think that we're just like them except without the Pope, but all
14:17
of that is very wrong because the Catholic church changed very gradually from the early
14:25
middle ages to become what it is today.
14:27
It bears virtually no resemblance to the early church.
14:31
And many of its doctrines they elaborated on, they added over time, the immaculate conception
14:37
of Mary, the papal, the papal power and papal infallibility, and fallibility isn't just that,
14:43
but papal power, the extreme power, the centralization of authority in the church in one episcopal
14:50
sea, one bishop's place, is something that was developed in Rome, and that is not how
14:57
the early church function.
14:58
Now Catholics will give you all kinds of theological explanations for why they're right, but the
15:03
difference between them and us, and in fact, Protestants and Catholics are more similar
15:11
to each other in the way they think, and their theological mentality than Orthodox are to
15:18
the Catholics.
15:19
So everybody in the Protestants think that we're like the Catholics, but actually Protestants
15:23
and Catholics are very similar in the way they approach theological issues, because the whole
15:29
legalism, the rationalism, the making of arguments for theological positions, this came from
15:37
the Catholic church of the middle ages.
15:40
We don't do that.
15:41
We just theologize by saying, what did the early church teach?
15:45
What did they believe?
15:46
How did they worship?
15:47
And that's what we do.
15:48
And we don't feel like we need to have explanations that conform to human reasoning.
15:55
And so the whole theological method of Protestants and Catholics is diametrically different than
16:00
Orthodox Christianity, and it's very difficult to explain.
16:04
I wrote a book about that too, called Thinking Orthodox, and it's really hard for people
16:10
to realize that we have a very different theological mentality, because the West changed.
16:17
So we have a very different idea about sin, about salvation, about Christ and the cross.
16:25
Why are churches beautiful?
16:27
Because the kingdom of heaven is beautiful, because we worship God, and everything should
16:31
be beautiful.
16:32
Our singing should be beautiful.
16:34
The vestments should be beautiful, because we're glorifying God.
16:38
So when it comes to Orthodox Christianity, maybe it may seem a little bit different depending
16:45
upon which church you go into, the music of a Russian church sounds different than the
16:49
music of a Greek church.
16:52
But the words are the same, and the words are not, hold my hand, Jesus, and let's walk
16:59
together into the sunset, they're deeply theological.
17:04
And unfortunately, the worship of Western Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic,
17:09
has become very shallow, very superficial, and a lot of it is centered on me, me and
17:16
Jesus, me and Jesus, and who we are, and Jesus is not worshiping.
17:21
Yeah, it's not worship, because worship is glorification of God.
17:26
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that.
17:28
I have a lot of problems, and I've talked about that a lot on the show, about my problems
17:31
with contemporary Christian music.
17:33
I am going to give you a band to check out, because they actually do the intro-altrow
17:38
music of the show, it's a band called a Holy Name, and that's one word, Holy Name.
17:44
The lead singer of that band felt like he was losing his faith, and he actually became
17:48
Orthodox, and this album is like his love letter to the early church in Orthodox.
17:55
I love to hear that.
17:57
Yeah, it's very rough, it's very metal, but it's very interesting as well, it's unique.
18:02
There's nothing wrong with Christian popular music, I don't have a problem with that.
18:07
We've had some Orthodox people who've sung, and even in Greece and Russia, I'm sure there
18:11
are, in this sort of contemporary songs about Christ, but we're talking here about what
18:15
happens within the church, during the divine liturgy, and this is a liturgy.
18:21
This is the prayers have been said, and the same hymns have been sung, since the 3rd century,
18:28
the 2nd century, many parts of it, without change, or very minor changes.
18:34
So what we're doing is the worship of the early church, so I like Christian music, but
18:40
I don't think it bears any comparison in terms of what it means to worship, because what
18:48
happens in Protestant churches is they're trying to elicit an emotion.
18:52
You have the feeling like I need to get something out of church, I need to feel pumped up, I
18:56
need to feel close to Jesus, I'm praying and I'm glorifying God, and I know people really
19:02
want that experience, but for us, we don't go to church to be entertained, we go to worship
19:08
God, and it's a very different experience, and it's a very sensory experience.
19:15
It's much more like the book of Revelation than the worship that's described there than
19:19
what you would see in a mega church today.
19:22
Right, it's certainly a different mindset that has exactly, because the words you're
19:27
singing should be deepening your theology, not confusing it, but one of the main reasons
19:31
why I wanted to have you on this today is because of this book he wrote called The Crucifixion
19:35
of the King of Glory.
19:37
This was I was turned on to this by a member of my team and Eric Metaxas, who he's been
19:41
on my show.
19:42
I've been on his show and obviously he's taken a liking to your work as well, but there's
19:46
actually a quote from very early in the book, which kind of gives you a sense of what the
19:50
book is going to be, and then we'll dig in.
19:52
So the quote is this, this book offers a unique perspective on the final week of Christ's
19:56
life, this perspective is based on my academic background in my Orthodox Christian approach,
20:02
which is steeped in the mind, very important word, the mind of the early church.
20:06
And so you break the book up into three parts.
20:08
The first part is called the stage of set.
20:10
So you're kind of setting the foundations of what time period we're even in part two
20:15
is the king on trial.
20:16
So that's the trial and everything that led into the trial of Jesus.
20:19
And then the last part is the cross.
20:22
And so just early on, early in the book, in part one, the stage of set, you talk about
20:27
the historicity of the biblical texts, what actually happened.
20:32
And you also talk about the importance of what you call or what is called first generation
20:37
sources and how important that is when you're looking at any historical document.
20:42
Now a lot of people, even Christians, I say, well, look at the Bible, like, you know, you
20:46
know, they listen to Joe Rogan, who says, Oh, it's been translated so many times.
20:49
We don't even have the original.
20:50
You know, how could we even know that Jesus even existed much less is the savior of the
20:54
world, right?
20:55
And a lot of people just, you know, buy that by that sinker.
20:59
So let's talk about the historicity of the biblical texts and then we'll dig more into
21:03
the book.
21:04
Yes, it's unfortunate that the people that Christians don't know about this.
21:10
And they just accept what they hear in the modern culture.
21:14
First of all, the idea that Jesus never existed, almost nobody says that anymore.
21:17
It's a most shallow, the most excuse me, stupid thinking that that that was kind of popular
21:23
more than a hundred years ago.
21:25
Oh, there's no proof that Jesus exists.
21:26
And well, guess what?
21:27
There's no proof that Socrates existed.
21:29
Nobody questions that or that Moses existed or Abraham existed.
21:32
We have a lot of proof outside the Bible that there was a person named Jesus.
21:36
Okay.
21:37
Who was called the Christ by his followers?
21:39
All right.
21:40
And Jeannie, just to hop in there, like you do talk about Jesus's life, death and crucifixion
21:45
is attested to by Jewish historians at the time, Greek historians, Roman historians,
21:51
archaeological discovery.
21:52
So yeah.
21:53
That's my question about it.
21:54
I mean, it's ridiculous that people even say that anymore, that Jesus never existed.
22:00
You can kind of put that aside.
22:01
And for anybody to say that is just a very shallow thinker, I'm sorry.
22:05
But yes, the other thing is about the historicity of the Bible.
22:10
This is true that we don't have the originals.
22:13
Well, guess what? We barely have the originals of documents that were only written.
22:19
You know, for less than 300 years ago, our American historical documents, we have to
22:24
have them in a special case in Washington, D.C. with special air in them.
22:29
And they're fading in a dark room because they're fading.
22:32
So what do you think happened to documents that were written in the first century?
22:36
Well, so they're going to have the originals of that.
22:38
Come on.
22:39
Okay. The fact is that these are very well-attested, that we have so many copies.
22:44
There are more copies of Bible manuscripts than any other ancient manuscript by far.
22:50
The Bible books of the Bible of the New Testament, just we're talking about New Testament.
22:55
There are 10,000 copies in Greek of the New Testament.
22:59
And the other largest number of copies of books, doesn't mean the whole New Testament,
23:07
but sometimes individual books or collections of books.
23:12
The largest number of copies of Greek manuscripts, second to that, second to the New Testament
23:18
is the Elia, you know, homeless Elia.
23:23
And that exists in only 90 copies, okay?
