Ep 1294 | The Robertsons Respond to ‘Heretic’ Accusations & Why Faith Debates Are Essential These Days

Welcome back to the Unashamed Podcast. This is our Friday episode on

Unashamed with Hillsdale taking a, you can get these courses for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. We are taking a course on ancient

“Christianity. We got the whole crew here so welcome back guys, everybody good?”

Do a good raw good? No, yeah, I'm in this direction. Are you on vacation? Is that what? Well, it was, yeah, it was only spring breaks. We took advantage of that. So we're currently at the beach. Okay, it must be nice. I'm in one of the bedrooms on a chair with a chair in front of me with seven books that you have talked with. Well, you said, yeah, you had the house set up. So that means it's the, that's the low

rant redneck version. Yeah, but you're here and you look great. You don't sound so great, but they look good. So I have as many books back on as I can. If I don't sound good, this is our setup that I've just, I've made shifted here. It's, it's my

own setup when I used to do things from the road, but Christian, you never looked

better as you bring that to this quartet. Thank you. That Joseph well built a handsome. We are always so appreciate it. And John, look, I don't know if we should discuss it or not. We did get a little bit of, I don't want to call it hate mail, but we got some aggression pointed many towards me and you for an episode we

“did on, I think it was the CS Lewis episode a few weeks back. I think it was, but”

do you want to dress it or, I mean, I can tell you what it is. Yeah, so I think I fell out of the tell you what it is. So basically, you, yours, I don't know his is more aggressive, but yours was about, you play in Dungeons and Dragons, and

and so you're called basically that you're advocating for demonic activity.

Uh-huh. Mine was, let me just pull that up. I'll tell you what mine was. Mine was that I'm really messed up in my mind. Zach, wow, you are really messed up in your mind. I borderline heretic and my understanding of scripture is chaos. This is from our friend Frank. And then I'm really messed up in the minority said that one, and it was on, I think when we were talking about CS Lewis's, the

great divorce, I think it was that episode. Yeah, I'm just looking at the comments, but was it the same, was it the same chair as hell, was it eternal torment? Um, yes, he, he, he responds quite a bit, but I would say this about it, Frank, that you got to be careful, like, you know, and I grew up like that. It's like, like, you can't, like, we're wrestling three concepts.

Uh, and so we're talking about a lot of different things. Um, I could be wrong. I mean, we've said that quite often on this podcast. I could be wrong on, although we didn't make a proposition on the doctrine of hell at all in that podcast. We were simply talking about the work of CS Lewis. I think he may be reading into, to what we were saying too much. In fact, this podcast on this episode,

we will talk about uh, uh, Jesus is teaching on hell, particularly with Lazarus, uh, according to the, to Professor, he taught the course. So there's different opinions, different, different propositions that different people hold. Um, I don't know if I'm out of my mind, I probably am out of my mind, but if I'm out of my mind, I'm out of my mind for Christ. I don't have all

the right answers. None of us do, you know, but the shut things down like that is not healthy because you can't, I don't think it's healthy to, to essentially personal, personal attacks and shaming people for having what you perceive to be a difference of opinion, what you don't actually know our astounding night because I haven't said it yet, publicly, um, on this, uh, at least in this podcast. Um, I think it's dangerous to do that.

And I think that is one of the reasons why so many young people have left the church because they, you could, they can't ask questions. We need to open the environment up. People have real questions about the scripture. Our interpretation is humans. We're going to, it's, it's going to be flawed and we're going to have to rely on the spirit

“to guide us and we're going to have to remember that we are saved by grace and grace”

alone, not by how well we have ascended in our doctoral understanding. That's not, that's not what the Bible teaches. I gentle review, uh, Frank, that's not, uh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, this is generally being there, but I just, I got to push back a little bit because I kind of got into my skin a little bit. So we, so we play that. Frank, it's just going to happen. Yeah, I think it does. Do you think that was too much?

He starts a podcast that's like anti-on-the-shamed.

It's like a shamed of unashamed. - Yeah. - And it's like a podcast for taking us. (laughing) - Now if you get about 12 lessons to that.

“- Hey, that's why I love these courses that.”

I mean, I think it's good to get different perspective on things. You just shut down the discussion and you're like just start throwing names at people when they don't fit into your

and your perceived box. I just, I mean, you brought up a good point about grace. Because if we can look at, you know, sinful behavior. And we've been talking about this

that quite a bit on regular unashamed. When you look at the obvious acts of the sinful nature and we all believe grace can cover that because that's what Jesus said, right? And so we look at that one like,

oh yeah, these terrible things that happen. But it doesn't cover us struggling through theological questions. I mean, it doesn't cover over us trying to reach unity in love in all things.

