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That's kind of some of the different points we're going to be looking at as we go ahead. Let me start off. This is it. Yeah, thank you. You have a proverb there. Michael, you got the mic. Why don't you just read it for us? You got to turn the mic on, though.

Did you turn it on? Push that button at the bottom? Yeah. Okay. Proverbs 4. The way of the wicked is like the deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. All right. I stuck that one up there, and that is not in my regular course, although I think I could get by with putting it in there.

Of the 76 Roman emperors of the Christian, early Christian church, they gave Christianity a lot of trouble. You got some of the first persecutions against Christianity during this time. But I just want you to know, those Roman emperors didn't come off too good themselves. Of the 76 Roman emperors, you have, you know, only 19 of them died a natural death.

Seven were killed in battle. 42 of them were murdered. 42 of the emperors were murdered. Two more were probably murdered. You know, like Claudius, we're not sure. We think his wife poisoned him. And then six more were forced to commit suicide. So. What does that tell you about the backdrop of Christianity during this time period?

Politically, would you say it's a stable period? I mean, we think our politics are unstable at this point, but I don't think our politics are anything as bad as they were back then. And there's more to that story, which we may touch on. Okay, so now this is just a basic course.

I hope I'm not insulting some of you, but you gotta understand in America today, when I teach this course, I have a lot of students that they have no idea. They don't even know the basics. And so I had to start very basically. Okay, of course, we know that today that area that has been referred to as Palestine is conquered by the Romans.

Pompey, the Roman, of course, comes in there, takes over the Hasmonean dynasty. We've already gone in great detail about the Herods, and so I don't need to recover all that material. But just real briefly, in case somebody wasn't here, by 142 BC, the Jews had secured their independence from the Seleucid rulers who had governed Judea in Samaria, I mean Assyria, and you have this successful rebellion by Judas Maccabeus, and then that goes up to 64.

And that BCE, by the way, In most history textbooks nowadays, they no longer use AD and BC, right? And most of these, I will continue to use that old time system because that's what I was raised up with. We see BCE, that's before the Common Era, and then, you know, I can't even remember the other one.

Yeah, it's after the Common Era. Okay, so that's the new dating system, and it may have popped up there a few times. So you got Jewish Maccabeus higher in 64 BC. They were conquered by Pompey, the Romans. The Jews, of course, later rebel against the Romans. We didn't get too much into the Jewish rebellion starting in 66.

And that's, you know, where the famous historian Josephus gets his start. He was part of that rebellion, fighting against the Romans. Then later he switched sides, became very good friends with Tacitus, I mean, not Pompey, but Titus. And later goes back to Rome, writes his famous opus, you know, history of the Jewish Wars.

And Josephus is really a, if you're really into the history of the period, that's the person you need to read. He has some of the best source documents available. And so you got, of course, in 70 AD, you got the walls of Jerusalem are breached by the Romans.

As I've already told you, the Jews who were fighting the Romans were just as viciously fighting each other. And in fact, one group completely slaughtered, massacred another group, which, of course, weakened them in their fight against the Romans. So the Romans come in there, utterly lay waste to the city.

And so, you know, that's the destruction that Jesus had foretold. You know, Jesus was just before this time period. Now, of course, by that time period, you had, you know, the three basic sects in Judaism. You actually had a lot more than this. Judaism, like any religion, has differing denominations.

And let me handle this right off the bat. Some of you have already heard me say this before. You've had this before. Let's see. Let's pick up. Robert, what was defined denomination for me? Denomination, I think, in the general sense means which denomination of Christianity. Okay. I really didn't define it.

But I've got to leave you alone right there. I'm going to jump over to Kevin. And Kevin, what is non-denominational? Well, you don't like the word non-denominational. Yeah, I know. I think, like, a denomination is a group of people with a particular set of beliefs. Boy, he remembers his homework.

This is great. You must be a college student. Our denomination would be they don't want to be affiliated with any particular. Okay. Yeah, he gave the correct definition. A particular group of people with a particular set of beliefs. All right, now here's the problem. We in this country have, you know, there's this anti-denominationalism in America that goes back to the beginnings of America.