23:26
So why do we have so many copies?
23:29
Because these things were important because the Christians knew Jesus.
23:33
And one of the things is people, I can't really blame people if they don't know.
23:38
This is my field, so I know it.
23:40
But people are kind of very simple-minded when it comes to these things.
23:45
I know that I have to explain this to my students.
23:48
People would say, "Well, there was nobody alive when the gospels were written."
23:53
First of all, we don't know when they were written.
23:55
They could have been written as early as 50, but maybe as late as 70, 80, or 90.
24:01
And people say, "Well, there was no one alive."
24:03
And I say, "Why is that?"
24:05
And they say, "Well, because the average lifespan was 40 years."
24:10
Well, you have to know what the word average means, okay?
24:13
So people didn't drop down at the age of 40.
24:16
That's what my college students would think.
24:18
Well, nobody was alive.
24:20
No, they lived to be old.
24:22
We have lots of accounts of old people living in antiquity and into their 70s and 80s
24:28
and even into their 90s, so this idea that there were no living witnesses, even if the
24:33
gospels were written at 40 years after the time of Christ.
24:37
So let's go back 40 years and ask ourselves where we were, okay?
24:42
Do we remember what happened, let's say 20 years ago?
24:45
Do we remember what happened 30 years ago, 40 years ago?
24:48
50 years ago was the Vietnam War, okay?
24:51
Are there anybody in your audience that remembers the Vietnam War?
24:55
Is there anybody in your audience that remembers Kennedy assassination?
24:59
That was 60 years ago, okay?
25:01
I remember it.
25:03
I'm giving myself away.
25:04
I'm 66 years old.
25:06
I remember hearing that announcement as a child in school.
25:10
I remember the day vividly.
25:12
Why?
25:13
Because it was unusual.
25:14
It was impactful.
25:16
And so people who had a direct experience of Jesus remembered that and they didn't all
25:22
drop dead when they became, when they turned 40.
25:25
And there were many, many eyewitnesses when the gospels were written, not to mention
25:29
the evangelists themselves, a couple of whom were eyewitnesses to these things.
25:34
So we have a lot of, but there are many measures.
25:37
So to go back, I'm sorry, I'm getting a bit off track here.
25:41
Your question was, how can we have relied confidence in the gospels besides the idea
25:46
of eyewitness testimony, which is extremely important.
25:50
We have also the fact that the gospels really reflect what we know historically.
25:57
They're supported.
25:58
It's not as though, we can tell when something is fake.
26:01
We're familiar with television and movies and things like that.
26:07
Sometimes there's something that creeps into a movie or a TV set that doesn't belong there.
26:12
It's an anachronism.
26:13
It's not fitting the times.
26:15
And people who were some movie buffs like to look for these things, like a Roman soldier
26:19
who forgot to take off his watch before the film, and they'll look for these little details
26:23
that betray the fact that this isn't real or it's not according to this time period.
26:30
Well, in the gospels, one of the things that historians look at is whether or not the details
26:38
in the gospels match what we know about for century Judaism from other sources and they
26:45
do.
26:46
So we have eyewitness testimony and we have something else that's very important.
26:51
We have four documents that are giving us pretty much the same picture of who Jesus Christ
26:57
was and they're all from the first century.
27:00
And historians who are much more, we could say, objective in their analysis of the gospels
27:07
than unfortunately many gospels, New Testament scholars, a lot of New Testament scholars
27:12
want to prove how intelligent they are by showing how they don't believe anything in
27:17
the Bible.
27:18
They don't believe in the miracles of Christ.
27:20
They don't believe he was the son of God and they want to, it's almost obligatory if
27:24
you want to be taken seriously, except among some of them.
27:28
But a lot of them, it's just, it's really ridiculous and that goes for archaeologists
27:32
too.
27:33
They feel like they have to show how intelligent and scientific they are by showing how much
27:38
they don't believe.
27:39
So historians, this is a very interesting thing, Roman historians and other historians.
27:46
When they look at the gospels, they say, wow, this is amazing.
27:49
You have four documents about this historical person within the living memory of people
27:54
who actually knew him.
27:56
That is very rare.
27:57
It's rare to have one.
27:59
We have nothing contemporaneous about Alexander the Great and yet no one questions whether he
28:03
existed, the earliest writings about Alexander are 300 years after his death.
28:10
All of that was passed along orally, stories about Alexander, but no one says, no one questions
28:16
the historicity of that.
28:18
Well, Janie, it's not just for accounts of Jesus's life.
28:23
It's for attestations.
28:25
It's different.
28:26
They're attesting to the things that they've seen and also when it makes sense that a Roman
28:32
historian would think that this is incredible because we have more evidence to suggest that
28:37
not only did Jesus live, but that he was crucified on a Roman cross and died and he was raised
28:42
again.
28:43
Then we have the Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon.
28:45
But we just accept that Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon because the things that were written
28:50
down hundreds of years after he became worm food.
28:52
Tell us that.
28:53
But we don't really get into that.
28:55
But there's actually a very poignant quote from your book that I think speaks to this.
28:59
And here's the quote, "In our era of rampant skepticism, people unrealistically expect
29:04
everything important to be documented and people that passed did not rely on writings
29:09
as we do today.
29:10
Books were rare and expensive.
29:12
The first Christians received only oral teachings, not written documents."
29:16
And so this is what I, you know, what C.S. Lewis would call chronological snobbery.
29:20
We had this chronological snobbery that we exist in, you know, 2023 and it's all those
29:25
groups that lived 2000 years ago, they didn't know what they were doing.
29:29
But also something you mentioned there that I don't want to give short shrift to it, but
29:32
there's some other things I'm going to get into.
29:34
One of the best things about the crucifixion of the king of glory is that you do a great
29:38
job of helping the reader understand first century Judaism.
29:43
And so guys, the book is in the show notes.
29:45
I think it is well worth your time to dig into that.
29:47
But I do want to move on to talking about Jesus cleansing the temple.
29:51
Before we go there, let me just add that.
29:55
Because I think this is important.
29:56
We not only have four accounts of Christ and what he did, but they were written by four
30:01
different people in different places at different times, which really attests to the historical
30:09
accuracy of what is in the gospels.
30:14
And so I just wanted to throw that in there because you brought up the point which is
30:18
it was a good one.
30:19
And if somebody wants to listen to the book, you can listen to it on Audible too.
30:25
But Audible doesn't have the footnotes.
30:28
And a lot of the footnotes will substantiate the historical things that I say about Christ.
30:33
And there's also some interesting little tidbits of the footnotes.
30:35
Okay.
30:36
Very good.
30:37
Yeah.
30:38
Guys, it is so dense the amount of footnotes.
30:40
So it's well worth your time and attention.
30:41
Don't be intimidated by the footnotes guys and gals, don't, don't, don't open and say,
30:46
oh, this is too much for me.
30:47
It's written in a way that's very easy to understand.
30:50
Would you agree with that?
30:51
Yes.
30:52
It's very accessible.
30:53
I tell people, I've told people a lot that if my intellect were a toaster, I could not
30:57
lightly toast a piece of bread and even I was able to get through it and understand.
31:01
So guys, it's not just fine.
31:04
But I do want to talk about Jesus cleansing the temple.
31:06
So some scholarship that that I find credible suggests that Jesus actually did this twice,
31:12
not just once, once after he performed his first miracle.
31:16
And once again, after he arrived in Jerusalem, the week he was crucified.
31:19
But regardless of whether you think it happened once or twice, whatever, it was a very unique
31:24
occurrence for Jesus to do something like this, at least seemingly.
31:28
So I'm going to read this quote and get you to talk a little bit more about it.
31:31
The cleansing of the temple was not an angry outburst, a loss of self control or righteous
31:36
indignation.
31:37
It was a dramatic statement and a deeply symbolic act.
31:41
Jesus was not opposing temple worship or an or denouncing temple rituals themselves as
31:46
empty formalities.
31:48
On the contrary, he affirmed the sanctity of the temple, his father's house, which should
31:52
be respected and treated with honor and reverence rather than exploited as an opportunity for
31:57
financial gain.
31:59
So take that wherever you want to go with it, because that's, that's personally some of
32:02
my favorite parts of the accounts of Jesus's life, because it's like, if you try to make
32:07
the claim that Jesus was just walking around with lambs on his shoulders and kissing women
32:11
on the tips of their noses, this gives you a much different account of the lion of Judah
32:15
in the flesh.