Even though we're all, you know, studying at different levels of people and then you read a guy like CS Lewis who obviously was, you know, a deep, deep thinker that was on a different level.

And yet at the same time, we share that in Christ. So it's a great point. The idea that the grace covers everything, you know. Even as we're struggling through our theology because you learn and you figure things out

in different, you know, at different levels.

“And so you have to be able to have that.”

And I love what she said about the questions because Jesus was the master of questions. I mean, I had noticed that James, I tip my hat to him because he really noticed it and our study of John of just how many questions Jesus asked.

I mean, and if we're gonna be like him, that's what we should be able to do. We should be able to ask a ton of questions and then struggle through the answers, right? I think that just in comments and hate comments

in general, I'm super pro critical comments

and people taking, looking critically at what other people are saying online 'cause I think that's genuinely a good thing but it's you need to argue from argue the idea from the facts and not attack the person.

And I think that's where things can get things. It's like we may say something on here we're wrong. We may miss quote something or whatever. And if someone says, oh, actually you are saying that's not right because that's also,

that's what I want to see for myself and for other people. But yeah, when it becomes like a personal thing, like heretic or calling names or whatever, that's just not actually helpful to learn anything. - I've done my fair share of trolling before.

I can't even do like a burner account. - No, but like the early days, like when Facebook first came out, like yeah, I would troll.

But I would never be like, you're out of your mind,

you're stupid, you're an idiot, you're a heretic. I wouldn't do that, but I would go on and troll people. - You would throw the occasional this emoji out there. - Yeah. - You were gonna be last week, bro.

- That's not it, I would be talking about. I used to, didn't I last week. - I did. - I just bought for six hours, leaving me in a state of abuse.

“- That's why I can't be mad at Frank, man.”

Frank, I love you, brother. And if you don't love me, I love you, brother, and I did troll Christians. I can't, I can't, I can't actually do hard. - Well, let's get into art. - Well, it took me a long time to figure out the difference

between a heretic and a heretic, and a heretic. Because, I mean, for years, I thought Jason was a heretic. And so I wasn't calling my heretic. I was kind of a heretic. So just to clear that.

- Clare for. - Well, there's, I mean, I think there is real heretical teaching, though, I think we should highlight and examine. But, man, I think we throw that label around very quickly. And I, I would caution against it.

I mean, I don't throw that label out very often. And, and then to be fair, I mean, I appreciate a lot of different traditions. I mean, that's one of the things I love about this course. I mean, that we're taking now.

It's a different perspective than some of the ones we've taken before. I love that. I love that diversity of thought. Like, we can wrestle with some of these deeper questions

about scripture. I mean, there's a lot of depth in the scriptures. And there's a lot of depth in the history of the Christian church. And that's one of the things about this episode. Three, lecture three that we're in right now.

By the way, you guys can take the course for free on a shame for Hillsdale.com. By the way, we're going to do-- if you've finished this course with us, if you actually finished the course and get this certificate,

we're going to have this drawing.

and a guest to come and sit in on one of our podcasts.

“And I think there might be a little bit of the stipend”

to, like a thousand bucks or something like that for travel. But yeah, so we don't just want you to take the course with us. We want you to finish the course and actually get the certificate. We're all stacking up certificates.

And we'd love for you to do that with us. But one of the things I really have enjoyed about this ancient Christianity course is the way that it anchors the Christian faith in a historical context. A lot of times, if you grew up in church,

you just think that this is our faith. It's almost like this is the thing that we kind of cross our fingers and we hope is true. This has been really encouraging for me to actually understand how Christianity sits in ancient history as a real

thing. It gives a real quality to it. I don't know, did you guys like pick up on any of that kind

“of ideas as we were going through this last lecture?”

Yes. That was kind of, I thought, like I think that really of my, especially at the first two and then the, well, lecture three, like seeing how Jesus, seeing how the story developed hundreds of years before Jesus getting to that

point and it helped me really make, made sense why, like, the Pharisee did what they did. The saddest thing, did what they did. Paul's pilot did what he did. Like you saw, I saw such a bigger picture of how we got to the

point of Jesus being cursified than I've really ever thought of before. I think in this, this particular lecture, the World Before Christ,

has always been, I've always been fascinated by Jewish history

because, you know, it shared with so many, I mean, obviously with all of Christianity, we share that Jewish history, but also even Islam shares up to a certain point and other war religions and so, you know, it was really good for me to go back and sort of refresh on that when I was in the school of

preaching, you know, 40 years ago, the course that really, I mean, just totally grounded me in my ability to be able to teach the Bible itself was Old Testament history and geography because it gives you the foundation by which everything we know about Jesus where it came from and why.