But here's the problem with that whole idea about being non-denominational. I know what you mean when you say it, and I use the terminology myself. You just can't get away from it here in America. But it's really an absurd term. Because you see, if you belong to a church and you all agree that you are not a denomination, that is a particular set of beliefs, and you have, congratulations, become a new denomination.

Now, we got a whole huge denomination in this country called the Church of Christ, and they will say that they are the church of Christ, and we are not a denomination. But I got news for them. Yes, they are, you know, by Webster's dictionary. So all religions have denominations, and so does Islam, by the way.

You know, Islam is one of the big ones that wants to pretend that it doesn't. But we all know the two big ones, right? Shiite and Sunni. And they definitely do not agree. Of course, one says the others are not even Muslim, right? Okay, but, you know, so you can't get away.

From in any religion, when it becomes of a certain age and growth, you start to have splinterings occurring. And so, enough said on that. But anyway, in Judaism, the two big splits were between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And we've already covered this, but just real briefly, overview.

The Pharisees were the legalists. They were very, I guess, a modern word, not really fully descriptive, would be fundamentalists of their day. And they're the ones that had all these incredible laws in addition to the law, the Torah. They wanted to build a hedge around the Torah so you couldn't even get close enough to break actual law within the Torah.

And that's why they had these things about, you know, women, you can't look in the mirror on Sunday because if you look in a mirror, you might see a gray hair. If you pluck the gray hair, you've broken the law because you worked. You pulled out a hair.

And that, that, you know, that's verboten. All right. So that's the Pharisees. The Sadducees were centered in the priestly class. They're the ones that controlled the temple. Of course, now there is no temple. And they were the ones who were usually the Hellenist. They've been heavily influenced by Hellenistic civilization.

They had, therefore, rejected a lot of Judaism, in my view, because they would say the only canonical books of the Bible, that means legitimate books of the Bible, basically, was the Torah. And they really, you know, did not adhere much to the prophets. And they would say that there is no resurrection, even.

You know, they would be sort of the liberals of their day. You know, we got seminaries, unfortunately, in America, the first thing they do, they tell the preachers, you shouldn't believe in the divine birth of Jesus, and he's not born of the virgin, and right on down the line, you know.

Okay. So anyway, that'd be the Sadducees. And then you had the Essenes, which by this time are pretty much wiped out. And the Essenes were sort of almost like a monastic group, although apparently they did allow marriage. And the biggest group of them were located in the Dead Sea area, that famous area.

And they're most famous and remembered today simply why? What do they preserve? The Dead Sea Scrolls. There's even debate as to where they were the ones that did that or not. I think the evidence is overwhelming that they were. And of course, those Dead Sea Scrolls have been just indescribably important to biblical scholarship because until the Dead Sea Scrolls, do y'all understand what was the problem with the Old Testament document in terms of verification of its accuracy?

Yeah, they just assumed that it was not accurate. And of course, the reason for that, ironically, is because the Jews were so careful about preservation. What would they do with a scroll if it had become disfigured or was tattered or was falling apart? What did they do? They burned it or bury it, and of course, buried in soil where it wouldn't be preserved.

And so we had, the interesting thing was, you actually had older copies of the New Testament than you had older copies of the Old Testament. Because, you know, the New Testament, my gosh, it's just incredible the amount of scholarship documents that are available going back within 30 years of Jesus himself.

I mean, the crucifixion and resurrection. You have within three decades. In other words, you have documents going back to the actual lifetimes of the apostles, which in ancient scholarship, that's unheard of. I mean, I think Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars is like a 400-year gap time when it was actually written and the first actual existent manuscript that they have.

And nobody questions the Gallic Wars. Oh, that's very trustworthy. Meantime, you've got Julius Caesar. We know that about 30% of Julius Caesar's, not Julius Caesar, what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Shakespeare's, Julius Caesar. Shakespeare, they know that about 30% of Shakespeare today that we're reading wasn't actually written by Shakespeare.

It's corruption. It was added in later. And that's a modern document compared to the Bible. Shakespeare, it may not seem too modern to you, but I mean, comparatively speaking, in the scope of time, that's a pretty recent document, and there's already 30% corruption in that. So, surely the Old Testament is just tons of corruptions, right?