32:16
So go for it.
32:17
Yes.
32:18
Yes.
32:19
You're absolutely right.
32:20
I'm glad you brought that up a second time, because I meant to comment on this before
32:24
when you were talking about how we have really wasified Jesus.
32:29
He's like this long haired, hippie guy and walks around a white robe saying, he's in
32:34
love.
32:35
You know, love everybody.
32:36
You know, don't judge anyone.
32:38
Just, you know, this is, it's a ridiculous presentation of who Christ was.
32:43
He had obviously a strength and a firmness about him, but also a grace that made him
32:52
compelling and attractive to people, both women and men attractive, not obviously in
32:56
a physical sense, but in the sense that there was something about him that drew you to him.
33:03
And those are indefinable divine qualities, but he had a charisma.
33:09
The word charisma comes from the Greek word chrysama, which is a grace, a carerism about
33:14
him, of course, because of his divinity.
33:18
And I think that one of the cleansing of the temple is one of the most misunderstood stories
33:24
of the passion week about whether or not it happened once or twice.
33:28
I think it's unlikely that it would have happened twice.
33:31
I don't see the point of him doing it twice.
33:33
But the reason why people are saying that they might be compelled to do criticism thinks
33:39
it happened twice.
33:40
But the reason why people might feel compelled is because they can't explain why it's early
33:45
in the ministry of Christ and John.
33:47
And at the end, the last week of his life in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and they don't want,
33:51
they're not comfortable with the idea that the evangelists disagree.
33:54
Okay.
33:55
So they say, well, it must have happened twice.
33:57
I think we can allow, it's very important, again, this is what's different about the
34:01
early church and the Orthodox church and a Protestant mentality that everything has to
34:06
fit.
34:07
We can't have any differences among the evangelists.
34:09
We have to harmonize them.
34:11
Otherwise it's not true.
34:12
Well, the truth is not in these details.
34:16
That Jesus cleansed the temple is true when it happened, actually doesn't matter all that
34:22
much.
34:23
Do you see my point?
34:24
So we shouldn't get all tied up and not say, oh, the gospels are not true because this one
34:28
has Jesus cleansing it at the beginning, and this one has a cleansing at the end of his
34:32
ministry.
34:33
That doesn't have anything to do with it.
34:34
That's what Christ system would call Tamikra, little trivial details.
34:38
So was there one angel at the tomb, empty tomb, or were there two?
34:42
Oh my gosh, the Bible isn't true.
34:45
Let's say we forced them to match.
34:47
You see, we don't have to do that.
34:49
Let's just allow the evangelists to be themselves and tell the story of their way.
34:54
So we shouldn't be disturbed by things like this because the early Christians weren't.
34:59
So what about the cleansing of the temple?
35:02
Most people will think, oh, Jesus lost his temper, all right?
35:06
And that's a mistake.
35:07
Why?
35:08
Because to lose your temper is a sin.
35:11
And Jesus, as we know, had no sin.
35:15
So this was a very deliberate act, and it was a very provocative act.
35:21
He did it to make a statement, as I said, about the sanctity of the temple and what was going
35:25
on there.
35:27
But to really understand it, you have to understand the historical times.
35:32
And I went to significant lengths to explain what had happened to the Jewish priesthood,
35:38
especially the high priesthood, by the time of the 1st century, the corruption of the
35:43
Jewish leaders and how they were really using the temple, the enormous wealth of the temple
35:50
to enrich themselves and hold on to their power.
35:54
And the cleansing of the temple was also something else.
35:57
It could also well be a sign of the coming destruction of the temple, because in a prophetic
36:03
sense, when the Old Testament prophets were talking about, were also objecting, by the
36:08
way, they too objected to the corruption of temple worship, the abuse of temple worship,
36:15
the fact that the Jewish priests and high priests were often far from God.
36:21
They were just going through the motions.
36:23
They had treated it like a formality.
36:25
The Old Testament prophets also foretold the coming destruction of Solomon's temple.
36:31
So I discussed the destruction of the temple and what that meant in the early church, and
36:37
how that was really a very dramatic event, more with the tearing of the temple curtain.
36:43
I may have not answered your question.
36:45
I'm not sure.
36:46
No, no, you certainly did.
36:47
Whenever you flow into all these different subjects, it reminds me actually of the book
36:50
itself, because the book is categorically consistent, meaning you kind of keep things
36:56
in their right place, but everything attaches to everything else, because it's impossible
37:01
to talk about the crucifixion of Jesus without talk.
37:03
Well, we'll actually get into this now, because I think this makes my point.
37:07
So part two of the book is called the King on trial, but you talk about in that section
37:11
the importance and the weight of the title Messiah or Christos in the Greek, and there
37:17
are many atheists and anti-Christians that will point out that many Jews over time, you
37:23
know, claim to be the Messiah, they claim to be prophets, you know, I think the Josephus
37:28
put it, prophets would be kings, priests, and agitators.
37:31
There were plenty of those to go around during this time period.
37:34
So it's like, why is Jesus unique?
37:36
But there are many groups of people, Muslims, atheists, pagans, et cetera.
37:40
They make the claim that Jesus himself never actually claimed to be God.
37:45
Many actually use the New Testament writings in their arguments.
37:48
So let's talk about the weight of the title of Messiah in the first century in that area
37:54
of the world.
37:55
Right.
37:56
Okay, let's start with the fact that Jesus never claimed to be God.
37:58
That is really ridiculous.
38:00
No, it is true that when he met people, he didn't go around saying, hello, I'm the son
38:05
of God.
38:06
Nice to meet you.
38:07
That's ridiculous.
38:08
But we all know that Jesus was sentenced to death by the Jewish leaders because he claimed
38:16
divinity.
38:17
Now, what would have happened to his ministry if he had said from the beginning openly who
38:25
he was, he couldn't have a ministry.
38:28
So he had to be careful about that and also about his Messiah ship because there were expectations
38:33
about the Messiah that tended to be very political ones.
38:38
So he had to be very careful about what he revealed and what he said about himself.
38:43
And for the same reason, again, here, you sort of mentioned a while ago about how people
38:50
expect everything to be documented.
38:52
Well, this comes from our modern notions.
38:56
And so people said, well, if Jesus really was the son of God, he would have said so from
39:01
the view.
39:02
That's ridiculous.
39:03
It just shows a complete ignorance of how people lived, what expectations the Jews had,
39:10
and why Jesus would have been careful not to mention the fact that he explained things
39:16
and revealed things about himself only to the people who were closest to him.
39:20
It was really apostles, the people whom he trusted his inner circle.
39:25
So just like we are careful about revealing certain things about ourselves to people,
39:30
it's less true today because people put everything about themselves on the internet.
39:34
But still, there was a time when people were careful about what they said about themselves.
39:40
And they had a sense of privacy.
39:42
But in the early church, it had everything to do with what you reveal because these things
39:46
are mysteries and these things are holy.
39:49
And the Christians are making a big mistake today by revealing everything.
39:54
Jesus said, don't cast your pearls before swine.
39:56
And that means you don't give holy things or talk about holy things to people who are
40:01
unable to receive them and understand them and will treat them without respect.
40:07
So why would he go around telling the Jewish leaders, I'm the son of God, when they were
40:11
not ready to hear that?
40:12
It was finally he reveals it at his trial.
40:15
And the reason that he does that is because he wants to make sure that they know exactly
40:22
what he's claiming.
40:23
It was suspected that he was claiming that, but he never said it directly.
40:27
But when the high priest says to him, are you the Messiah, the son of God?
40:32
Jesus says, you said so.
40:36
Now why does he not say yes?
40:38
He says, you said so because he's saying that you know who I'm claiming to be therefore
40:45
you are without excuse.
40:46
You cannot say, oh, I didn't really know he thought he was the son of God.
40:50
It's the fact that it's coming out of the mouth of the high priest.
40:54
Now if there's any doubt about what that means, you said so because some people say, oh Jesus
40:59
what didn't say yes, he said you said so, I didn't say so.
41:03
We know he's meaning yes by saying you said so because that was a characteristic way of
41:09
explaining expressing himself.