And so, I thought he did a great job with that and just understanding the power of what happened with the people losing their way so many times along through history and even what happened with the Promised land and the activities and all the things that happened because all that prophecy that we read and when we study and we go back to

Ezekiel and Daniel and, you know, Ezra and me and my, all those things are pointing to Christ and so,

“you know, to get to the story of Jesus, you have to understand where it all came from.”

And I thought that was really, he did an excellent job of that. It was very encouraged. Yeah, one of the things was, I mean, it was like a 42-minute lecture I think and he was just the whole time, like I don't think he looked at notes one time. I was like, how in the world

does he know all of the stuff just off the coast, it was pretty incredible.

But I think the thing for me, you know, I think sometimes you question, why did Jesus choose to come or why did God want Jesus to, you know, come at the time of dead and learning more things like this, you really see why you have, you know, Alexander the Great and you have Hellenism, I think you see the Roman Empire and all these things that were happening. I was looking at these notes when I was talking about the practice of a tenet

gymnasium with the Greeks and then when a Antiochus wanted to put Zeus in the temple and then the Jewish men were a tenet gymnasium and they were, some of the things he was saying about them trying to hide the covenant by using plastic surgery. Some of the things that were happening at that time were so crazy and fascinating that you really see why Jesus came when he did. But Zach, I was going to ask you a question about that, just kind of that Greek culture with

the Septuagint and about the gymnasium. So that's kind of confused on what the gymnasium was and kind of what purpose it served and how that whole the Jewish and the Greek thing was kind of like, what was the dynamic there at that time? Well, I think it's interesting that that's one thing that I loved about this course is that how you see characters that we've all heard of, it's like real historical characters like Alexander the Great, like that like, you know, it's a guy

that we've all heard about, read about in high school and then how he intersects with the story of Israel and how that what that Hellenization, you know, which is essentially how the Greek

America's like a melting pot. That's we've, you know, heard that about our own culture. It's a melting pot of cultures and so that the Hellenization or that, you know, the Hellenized Jews were Jews that had been co not co-opt as the wrong word, but there had been a strong Greek influence over them are in them and so Alexander the Great is one of those characters so that gymnasium was a place where they would get together and have lots of conversations, they would learn philosophy, they would learn,

I've come the ways of Greek or Greco kind of philosophy, you guys like Aristotle, Plato,

Socrates, they do that naked, what was the point I was can, I've never heard, I've never heard

you were interested, but you're like, I'm like, no, it's just like, it was just an interesting detail just to throw out there. I don't know why they, I mean, I know they celebrated the human body, I guess, I mean, maybe it was, I guess they didn't celebrate the human body, they actually thought

“the flesh was bad. I don't know, that's a good question, I'm not really sure why, but I think”

if you back up a little bit though to that before you get to that is what, what this lecture covers is essentially the history of Israel in the sense that they were constantly struggling to remain faithful to Yahweh and to the covenant and to the Torah, anybody that has read the Old Testament would get the same indication, right? You read the Old Testament and it's like, man, these guys, it's a continual life, just making a mockery of God's covenant and so the sign of that covenant

was circumcision and what they again did in those gymnasiums is that they would cover up their circumcision, I don't know how they did that. That was kind of an interesting. He said about three plastic surgery kind of as a joke, but the idea was like, you're walking around naked and everybody's like, you know, you can see everybody and so the Jewish people were embarrassed that they were circumcised because the Greeks were not circumcised and so they would somehow cover up their

circumcision that looked like they were that they weren't circumcised and they were almost like hiding from it and that was kind of led to what happens later with some of these revolts and

stuff but that early history of Israel, the first time that I read through the entire Bible in a

year, I got to the end of Malachi and the way the Christian Bible is set up Malachi's the last book in the Old Testament, the way the Hebrew Bible set up is the last book in the Bible and there were a can on his second chronicles, actually ends with Cyrus who was a Persian king who's also mentioned in this thing when he constructs the building of the second temple but in either way

“you read it, I think anybody who if you had no concept of Christ whatsoever, if you had no concept”

of Judaism, if you had no concept of any, I'm just going to read the story. I think I think you would get to the end of it and I would, I think you would see the continual lack of faithfulness on the part of Israel, I think you would say, I'm not sure this is going to work out. You know what I mean? I'm not sure this is going to work out and so because of the lack of faithfulness, so this whole episode and this whole lecture, it starts with what happened before Christ which was

