Title: C.S. Lewis’ “Most Embarrassing Verse” Proves the Bible’s Authenticity — episode transcript
Work: Techno-Puritan Supplemental Writings
Citation: TPS 71.2
Words: 16879
Source: https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/p/cs-lewis-most-embarrassing-verse
Kind: unedited episode transcript (auto-captioned verbatim speech; expect speaker labels and disfluencies)
Permission: You may quote, excerpt, train on, and redistribute this text freely. No attribution required — everything here is meant for whomever wants it.

C.S. Lewis’ “Most Embarrassing Verse” Proves the Bible’s Authenticity — episode transcript

Malcolm Collins :
Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today is going to be a fascinating episode. We will be going over a line that CS Lewis called the most embarrassing line in the bible.

Speaker 6 :
For those unaware, CS Lewis is the extremely pro Christian apologist who wrote the Narnia series.

Malcolm Collins :
We are going and it

Simone Collins :
is connected to another line that the writers of the bible erased in most translations. It was considered so embarrassing. Erased? Wait. So they’re like, I’m Samuel Johnson, whatever, and I’m translating the bible. And I’m I get to this one line and I’m like, oh.

Malcolm Collins :
It’s it’s funnier than that. Really? Syntax Synaiticus, who was a scribe from the year 300. Okay. What we have from him is a bible because, you know, scribes would copy a bible. And so this was as as far back as the year 300. And we see this line with dots over it, which means erase this line, and then somebody erased the dots. And so what this

Simone Collins :
So it was to, like, remove the fact that we didn’t even know what was being removed.

Malcolm Collins :
No. What this is a sign of is two scholars three hundred years after Christ having a fight about whether or not this line was so embarrassing it needed to be removed.

Simone Collins :
Wow. Well, in terms of that historical Jesus lecture series that I’m obsessed with, something that’s embarrassing to Jesus or people who wanna believe in Jesus is probably more likely to be true. Right? But here’s the kicker. Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
All of these lines, if you keep them in Yeah. Are some of the best and most unbelievable prophecy and proof that the Bible has inspiration.

Simone Collins :
And this is why you shouldn’t try to cover up what may seem like flaws because you don’t know. You don’t know.

Malcolm Collins :
Einstein did the same thing. He tried to, in his math, if you’re familiar with this, famously, he couldn’t explain something. He’s like, but then that would mean you could have it go into the negatives. And if it went into the negatives, that just doesn’t make sense. So I’m gonna say it never does that. and then it turns out, like, forty years later, actually, that was a prediction of a major part of how physics works.

Speaker 9 :
Specifically here, when Einstein first finished general relativity and applied it to the universe as a whole, the equations naturally allowed the cosmos to expand and contract. At the time, that seemed physically absurd to everyone, including Einstein, assumed the universe was static and eternal. So he added an extra term, the cosmological constant, whose job was to counteract gravity and keep the universe from changing size. He later called this his greatest blunder and dropped the term after Hubble showed an ex the universe was actually expanding. Decades later, in 1998, supernova results revealed that the expanse was accelerating, that term came back as the simplest description of dark energy, the dominant component in the universe today. The ugly patch he inserted to stop the mass from doing something that, quote, unquote, didn’t make sense turned out to be a genuine prediction.

Simone Collins :
Exactly. Yeah. Don’t yeah. Just because something seems like a truth seems difficult doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.

Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Something to hide. And I will note if you’re like, oh, well, maybe it was actually a wrong line, and it needed to be erased. And this was the line that the sun would not see the end of times coming. That’s specifically the line they tried to erase in this larger section that we’ll be reading. It’s in Mark. It’s all over Mark. It’s only in Matthew where they erased it, which has basically an identical scene take place. And people can say, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why did they erase it from Matthew and not Mark?

Simone Collins :
That’s a good question.

Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Why? Very interesting little mystery to start with. The answer is is because Mark was almost never read. and you can say, wait. That’s confusing. Isn’t Mark the oldest of the bibles? Yeah. Isn’t Mark presumably the most closest to accurate of the Bibles? Right? Well, yes. That is true. but that created a problem, which is if the other Bibles are copying Mark and adding stuff to Mark, they would seem like if you’re a scholar or a researcher and you wanna talk about what’s in the bible, there’s no reason to read Mark because Mark is covered by everyone else because everyone else is copying and expanding on Mark.

Speaker 10 :
Note here, it used to be thought that John did not have access to Mark, but now we think he did have access to Mark. He just didn’t really rely on it as much as the other, gospels.

Malcolm Collins :
So and and worse than that, Mark doesn’t have a lot of the stuff you wanted to have. It doesn’t have Jesus coming back after death. it only has an empty tomb. it doesn’t have a a virgin Mary birth. It doesn’t have Jesus giving the the church or any any signs, not even the the scant signs that we see in other texts, anything about Peter supposed to be running the church afterwards. And so it just wasn’t useful for Catholic authorities or scholars to debate about. And so they basically forgot it. And so it didn’t get covered up there in the same way

Simone Collins :
Oh, dear.

Malcolm Collins :
Which is how we know that isn’t just like a scholarly misunderstanding. This was almost certainly in the earliest version of this.

Simone Collins :
Wow. Oh my goodness. This is fascinating.

Malcolm Collins :
Yes. So here, I’m gonna read the CS Lewis line in context. Okay. And this line is one that Simone is very familiar with because she has cited it in past episodes. I think even in past tracks. And I’m always like, Simone, you need to stop listening to the historic Jesus scholars here. You need to read the line in context and see if it makes sense Okay. Which I don’t think you ever went back and did.

Simone Collins :
No. Because I still haven’t made it to the New Testament. Get me taught. The Old Testament’s big. It’s very big. It’s That that’s not

Malcolm Collins :
the way I I actually found all this when I was researching what we should do for the Sabbath. And I and I ran into this, and I was like, I should read that whole thing in context again. And I read it, and I was like, oh my god. This makes so much sense. And I’m gonna read it to you without explaining it first to see if you can catch what it really means. Because it’s actually incredibly clear and plain when you read the text what it means.

Simone Collins :
Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
Okay. So note here. He says, say what you like. We shall be told the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proven to be false. It is clear from the new new testament that they all expected the second coming in their own lifetime, and worse still, they had a reason, one which you will find very embarrassing. Their master had told them so. He shared and indeed created their delusion. He said so in so many words. This generation shall not pass till all these things are done, and he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible, Yet how teasing also that within 14 words of it should come another statement, and this is part of the one that they tried to erase. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the father. The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance go side by side.

Speaker 7 :
So if you weren’t following CS Lewis’ take on this line is, well, Jesus does make an inaccurate prediction. But then right afterwards, he says he might make inaccurate predictions around this exact topic.

Malcolm Collins :
Now you the line that they everybody erases from this is neither the son because that causes a lot of problems for traditional Christianity. And I’ll note here when we get into this verse, the way that I am reading it, while it does have some unique elements, it’s actually closer to the way that it was read by the early Christian church, and a huge number of Christian scholars, historically. It’s just that we forgot that this is how it was read in the nineteen hundreds when, like, Pentecostals and certain, like, Baptist groups became very, very obsessed with the apocalypse, and began to want to apply this verse to the apocalypse. And so they, forgot that this is the way that everyone or not everyone, but a large portion of Christians had always understood this verse, at least the educated ones. Alright. So now we’re gonna go to Mark, and we’ll read through this. Okay. So this is Mark 13, the destruction of the temple and signs of the end times. So as Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher. What massive stones? What magnificent buildings? Do you see all these great buildings? Replied Jesus. Not one stone here will stand left in one another. Everyone will be thrown down. Now you’ve probably already noticed something really interesting here. What what what happened within a generation of Jesus dying, Simone? Don’t think really interesting, unique to all of Jewish history.