41:11
It was his way of saying yes, we see that elsewhere in the Gospels, but also from what
41:16
he says after that.
41:18
And furthermore, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of the power, that's
41:25
God, the Father, and coming on the clouds of heaven.
41:29
This is an image of divinity.
41:31
Okay.
41:32
So it is after that statement that the high priest terraces robes because it's not to
41:39
claim to be the Messiah is not the same as claiming to be the son of God.
41:44
The most of the Jews were not expecting the Messiah to be the son of God, although I must
41:49
tell you in recent years, there have been certain discoveries that point to the fact
41:54
that many first century Jews had come to believe that the Messiah would be God himself.
42:01
This is a very new thing in biblical studies.
42:03
And many people denied it for a while because they couldn't get over that.
42:08
But the idea of Messiah and son of God typically didn't go together in the Jewish mind, but
42:14
it's definitely there in the prophecies.
42:17
So Jesus did claim to be God.
42:20
He also claimed to be God by claiming authority to forgive sins, to heal on the Sabbath and
42:27
do other things on the Sabbath.
42:29
So he did, he made those claims not in the direct way that we Americans expect, but in
42:35
countless ways, he definitely said who he was.
42:40
And so that leaves us with a choice.
42:43
Either you can't say you believe in Jesus, but you just think he's a philosopher.
42:47
Well, then he's a lying philosopher or a crazy philosopher, but he, it really, I think
42:53
Jesus did this on purpose because it leaves us like it left the Sanhedrin with only one
42:59
of two options, even either you accept who he says he is, or you reject him completely.
43:03
But there's no middle ground with Jesus Christ.
43:06
Yeah, I mean, that's you, you're bringing up the trilema.
43:08
He's either liar, lunatic, or lord, like those are the only options and, and something
43:13
that came to mind as you were talking is like modern people will read snark into things
43:20
that are not snarky.
43:21
Yes.
43:22
So they're, they're thinking Jesus is like, well, you say so it's like, no, no, no, that's
43:25
how you're reading it.
43:26
That's not how it was said.
43:27
And another thing in terms of when do you reveal who you are?
43:31
I think about the entire process of when the Declaration of Independence was being authored
43:36
in Thomas Jefferson.
43:37
And well, why did he own slaves and why didn't he have slavery in that the original draft
43:42
of the Declaration of Independence did repudiate slavery and the problem is, is the south,
43:48
the southern states would have resulted from the beginning and then there would be no revolution.
43:53
Yeah.
43:54
That was a big compromise.
43:55
Yeah.
43:56
Right.
43:57
And so it's like, why wasn't it there?
43:58
If you don't do a univariate analysis, you would know why.
44:01
But we talked a lot about the chief priests, the Jewish handhedrin.
44:04
And so in the book concerning the chief priests and their aim to have Jesus killed, not punish
44:10
is to have him killed.
44:11
I want to read this book here.
44:13
The Romans would not have objected if the Sanhedrin had discreetly killed someone who threatened
44:18
political stability, but the Sanhedrin did not want Jesus eliminated quietly.
44:23
They wanted to crucify, they wanted him crucified publicly in order in order to totally disgrace
44:28
and discredit him to leave no doubt that Jesus was a false prophet and cursed by God.
44:34
And so this, this actually relates to, to another quote, a little bit later in the book,
44:39
which is today a sense of shame is often absent in our culture, or it is discouraged even shame
44:45
for sin.
44:46
Today, we consider admirable and virtuous that Christ willingly suffered such humiliation.
44:51
But when the gospels were written, these details were highly embarrassing.
44:56
The culture in which the church was established was a society that valued honor, but the church
45:01
never attempted to hide the mockery that accompanied the crucifixion.
45:05
And the scriptures honestly describe even shameful things done to Christ.
45:10
And so I think there's a lot to talk about there specifically because the Jewish Sanhedrin
45:15
got exactly what they wanted.
45:17
Now, Pilate pooled some fast ones here and there, and they had to do a little bit of
45:22
a circuitous route to get to the goal, but they wanted the complete humiliation of Jesus,
45:29
this man that claimed to be the son of God.
45:30
So flow a little bit on that.
45:32
Okay.
45:33
Yeah, I think that that's good.
45:35
I think that, right, we don't really comprehend the depth of the meaning of the cross in our
45:42
culture because it's partly because we're so accustomed to it.
45:46
But this was something very, very disgraceful.
45:48
And they certainly wanted him, not just dead, not just eliminated, but completely disgrace
45:52
because of what he stood for and what he taught and the cleansing of the temple, and he called
45:59
them robbers.
46:01
And they said, well, we're going to show you, buddy, we're in charge here.
46:04
I mean, Jesus, as much as we kind of think, another thing that sometimes people say is,
46:09
well, if Jesus, you know, really was the son of God, why did the Romans go there and talk
46:13
about him?
46:14
Why aren't there?
46:15
This idea that somehow the whole world would know about Jesus at the time he was walking
46:19
the earth.
46:20
Well, he was, he was living as an ordinary person.
46:25
And he wasn't doing things except, of course, the miracles were quite extraordinary.
46:29
But people they could not, the Jewish leadership could not figure out how he got this power
46:35
and not really the Sanhedrin.
46:37
That was more also the Pharisees because you mentioned before about what does it mean to
46:43
be Messiah?
46:44
Well, there were lots of different ideas about what the Messiah would be.
46:48
And people today do say exactly what you're saying.
46:50
Well, there were lots and lots of these messianic pretenders and Josephus never used the word
46:55
Messiah in that quote that you used before.
46:59
And I kind of like the fact that this was because I kind of thought, yeah, there were
47:02
a lot of people who were sort of revolutionaries at that time.
47:07
But nobody claimed to be the Messiah.
47:09
This was brought out and kind of, I thought, yeah, that's true because I used to say this
47:14
that too, that of course, Jesus was unique among all of them.
47:18
But Raymond Browner and now deceased Catholic biblical scholar really was the one who went
47:23
back and checked.
47:24
And he said, nobody claimed to be the Messiah in the centuries prior to Christ.
47:29
And also in the time after Christ, except for one person, a bar coke, who let her a failed
47:35
rebellion in the second century.
47:37
The fact is that it is very difficult to claim to be Messiah.
47:41
So there were people who claimed to be a king.
47:43
They wanted to lead a revolt against Rome, et cetera.
47:46
But they didn't claim to be the Messiah.
47:49
And that's not the same to claim to be a revolutionary, to want to have social justice
47:55
or self-control, self-government over Judea.
47:58
That's not the same as claiming to be a Messiah.
48:01
What's different about it?
48:02
To be the Messiah, you have to be able to back that up.
48:05
But all the Jews knew the prophecies about the Messiah that he would give sight to the
48:11
blind and the deaf would hear and the lame would walk.
48:14
And nobody can just make that happen.
48:16
Okay.
48:17
And there was this other guy, Simon Barcocca, in the second century, he didn't make that
48:21
happen.
48:22
But he went ahead and claimed to be the Messiah anyhow, because he was leading another revolt
48:26
against Rome.
48:28
But we don't have anybody who claims to be the Messiah because as you will see, you will
48:33
see the Jewish leaders challenging Jesus about whether or not he is a Messiah, asking him
48:40
to openly stake that.
48:43
Okay.
48:44
And is he the Messiah?
48:45
Is he not the Messiah?
48:46
The Messiah, this is in the Gospel of John.
48:47
Messiah has to be born in Bethlehem.
48:49
Well, Jesus was from Galilee.
48:51
And people didn't move around in those days the way they do today.
48:55
So there was lots of discussion about whether he could be the Messiah, but ultimately because
49:00
he broke the law and because he contradicted the Jewish establishment, they decided he
49:07
couldn't be the Messiah in spite of all the fact that no one had ever done the miracles
49:13
that Christ did.
49:14
No one had ever fulfilled those messianic prophecies except for him, those ones that
49:20
are the hardest to do, because you could claim to be from Bethlehem, even if you aren't,
49:25
but you can't fake healing a man born blind.
49:28
Okay.
49:29
This kind of a thing.
49:30
So this is why we see in the Gospels the fact that the Jewish leaders are really in a conundrum
49:36
over what to do about Jesus because the people in their simplicity know he's a Messiah and
49:44
they accept him, but the Jewish leaders because they're so intelligent, or that's how they
49:49
think of themselves, they know the law, they know all the thousands of rules.