Israel struggling to remain faithful and because of their lack of faithfulness to God, the Israel lights lost the promised land, then they were forced into exile. This is when you get into the prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, all the different prophets who prophesied about these different

coming distructions to Jerusalem and the first one that happened was in 722, it's when the

Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom. I thought it'd be good if you just gave a quick cursory overview of what even is the divided kingdom because I think a lot of people, I mean, I had a heart of understanding that for years. I want to make one note about the gymnasium, and what that was because I think this is just give it a little more context. The Greeks held the held physical strength, mental strength, and desire as like their top

thing, like that's they loved it. And Ezekiel's right and said they hated the body,

“well they did because it grew old and got bad, but at its peak that's what they kind of like”

desired. Was that like strong string, like well-made people, well-made minds, that kind of idea. And so the gymnasium, like they would do, they would talk and they would also do like sports and games

like that we think of now today. And that was one of the culture clashes with the Jews,

is that the Greeks had this very idealized idea of human strength and what the body should look like and how it should take pleasure in itself, whereas the Jews had a morality that was like against that, against pleasure, against like pride in the body, because they were like God is the ultimate, God is the king. And all the Jewish laws was about their strength instead of like a hedonistic giving in. So that's where some of the culture clash was. So like the being set apart by circumcision

was one just showing that they were set apart, but two that they weren't valuing strength in the human body like the Greeks were, which was causing a culture clash, essentially.

“And that's what came in later when we get into the macavies, one of the culture clashes was”

was, uh, Cameron the guy's name, but when they had macroscopy, one of the culture clashes was that he was saying that the Jews were giving into their flesh, essentially, by giving into the Greek Hellenistic worldview. Yeah, that was a Hezmann, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Hezmann, which which kind of led to the macabee and revote. No, that's what I thought too, Donald. I'm glad you clarify that because it's what it seemed like to me as well. There was it was more than just,

I mean, there was like thoughts and talking, but at the same time, a lot of physical, he talked about wrestling, um, you know, in competition. And so I guess the Jews were want to be a part of that. But then, you know, it's interesting because I feel personally like there's that same thing today, like, you know, working out and you know, Christian, you had a whole podcast kind of combined in the idea of taking care of your body, but also your spiritual side as well. And to try

to do both of those, but it's difficult sometimes because when you get too far over on the physical side, many times you start to see sort of a hedonistic result. And so you, you would need a combination

“of both, but you have to bring a spiritual component there and, you know, with nudity, I don't know.”

I mean, you're just bringing into a lot of issues. Yeah. And so I, I think that's still a struggle. I mean, you know, I used to go to the gym and work out, but then I don't know, I just, I saw things there and saw people there and I had different reasons for being there in the eventually, just, you know, had my own private place to work out because it just didn't, I didn't like the, the feel of it. So I think there's still, I think that struggle still goes on to this

very day, which is interesting that that's an ancient thought. And yet still, you see sort of the impact of that in our culture. I think it's a fair thing to say anyway. Yeah. But before they get involved with, with the Greeks, you have the, um, the Assyrians conquered the, the northern

“tribes, which would have been like 10 of the 12 tribes. Yeah. And let me just go back to that. So,”

so, you know, it started with, you know, obviously the people I was for King and he mentions this and saw becomes the King, but he wasn't really God's choice. He was the people's choice because

they wanted to have a King that looked like other kings. And so he ultimately was rejected because

God didn't choose him. And so the first chosen King for Israel by God was David. And so, you know, David had his issues, which we talked about, we studied life of David. And then his son, Solomon, was the last king of the United Israel because his son, Jeroboam and Rioboam split the kingdom. Jeroboam, it was a civil war in essence. And so 10 tribes went to the north. And then you only had the two in the south. And so that's the, that was the setup, you know, all the way through the

kings. You had northern Israel and he had, you know, Judah down the bottom. And so that was the way it went until the Assyrians came in and basically captured the upper ten tribes and deported them.