Well, of course, they take the scroll of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, they lay it out there. You know how many changes and differences there were? I think it was five. And it was variations of spellings. Okay? That's a miracle. I mean, that is really a miracle, you know, really.

So, so I just wanted to establish Christianity is well. Now, by the way, they have now come out with copies of much older Qurans, and guess what they're finding out? Massive differences between the original parts of the Quran and the modern-day Quran. Now, they found one in Yemen that had been preserved, and just, oh my gosh.

But, of course, you know, they're very scared to say much about the Quran. You know, I mean, you know, you can say all kinds of horrible lies about the Old Testament or New Testament, and the worst of Christian is going to say is, well, you know, that's just not true.

Whereas in Islam, you might find yourself being murdered, you know, a fatwa being issued against you. So, Maybe that explains there hasn't been as much scholarship on the Quran. Anyway, let's go on. Now, of course, this is for my students. I have some basic scriptures there. Let's read over these.

These are major teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And there's a debate about the actual birth of Jesus, which we're not going to get into today. Michael, would you hand us around? Some of those nice young college students back there, I bet they can handle these. You've already gotten him.

Can you read A there, the first one? A man should love God and his neighbor. Matthew 22, 37 through 40. Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Okay. Of course, much of what Jesus teaches comes from the Old Testament, you know. And Jesus said this is the first and the greatest commandment, we as Christians, guess what? Is that still valid? Oh, yeah. It's amazing how we get away from the first principles.

And every day of our life, when we get up in the morning, We should think of this commandment. I really do think. Are we really loving our neighbors? And love is more than emotion. Love is a commitment. Love is action. And so that's very important. Okay, somebody read me the next one.

Okay, oh, it's just John 3:16. John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. It's amazing how many times that verse, the first part of this quote, but people don't usually quote the second part, right?

And I think it's important that we quote that whole part there. Okay. Who's going to read next for me? Mere fulfillment of the religious vows without love is insufficient. By the way, who do you think he's really aiming those types of verses at? The Pharisees. And you know, if we're honest, there's a little bit of Pharisee in all of us.

Okay. All right. Who's going to read that for me? Looking at Matthew. 23, 25, 28. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.

In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you're full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Okay. And as we thoroughly covered last time with the World View series, Jesus made very exclusive claims to salvation. So who will read me John 14, 6?

Jesus answered, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Okay. And by the way, there's one of the, you know, I'm witnessing, hopefully everybody knows how to handle this, but if anybody, and here's, I've several times had people in discussions tell me, it says, well, nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus claim to be God.

Where does he? Very explicit. Where? Someone. I am the Father or one in the gospel of John. Yeah, yes. Before Abraham was, I am. Yeah, and what about that I am there? Well, a little bit more. The fancy word for it, Jeff, you back there. Tetragrammathon. Am I saying that right?

Will you explain to folks what the tetragrammathon is? The. Tetra grammaton is the fourth letter name. That's what Tetra is from. In Hebrew that they don't pronounce. But it means it goes back to Moses' whenever God is speaking to Moses and he tells him his name. And by the way, even in the English translation, it should become clear to you what he's doing because what do the Jews at that point do in the passage?

They pick up rocks to kill him. And they flat out say what? You're making yourself out to be God. And so when people say that Jesus never claimed to be God, it's just sheer ignorance on their part. And you just take on that passage, explain it to them, and that just blew that argument out of kingdom come.

Hey, remember, we're taking these arguments hostage, and we're tearing down these arguments. Do it nicely, do it politely, but explain to them, you don't know what you're talking about. Of course, you may not even want to use that phraseology, but anyway. So Jesus made very explicit, very exclusive claims.

And remember, quoting Ravi Zacharias, truth by definition is exclusive. So if there is such a thing as truth, if there is a person claiming to telling truth, You would expect it to be exclusive. That's not a non-rational thing. That's a very rational thing. It is irrational to claim that something is true and then at the same time say, well, it's not exclusive.

You know, there's many ways. No, there's not. And so, anyway, just remember that. So, we, of course, center to Christianity is the crucifixion, and of course, getting ahead, also the resurrection. That's not the end of the story. And by the way, that takes you back to Catholicism. You know, Protestants, a Protestant cross is always what?