49:54
They've decided he can't be the Messiah because they have in their heads their own idea of
50:00
what the Messiah would be like, and it's not that guy.
50:03
Why?
50:04
Because he doesn't agree with us.
50:06
Okay.
50:07
So Jesus is doing his own thing and or that's why he says that he thanks God for revealing
50:14
things these to the babies and the simple people and hiding them from the educated and
50:22
the lofty and the people positions of power, God didn't hide it.
50:26
That's just that the elite, the Jewish elite were unwilling most of them to accept who
50:33
Christ was because it contradicted their own notions about who they were, how they were
50:39
supposed to worship God and many, many other things in their whole notions of power.
50:45
Right.
50:46
Well, actually I want to dig into that a little bit further before we get to the actual crucifixion
50:51
because, and I've always had this thought, I've talked about this with other other people's
50:55
well non Jewish people, but during the trial and sentencing of Jesus, the Jewish leaders
51:02
had to have known that they were potentially killing the Messiah, right?
51:07
Because I mean, that these people knew the prophecies of the coming Messiah better than
51:11
anyone alive at the time.
51:13
They knew the Old Testament scriptures, they knew the Torah, it wasn't even called the Old
51:16
Testament, obviously.
51:17
And I'm just wondering like how they missed it and you maybe give us a little bit of a
51:22
hint later in the book, you know, talking about modern Jews, but it was this, it became
51:27
such an uncomfortable issue that the entire chapter of Isaiah 53 has been removed from
51:33
the Jewish electionary, even devout Jews who attend the synagogue consistently throughout
51:38
the year will never hear this prophecy.
51:40
And so ignorance happens every time I'm given over like your book, honestly, I was very
51:47
ignorant about Orthodox.
51:48
And so I realized just how ignorant I am just by reading the first, you know, couple dozen
51:53
pages of your book, all of us are ignorant about certain things.
51:56
Absolutely.
51:57
There's natural ignorance, but then there's chosen ignorance.
52:00
I know what it says, but I'm going to just cover my ears and collect my ears and cover
52:05
my eyes.
52:06
Talk to me a little bit about that because we're, we're there no Jews at the time that
52:10
we're like, Hey guys, I get it this, this Jesus guy.
52:13
He's kind of stupid.
52:14
I don't like him.
52:15
But he could be the Messiah.
52:16
Yes.
52:17
So let's be careful.
52:18
Yeah, of course I worry.
52:19
And we see this in the gospels, especially in the gospel of John, what we see in chapter,
52:23
if you read chapter seven and eight, the story of the woman accused of adultery is at the
52:28
beginning of chapter eight, but that was inserted later.
52:31
That wasn't original to the gospel.
52:33
Okay.
52:34
Don't get all worried about that.
52:35
Okay.
52:36
That's that was a story that was passed along orally and then later gets put in the all the
52:39
early manuscripts, the early manuscripts don't have it.
52:42
But if you look at seven and eight, except for that, you will see the discussion that
52:46
there were the people were divided.
52:49
Some people said he was a messiah and they said he wasn't and they gave their arguments.
52:53
All of the gospel of John is like an extended trial of Jesus Christ.
52:57
That's one of the strong motifs.
52:59
So how is it that they so people do have many people to believe in there.
53:02
You see Nicodemus come up and when they say, you know, we have to, but we have to arrest
53:06
this guy and, you know, his guy is no good.
53:09
And Nicodemus says, does our law, doesn't our law allow us to give a matter of an opportunity
53:15
to explain himself?
53:16
I mean, so yes, there were Jewish leaders who did believe in Christ, but most of them
53:21
did not.
53:22
And it's very interesting at the end of chapter 12 in, in John's gospel, he says they could
53:28
not believe, but he doesn't mean that they could not.
53:30
He means that they did not like it's like me saying, listen, I just can't like, I don't
53:36
know, broccoli or peanut butter, whatever.
53:38
Okay.
53:39
It's not that you can't, it's that you won't, or I just can't like him.
53:41
It's not that you can't, it's that you won't.
53:44
Okay.
53:45
I just can't eat that.
53:46
It's not that you can't, but it's that you won't.
53:48
So John, it gives the eyes that that's why the idea prophecy was so important.
53:55
And the reason why we would say they can, but really the truth is that they wouldn't
54:00
is because it would require them to change their own notions about who they are.
54:06
This is, you know, people face this all the time when they have to, when they're faced
54:10
with a crisis, a theological crisis, a crisis of their religious identity.
54:15
When they realize, Hey, wait a minute, it's this thing that I believed in all my life.
54:19
I'm not so sure if that's true anymore.
54:20
A lot of people will do that.
54:22
Like you said, do this so that they don't have to change, but there's more about it.
54:28
When we're talking about people who have real power in society, they're not motivated to
54:32
change, they'd rather look for any other excuse not to change than to believe that Jesus
54:38
is the Messiah.
54:39
They had a very rigid idea, though they had their own ideas of what the Messiah would
54:45
be like.
54:46
And guess what?
54:47
He would be like them.
54:48
It's like today when people say, well, Jesus came to earth today, he would be Roman Catholic.
54:53
He would be an evangelical Protestant, he'd be an Orthodox Christian.
54:57
I guarantee that he'd find fault with everybody.
54:59
Okay.
55:00
The point is we want to make Jesus into our own image, and we have to be careful about
55:05
that because that's a form of idolatry.
55:08
So they had in mind their own minds what the Messiah would be like.
55:13
And he would, I'm assuming because they rejected Christ who couldn't come from Galilee.
55:18
Well, we know that.
55:19
That's what they say to Nicodemus.
55:21
In other words, he had to be maybe from a prominent family, maybe a wealthy aristocratic
55:26
family.
55:27
He would keep the law to perfection and we do all these things.
55:32
Now, you didn't ask this question, but I'll tell you why I think that that's very important
55:36
because when we look at prophecy, it's very difficult to interpret prophecy before it
55:45
is fulfilled.
55:47
And so I don't believe that they knew they were crucifying the Messiah, the Son of God.
55:51
I really don't.
55:52
I think that you, I can't imagine a person who really thought that they were crucifying
55:57
the Messiah, they, whether they just, they were in denial about who he was.
56:03
And the reason for that is because when you pointed out, yeah, they knew the prophecies
56:07
absolutely, but they had this idea of what the Messiah would be like.
56:14
And it's not him.
56:16
Okay.
56:17
Now this raggedy, you know, itinerant preacher from Galilee who ups the social order, who
56:24
challenges a high priest to his face, who, who does, this is why they're trying to explain
56:32
how Jesus can be the Messiah and yet, not the Messiah and yet have all these powers.
56:38
I mean, the miracles are the strongest testament to who he is, but how did they explain that?
56:44
What did they say?
56:46
He does.
56:47
He sings by the power of the devil, which is very important for us to realize that even
56:53
Jewish, Jewish writings in the time like the second, third century Jewish writings talk
56:59
about Jesus as a sorcerer, as a trickster, in other words, they never deny that he did
57:05
the miracles.
57:06
Nobody ever did.
57:07
They just say that he did them by the power of the devil or by sorcery or by trickery or
57:11
something like this.
57:13
So nobody denies the miracles, because you couldn't, there are just too many of them
57:17
every day.
57:18
So the reason why I'm saying that why this is important is this, today people read the
57:23
book of Revelation, that's a different subject, but they read the book of Revelation and they
57:27
think that they can explain and foretell exactly how the end times will play out.
57:32
Well, all you have to do is look at Isaiah 53, which the chief frees the Sanhedrin, the
57:37
high priest, the Pharisees and every, the Sadducees, everybody who's a member of that council.
57:42
They all knew that passage, they all knew the Messianic prophecies, the Messiah is standing
57:46
in front of them and they did not recognize him for who he was.
57:51
So it's very important for us not to have pride, okay?
57:56
That was from their, a position of pride.
57:59
So today when people say, well, I can tell you exactly what the book of Revelation means
58:03
and when Jesus is going to come back, first this has to happen, this has to happen, this
58:07
says, they have created a scenario in their heads in which, which can really be very harmful,
58:14
very destructive, you should approach these things from a posture of humility, but most
58:21
people approach it from a posture of arrogance and pride.