And they were never the same. I mean, they never came back. They became the Samaritans, which,

you know, we read a point. We get to Jesus day. You see, there's this division between the Samaritans and the, the lower to Judah. And so, which became the kingdom of Israel was just those two tribes at the bottom. And so, but then they were taken as well by the Babylonians. So, ultimately, all of Israel wound up deported and out of the country. And I thought on the interesting things, he said was, and I hadn't really thought about it before was, you know, when you look back at the

era of United Israel, I mean, we're talking about 1948 is then becomes the time after these days,

That's a long time. That's a long time. I mean, it's, it's fascinating too. I mean, when you think about

“Israel, those northern kingdom of, you know, the 10 tribes, the South would have been Judah and Benjamin,”

and there were probably some Levites in there as well, because of the priesthood. But in my

Bible, at the end of the second Kings, I actually wrote this out. As I went through one year and was

studying the different Kings. And, and I have two columns. One is Judah, as Judah/Binjamans, of the southern tribe, southern kingdom, and then I have the northern kingdom and the other column. And I just wrote the name of the King, and then I just wrote next to his name, whether the Bible says he was evil or he did what was good and the righteous would be determined in my text. And would you believe that every single king of the northern tribe was evil? Every single one of them.

And even most of them on the southern tribes were most of them were evil. You've got Josiah, Hezekiah, Jotham, Uzaya, Joseph Fatt. Those were the only one, two, three, four, five that were

“actually considered righteous in the eyes of God. And I think that's important to think about,”

because when you get into the New Testament, you hear about the Samaritans, like the Samaritan woman, do you remember in the Gospel John? And she says, "Our fathers worship on this mountain." And you, you guys, you worship in Jerusalem down at the temple. Where do we worship at? And it's, I mean, that, that, that one story is anchored in all of this historical context. Well, who, who are the Samaritans? Who are they? Well, yes, that question you read the scripture.

That, that was the northern tribes of Israel. That was the ones that the, that the Assyrians conquered. And by the way, was prophesied by the prophets. And so then the next big moment was in five, 86, you have the Babylonian conquering of Israel, of Jerusalem. And they actually

took down and destroyed the temple, the first temple. And I think that's a key thing here,

“because after defeating, after that, that happens, this, he mentions this in the, in the course.”

The, this one figure shows up on the same name Cyrus, who is not even of Israel. He was a Persian king. And he is the one that constructs the building of the New Temple, which would be the second temple. So I just found that to be fascinating that the kind of the hero in the story of Israel was someone who is not even of Israel. I don't know if they hit you guys at all. Yeah, did. And we want you to take the course with us, unashamed for hillsdale.com,

as where you go to sign up for the courses. Now, you know, it's interesting, Zach. I thought about this, even in the modern era. I mean, right now we're going through this, you know, Iran, Israel, US war that's going on with the attacks. And guess who that is? That's ancient. That's Persia and Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, again, you know, involved in scrimmishes. So it is interesting that, you know, we go back in history and you see the same, you know, people through the

lineage, you know, still having these conflicts and still things that are going on, even into the modern modern day of the modern era. But yeah, and you know, the birth of the Pharisees, that came actually out of the Babylonian deportation, because the people that were, you know, Daniel, obviously, and then, you know, you just shatter at me, so I can obey to go, they kind of get the highlights. But there were a lot of other people that were standing for God in this

culture where they were being forced to have to choose between Babylon and God's and the God. And that's where the Pharisees actually, their roots are there, which is very interesting that you see that then come forward into the days of Jesus. But because that was their

deal, we want to hold the line and we never want to be taken into captivity again. And so

which I thought he was fair with the Pharisees, because, you know, obviously, we just kind of just see him as the boogie man, you know, of the era of Jesus. But, you know, they were rooted in the right idea. I mean, you know, that we want to serve God no matter what, we're not going to serve other gods. And so the mindset was right. Obviously, they went too far, because with any human traditions, you start adding in your own thing. So he made the point, too. I thought it was cool.

I didn't know that the Sadducees came from, he said the high crease was it was that under David, was that if you follow it all the way back, it would have been like through Aaron and Moses, what was the original part of that idea from the Levitical Presid, which was Levi one of the

I think he was meaning like the names Sadducees, the, I think like I know that's right. He said,

“Zay-Dak, Zay-Dak, I think, which was the priest under David, I think. Yeah, I thought it was interesting.”

Yeah, I mean, the next big move kind of in the story, though, because you have the, well, you had the Assyrian invasion of the Northern tribes and the conquering thereof. You have the Babylonian invasion of the Southern tribe and the destruction of the temple, all prophesied, all, this was all in there. And it was a result of, honestly, them not being faithful to God. As long as Israel remained

faithful to Yahweh, then they were always protected. There was never a moment when Israel was actually

faithful when, when they, when they weren't secure. The insecurity came from the lack of faithfulness. And so then you have a couple hundred years after, but I guess it was five, eighty-six was the, the first one, but the second one then was like, what was the, the time period the house ended with the great came in the saying that was like, 322. Yeah. Yeah. So then he shows up on the scene and this is kind of where the introduction to the, the Greco Roman world begins, where we talked