Empty. Yeah, yeah. Because we emphasize the resurrection, and Catholicism tends to emphasize the crucifixion. And we just want to make people aware as Protestants, that's not the end of the story. Okay. All right. So that's for that. All right. Now, of course, Jesus criticized ritualism, materialism of the Jewish priests, man's selfishness and greed.

The Jews of this time were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. And by the way, that's the Hebrew, I don't know, Effie, what's the actual Hebrew word, Messiah? Messiah. Huh? Messiah. Messiah. Okay. All right, so straight, that's what you call transliteration, I guess you would call it.

Is that right, Jeff? And Christos is the Greek. Word for the Hebrew word Messiah. Now, don't laugh, but a lot of students nowadays, when you say Jesus Christ, they think Christ is Jesus' last name. All right, okay, and so, and by the way, I don't know, Effie, what do you think about this?

I would think probably if you're witnessing to a person who's Jewish, you might want to say, use Jesus. You might not want to use the word Christ. Of course, a lot of secular Jews wouldn't know the difference anyway, but Christos to a Jew is really kind of insulting.

Why is that? I would think, what do you think, Effie? If you understand, because you say Jesus Christ, you're saying Jesus is the Messiah. And of course, a Jewish person would say, well, no, he's not the Messiah. He hasn't come yet. All right, so I don't know, you can ask Effie about that a little bit more, about Jewish sensitivities, but I would probably use Jesus in discussions with them starting off.

All right, yeah. The Jews believe that Messiah has not come yet. Right. When he does come in their eyes, is he God? No. He is what to them as the Messiah. Well, I would, how would you handle that, Effie? One rabbi explained that they're looking for a George Walter, political leader.

They're looking for a militant, or at least many were looking for a militant Messiah who would come and establish God's rule on earth. Yes, sir? What word means militant one? Anointed, the anointed one. Yeah. Okay, so, all right, well, you got, of course, both the Pharisees were against Jesus, so were the Sadducees.

And I should also point out, and the Bible mentions this one place at least, the Herodians. You had that faction as well. That, you know, they wanted to bring, keep the Herods in power. So you had three major factions. One's a political faction, two are religious, but both religious factions are also political.

You know, there's no separation, church, and state. They're all balled up together. And we've already discussed the fact that these three factions finally get Jesus and they bring him. But why did they even have to bring Jesus to Pilate? Who knows? They couldn't crucify people. Well, they couldn't execute people, period.

They could not execute people because that authority was only through Rome now. So they had to go to the Romans, get permission to execute. You know, there's prophecy about that as well. You know, the scepter would be taken away. And that's part of the power of the scepter is power over, you know, capital punishment.

And that had been taken away as prophesies by the Bible. So to go to Pontius Pilate, And I think I've already mentioned prior to this that we think one of the political reasons Pilate goes along with allowing the crucifixion of Jesus, even though he clearly says he found no fault within him, is the fact that he was a appointee by Sejanus, who had previously run things for Tiberius.

And Sejanus then subsequently tries to overthrow Tiberius, and that plot is nipped in the bud just at the last minute. And Tiberius basically goes paranoid, goes crazy, and orders all the appointees of Sejanus to be executed, except for the outlying provinces. And Pilate was a Sejanus appointee. And so when they say, we're going to appeal this to the emperor, you know, that scared the daylights out of him because he doesn't want Tiberius to be reminded or brought to his attention that, hey, we still got a guy out there who's a Sejanus appointee.

And so that's speculation, but it's pretty good speculation. I'll just say that. Okay, so now, of course, the most outstanding, I think, proof of the resurrection is the reaction of the disciples. You know, the Bible is brutally honest. I've heard it said that the Bible is a book that no one would have written, humanly speaking, if they even wanted to, because it's too honest.

I mean, it puts stuff in there that if somebody's making up a religion, they would not put in there. It shows, you know, the negative as well as the positive. In fact, you know, sometimes you read the Bible, you know, it's some gross stuff in there because it exposes our sin.

It is a sin mirror in some aspects. You know, and I used to teach a youth class many years ago, and I said, you know, one of the things you do is you get up in the morning, you read your Bible, it's just like when a young person looks in a mirror and they see that zit, you know, and they've got to pop that zit, right?