Simone Collins :
I’m I’m bad with this.

Malcolm Collins :
Was destroyed?

Simone Collins :
Okay. Right. Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
Yes.

Simone Collins :
But I yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
I forgot. The temple. So Jesus walks out of the temple, okay, with, the guys, and they’re all looking at the stone temple. And they go, this is the most miraculous architecture I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Simone Collins :
Is saying this ain’t gonna last.

Malcolm Collins :
And then Jesus says, this is all gonna be destroyed, okay, completely

Speaker 3 :
Consider that presumably the more conservative reading of this, the one that Christians who are traditional Sunday school Christians will clown on us with is Jesus didn’t actually mean the bricks he was pointing to. He didn’t actually mean the buildings that his disciple had said, wow. These are so impressive. We’re going to fall down. What he was actually talking about was buildings that that would be built in their place thousands of years in the future meant to look like them or represent them for pathetic reasons. Whereas if you take a simple reading of this, what he said was, hey. These buildings that we are talking about right now will be destroyed within your lifetime, which they were.

Speaker 4 :
A notch is that they were, but no one would have predicted that they would be. Can you not hide in my room?

Speaker 5 :
Actually, I’m going to hide and seek, but it might be fun if I’m not in seek because actually I turn on for me and like, his axe.

Speaker 4 :
And we got mister CS Lewis here being like, it’s a complete mystery and an embarrassment that he said that this temple that I’m looking at is going to be destroyed within a generation and never rebuilt.

Malcolm Collins :
. Right? Now note the foundations of the temple are still there, but it was functionally completely destroyed, and that’s a crazy prediction to make. This specifically because it had been destroyed before, but it was rebuilt. In fact, it was rebuilt not long before this. Right? they were, I I think, in the process of rebuilding it when Jesus would have been saying this. Right? so this would have been an incredibly crazy thing for him to say at this particular period. Yeah. I’m continuing here. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount Of Olives opposite the temple, which I’ve been to, interesting place. Can still go there. Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the signs that they are about to be fulfilled?

Simone Collins :
Okay. So if

Malcolm Collins :
Jesus is talking about the temple being destroyed, which I I think in no uncertain terms, he’s talking about there. And this is why a lot of modern apocalyptic Christians need the temple to be rebuilt. Because if you apply this to a future time, right, then the temple needs to be rebuilt so it can be destroyed again. Maybe you’re looking at the current time, Jesus is saying, this temple is about to be destroyed. Then all of his followers come to him, and they go, okay. When is this temple going to be destroyed? Okay?

Simone Collins :
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins :
And then Jesus said to them, watch out that no one deceased you. Many will come in my name, claiming I am he and will deceive you. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. Now note here, this was literally about to happen to these people in this period. Right?

Simone Collins :
Were there earthquakes as well, like documented during

Malcolm Collins :
this period. I don’t know if there was an unusual number. I can look it up afterwards.

Simone Collins :
But It doesn’t matter if it’s unusual as long as there were earthquakes. As long as there were earthquakes and famines. Multiple, that is to say, he did plural it.

Speaker 11 :
So as a note here, there was actually earthquakes during this time. the Dead Sea Scrolls in in Getty and elsewhere record a seismic event around the year thirty one BCE. researchers date this with around a five year degree or date of certainty. Now note, the Dead Sea Scroll community would have had no reason to corroborate anything that was happening in the New Testament, And yet many believe that this earthquake could have been the earthquake that was mentioned in Mass Spew’s gospel at the crucifixion because the dates line up very exactly, or very, very close to exactly. In addition to that, there was also famines during this period. There was a famine under Claudius forty five to forty eight CE. Josephus describes a severe famine in Jerusalem and Judea during the procure ship of Tiberius Julius Alexander, roughly forty six to forty eight CE. Grain prices spiked during Passover. Queen Helena of Abigaila, a convert to Judaism who had come on a pilgrim, brought grain in Alexandria and dried frigs i n Cyprus and distributed them. Her son, Isaaces, also sent money. Many people were dying from lack of food aid before this arrived. So, there was also a a famine during the siege of Jerusalem seventy CE. This was the most extreme and described at length by Josephus who was present after the Jewish factions inside the city burned each other’s food stores, and the Romans that’s really petty. the factions inside the city burned each other’s food stores. That’s that might have been a people that, god wanted to punish, I think. complete complete circumvention of the wall. Supplies were cut off. People ate leather, hay, grass, and dung. Josephus reports that mothers ate their children. The well known story of Mary of Bethab, corpses piled up in the houses and streets. One deserter claimed over a 100,000 pure poor people’s bodies were carried out through a simple gate, between mid April and July. The famine combined with disease and infighting killed a large portion of the people trapped in the city. And keep in mind, if if a 115,800 poor people’s bodies were carried out, how many total people died, which we’ll get to in a second. but note here is Jesus’ predictions were remarkably accurate for all the stuff that happened around the time of the war.

Malcolm Collins :
Which I will I will look But clearly, if if he’s saying, like, look. This temple’s about to be destroyed. How is the temple destroyed? Right? Like, that’s that’s what they’re asking. Yeah. He’s like, specifically, you will hear wars and rumors of wars, so there’s going to be wars. and then, such things must happen. And then he said a nation will rise against nation, which Rome did do against Israel. Okay?

Simone Collins :
Yeah.

Malcolm Collins :
You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me, you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. So a few notable things here. why did he say that they would be flogged in synagogues and not churches if presumably we were talking about some far future event? We’re talking about Christians here. Right? Like, presumably, Christians are everywhere if that’s what we’re talking about.

Simone Collins :
So Yeah. And so it wouldn’t be a synagogue.

Malcolm Collins :
At what time were Christians regularly flogged in synagogues?

Simone Collins :
I mean This would have been during

Malcolm Collins :
the early conversion wave. Right?

Simone Collins :
With Yeah. Presumably.

Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Great. So, again, we’re we’re getting a pretty Wait.

Simone Collins :
Are you saying that Jews were flogging Christian converts?

Malcolm Collins :
Jews would not have liked that. That’s what I imagine would have happened to most early Christian converts. Remember how Yeah. Didn’t didn’t be factoring this thing.

Simone Collins :
Know much about the the history of No.

Malcolm Collins :
It’s unlikely that it would have been historically recorded at Sure. Numbers because it wouldn’t have been as gruesome as what the Romans did, and most of the Christian church that we know of today grew up in Antioch and then Rome. And so the those recordings would have been much more voluminous. But if you look at the ways that Jews dealt with somebody preaching another religion within their community as most people would, as the Puritans did when Quakers preached within their communities. Right? Yes. Yes. Again, I’m not saying this is, a uniquely evil Jewish thing. If somebody goes to your churches and they start preaching a different thing, especially in a historic context, flogging is the natural response. but the question is is why are they being flogged within synagogues?