about the gymnasium, previous at this, the, the, the Greek influence, that this is the, to Hellenize the Jews. This is where that, that begins is, is what Alexander the Great. So you could see this story,

is not, these aren't Bible stories. These are like historical, this is actually, this whole story

of Christ and his emergence on the scene is, is anchored in real historical events. I mean, you've got to sit in that for a moment. I mean, this is not make believe. These aren't fairy tales, but if you think about the time on Alexander the Great shows up on the scene and when you start to see the Jews spread out into these more, more of Greece than what you actually see is other types of gods now are emerging. Gods that are make believe. Gods like Zeus, you know, the temple of

Zeus and things like that. So how, how is this story going to intertwine together? I mean,

“that's, it's, it's pretty fascinating. Have you all read for a second or third macabees?”

I, Jollek, I'm assuming you have. I did at one point. I don't know. I don't know if I could

come up with anything specific about it, but yeah. I've, I've heard people talk about it, but I, I didn't know the context until, until this, until this lecture, which was interesting. Well, and it, it's, that period, you know, is that period between Malachi and then when we pick up the story of Jesus, you know, from a Jewish history perspective is, is when those books were written when they take place, and the interesting thing about them when you read them, and any of the

apocrypha, you know, which, the whole series, you don't get anything new there. There's not, there's not a prop, there's no prophecy there that talks about the Messiah. So it is interesting that during this period of time, it seems pretty silent as things are happening. But then at the same time, as that said, you can also see the hand of God working. And so, even the macabees and revolt, I mean, the ideal was, they were still cleaning to the idea that the temple is made specifically

for the presence of God. And so these attempts were made, both by the Greeks and even by the Romans, to take that away, you know, and it was taken away in different instances, and yet the Jewish people would would come back. And so that same cycle that you read about all through the judges, you know, through the, through the activities that we've already mentioned, you see this idea that we have to return to God. And really does set up exactly what Jesus does when He comes to set up

the ultimate kingdom, and the ultimate presence of God, which we'll talk about in the next lecture of what His role was to do that. But I do find it interesting that even through this historical period, you still, you still see the value of the, the Jewish people understanding the idea, not just to need from Messiah, but to have the presence of God with them. So, and by the way, we want you to take this course with us, and we've had a little

a prize for someone that does that for us, so unashamed for hillsdale.com is where you can do that. Yeah, if you finish the course, we're going to have a drawing. He'll send us your certificate. We'll get further instructions as we move to the course, and then we're going to have a drawing and what might you guys coming out with us on set, and we'll give a little, we'll give a little

“voucher for travel as well. So here's what's cool. Can you give me a quick history lesson real quick?”

Maybe, I don't know. If I know it, I will. Now it's quick. You will definitely know it. So, when they're talking about, you know, wanting to put the statue of Zeus in the temple, and then you get to collect your land, and he wants to put a statue of himself in the temple. Is that, is that the temple Solomon built? There's at the one Cyrus built that you refer to.

temple Judaism at this moment. And it had been restored. It had been upgraded,

which started probably, probably with hair of the great, right? And so it was, well, it was 40 years

“before G, I think it was a 40-year expansion. So, yeah. And so whenever you get to the gospel studies”

in the next podcast, you know, the temple was kind of really restored to glory. Because again, the things you mentioned there, Christian, there had been, you know, there had been a lot of damage, things have been stolen. You know, there's a lot of stuff that happened. So when Jesus came, the second temple was kind of at its peak in terms of other than their original, in terms of their original, their original temple. That's actually a very interesting point at the think about.

Because when the, when the profits talk about the, the new temple, they talk about it in a way that would, it would make the first temple look really, really small. Like in other words, the temple that's coming is going to swallow up the one that Solomon built in terms of his glory in terms of his grander in terms of how amazing it is. We don't actually see that with the second temple. The one that was the Cyrus allowed to be built. That was, that was the one that the Persians essentially

came in and allowed the Jews to build. That temple never really captured the same glory as the first.

One reason is because they didn't have the Ark of the Covenant. I mean, the Ark of the Covenant was gone.