58:25
I know exactly what's going to happen, how the end times are going to play out.
58:28
And, and I think that that's dangerous because then we won't see the, we won't recognize
58:35
the Antichrist when he comes because we have created in our own minds a scenario and we'll
58:40
say, well, it can't be that guy because in my own understanding, this is what the Antichrist
58:45
will be like.
58:46
You see my point?
58:47
I do.
58:48
It's funny.
58:49
Every time one of these people comes out and says, you know, I understand Revelation better
58:54
than anybody else.
58:55
The world is going to end on April the 4th.
58:57
I always send them a message, Hey, I'll see you on April the 5th.
59:00
It's like God bless you.
59:01
Like you have no idea.
59:02
It's the mental, the mental gymnastics that people will go through as opposed to just
59:06
it's right, you know, taking the stuff that's right in front of their face.
59:09
And I even thought about, you know, when, uh, when it says that God, a hardened Pharaoh's
59:13
heart.
59:14
So people take that to mean that God ordained that Pharaoh feel the way that he did.
59:19
No, what God did is he took the way that Pharaoh already felt and made it exactly more intense.
59:26
And so that's, that's the difference.
59:28
So Pharaoh made it more intense and God led him to give us the capability.
59:35
Exactly God just allowed Pharaoh to do it, but that's a really good way of, but God allows
59:39
us to do what we want.
59:41
He doesn't insert himself, doesn't insist that we, we do something or not just believe
59:45
in him or not believe in him.
59:46
So he just allowed us to follow our natural inclinations.
59:49
And for these people, the Jewish leaders at the time of Christ, it was all about power
59:55
and money and control and authority.
59:58
So they were already inclined in that direction.
1:00:01
And he was not going to send, they were not going to let him interfere with what they
1:00:04
had going, which was a pretty nice thing, you know, a lot of money and a lot of power.
1:00:08
And that's what makes the world go around even today, doesn't it?
1:00:11
Yeah, absolutely.
1:00:12
My shame.
1:00:13
So there's a whole lot there.
1:00:14
I do want to get in now to what is perhaps my favorite sections of the book.
1:00:20
And I'm not sure what that says about me and kind of my macabre way of approaching the
1:00:23
world, but you spend a lot of time getting into the details as to the process of the
1:00:30
scourging and the crucifixion of Jesus.
1:00:34
And so again, we've, we've gotten some better modern understandings of the process of scourging.
1:00:39
It wasn't just whipping.
1:00:40
Obviously, if you watch the passion of the Christ, they do a tremendous job of actually
1:00:45
giving you a really in detailed ideas to what that would look like.
1:00:49
But to those in my audience that are not familiar with how whipping is different from scourging
1:00:54
in a Roman punishment context, can you give us a little bit of detail on that?
1:00:59
Sure.
1:01:00
Sure.
1:01:01
Yeah.
1:01:02
I thought that was important because if Jesus went through it, the least we could do is
1:01:05
read about it.
1:01:06
You know, a lot of people find these things a bit off-putting, but I think that we owe
1:01:11
it to him to understand what he experienced and it's important for us.
1:01:17
So a whipping, whipping was a Jewish method of punishment.
1:01:23
And when, when say, for example, when Paul says five times I received from the hands
1:01:27
of the Jews, 40 lashes minus one, he's talking about an ordinary Jewish whipping.
1:01:33
So that was actually something that was done in synagogues.
1:01:37
And Paul was subjected to that at the time of the writing of Second Corinthians already
1:01:42
five times, 39 lashes.
1:01:45
That makes a single mark across the back.
1:01:48
And all of us have seen old photographs of American slaves.
1:01:53
So have those scars.
1:01:54
We can see the scars of the lash across their back.
1:01:57
That is not the same as a Roman flogging or Roman flagellum.
1:02:02
That was a name of the instrument.
1:02:04
So it had a stubby handle and it started like it had a braided, something that out of the
1:02:11
handle came this braided, braided strips of leather, and then they all projected out,
1:02:16
they separated.
1:02:17
And at the end of several strips of leather was a sharp piece of metal so that when they,
1:02:23
the soldier would strike someone's back, the pieces of metal would attach to the back
1:02:30
and then they would yank it out.
1:02:33
And that would cause a different kinds of wounds and multiple wounds at one time because
1:02:38
there were strands.
1:02:40
Some people have called that a cat oh nine tails and maybe a pirate's days and things
1:02:44
like this.
1:02:45
They call it a cat oh nine tails.
1:02:47
That's the idea of it.
1:02:49
Now what I disagree with, so yes, you're right about the passion of the Christ movie.
1:02:53
It definitely showed that a little bit better.
1:02:58
I came out of that movie and people said, well, what did you think of?
1:03:01
I said, I thought it wasn't, wasn't too bad.
1:03:03
I thought it was going to be worse because even there he could not show depict at the
1:03:10
the harshness of that punishment definitely was much more than the few little whippings
1:03:14
that you see in the most of the movies about Jesus.
1:03:18
But that did not show because you couldn't get an R rating for that movie if he really
1:03:22
showed how bad the process really was.
1:03:25
And he also added things in there that never happened to Jesus.
1:03:29
So I was, we didn't approve the, us Bible scholars didn't approve that of that movie
1:03:35
because he added a lot of things really weren't in the gospels.
1:03:39
So yeah, it's important for us to know that.
1:03:42
And so this really left with repeated strikes and by the way, in all the movies and shows
1:03:47
Jesus getting 39 lashes, but that was a Jewish numbering for a Jewish punishment.
1:03:53
The Romans were not limited to 39 lashes.
1:03:56
They could do whatever they wanted, but the Roman soldiers were very expert at this type
1:04:00
of punishment, which by the way, a company crucifixion routinely, but it could also be
1:04:06
a way of trying to, of punishing somebody without crucifying them.
1:04:11
But it was a company crucifixion because of the tremendous loss of blood.
1:04:16
Every time you repeatedly struck someone's back and pulled out little bits of flesh and
1:04:21
along those strands of leather, there were also little iron balls that pummeled the flesh
1:04:26
and made it more tender.
1:04:29
It just contributed to the bleeding and, and, and also as you struck someone's back because
1:04:34
their hands were over their head, usually some of those little strands ripped or whipped
1:04:39
around and may have struck somebody's, the sides are their abdomen area.
1:04:45
They would have removed the skin and the flesh of the abdomen as very often the entrails,
1:04:50
the person's organs were visible.
1:04:52
So the, the Romans knew how to do that and they did that as a precursor to crucifixion
1:04:58
because otherwise you would take too long to die by crucifixion because crucifixion while
1:05:04
painful wasn't particularly bloody.
1:05:06
Yeah.
1:05:07
So there were a number of reasons.
1:05:08
There was punishment in the case of Pilate here.
1:05:11
He's hoping to simply punish Jesus by this method so that the Jewish leaders will decide
1:05:18
not to put him to death.
1:05:19
They'll get a, let Pilate off the hook because Pilate doesn't want to put Jesus to death.
1:05:25
Right.
1:05:26
And, and in the book, obviously you get into the detail of the, of the story that that most
1:05:29
of us know now of he receives discouraging, you know, if they put a robe on him, a crown
1:05:35
of thorns and you're going to a lot of detail as to how painful both of those things would
1:05:39
have been the, the heft of the robe and what that would have felt like the, the nerve endings
1:05:44
that are in the forehead again, all that is in the book, the crucifixion of the king of
1:05:48
glory.
1:05:49
But as we know, even after Pilate offered up or Abbas, and they chose Jesus and even after
1:05:54
all the, the washing of the hands and everything, Jesus does end up meeting his fate, which
1:06:00
is crucifixion.
1:06:01
And so you, you detail in the book, you know, uh, some people see, you know, the, the cross
1:06:07
as we normally see that some people are like, you know, Bill O'Reilly has the cross where
1:06:10
it's like the T one, which wouldn't have been since because they wouldn't have been able
1:06:13
to put the sign on the top of his head.
1:06:16
But if you would please give us an overview, uh, we don't really, I guess have to get into
1:06:21
the history of the crucifixion guys, the crucifixion was not invented by the robin,
1:06:24
but they perfected it at the time that it was written in the Old Testament prophecies that
1:06:29
he would be peers for our transgressions.