And that Bible, when you get up and you read it, you know, it should bring to mind your sin zits that you need to pop that morning, okay? And that might be a different way of thinking about it, but I think that's, you know, definitely valid. And the disciples, their reaction is what's amazing because remember what happens when Jesus is arrested?

They all run off. Yeah. Now, what changes things is the resurrection. These wimps, these cowards, Become roaring lions who are going to face brutal torture, execution, even crucifixion, and they refuse to deny Christ. Now, you might be able to persuade someone to lie, you know, if they think they can get away with it, but they know they're going to face death if they continue lying.

What's the likelihood? Yeah, especially torture back. You know, this claims that torture is not effective. History does not back that claim up. Okay, and I'm sorry to say, and they would start squealing pretty quick, you know. But these guys stand up against all of that. And the other thing, too, you've got to remember: one thing everybody agrees on at that point, except some modern atheists who hadn't done their homework.

The tomb was empty. It was definitely empty. And they have got to explain that. And really, the scenarios for explaining the empty tomb are, it's one of the most ironclad cases for resurrection. You would think, well, people just don't raise from the dead. Well, when you actually try to explain away the resurrection, and we don't have time to do that, you're going to find out that's the only rational explanation.

Yes, sir. And didn't they make it a point the Pharisees to put a guard in front of there so that they could. Oh, yeah, yeah, you got this. Seal, and by the way, it's a Roman seal. You know what happens if you break a Roman seal without authorization?

You did, okay, very quickly. And there's just, I mean, there's so many things about, and even you go to Jewish sources who most definitely did not want to believe in the resurrection, there's one thing that comes out real clear: the tomb was empty. They're trying to explain away why the tomb was empty, you know.

And so, yes, sir. Is it not accurate to say if modern atheists that I've heard this from my friend who's an atheist that they don't have to prove it because the New Testament is a fairy tale anyway? Well, yeah, they'll say stuff like that. But that's a very uneducated atheist.

Yes, sir. Okay. I mean, Bart Erdmann himself, who is a real mystery to me because he started out Wheaton. He went to evangelical schools. Then he went over to Yale. Well, we say, well, that probably is what did it. Well, no, he was studying under Metzger, who's one of the top evangelical scholars in history.

And Bruce Metzger. And then he totally rejects Christianity. And he spent his entire life when he teaches the rise of Christianity, he's teaching it to Jews. Destroy people's faith in it. That's pretty much what he's all about. But even he, I was reading an article by him the other day where he was dressing down these atheists who are trying to say that Jesus is not historical.

You know, he's saying, you know, you're hurting our cause making that because you look like an idiot, is basically what he's telling them. You know, even he admits the historicity of Jesus. Jesus says it's a fairy tale. Simply haven't done their research. No, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the existence of Jesus is far stronger than the existence of Julius Caesar, just historically speaking.

The documentation is far more extensive for the historicity of Jesus than any other ancient character in existence, to be honest. I think I could say that sweeping statement quite easily, just based on the manuscript evidence. There's no other event in ancient history in terms of the existence of a person.

Now, you know, the miracles and all that, you've got plenty of debate there, but as far as the historicity of this person existing, this person being crucified, by the way, nobody disagrees on that except the Muslims. And by the way, if you're witnessing the Muslims, that's a real good thing to hammer because the historicity of Jesus is very well established, and the Quran denies this.

And, you know, they say he wasn't really crucified. And in fact, there's a little Muslim girl working with me at school. And she, at that time, had not yet become a Christian, but she had rejected Islam. And I said, Well, what made you see that wasn't true? And she says, Well, you know, when you taught this section about the crucifixion of Jesus, says, I got on the web and researched it, and I realized that you can't deny it, you know.

And so, you know, that was one of the turning points for her. She realized that that wasn't true. Okay, so anyway, certainly, you know, and Paul himself says that we're, you know, we're totally basically wasting our time as Christians if there was no resurrection. You know, it's the center of Christianity.

So let's get to Paul. Paul, just looking at, you know, from a secular historian perspective, even the secular historians recognize that Paul is a major turning point. Of course, God knows what he does when he chooses his servants. You know, and you know, you and I, Paul would have been the last person we would have chosen.