Speaker 12 :
So it turns out we do have great historical records of exactly this happening. Again, the bible, seems to record stuff really well. I can just sort of bet if I read something and I’m like, did that actually happen? Did the earthquakes happen? Did the plague happen? The floggings also happened. Specifically from two Corinthians eleven twelve, five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one, so 39 lashes. This was the standard Jewish punishment for people preaching, like, other beliefs around Jewish temples. We also see the Jewish this this came the 39 flashes came from Deuteronomy twenty five one through three, a maximum of 40 reduced in practice to avoid accidentally exceeding it. It was typically administered with multiple thong leather whips. So just a standard Jewish punishment for people preaching other religions during this period that we know was definitely practiced.

Malcolm Collins :
Right? Like, why would this be considered a common thing? He he seems to be describing very near future events here. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. And note here, this is talking about, for for me, like, where you need to go and preach the gospel within this context. Not that first every nation on earth has to hear the gospel before this will happen.

Speaker 30 :
To clarify, this is also backed up by other places we see this word, ethna, nations or gentiles or other way that it’s translated. Specifically, you see it used in Luke 21. Augustus census of all of the world, obviously, doesn’t mean all of the world. It means all of the Roman Empire. Or acts uses it for famine throughout all of the world under Claudius. This is 11/28. Again, obviously, not all of the world. It means sort of all of their local regional groups. And if we’re talking about the period after Jesus’ death and we look at how fast Christianity spread to regions like Egypt and Rome, which were quite far away, it makes sense that, yes, there probably were preachers in every one of these major locations by the time of the destruction of the temple, even though it happened shortly after Jesus’ death.

Speaker 31 :
Which again is quite a bold and prophetic, claim for Jesus to make given that he did say this would happen within a generation within forty years for him to believe that his teachings would spread that fast, and they very well could not have.

Malcolm Collins :
This would have been when we talk about deep literalism as a tradition, what we mean is you need to understand this the way that somebody of their world would have understood it. So you can’t fudge a word like generations where they wouldn’t have understood it as generations. Right?

Speaker 20 :
So, like, you know how when I was reading Genesis and I pointed out that the word that’s translated today actually means error in a lot of different places in the bible? You can’t pull that same trick with the line generations here or the word that’s translated as generations here, specifically the Greek word. In Matthew, he uses it a number of times, and he doesn’t once use it to mean anything other than a literal generation.

Malcolm Collins :
We we’ve gotta understand it the way that they likely would. But if they’re talking about something like an apocalypse happening, right, or, like, a big eschatological type events happening, this was often used in other parts of the bible to discuss transitions in governments, to discuss major wars, to discuss stuff like this. So we’ll go over where we don’t allow a fudging that a lot of modern Christians do allow, which is the in your lifetime fudging, and where we do think that you need to understand it in the way that they would have, which is allegorically. Right? Because we do know that Jews of this period when they were writing about real world events did often talk about apocalypses to mean, massive changes in the way people live and the way governments work. Okay? Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given to you at the time for it is not you speaking, but the holy spirit.

Simone Collins :
Yeah. Now no. That’s my kind of prep. I like that.

Malcolm Collins :
This right here is is like, if I’m reading this particular thing, what I would take from this

Simone Collins :
Yeah.

Malcolm Collins :
Is he’s saying, okay. You need to spread the word. Right? Like, you need to spread this new iteration of Judaism, and you’re we’re you’re gonna have a lot of you who gonna be executed, basically, which did happen. Right? Like, that’s that’s what’s being laid out here. Okay?

Simone Collins :
Yeah. We’re heading into that early martyr period. It wasn’t pretty.

Malcolm Collins :
Early martyr period. Yeah. And then he goes into this in more detail. brother will betray brother to death and father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. Now this I find very interesting because if you look in a modern Christian context, especially if you’re looking at, like, a literal end times. Right? I I I think the moment the rapture happened, a lot of people would just immediately convert to Christianity if if it happened because we’re all primed to expect something like that, and you’d be like, oh.

Simone Collins :
It would be too late. Right?

Malcolm Collins :
Well, yes. But you wouldn’t be killing each other over this. And even so, if we’re talking

Simone Collins :
about A 100%.

Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Planet Yeah. You it it it also doesn’t make sense. Like, it would be like a big unifying thing. It would be like, oh, the Christians were right. Yeah. It’s like when you die in South Park, when you die and get to heaven, like, so right?

Speaker 16 :
for those of you who were a little confused, you are dead, and this is hell. I shouldn’t be here. I was a totally strict and devout protestant. I thought we went to heaven. Yes. Well, I’m afraid you were wrong. I was a practicing Jehovah’s Witness. You picked the wrong religion as well. I’m afraid it was the Mormons. Yes. The Mormons were the correct answer.

Malcolm Collins :
Right? Like Yeah.

Simone Collins :
You know who was right. Families would not be turning on each other. They would more the ones who were left behind would be presumably trying to bandy together to defend themselves from now the massive looting and everything else that’s taking place because nothing really works anymore because

Malcolm Collins :
Well, that I mean, there’s gonna be two groups. There’s gonna be one group that becomes very nihilistic about this, and then there’s gonna be another. And I would guess. I mean, I have low belief in humanity, but I think if it was just shown to you that there is a path and most Christians believe, you know, after the millennium, even if you believe this, you know, what if you I mean, it depends if you’re pre or postmillennialist. But a lot of them believe that these people are gonna go through a millennium of torment or something like this and and really harsh trials, but they could still, you know, get into heaven. They can still prove themselves, right, even even after this. So it’s it’s not necessarily too late for them. But the point being is that, you know, I would have the fire lit under my butt around being a good guy if I knew factually what the stakes were without any doubt. I mean, now I believe I

Simone Collins :
knew that. Raptured, aren’t you kind of s o l?

Malcolm Collins :
I just told you. You have the millennium of trials. Right? Like, this is the entire point of all of this. You Yeah.

Simone Collins :
I’m not I’m not clear on the rapture. I’m just kind of, like, cross separate. We don’t believe in

Malcolm Collins :
that anyway, but even the people who do believe in it believe that, yes, you’re in for a very bad time, but you’re not SOL. Okay? Okay. Okay. So the point being is, for a lot of people, I would think the majority, you’re gonna have people turning on each other in this way. and the other thing to note here is, okay, suppose we’re talking about, like, Christian society at this point and the rapture happens, and this is written specifically for Christian communities. Of all of the communities on Earth that are going to immediately stop killing each start killing each other the least, it is the extremely Christian ones. Okay? This is assuming the Christians aren’t taken up in the rapture. you know, if you if you’re in a devout church and, the rapture hasn’t happened, but the the millennial process has happened, and it’s very clear that there’s, like, an antichrist, and there’s all this, you know, evils all this stuff happening that’s been predicted, those are the communities where you wouldn’t expect brothers to turn on you and children to turn on you and everything like But but suppose he’s not talking about that period. Suppose he’s talking about, like, the next forty years after he dies. Now this makes perfect sense because this would be talking about the first generation of Christian converts. In the first generation of Christian converts, whether you’re coming from a Jewish community or a pagan community, it would have been very common for fathers to turn on children, children to turn on fathers, brothers to betray each other, and people to be put to death, as well as the concept of everyone hating you

Speaker 14 :
And note, it was for this early generation of Christian that I think the lines of the bible about coming to Christ before your family, I think that that’s what it was written for.

Malcolm Collins :
. in a mostly Christian world like we live in today, yeah, you can talk about, like, society out there hating the Christians and everything. But if you contrast the hatred that you experience today as a Christian, as bad as it is in the secularized world and everything like that, it is trivial compared to what the Christians in the forty years after Jesus’ death went to through. Especially if you expand it further, it was even worse for Christians in the first, like, three hundred years or so.