1:06:31
Crucifixion didn't even exist yet, uh, which also points to, to the, uh, the substantial
1:06:36
nature of the prophecies and the Old Testament scriptures, but just talk to me a little bit
1:06:40
more about the process and feel free to get into as much detail as you'd like as to how
1:06:45
a criminal was crucified and killed on a Roman cross.
1:06:49
Yes.
1:06:50
Yes.
1:06:51
Yes.
1:06:52
Yeah, there were different shapes of crosses and different heights of crosses.
1:06:56
And that doesn't really matter for our purposes, but I think again, people talk about what
1:07:01
kind of cross price was crucified on probably a typical cross is called a Latin cross where
1:07:06
you do have that upper part, the upper upright beam projected above, uh, because we do know
1:07:11
that they put the tittlest over his head.
1:07:13
That's the placard.
1:07:14
So that's why we think that and, uh, let's go ahead and start.
1:07:18
You're discouraging and in the case of pilot, pilot is forced by the Jews, Jewish leaders.
1:07:23
And this is explained by the book, he doesn't, he doesn't think Jesus is really guilty of
1:07:27
anything.
1:07:28
And this is one way that I, I disagree with a lot of Bible scholars today who think that,
1:07:33
um, pilot really wanted to kill Jesus.
1:07:35
I don't think that's true, but he finally is forced to, um, to pronounce the judgment
1:07:41
on Jesus and send him to the cross.
1:07:44
So what that involved was that they only carried the cross beam on the way to the site of crucifixion,
1:07:51
the condemned person was required to carry his cross, but it wasn't the whole cross that
1:07:56
we see in the movies, even the Mel Gibson movie, uh, gets that wrong or in pictures or whatever,
1:08:02
where Jesus is trudging along.
1:08:04
He couldn't have carried the whole cross because it has to hold his whole own body weight.
1:08:08
So, uh, across the entire cross, it would also have been very awkward to carry that,
1:08:13
you know, where it's not a flimsy little thing, a thin little couple pieces of wood, but something
1:08:19
that was very substantial.
1:08:22
So instead, the upright beam was at the site of crucifixion.
1:08:29
That was a permanent structure.
1:08:30
And then they had the cross beam that was put on the back of the, uh, condemned person.
1:08:38
And he had to sort of bend over, stretch out his arms and they tied the cross beam to his
1:08:44
arm.
1:08:45
So it was carried on his shoulder blades, basically, which had just been scourged by the way.
1:08:50
And Jesus probably lost a lot of blood.
1:08:51
He probably got a very severe scourging because he cannot carry the cross beam to a place
1:08:58
of the place of crucifixion, which isn't that far away.
1:09:02
And, um, he's probably had lost a, he got a very severe scourging that this is such
1:09:06
as my opinion, because he, she should be able to, because he's young and he's healthy.
1:09:12
So, um, he's carrying the, he, the, the condemned had to carry the cross beam, weighed down
1:09:18
by the cross beam, sort of bent over through the streets of the city.
1:09:22
And when that happens, that's the first time that most people realized what happened to
1:09:27
Christ that he was on his way to his crucifixion.
1:09:29
They, that happened, the trial was in the middle of the night with the Jews and very,
1:09:34
very early in the morning with pilot.
1:09:36
So when they got to the site of crucifixion, they would put the person on the ground.
1:09:41
Um, he still had on his back and again, that had been very severely lacerated, extremely
1:09:46
painful, put him on the ground, untie the beam and just put his, uh, stretch his arms
1:09:53
along the length of the beam and then because there were four soldiers that were usually
1:09:58
assigned to this duty and maybe one sort of supervisor, um, one of them would sit on their
1:10:05
legs and two of them would sit on the, each of their arms or hold down their arms while
1:10:10
the fourth person, the fourth, uh, Roman soldier would drive an iron nail through the, uh,
1:10:19
hand of the person.
1:10:20
And then here's something else that I've got to get into some discussion because for a
1:10:24
long time, many, many people said that the nails were put through the wrists.
1:10:27
Now the fact is I discussed this, um, the word in Greek for hand is the whole appendage.
1:10:33
We don't have a separate word, even today in Greek, my Greek is the same thing here.
1:10:37
He is a whole thing.
1:10:39
There's no separate word for hand versus arm, the same for foot.
1:10:43
Um, but of course in all of the pictures in the, in the iconography and the early Christian
1:10:49
depictions, we see a nail here, but a long, a long time ago, people figured out, well,
1:10:54
a nail put in the center of the palm could not support the weight.
1:10:58
Well, there's discussions about this and it's certainly, we know that it couldn't, but he
1:11:02
wasn't being supported just by his palms.
1:11:05
But I also discussed how probably what happened is they drove a nail to go like this, um,
1:11:13
protecting your little finger to your thumb, it creates this furrow called the center furrow.
1:11:19
If you draw at the base of that, not here in the center of the palm, but at the base
1:11:23
of the center furrow, if you drive a nail there on an angle, it will come out here at
1:11:28
the wrist and this is a strong place to hold a body that speaks suspended by a cross.
1:11:35
So they would drive this nail that was very rough, you know, it's not nice and smooth.
1:11:40
Like the kinds we buy at Home Depot was very rough and made of iron and a several inches
1:11:45
long.
1:11:46
They drove it through the base of the palm and it came out at, on the wood of the, at
1:11:54
the back of the cross, but you don't see that.
1:11:56
So as the person is impaled, you see the nail here, okay, but the exit we would say
1:12:02
is here.
1:12:03
And I explained how this came to a person who, a medical, um, you know, a coroner figured
1:12:10
this out.
1:12:11
So at any rate, so they do this for both of the hands and then they lift would lift him
1:12:18
up with either by hand, with a weight of all these soldiers or by a pulley system, we're
1:12:25
not exactly sure how they would lift people up and they would drop them into the, into
1:12:31
a slot at the, um, so at the, on top of the upright beam, there was a place to drop it
1:12:37
down.
1:12:38
The upright beam that was kept at that site.
1:12:40
So, um, now he's hanging by his hands and they have the feet are loose.
1:12:47
So now the feet were nailed to the upright beam, okay.
1:12:52
And, um, again, we see how the person would have to bend his legs so that the palm of
1:13:00
the foot was, I mean, the base of the foot, the bottom of the foot was flat against the
1:13:04
upright beam.
1:13:05
So we all know from lying in bed how we get our feet flat on the mattress is we have to
1:13:10
bend our knees.
1:13:12
So the knees were bent until the feet were flat and then an iron nail was put through
1:13:17
the arch of each foot independently, not like this, like we see in some of the, uh, some
1:13:24
of the artwork, but each nail independently each foot and then the person would, um, hang
1:13:30
there.
1:13:31
And it was extremely, extraordinarily painful because the, um, it's not just the puncturing
1:13:37
of the skin and the muscles and the sinews themselves, it is the nerves and the constant
1:13:44
rubbing of the iron nails against the nerves.
1:13:48
It was excruciatingly painful and also the fixed position on the cross.
1:13:54
We can never really know what it feels like because you can't ever do an experiment today
1:14:00
to see what it was like when someone was crucified, but this one coroner, uh, Fredricks
1:14:05
who Gibby did a number of experiments on, on full grown men as much as he could.
1:14:10
He was a, a medical doctor, uh, about the effects of crucifixion and talked about how
1:14:16
extraordinarily painful it was simply to keep your arm stretched out like this and the chest
1:14:23
extended like this for a long period of time.
1:14:26
Even that created spasms and tremendous pains.
1:14:29
So the whole body was experiencing horrific pains, um, like crucifixion.
1:14:36
And that's why it was a person.
1:14:39
Yeah.
1:14:40
I mean, that's where we, we get our word excruciating and in modern parlance.
1:14:44
And again, you get into a lot of time there and to anybody in the audience that maybe
1:14:48
is a little bit squeamish or a little bit, you know, you watch the passion of the Christ
1:14:52
and you walked out because you're like, this is, this is too terrible.
1:14:54
It's like you have to understand what Jesus willingly endured for you.
1:15:00
Okay.