And we all know he starts out as the worst enemy of Christianity. It is quite likely that at his orders, Christians were killed. And yet, God chooses him to be his special, special servant. And so, anyway, you got Paul, and with. You know, particularly much of the New Testament is written by Paul when you think of it.

And, of course, he makes it quite clear, and really, it was clear, even going back to ancient Judaism, that Christianity is a rural religion. It's not just for Jews, right? And he tells that Jesus' sacrifice made it possible for one to be saved by grace or unmerited favor.

You know, for it is by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. That is such a beautiful, beautiful verse, right? And, of course, you have, you know, the other big thing that Paul was so instrumental in in the early, early history of the rise of Christianity is this idea that you no longer have to keep the Jewish, these additional laws that they had created in order to be a Christian.

And the big one was, of course, circumcision. That is no longer necessary. And now, I would just say, I don't mean to be trite here, but if you go up to a person who, of course, is not circumcised, who's an adult, and you say, Hey, you need to adopt my religion, and by the way, you've got to be circumcised, just practice.

Speaking, is that going to be a turnoff? More than likely. Okay? Alright, so I just wanted to point out to you that one of the big impediments to Jewish Judaism being a rural religion was that, and I would say still is. Okay, and that's a requirement. And Paul, of course, frees Gentiles from that requirement.

And that, and you see, you'll notice everywhere Paul's modus operandi, if you read the book of Acts, he would go to one of these pagan cities in Asia Minor, later Greece itself, and he would first go to the local synagogue. Now, you've got to remember, even back then, there's about 9 million Jews, at least that's one estimate, scattered throughout the Roman world.

And so you have Jewish synagogues already all over the Roman Empire. And so he'd go there first, and you'll notice he'll preach, a few of the Jews will accept, most will reject, usually causes a big fight, big ruckus breaks out, but a huge group would follow him out of the synagogue who were the God-fearers.

Now, who were they? In a lot of cases, they were Gentiles attending Jewish synagogue, but they Haven't fully converted to Judaism, and might I point out what I just mentioned is one of the reasons why. Now, another reason why is all these incredible, you know, legalistic rules and regulations to be a full-fledged Jew.

And so, when Paul releases them from this, man, sign me up. You know, that was a major, major shift. You know, when Paul goes to the, you know, the Jerusalem, basically, you don't, it's not officially called that in the book of Acts, but it's actually one of the first church councils.

It's there in Jerusalem. You know, he talks to the apostles and James, and they say, no, this is not necessary to be a Christian. Okay. And so that is going to be a major, major turning point. And you're going to start having huge numbers of Gentiles now coming inside the church.

Up to that point, most Christians were Jews. Okay? And might I also add that so many of them were still Jews that initially the Christians are under the Roman radar because the Romans first looked upon the earliest Christians as yet a new Jewish sect. You see? And now, why is that important?

They were protected. Yeah. You've got to understand. Understand that there's problems with Christians with Rome, and they're going to be such problems that eventually the Romans are going to try to wipe Christianity out. And of course, one little problem is Christians have a God that's not depicted by any concrete form.

Both the early Jews and later the arrival of the Christians were accused of an astonishing accusation by the Romans when they first ran into them that they were atheists. Now, if you know anything about Jews, how in the world can you call them atheists? Well, there's actually quite a few atheist Jews today, you know, but religious Jews, I mean, they're the most religious people on the face of the earth.

But why would the Romans think they were atheists? No idols. Yeah. Remember, I told you, Pompey, when he took Jerusalem, he violates the Holy of Holies. He goes behind that veil, and he is utterly thunderstruck by what he does not see. What did he expect to see when he went behind that veil?

A spectacular, you know, Indiana Jones looking for that spectacular golden idol that he can steal. All right. And he goes in this Holy of Holies that the Jews will go berserk over letting anyone in there. You know, they just riot and all this stuff. And he goes behind that veil.

It's an empty room. You know? And that really freaked out the Romans. I don't know how else to describe it to you. It freaked them out because these guys must be atheists. For a Roman to believe in a God, what must you have? An idol. Something to look at.