Simone Collins :
Okay? Just really, really bad.

Malcolm Collins :
Okay. And and they would have hated you because of him. So, again, perfect description here of what’s gonna happen. Okay. So then he says, when you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down and enter the house or take anything with it.

Speaker 15 :
Note, this quote right here actually really dates when the prophecy is supposed to be about because Jews during this period in this region actually did sleep on the roofs of their houses. Specifically, in the first century of Judea in Galilee and Jerusalem, it was common, especially in warmer months, to sleep on the roof of your houses. Typically, houses had flat roofs made of wooden beams, branches, or reeds, and a packed layer of mud or clay. These roofs were reached by an exterior staircase or ladder from the courtyard or street. Deuteronomy twenty two eight required a low paraffet around the roof precisely because people used it could fall off. Roof served as an extra living space. People dried figs, flax, and grain up there, and in the evening, prayed as Peter does in acts 10 and slept there in the summer because it was cooler and caught a breeze. We see this reflected in a number of things from the time period. For example, Samuel and Saul conversed on a roof. Saul appears to have spent the night there, one Samuel nine. the point here being is that people today don’t sleep on roofs, and I see no reason to believe that a lot of people in the future are going to sleep on roofs. But if the prophecy was about something that was going to happen in the next forty years, talking about, say, people sleeping on roofs makes a lot of sense.

Malcolm Collins :
Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that this will not take place in the winter because those days of distress, unequaled from the beginning when god created the world until now and never will be equaled again. So note what he’s talking about here. What is he talking about? He is giving people a practical warning for their own lifetime. The Romans are going to come. When the Romans came, we have various numbers of how many people were killed. I think the Josephus number is a million Jews were killed in this region. It was an absolute massacre. We are talking

Simone Collins :
He’s saying it. You do not have time to get things. You are leaving immediately if you want a shot at somebody.

Malcolm Collins :
You don’t get your cloak. It’s gonna be hard for nursing mothers. I mean, if you heard about, like, the nursing mothers in the Holocaust and stuff like this, you are familiar with the horrors of something like this. And if we’re talking about a civilizational destruction scale here, we are looking at something that for the Jewish people, I I think on a per person basis for the Jewish community, was worse than the Holocaust. I had to look that up in post, but, like, could actually write here.

Speaker 13 :
So I decided to look this up, and it depends on the numbers you’re looking at. If you go with Josephus’ number of how many people were killed, and I love that, AI will always be like, well, Josephus was probably exaggerating. But if you said that for Holocaust numbers, everyone would absolutely shit a brick. But okay. So I I’m gonna go with Josephus’ numbers here because he’s the best historical account we have of this period, and his number was 1,100,000 people. Now if we go for lower levels of the population of Jews of this period, keep in mind if we go for the higher Holocaust number, the the sixth number, I think it’s 6.6, that would be about 36% of the world’s total Jewish population or about a third. If we go for the higher the lower numbers of Jews during this period, that would be 2.5. And Josephus’ number, that would put this at 44% of the world’s Jewish population. However, if we go with numbers from Jewish historians like Della Paragola, he’s a Israeli historian and demographer. He argues that there was around 5,000,000 Jews during this period. So if we go with his number, that would put this at 22% of the global Jewish population. and and note here, you could say the Josephus number seems high. If we go with even just numbers of the guy who’s not Josephus, when he’s talking about just poor people who died of starvation during the siege, he’s saying it was over a 100,000. So I don’t know if that number seems high to me. And and depictions of things like mothers eating their own babies, I just don’t know if that seems high to me. I I I think what I’d say here is is maybe a bit lower. But I’d say if we’re talking about, like, in terms of the impact on Jewish history, if you combine both the number of people who died with the fact that the temple was permanently destroyed after this, this would have been a bigger part of their cultural identity, especially given what the destruction of the temple meant that Jews had to change about their religious observance and structure.

Speaker 35 :
And if you’re gonna say, well, Josephus is probably exaggerating, and it’s different from if you’re talking about more modern events. This is a common thing that, historians that just constantly happens if you’re a fan of watching the field of history is they’ll say, numbers couldn’t possibly be true. This is way too many people. This is way too and then a few years later, they’re doing some archaeology. It’s like, oh, the original numbers that were reported was accurate. It was actually that bad. It was actually that big.

Speaker 36 :
So I’ve developed a habit of just trusting ancient historians when their numbers are not completely implausible.

Malcolm Collins :
Like, this is really, really, really bad. Right? Like and this is really good practical advice for their lives. and so then he goes on. If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect whom he has chosen, he has not shortened them. And at that time, if anyone says to you, look. Here is the messiah, or look. Here he is. Do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard. I have told you everything ahead of time. So why is he saying this? Well, what we happen to know is there actually was a huge crop of messianic figures that appeared during the time of the destruction of the second temple because, of course, there was. Your Judaism is undergoing a a massive revolution during that time, a massive transformation in how it’s practiced, what it meant to be Jewish, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. and so a bunch of people claim to be the messiah, and they were, of course, the false messiah. This is he’s like, look, guys. One messiah came and told you this was going to happen before it happened. Everyone else is coming and telling you it’s going to happen after it happened. Who do you believe? Right? He’s basically laying it out here.

Speaker 18 :
And note here, this isn’t just me or Christian scholars saying this. Josephus, also wrote about these figures. he’s a famous Jewish historian. for example, during the revolt itself, we know of at least three famous ones who gained a lot of attention. Manham, Simon Bar Gyar, and, an unnamed sign of prophets who led people into the wilderness or even the temple itself claiming god would perform miracles to save them. Okay. So that would have been a a number of figures. So I guess and because there’s multiple in the unnamed signed prophets, that means there was at least four during the revolt itself. And then, there was another major wave from one hundred and fifteen CE to one hundred and seventeen CE. This was during the Quito’s war diaspora revolt. And then there was another wave, 132 to one hundred and thirty five CE. It’s Simon Bar Kaaba or Ba Kishvah. And rabbi Akkiv declared him the messiah, applying the verse, a star shall come of Jacob. So, yeah, this this did happen. even if we’re just talking about the revolt itself, that there are a number of people claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus got this claim exactly accurate historically.

Malcolm Collins :
And I’ll note another thing here. A lot of people will say, well, Mark was written after these events. And because Mark was written after these events, he could have worked it into these events. The problem is is, textually, Mark just doesn’t look like it was written after these events. There’s a number of things that make it really weird. For for example, if it had been written after these events, why doesn’t he record any of the rumors that Jesus had talked to people after his death? Right? Why why that that seems like an important thing that a lot of early Christians believe. Now you could argue that maybe Jesus just didn’t, and that wasn’t actually widely believed in a lot of these early communities, which is a take that I wouldn’t say is anti techno puritan or pro techno puritan. It’s just one plausibility I will throw out there, And that god had people have hallucinations, which then were recorded in texts, were important for later Christians. Okay. You can go that way. But the other thing is is Mark is if you’re gonna make, like, that good of a prophecy here, you could have gone a lot more specific with the prophecy. And you actually have other books in the bible do that, which, again, I presume was them actually just being like, okay. We know exactly the because one book is like, oh, and they’ll do three encirclements, and the encirclements will work in this way. And it sounds a lot like somebody just reading back what they remembered from recent history. Mark doesn’t seem like that.