1:15:01
And regardless of your theological, uh, you know, stuff in terms of the substitutionary
1:15:06
tone, memory, like that, that doesn't come into what actually happened on the ground
1:15:10
that day at Golgotha and when, when he was placed on the cross, which you've done a great
1:15:15
job of elucidating, there's a lot of significance to the many statements that Jesus made from
1:15:22
the cross.
1:15:23
And again, in the book, I think there were seven statements total that Jesus made from
1:15:27
the cross that are depicted in different books, uh, whenever you take, take them all
1:15:31
in their total totality, you get a seven statements that were at least recorded. So he at least
1:15:36
said that much, if not more, right.
1:15:38
Is there a statement on the cross to you, Jeannie, that that sticks out as something that's maybe
1:15:45
so significant, but in modernity, we don't, we don't see it in its full breadth. Cause
1:15:50
that's something about the book is like, you're trying to give you weight to things that should
1:15:53
be weighty.
1:15:54
But what would you say to that?
1:15:55
That's, that's good.
1:15:56
And yes, because what I try to do in the book is because I'm quoting also early Christian
1:16:01
writers, I'm trying to give the perspective of the early church in all of this. And thank
1:16:06
you for saying that, that we need to read about these things. And by the way, to the,
1:16:10
to the listeners, I'm not really, uh, or the viewers. Um, even though I do talk about it,
1:16:17
I try to keep it clinical and medical, it's not gory. I don't try to do give Laura details
1:16:22
about how he was suffering and all this. You don't have to worry about that. But I do think
1:16:27
that if you are a Christian, you owe it to the Lord to read, at least medically, what
1:16:34
he went through. Okay. Cause we're never going to experience anything like that.
1:16:38
So among his statements, I, my goodness, um, there's so many, I can't really depict one
1:16:45
that I think is particularly significant, uh, because they all have great significance
1:16:50
as you mentioned, but I'd like to start with, if I could choose one to talk about, it would
1:16:55
be the one that's the most misunderstood. And that's the most famous one, my God, my
1:17:00
God. Why have you forsaken me? And the reason why that's, uh, that that's important is
1:17:07
because that line is used by many people to say that Jesus felt alienated from the father
1:17:14
on the cross and nothing could be further from the truth because the father and the son are
1:17:20
one. The Trinity is one God. The son can never be alienated from the father. Um, and it's
1:17:25
the people feel like usually what they say is that Jesus lost faith or he was in despair
1:17:31
or something like this. But actually Jesus was quoting the first line from Psalm 22.
1:17:38
And Psalm 22 is a messianic Psalm and it's a prophetic Psalm that describes what's happening
1:17:44
on the cross. And a lot of people know that today that because the Psalms didn't have
1:17:50
numbers, the title of the song, which were songs were sung in the synagogue. Everybody
1:17:55
knew them by heart. Like, you know, the hymns from your hymnal. Um, the songs were sung
1:18:00
and everybody knew them and they didn't have numbers. So the title was the first line.
1:18:05
So when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He's praying the first line
1:18:09
of that Psalm or calling it to remembrance for everybody who's watching him on the cross.
1:18:16
Now the reason why that Psalm is significant isn't simply because it's prophetic and that
1:18:20
prophecy was being fulfilled. But the last third of the song hints at the resurrection
1:18:27
because it changes from a song of lament for the person who's distressed to suddenly saying
1:18:33
in the midst of my, I will stand in the congregation, which by the way is the word church, ecclesia
1:18:38
in that line. And it was my brethren and I will praise you. And the last third of the
1:18:43
song is about praising God. And it's talking about how future generations will talk about
1:18:49
what the Lord has done. It's amazing. Okay. So it's not about how Jesus was a disparate
1:18:57
about the cross. It says, Oh, he's saying, it looks bad right now, but this is prophecy.
1:19:02
This must happen because this is what the father desired. But in the end, I will be vindicated
1:19:08
and I will stand among you and everybody will glorify God because of this. It's quite amazing.
1:19:15
And I really, I really enjoy the detail you go into to explaining not only just now, but
1:19:20
certainly in the book, but this is what I'm a little mad at you, Jeannie. Do you want to
1:19:24
know why I'm mad at you? Yes, I do. You got me all excited. Here I am. I'm reading like
1:19:30
a good boy. And I read every word of every book that I do for the podcast. And we're,
1:19:34
you know, 300 pages in 315 pages in 340 pages in and dad gummy. I thought you're going to
1:19:41
spend more time on the resurrection. So my question for you today is, do we hold out hope
1:19:48
that there's a forthcoming book that's going to detail the resurrection stuff like that?
1:19:53
I'm sure you've been asked this before. Ready, set go. Of course, because we never leave
1:19:58
Christ in the tomb. I had the book was a crucifixion of the King of Glory. And I had to leave
1:20:04
a lot of things out of the book. I would never intended to talk about the resurrection at
1:20:07
all, because it's enough. The crucifixion is a big enough topic. But we always have to
1:20:13
finish with the resurrection. So yes, I'm actually working on that right now. And I'm
1:20:18
hoping to write it in the same style as the crucifixion book, which is more of a narrative
1:20:24
thing. That's it's going to be harder to achieve. Because for those of you who haven't read the
1:20:29
book, Chris, a picture of the King of Glory, it's really a narrative arc. It's like you're
1:20:33
I'm trying to make you feel like you're there sort of watching things through the crack in
1:20:37
the door, you're present. And you're going through this experience in following Christ
1:20:43
or all of these things, not in an emotional way, but in a historical way. So we have to
1:20:48
deal with the resurrection, of course, and I can't wait to talk about that.
1:20:52
Well, thanks for that. Yeah, do we have an idea of when we can expect something like
1:20:57
this? Are we working on it? I yes, I am working on it. I promised it to my the publisher in
1:21:05
January, that I'm supposed to give the manuscript then. And so they hope that it will be published
1:21:11
by December and time for Christmas of 2024. So that's like a year and still a year and
1:21:16
a half away. But it takes time to write a book and it takes time to edit and to print and
1:21:22
all of that. So it's a long process. But God willing, you know, I will complete it in time.
1:21:27
So it can be available 2024. You've got some time, certainly. And obviously, if you're
1:21:34
willing to have us, we'd love to have you back on the show to talk about it. I would love
1:21:38
to dig into that a little bit more. But we've got everywhere in this conversation. But I
1:21:42
do want to leave a little bit of meat on the bone again, guys, the crucifixion of the King
1:21:45
of Glory. It is in the show notes. You should go and pick it up, give it your time and attention,
1:21:49
listen to it, read it, do whatever you want to do. But Jeannie, that's all for me. Is there
1:21:53
anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:21:55
No, I just want to thank you for inviting me to come and talk about Christ and wish you
1:22:01
well with your podcast and everybody else. And it'd be a pleasure to come back any time
1:22:07
to talk to you about any subject. I think it's important that we keep dialogue, Christian
1:22:12
dialogue open between Christians. And we're living in an era when there's so much animosity
1:22:19
and people feel like they can't share different opinions. People are labeled and marginalized
1:22:26
for having a different perspective. But really, we can learn so much from each other. So thanks
1:22:31
for inviting me on the podcast. And I wish you well in your ministry because this is a
1:22:37
ministry.
1:22:38
Amen. Jeannie Konstantinu, thank you for coming on a Daunte Life of Man's podcast. Thank you,
1:22:43
Kyle.
1:22:44
There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with you. Jeannie Konstantinu. But before
1:22:48
I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Adam Daunte Life for Mission is equipping
1:22:52
men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:22:57
So I've got two links for you today. I've got a link to where you can buy your copy of
1:23:00
the crucifixion of the king of glory. And then I've got a YouTube link. And this was
1:23:04
the first time I was actually able to view any content with her on it. It's her interview
1:23:09
that she did with Eric Metaxus. The name of the video is the Gospels are historical documents.
1:23:14
Thank you guys for listening to this episode. Wherever you listening to this, please subscribe,
1:23:17
wait and leave us a positive five star view. If you want to come speak live at your event
1:23:21
or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@andontin.life. That's I N F O at
1:23:26
and on to not life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website
1:23:29
for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your
1:23:32
way. Just go to www.undontin.life. Also, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:23:38
us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua,
1:23:43
which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the
1:23:47
description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep
1:23:52
forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:24:13
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