Concrete. Romans are very concrete. They invented concrete for Pete's sake. And so you got this was very strange to the Romans. And later on, when they finally recognized Christians are separate from Judaism, the big thing was that, once again, they think they're atheists. Because they do not have a God that you can depict.

But starting off, because Christians were, the first Christians were Jews, and even after quite a few Gentiles come in, there's still enough Jews that the Romans just considered them to be a new Jewish sect. And therefore, Judaism was protected by Roman law. You see, the Jews had special protections that no one else in the Roman Empire had.

And one was, for example, when Roman legions marched through Palestine or modern-day Israel, they would do something there that they would never do anywhere else. Anyone know what that is? Cover their standards. Yeah, the Romans had standards. That was their pride. Like, you know, their flag marching through.

And the Romans would not take down their standard for anyone. You know, that's their pride. But when they're going through Israel, they would cover it up. You know why? The Jews saw that as an idol. And they'd go berserk. And they'd start attacking the Romans. And the Romans at first, you know, would kill them.

And then finally, they raised, we're going to kill everybody. You know, they just, these people are nuts. You know, so they would cover up their standards only when they go through Israel. You know, because they're so fanatical about it. And so anyway, you know, the Romans extended these.

And by the way, notice, even though they extended these special protection to the Jews, it still didn't satisfy the Jews. The Jews are going to rise up in 66, Great Jewish Rebellion, then they're going to rise up again on Barakachba. You know, the Romans were very frustrated with the Jews.

All right, but so there's Paul's missionary journey, and how much time we got? We're about to run out. Well, anyway, to Rome itself, let's start jumping ahead. I'm taking too much time here. Now, the other big thing, just practical things we're looking at, circumcision was a very practical reason that Christianity is going to be much more acceptable to a much broader spectrum of people.

Another reason is just some other little practical observations that I want to point out. To you. There's a lot of competition at the time that Christianity came forth. And this should be a comforting thing to us, too. You know, there's a lot of competition out there today against Christianity, all kinds of different beliefs and isms.

But Christianity back then had an advantage that I would say is just as true today as it was then. Many gods, but they're all limited. Okay, I'd say that's still true of the many isms and beliefs out there, you know, offered little in the way of community. Well, I would say there's some out there today that offer counterfeit community, you know, but I would still say Christian community, you can't beat it.

We know that. We've experienced that. And that's still true today. The other pagan religions did not have congregational worship. Now, this is something that has changed. Even religions that didn't used to have congregational worship have congregational worship, I noticed now, but they don't realize it all goes back to Christianity.

Now, you're saying, what in the heck is this guy talking about? The pagan Greek and Roman religions of that day had no concept of people coming together as a group like we do regularly today. And even other religions do. They're really copycatting Christianity on that one aspect. Christians, and actually, it starts with the Jews, starts with the synagogue.

But Even in the synagogue, you had separation of the sexes. It is the Christian congregation where both sexes can come together and worship together. That was a new idea. It was not done before. You see, in pagan religion, you would go to temple probably by yourself or with a few friends.

I've had some students come back and say, well, you know, I went on this tour and saw these temples. And I said, well, what did you think? But I said, well, where did all the people sit? And the temples did not have to be that big because they did not have congregational.

There were no super mega churches in ancient times. Or the very concept behind that was not in existence. And by the way, when you go, the idea was to bribe the God to do something for you. You'd offer sacrifice because I believe God's attracted by the blood. And the whole idea.

And of course, the other big thing, too, was, you know, they sacrificed all kinds of stuff that Jews would never dream of sacrificing, such as starting off with big one pigs. So anyway, but the sacrifices were to bribe the God to do something for you. And so anyway, that's all different.

And there's no true. Scriptures. Now, some of you say, wait a minute, you got, well, let me restate that. There are no true scriptures in the sense of a Hebrew type or a Christian type. For the Greeks, the closest thing they had, who knows? Anybody had classical history in here?

What's the closest thing to Scripture for the Greeks? Homer. Yeah. The Iliad and the Odyssey. Or the Idiot and the Oddity, as one student wrote in an essay. Okay, but what was the scripture to the Greeks? The Iliad and the Odyssey. No, Homer. And of course, with the Egyptians, it's even more bizarre.