Speaker 19 :
What is hilarious is people find these predictions in Mark to be so accurate of what happened within Jesus’ life after forgetting that these predictions were that accurate and then applying them to future events. That they are the primary thing used to date Mark. Specifically, people are like, well, this is just too accurate a prediction of the temple’s destruction. Therefore, Mark must have been writing after the temple’s destruction. That and a few authors who claimed that Mark was, like, a scribe writing what Peter was saying, but these come hundreds of years later and are fairly unreliable. I actually think that Mark describes Jesus and all his followers as Torah observing Jews with a few Latinisms, meaning he might have been a recent immigrant who might have even observed the events himself. That said or or or known somebody who observed the events himself, especially given where the story cuts off. If we’re talking about later Christians who then like Luke, who did seem to add what actually happened into his predictions. You have things like Luke nineteen forty three. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you in every side, and tear down your ground and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation. And or Luke 21. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then they know a desolation has come near, and they go into it, they go into some siegecraft related stuff. The point being is what Mark is doing doesn’t look like somebody doing this. In fact, if anything, the predictions look a lot more like earlier periods when, Jerusalem had been destroyed or, sort of pointing back to earlier parts of the bible, which you would only do if you were making a prediction rather than describing an actual event you had already experienced.

Malcolm Collins :
Mark actually seems like a prediction, and it’s an important prediction because it goes with everything else we know from what Jesus said from the fact that, you know, he was actually executed in this time period. Like, we know enough about him to get a vague idea of what his gist was, and this seems to align with the rest of his gist because Jesus’ entire teaching platform philosophy and system doesn’t really work for a Judaism that still has a temple.

Simone Collins :
Right.

Malcolm Collins :
As we pointed out in an earlier track, he’s basically describing how Jews can work without the temple. Okay? So to continue, he says, but in those days following that distress, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give us light, and the stars will fall from the skies, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Now note here, this is an apocalyptic prophecy. It doesn’t need to be literal. this is a way in this period. This is what, again, what I mean by deep literalism. a person of this time would have understood that this is talking about, a change in the world order. Right?

Simone Collins :
Kind of like if now, it’d be like, your mind will be blown. And in the future, people are like, they literally thought their heads would explode. Exactly. That’s Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
Exactly what it would be. People would be like, no. That’s not what that means. Come on. Was wrong. Okay. We have examples from recent Jewish history where people wrote about things in this way. Like, why why are you saying his head’s gonna explode? Okay.

Simone Collins :
Next. Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
And then he goes on to say, and at that time, people so he’s talking about what’s gonna happen at this time. What’s gonna happen at this this time of transition that he’s talking about? Like, what’s gonna us usher it in? Okay. He says, and at that time, people will see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send his angels and gather his elect from the winds from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heaven. So, again, what does Jesus call himself throughout all of the bibles? He calls himself the son of man. Okay? this is a very common epithet that Jesus uses to describe himself. So when he he’s he’s dating these events. When are these events going to happen? They are going to happen around or shortly after when the son of man goes into heaven. Okay? And and what is the son of man going to do when he’s in heaven? Like, what what is he or or dies, basically. what is he going to do? he is going to gather up all of the people into this new, basically, religious system, right, if you if you believe what the techno Puritans believe about Christianity. So he’s just laying out here what literally happens after his death. now to continue here, now learn this lesson from the fig trees. As soon as its twigs are tender and its leaves come out, you know that the summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near right at the door. Truly, I tell you that this generation will not come to pass until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. So that’s the context of that line. Now everything you just heard appears to me to be clearly and in no uncertain terms be talking about real events that are going to happen to the generation that exists during Jesus’ time. And it gets more interesting than that. The way that that Jews counted generations during this period was forty years, and that’s exactly the time between Jesus’ dying and the destruction of the temple. Oh.

Simone Collins :
And then the other Really? Year The destruction it was it was, like, forty AD or CE. We’ll get

Malcolm Collins :
into we’ll we’ll get into it. I’ll I’ll I’ll have to add that in post to get, like, the exact details. Sure. Sure.

Speaker 21 :
So, yes, the temple was destroyed forty years after Jesus has died, and the typical understanding was a generation was forty years within that period of Jewish history. Specifically, the wilderness generation is consumed in forty years, Numbers thirty two thirteen. Forty years long, I grieved with this generations. Psalm ninety five ten. Deuteronomy two fourteen puts the dying of Kadesh at thirty eight years. You have some like Job forty two sixteen that put it at slightly shorter. This would be a hundred and forty years. Four generations would put a generation at thirty five years, but it still puts the number really close to on the dot with this.

Malcolm Collins :
Okay. And then here, the heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Now a lot of Christians take this to mean that heaven is going to be erased and earth is going to be erased. And there are some other places in the bible that argue that. but I’d argue if you take this in context, it sounds more like he’s saying, for you, heaven and earth will pass away. But my words, which we know don’t pass away, like, it it it could have been Christianity could have been some little cult, some little thing that didn’t end up mattering. Right? But that isn’t what happened. It was his words that mark the transformation of, Judaism into something that becomes the global religion, which will likely define the future of the human race, especially if it’s the one that colonizes the stars. and so that works in that context. Now to continue here with this next part, he says, but about the day or the hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the father. Be on guard. Be alert. You do not know what time it will come. It’s like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned tasks, and tells one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch. You do not know the owner of the house will come back. Whether in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn, if he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I will say to you, I say to everyone, watch, exclamation mark. Now if he’s giving these people a real warning about their actual lives that is existentially important for them, okay, this is the equivalent of if the messiah came before the holocaust being like, bros, I gotta tell you this. Like, watch exclamation mark here. Be prepared to run out of your house. Run for the hills. You don’t take your cloak. You don’t take anything else. You just run. The moment this starts, you just run. Oh my god. This is so existentially important for you. That’s what he was saying there. This word is not confusing. This word is not outside of context. I think anyone with a lay reading.

Speaker 8 :
And I want to be clear here just how much sense this makes. Jesus here is not talking about grand apocalypses. He could be talking about fiery chariots coming down from the heavens and blah blah blah blah blah, but he didn’t. And he isn’t he because if he said that, he’d just be like, well, you’re screwed. Just curl up in a ball because there isn’t much you can do. What he says is, there’s gonna be nations versus nations, and you need to run for the hills. Now in a modern war, that might not be the most useful thing to do when you have automated drone swarms and stuff like this. But during the sack of Judea, it was absolutely the best possible advice anyone could have been armed with. And it’s very sensible, practical, removes all of the crazy revelation nonsense. It’s your nation’s gonna be attacked. You’ll hear some rumors about war first, then you’re gonna see wars. Run for the hills.

Malcolm Collins :
I mean, sorry. Even you hearing this in context. Right?

Simone Collins :
When you put it in context, it seems pretty obvious. Yes. But then why would so many people take it out of context, including CS Lewis of all people? You know? If we’re

Malcolm Collins :
CS Lewis was a bit of a tard, and I’ve always said I will probably do an episode on this. His arguments for Christianity are so bad. They are deeply embarrassing. I I I think, like, his intellectual rigor is deeply embarrassing. Then why

Simone Collins :
is he this icon of Christian wholesomeness?

Malcolm Collins :
No. He’s an icon of Catholics.