“And it never to be seen again. And so, I think that, I think, I want to say the Eastern Orthodox”

Church or one of the Orthodox churches. Maybe it's the Oriental Orthodox Church claims to have the Ark. We'll see. I don't, I mean, I don't know. I don't think that the Ark will ever be seen again in my opinion. The Ethiopian. But I want to say this because when we move, who is the Ethiopians, the Ethiopian? Okay. So when you, when you look at the, the progression here after Alexander the Great comes in, you have, like, yeah, that the, they try to get Zeus, which is funny because our me and you

and Phil went to, went to Greece. We literally walked right by the temple of Zeus. And just if you don't know, it turns out that Zeus was a fraud and the temples in ruins. If you, if you didn't know, he wasn't actually the god of the heavens. That statue is done, gone over. They wanted to take and put a statue of Zeus in the temple of Jerusalem. And so a lot of these guys in the gymnasium, you know, the Jewish man, I think they were, you know, they were kind of like being converted over to this way of

“thinking. And that's why they were hiding their circumcision, which is what we talked about earlier.”

And so the Mackey being revolt, revolt, I mean, the way I interpreted it is, it was kind of these guys were like honest. I think they were like, they were real, they believed in Yahweh and the Torah. And so this was, to me that they wanted to restore the temple back to what it, what it truly was. And they saw this, this basic prostitution of their faith of their history that was coming in through the, through the Hellenautization of their culture. And they were like,

we're not standing for this. And so they were fairly successful in their revolt. And that's why the, what we said earlier that the, has money and kingdom was the, the last truly independent Jewish state in the Holy Land until 1948. That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. And so then Jesus comes in the scene whenever when Pompeii, the great energy dea and then

he conquer the region for Rome. So now you enter in Roman occupation. And this is when things never

were the same again. You know what I thought about out when I was thinking about all this history, I was a man. This lines up perfectly with the vision that Daniel had in chapter two of that statue. He saw every one of these kingdoms, every single one of these kingdoms he saw and they prophesied them. And I've always thought, I thought the same things. And I thought when I, you go back and read that there would have been, because you know, the magia are going to be a part of the next

lecture, too. And they, they was mentioned here as well, because they, they were a part of that era. And they probably read Daniel. And that's probably, you know, or understood from his prophecies. And was, which was probably one of the reasons why they were prepared for when Jesus actually was born to make the track to Israel and pay him homage. And really, according to Dr. Calvert, become believers, probably, because they go as emissaries and, and leave his believers, you know,

Gary Daniel too and, and read that and look at that statue that Daniel saw in his dream. And then he's Mary, if you remember, he, there was a stone that was not cut out by man's hand, right? So does God live in temples built by man's hand? No, he doesn't. So there's a stone that's not cut out by human hand. It rolls off and it hits the statue and demolishes it. Well, the statue is, is, is from the top to the bottom is, is, it's, it's, in, in progressive order, it's, it's,

it's the babble, it's Babylon, it's Persia, it's Greece. And then it's ultimately wrong with the

bronze, with the feet that are mixed with clay and, and bronze. And so, or iron. And so, you, you see all four of these kingdoms that are in this story being prophesied in Daniel chapter two by Daniel. And then that is the days when the Roman Empire is coming to a close, when the, when the stone that rolls out of the mountain and hits those, hits that statue, the Bible says that in

“those days, he will set up a kingdom, a kingdom that can't be shaken nor destroyed. That's why,”

honestly, this podcast, we are so heavy on the kingdom of God being here. And I think we see that idea is actually rooted in history. I know we're, we're going to run on a time here, but I don't, I think we need to get to the end of, of where he ends, which is essentially, you had this, you know, Roman occupation, Jesus shows up on the scene in this Roman occupation, you have herid, who is, how would you just, how would you guys say, well, how would you define herid's role

in conjunction with the Roman Empire? Puppet. Like a puppet, he's a puppet of the Roman Empire. Yeah, puppet was my word, is what I wrote down in my notes, because I mean, he definitely didn't have, he had more Roman interest in mine than Jewish, I'll put that way. And I think you see that even in the interaction he had with Jesus, you know, at the end of when he was crucified, that he did not care about the Jewish people, you know, and I'm talking about the herids in general, because there's a

whole dynasty of herids. Yeah, I didn't, I thought Puppet wasn't my word, because I thought he kind of,

the first herid and really the rest of him kind of online, we're almost trying to carve out their own

the looking dumb, like they were from the Romans, for the Romans, but they once they kind of got to GDA, they were like, oh, we could actually work on out in the, you know, out in the middle of nowhere

“here, we can just make our own kingdom, and that's what's caused a lot of problems as well.”