You know, they had all these religious mythical stories. And by the way, another big difference, too, is both Judaism and Christianity are historic. They're based on solid, rational, historic documents and sources. These others were based on fanciful, wild, mythical tales. In fact, maybe I'll tell you a couple of those to give you an illustration.

Okay. And also, there's not much hope in the afterlife. Now, it's true the Greeks had this idea of Hades, which is kind of a dark, shadowy world that, you know, really nobody wants to go there, but you're doomed to go there, you know. But nothing like the Christian idea of heaven, okay?

The Egyptians had a feel of the fills of the blessed, which is a little bit better than Hades, but not much hope after the afterlife. And by the way, in all these other religions, it's usually a works-oriented type religion. You had to do certain rituals, or you had to become good enough.

You know, like with the Egyptians, you know, you come before this Egyptian God, and he's literally got scales, and they're going to take your heart, you know, representing your life, and they're going to put it on one scale, and then they're going to take a feather and put it on the other scale.

And if your good works outweigh your bad works, then, you know, your heart be lighter than the feather. How much hope would that give you? All right, yeah, well, that's what I think, too. Okay, so, and of course, there is confusing, too, because whatever ancient religion you had, it's which God are you going to worship?

You know, you got so many that they had to propitiate. You see, if there's something going wrong in your life, it's probably because you've ticked off one of these gods, our goddesses. And you need to go to temple and offer sacrifice to bribe them to stop doing to you whatever they think you're, you think they're doing to you.

And another big thing you've got to understand, too, and by the way, this is all predestinarian. Long before Christianity, you had the concept of predestination. Of course, quite different concept predestination, but the idea of fate. Everything is controlled by fate. You know, you always have. On one extreme, free will, you know, I'm in charge of my destiny and I make my own decisions and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then, are we puppets on strings pulled by unseen strings? You know, for the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, it was definitely the idea of predestination. And of course, you know, you have these, that's where the Greek tragedies are based upon. Oedipus Rex, you know, you know, he's going to, you know, kill his father and marry his mother.

You know, and no matter what he tried to do to avoid that, it happens. Okay. So it is no wild view in that respect. So very predestinarian. And also, there's this concept in pagan religion that you do not intervene with someone who's going through bad times. Because the pagan view is if somebody's going through a tragedy, why are they going through that tragedy?

Because they're gods and head of them. The gods are punishing that person. And if you try to intervene to help that person, the gods are going to be mad at you. Religiously, from a Christian viewpoint, looking at their viewpoint, it almost gives the person a religious reason not to be compassionate.

In fact, compassion. Is viewed literally as a negative thing. You shouldn't be compassionate. Now, I am sure there are pagan mothers and pagan fathers who, despite that, cared about their kids if they're going through bad times and would try to intervene. But it was always with the realization that by doing this, they can bring down the wrath of the gods upon them.

And so that makes paganism a very cold religion. It's very cold, very empty. And what do you think is going to happen? Somebody hears the story of Jesus who comes from this background. Talk about a warmth, a breath of fresh air, an attractive faith that it's going to be.

And so keep that in mind, too. So we've already covered this. Anything I haven't covered there? Gods of the state? Oh, there's another part of pagan religion, too, is that it was actually totally tied up in the government, totally tied up with the state. And this is only going to come increasingly true during the time period of the early rise of Christianity because originally to show, give sacrifice to a particular God is kind of like a patriotic act.

It's like saluting the flag. It's not just a religious thing you're doing, it's a religious thing you're doing. I mean, a political thing you're doing. Doing too. And of course, with the advent of Christianity, you got the Roman emperors moving towards having themselves deified. And the real cracking point for early Christianity is going to come when the emperors demand that everyone offer sacrifice to the emperor as an act of patriotism.

And of course, Christians can't do that. Why? If you offer sacrifice, you're acknowledging that the emperor is a what? A God. And Christians can't do that. And is that going to get them in a whole lot of trouble? Yeah, because they're viewed as being not patriotic. Okay, so we have three minutes, so I probably should stop it there.

And we're just going to continue. Okay, go ahead. I thought I'd get a lot further than there today, but anyway.