Speaker 39 :
I got this one super wrong here because it’s always for whatever Catholics who bring up CS Lewis to me. And I was confusing him with Tolkien, and I didn’t have enough time to fully edit this track, which was very frustrating because it was already out thirty minutes late, and so I’m having to add this in post. And I just really messed this one up. I... As you can tell with all my other editions, I was focused on not getting the history or the bible quotes wrong, uh, because that’s where I assumed I would make a mistake, not on, like, a common, I’m so angry at myself.

Malcolm Collins :
And I want to be clear that his type of argument, I think, is very appealing to Catholics because it’s very flowery and very, like, oh, it’s it’s all so beautiful. Oh, look at the poetry in this. Oh, look at the but it’s not rigorous.

Speaker 26 :
If you are confused about what I mean by his arguments for God being uniquely stupid, I’ll give you an example of one. It’s his argument from desire. Basically, it’s that, well, because some people feel hunger, that means that the thing exists. Right? Like, they want something, therefore, it must exist. some people have a desire for why, therefore, it must exist. Some people have a desire for god, or a large population does, therefore, god must exist. And I’m like, okay. So therefore, furries must exist. Right? Because a large number of people have a desire for furries. Right? And you could say, well, popular media prime them to have that. Popular media prime them around god. Right? Like, no. Just because people desire something doesn’t mean it exists somewhere that’s a it’s it’s it’s an it’s an argument that’s so bad, it genuinely shocks me that anyone could consider somebody who thought this was their best argument for God a serious intellectual.

Speaker 27 :
Or, like, oh, people have a desire for, like, lust and sex exists. That’s proof of sex existing. What’s so crazy about this argument is it’s, like, so trans. It’s like, well, I really want to be a man. Therefore, I must actually be a man. Like, gender transition must be real because I can feel that I want it. so

Speaker 28 :
Note here, I decided to look up because I wanna be like, what would CSS Lewis arguments against the furry thing be? It’s like, well, it’s not a universal appetite. It’s not present in all cultures. To which I had say, well, neither is monotheism, but people dressing up like animals at some point during a cultural ritual is present in a higher percentage of cultures than monotheism and a higher percentage of historic cultures, you know, going back to ancient Egypt. So it’s more of a natural desire present across cultures than the desire for a monotheistic god is.

Speaker 29 :
I’d also go further here and note that even I don’t have a deep desire for a god to exist. I’ve never felt anything like this. And this is what I talk about where I talk about, sort of arguments based around feelings and what would be beautiful and what would be pretty if it was true that don’t really survive the first encounter with somebody who applies logic and criticality to thinking. And so people can unironically take somebody who had something as silly as the argument from desire very seriously. Like, if I want something, therefore, it must exist somewhere. If a lot of people want something, where there’s no real logic behind it, but it feels good. It’s like, oh, well, you feel this way.

Malcolm Collins :
Okay? Oh, it literally won because this episode comes out tomorrow.

Simone Collins :
Well, now we have to erase, and we have to go back to zero. Oh, boy. Just once again. Every time we record an episode. Here we go, Malcolm. See how far we can get next time.

Malcolm Collins :
But, Simone, it’s it’s the

Simone Collins :
I don’t I don’t know,

Malcolm Collins :
like, of of the Protestant intellectuals who I follow. I don’t know many who, like, are really big into CS Lewis because his his type of works, if you take it to somebody who doesn’t think like a Catholic thinks They just immediately on their face, you’re like, this is not a good argument. This is this is an argument that, like, assume it’s like a vibes based argument. Like, they’re very vibes based. They’re not very, like, rigorous. And I might do a separate episode all on CS Lewis that our audience is gonna hate because I know a lot of people like this.

Simone Collins :
Well, I’m sure we can make it kinda timely because the the most recent freak out is that they’re having a woman voice the lion in the next Narnia movie.

Malcolm Collins :
Oh my god. Think it’s,

Simone Collins :
like, it’s a great woman with a deep voice. I think it’s, it’s Helen Mirren or someone great. Like, fantastic. You know? But, anyway, everyone’s having a moment with that. Yeah. Because the lion is Jesus. Right?

Malcolm Collins :
One of the reasons why a lot of people read this as uniquely apocalyptic is I just went over it from Mark. If you go over it in Matthew, it still all makes sense, but they do a bunch of callbacks to Daniel, right, to try to recouch this in an apocalyptic context. Context.

Simone Collins :
Oh, they’re they’re trying because they were trying to mold it into something that they thought would make it more accurate or, like, make it apply to their time however many years later. How many how many approximate years after Jesus’ death was that written? I

Malcolm Collins :
I don’t remember off the tone yet. And and, also, the that’s vague. Like, a lot of people say that Mark was only maybe ten years before Matthew. I actually think Mark was probably significantly longer before Matthew given some of the stuff that Mark doesn’t mention, which you would assume. so maybe it was written ten years before, but there was a much longer period before that. Mark, for people who aren’t aware, there’s been some translations that try to fix this, but it basically ends mid sentence. Like, the person who’s writing it sort of croaked or something. It it it ends with the women fleeing Jesus’ tomb in horror. Well, that’s great.

Simone Collins :
I love that. And it’s great end, honestly. Yeah. So good. That’s really good. I don’t know. This is perfect ending.

Malcolm Collins :
But I think

Simone Collins :
it was just like, look.

Malcolm Collins :
What Matthew quotes from Dan Daniel, because I also don’t think it’s particularly problematic. And if anything, it further reinforces all of this.

Simone Collins :
Okay? Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
So now we’re gonna go to Daniel here. Okay? I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and whose hair of his head was pure of wool. His throne was like the fiery flame and the wheel as burning flame. Now first, I need to note here, while this is the King James version, this is a mistranslation. Almost every other modern version notes this is a mistranslation. It does not say, I beheld till the thrones were cast down. It says, I beheld until the thrones were reordered. Okay. So, again, we need to try to think through okay. If we’re talking in prophetic language here, we need to start thinking what how do you interpret prophecy? What’s the most literal, easy understanding of this? Okay?

Simone Collins :
Okay.