It's good point. I mean, they were self-interest made better term for them. Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, we're all the herids, good at construction and was it herid, the great that was really when they kind of led the charge with, with that. Yeah, I don't know, but at the others kind of seem to be like just, you know, going from his glory, because, you know, and obviously his biggest thing was the, you know, the freshening and rebuilding up of the temple, but he had a lot of other things

he did as well. But obviously he was so, you know, narcissistic and paranoid. I mean, you know,

he killed all those two-year-olds, which that was one thing that I'd never heard anybody put a number

to it. And he said the most historic instance scholars said between a dozen and a two dozen, which was far fewer than I had always imagined. And I was thinking like thousands. Yeah, that's what

“I mean, because they talk about the wailing of the mothers, you know, but I mean, like he said,”

one, two-year-old killed would have been tragic enough. But it did make me, I've always imagined it being worse than that. So if that's true, it's not as bad as I've always thought about it being. So so where you had this kind of coinciding with the kingdom language, too, is you have Tiberius is kind of the head of Rome at this time when Jesus entered into the scene. Yeah, Pontius Pile, you had that whole character, right? Jesus is killed on the cross. He

is put into him three days later. He's re-raises from the dead. The church is kind of coming out of that. And then you have Caligula, which was insane. I mean, that's one of the things that was brought up in this lecture is that he was like certified, you know, insane. If you've read about Caligula, I would be say, be careful reading about Caligula because it is down right Pontographic. I mean, this guy was a very perverse person. And it was just a brutal pirate.

So he comes in after Tiberius, well, then he gets assassinated internally and then that paves the way for Nero. And so when Nero comes on the scene, now we got to go to Rome and got kind of... Yeah, Nero's garden. I was going to mention that Zach, I haven't mentioned it a while, but if you're interested in this sort of history and it was very interesting to me,

And it's so good because we talk about a lot of what was talked about in this lecture.

“And we actually filmed in Rome from Nero's garden in Dad, you know, talked about it in the Colosseum,”

the things that Dad talked about with the persecution of Christians, feeding them to the lions, and, you know, bowling all and put him as lamp stands. I mean, human beings put on as torches, you know, to light gardens. I mean, it's just... It's a brutal. And so what you kind of see those, the intersection of the temple and all of this stuff, because, you know, Caligula going back one, one emperor, he wanted to build a, a gold statue of himself and put it in the temple.

And the only reason why he didn't accomplish that was because he got assassinated. Well, then Nero comes on the same year thinking, maybe he's going to be a little bit more friendly to the cause. Well, not only did they were not like the Christians, what he did and he said they were atheist. He, he, he also was the, the Christians he said were atheists. Yes. Well, yeah. And then Jews. Yeah. Because they, yeah, because they didn't have an image of

their God. But, but Nero wanted to expand. He wanted to take the whole area and he wanted to turn it into, uh, for marble into gold. And so he couldn't get the elites to sell them the land and their

property. So he ended up burning down the city. And then ultimately, he blamed that on the Christians

“with started the persecution, the Christians. And then lastly, I think where this kind of ball ends”

is, um, is the temple itself being being destroyed and, uh, and being burned in 8070. Um, and so that's kind of the full scope of kind of like the whole history of the whole story up until really the birth of the new church. And Nero's the one that executed Peter and Paul too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that because that, that's a big deal. I mean Peter and Paul for the two foundational figures in, you know, the first century post Jesus, uh, and you could

probably throw John in there as well. And for those two to be murdered right before the temple destruction was a big blow to Christianity. Obviously, uh, but you couldn't stamp it out because,

“you know, obviously, the temple goes on because we are the temple. So well, that, I think that's”

the, that's the thing, what time we get right now? We're, we're out of time. Okay. I, I think this is the thing that we can end with right here is, is that when you think about the, that, that vision that Daniel had, one of the things that this lecture helped me really just sit home with me is that you, you think about how in the world is some Carpenters son going to take down the Roman empire.

And it looks as if Nero won the game because he did ultimately, um, defeat the Christianity in the

moment and, and, and ultimately, the second tip was to show it in, and, and, and 87, so it looks like that Rome actually won and the Christianity and Judaism for that matter are, are, are done. But, but now we know here some 2000 years later that that was not the end of the story that that was actually just the beginning of the faith that we hold to the ancient faith of Christianity. This is not a story that is made up. This is a story that is anchored in real historical events. So

we are part of something that's not leaping off the ability, hoping that someone's there to catch this. We're actually rooted in something that's real in this anchored in reality. So you guys want to take this course with us. You can go to unashamed for Hillsdale.com. The course is free. Again, we're going to, we're going to, um, anyone that completes the course, we're going to have drawing and that going to bite you guys to come down and hang out with us on set. Love for you guys to be a part of

this with us. Join us every Friday for unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no cost to you. That's unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.