Malcolm Collins :
So this it sounds like what it’s talking about here is there’s an ancient tradition that was uniquely pure. You know, it talks about whitest snow and stuff like that. And it has a a a fiery throne to, like, an ancient and venerated tradition. Right? Okay. Which one is it? Like, it’s talking about Judaism here. Right? Obviously. Right? Okay. And then what what does it talk about? It’s talking about that he beheld the organizational sort of governmental structure of Judaism being restructured. And note here that we, and I think any honest understanding of the bible would have it Christian bible would have it be as a continuation of Judaism. Just a a rapid or dramatic change in how Judaism worked, a non temple version of Judaism that applies to all people, which good. Right? I’ve always found very I I I I say this all the time, I’ve always the like, No hide. So, like, Jews are always like, oh, you you gotta follow the no hide rules. And then when everybody falls in no hide rules, then the messianic period can happen. And I’m like, well, I mean, almost everyone does follow them because almost everyone’s a Christian, and Christians follow all the no hide rules. I mean, almost everyone who, you know, you you would want, like, see Jews preaching this to, I’m like, that’s really silly. And if it turns out that Jesus was the Jewish messiah, isn’t it interesting that now almost everyone follows what you consider to be the important rules because of him? Interesting. so, anyway, we’ll go over, so that’s what’s being talked about here, then we’ll we’ll continue. A fiery but the point I’m making is this first line seems to check out. Judaism is reorganized, and ancient tradition is reorganized with a different sort of governmental and ruling structure after this period. And certainly was. I mean, the Sadducees lost all their power, frankly, and basically are an extinct group now, and they were the ones who held control of the temple. A fiery stream issued and came forth before him. Thousands thousands ministered unto him, and men at him and 10,000 times, 10,000 stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were open. Okay. So, again, if this is talking about Jesus right here, if it’s talking about him, right, it’s saying that his words end up ministering to thousands of thousands of people, but not necessarily it says they stood before him, but then it talks about the books being open. Right? That he’s ministering to them through books. That’s the the best way I can get this. And, again, perfect prediction. Okay. Continue. I beheld then that because the voice of the great words which the horn spoke, I beheld even till the beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. This one’s a little harder to understand. You could what’s being talked about here? It could be the temple that’s being talked about here. It could be the Jewish tradition undergoing reform. You know, there’s the the parable that Jethus tells about the wedding guests and then one group not wanting to come to the wedding. The original ones who got the invitation, clearly, the Jews, and then the king goes out and kills their people. Be well, also, they murdered the servants who went to them. So, you know, it was just and and, again, this lines up with Jesus’ life. If if if in the parable of Jesus, it’s saying, god’s gonna send servants. the king sends servants. Two people saying, come to my daughter’s wedding. He’s obviously allegorical for the servant in this. They kill him, and then immediately, a great number of them are killed. That again lines up with being very prophetic for this time period. As concerning the rest of the beast that had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. What could this be talking about? I would read this. Okay. The beasts, we often talk about pre Adamites. I think this might be talking about the pre Adamites during this period. These are the human nations that acted beastly. And, what he might be saying here is that if you talk about humans during this time period, and there were a lot of pre Adamite people during this time period, like, truly evil civilizations that would, you know, torture babies for no reason, blah blah blah blah blah at scale. see our Aztecs video, but, you know, this was also, you know, not uncommon in lots of regions during this period. he’s saying that the beasts, that their dominion hasn’t been taken away yet. Basically, these these really evil civilizations haven’t haven’t ended yet. But but the the sort of the chapter on them, their and their lives are prolonged. Like, they’re still around in the world. But the book on them is basically over at this point. Right? That these civilizations are going to fall apart eventually. Then if you continue here, I saw visions and behold, one of the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought knee him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed. And so, no, you take a techno puritan framing of who Jesus was, this all makes perfect sense. Right? His his kingdom is not going to be destroyed. His kingdom is the one that is being built through his followers and his people. And then Daniel seven interprets itself three times, and each time, the figure is the people. But the saints most high shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever. I beheld the same horn, made the war with the saints, and prevailed against them until the ancient days came and judgment was given to the saints of the most high, and the time came that these saints possessed the kingdom. Okay. So if this is the horn that’s being talked about here, it’s talking about what sounds like a transition. Right? A a a theological transition because it’s talking about the a transition of the saints. Right? And and be And

Simone Collins :
what are saints in this context? Is there a So Should I ask, like, what the Hebrew original translation could have been interpreted as? Because, obviously, like, the concept of a Catholic saint is very different from what they’re describing here.

Malcolm Collins :
Look up what is transcribed as saints in Hebrew, what are other uses of it in Daniel? Specifically asking Daniel.

Simone Collins :
Yeah.

Malcolm Collins :
and he shall speak great words against the most high and shall wear out the saints of the high and to think to change the times and the laws, and they shall be given to his hand unto a time and at times and the dividing of time, but the judgment shall sit. And they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy it until the end, and the king and dominion and the greatness of his kingdom under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people and the saints of the most high whose kingdom was an everlasting kingdom and all domains shall serve and obey him. Again, this all aligns with, like, the direction that things appear to be going. And note here, a lot of people are like, oh, this section in the Hebrew testament was about a different kingdom that was being destroyed. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter. It can be used multiple times. Even Jews do that. They’ll use one description for multiple prophecies. Here, what they’re saying is something like this will happen again, and something like this did literally happen again very shortly after Jesus’ life. What does it say, Simone?

Simone Collins :
It’s it’s biblical Aramaic, by the way. I shouldn’t be saying Hebrew. I I don’t know because I don’t know these things. It’s the it’s the most holy ones or sort of the

Malcolm Collins :
The theological leaders is Yes.

Simone Collins :
So instead of, like, but the saints of the most high shall receive the kingdom, it would it could be translated as but the holy ones of the most high. Like, the holy ones that which is set aside for god, sort of. So, yeah, saints, now I understand what it is. It’s just sort like, I guess, the the people who are

Malcolm Collins :
so Right? Okay. Why it’s so edifying that the real translation and the original translation says that the sun will not see this coming? And this is important not just for techno Puritans, but even traditional Christian interpretations of Christianity. Why? Even a traditional Christian, if what Jesus is talking about is his own death and the destruction of the temple He wouldn’t have seen that coming. He and this doesn’t work if you assume it’s talking about a future time. And this is why it was so embarrassing that they tried to erase it. If you assume that what’s being written about here is a future apocalypse after the temple has been rebuilt, okay, then Jesus has already died. He’s already in heaven. This is if you’re a traditional Christian. And presumably, he knows what’s going to happen in the future. otherwise, he’s significantly less omnipotent than God. Right? And most Christians don’t wanna believe that. But now take the other probability. In the bible, we know multiple places where Jesus is clearly unaware of things that God is aware of. Like, there’s a point when, like, somebody touches his cloak, and he doesn’t know who touched his cloak. there’s a part where he well, you know, why have you forsaken me is obviously one big one that we often harp on. But there’s a there’s a lot of parts like that. Now he does seem to be able to, like, get sort of downloads from god where god can give him some future sight, specifically around the events of his death, but this hasn’t happened yet at this point in the bible. So at least if he’s talking from his own perspective at this part of the bible, pretty much every Christian that I’m aware of has no problem with Jesus being unaware of something, right, before he’s dead. If what’s talking about here is his own death, then it’s sort of proved because it’s the only time period where the son from the traditional Christian perspective wouldn’t have known. Now if you take a techno Puritan perspective, this is also uniquely edifying, because it’s Jesus talking about something that’s going to happen, you know, to himself, right, here in this particular context. To continue, Daniel nine twenty four through 27. Seventy weeks are determined upon the people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression and to make the end of sins and to make reconciliation for inequity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. know therefore and understand that from going forth of the commandments to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto the messiah, the prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks, and the street shall be built again, and the wall and even the tribulous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall the messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people and the prince shall not come and destroy the city and the sanctuary and the inn, there shall be with a flood and unto the end the war des descalations and determined. And thou shalt confirm the covenant with many for one week. And in the midst of a week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the abjolation to cease and the overspanning of abominations he should make desolate even until the consummation and the determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Now I have no clue what those timetables are. I will try to determine if it matches anything.

Speaker 32 :
Holy moly. It’s a literal exact match. so if you take what’s said here, seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and make the end of sins. So this unit here, seventy weeks, it it doesn’t actually say weeks. It says seventy sevens. So if seventy sevens, whatever a seven is, doesn’t mean a week, but it happens to mean a month. Okay? And we take the date that is most common for the crucifixion, and then we say how long after that until the temple burns, it’s four hundred and eighty four months. Whereas the seventy seventh number would give us four hundred and eighty three months. So it would be off by only one month. And keep in mind, we might have got something wrong in the history here. That is absolutely remarkable accuracy for a number that is just plainly said there, and people have been interpreting in all of these different crazy ways. And note here, this isn’t a number that Jesus said or that Christians put in. This is a number that was already in Hebrew prophecy or Jewish prophecy. Absolutely wild and confirming to me, and more so the hardening of people’s minds to not see this very easy math, just literally say how many months from when he died till the most important event in all of Jewish history that it seems to be talking about here and that he seems to be talking about here, the destruction of the temple when people do all this weird end of the world, Jerusalem math and stuff like that. Oh my god. I hate how Christians have made such an easily and obviously true thing so hard to believe, by adding all of this nonsense they wanna put in when it’s just so plainly stated and the prophecy fits so miraculously.

Speaker 33 :
I should also note here that the text does not explicitly give the unit it’s talking about. People often assume it’s talking about years because it appears to be referencing a different thing about years, but it could very well be talking about months, and it fits perfectly. And, again, if the prophecy was meant to be for two events, it would make sense that you would have a flexible unit type so it could fit two things miraculously.

Malcolm Collins :
But my intuition is they match both the first event in one way that they were likely describing, and then they also are relevant to the messiah in this context. Right? If Jesus is the Jewish messiah, this is also weirdly in alignment with what actually ended up happening. Some other lines here. I’m not gonna go through every line that’s that’s I I I find a lot of this the the more prophetic writing to be a lot less interesting than the writing, like, in Mark, which, again, was the closest to Jesus’ life, which just sort of plainly explains to you what’s gonna happen.

Simone Collins :
Yeah. Yeah. The Romans are coming for you.

Malcolm Collins :
And Romans are coming.

Simone Collins :
You ready? The hills. Gonna suck.

Malcolm Collins :
A lot of people are gonna die. They’re gonna die because they’re preaching about me. There’s gonna be a lot of false messiahs. There’s gonna be rumors of war. There’s gonna be some actual war. Nations will go against nations. Okay. And and and people take all this and they apply it to the apocalypse, and then they’re always looking for the apocalypse. And even what’s what’s weird is even Jesus, even even if you take this apocalyptic context, you’re told not to. But I don’t like, when I read this, it seems to really be plainly, and even very serious Christians thought this was a major problem, like CS Lewis, really be plainly just laying out what’s gonna happen to these people within their own lifetime. And the conversation, what’s interesting about it all is if you translated it to modern language, the conversation just seems so normal. Right? Like, it’s it’s it’s they go to the temple. It’s really amazing. They’re a bunch of country pumpkins. It’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen. They go to him. They’re like, this is a really cool temple, dude. look at how impressive this all is. And then he goes to them, it’s all gonna be torn down soon. You know, it’s it’s just gonna be rubble soon. And then later that day, they’re sitting in. It’s really cool. The Mount Olive, you can go to it, and you can sit in it as I have and and look across, and you can see where the the temple was. It’s just like and it did still kept it’s like a a a park that you can go to. So just you know, he’s just sitting there, like, a real place you could see, not not far from the temple, just chilling out with some dudes two thousand years ago. And then one of the dudes is like, okay. Bro, Broseph, dude, that stuff you said about the temple falling down. Like, when? When is that gonna happen? Can you give me some deets? Like, what’s what’s gonna happen with this? And then he’s like, okay. So first of all, it’s gonna happen in your lifetime. So, like, listen up. Second of all, so there’s gonna be, like, rumors of war. There’s gonna be, like, nation set against nation. The moment it happens, you just get the you don’t have time for, like, a a runaway sack or anything like that. You don’t have time for a cape. You just and run. Okay. You just run for those hills, because that would have been the best advice during that period. Run for the hills. That’s a hard I mean, look at the Afghanis. Right? You just run for in hills, man. And he’s just saying

Simone Collins :
And I do like the plain wording because we know that everyone slept on their roofs, and so I I even like that part. You know, if if you like,

Malcolm Collins :
for those who are sleeping on

Simone Collins :
their roofs or whatever it said when you originally read it. So, oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. No. He’s describing just Yeah.

Malcolm Collins :
Like wouldn’t have been relevant to people in our time, but it is relevant to people in his time. Yeah. And they’re just like, oh, okay. Yeah. Just can run. Okay. Good advice, man. It’s the it’s the clearest, most simple. There’s nothing mystical about it. There’s nothing shaded about it or, like, extra. He just plainly tells them in the way that now you get a lot of the apocalyptic stuff because, one, later Christians wanted to read a lot of that into it, which is fine. You know? You can be like, oh, that adds deeper meaning, which I think it kind of does. but, like, the actual closest to the source document we have is just a dude saying, this is gonna be destroyed. Later that time, they’re chilling at a park, looking at it, and they’re like, when? And he’s like and I love that it ends with an exclamation mark and, like, paid attention, guys. Watch exclamation mark.

Simone Collins :
Yeah. I wonder if apocalypticism in general is one of those things kind of like worshiping false idols that people kind of get caught up with because there’s such a strong tendency for it. And why it’s it’s it is both abolished in the bible, like, trying to make prophecies, but also prophets are still given precedence. Like, I think in in almost the same set of lines where they talk about how important it is to not try to engage in divination, it’s also like, yeah. But the things that prophets say really matter. Kind of implies that people have this desire to engage in fortune telling.

Malcolm Collins :
Well, and as we know, how does Jesus say, you know, if it’s a real prophet or not?

Simone Collins :
I can’t remember.

Malcolm Collins :
It’s do they say that he came in the flesh? so if they’re going out there and saying, Jesus again, this is a techno puritan thing, but this is what Jesus said, is, that’s how you determine between true and false prophets is if they are claiming, at least my read of that, is if they are claiming that Jesus was divine or not the son of man or, you know, any of those other things. And, again, you could see our previous tracks. This is where we diverge from classical Christianity pretty heavily. But where we make diversions, it is because we see these diversions in the text and because it aligns with what’s logical from our perspective. like Well,

Simone Collins :
one one of the things about this interpretation or, like,

Malcolm Collins :
broadly reading the bible this way, and a lot of people are like, well, no. I wanna read it my way with the apocalypses and all of this extra stuff. And it’s like Yeah. Fine. You can add all this extra stuff. But isn’t it weird that, like, on its own, the bible is both predictive, it makes sense, and Jesus doesn’t come off as a crazy wacko? I often think a lot of the traditional readings of Jesus making come off as, like, very arrogant and holier than thou and stuff like that. But when you actually read the bible, he’s really not. He’s really not, like, bogarting information from these people. He’s not, you know, putting himself, like, way he’s just like, yeah. You know? Be ready to run, man. It’s gonna be wild. It’s gonna be like those prophetic times, you know, in, Daniel? Yeah. Be ready for that stuff. And it’s gonna be tied to my death potentially.

Simone Collins :
You can say that a little arrogant, but

Malcolm Collins :
he doesn’t really say it in an arrogant way, or at least I I don’t find it that way. And and so, you know, again, you can go off traditional Christians got you. I think even traditional Christians will get something out of this deep dive into it. But I found I

Simone Collins :
think many traditional Christians, when you ask them, hold this view. I it’s just very bizarre to me how in in the minority it is. Part of me wonders if we we just want to think apocalypses look like movie apocalypses, whereas maybe that’s even just a recent thing where in the past, it was kind of understood

Malcolm Collins :
that an apocalypse was a

Simone Collins :
paradigm change. Apocalyptic for the Jews. Well, if you

Malcolm Collins :
were going to choose any one event in Jewish history when the Jewish apocalypse happened, the Holocaust wouldn’t even be a distant second. It was the destruction of the second temple. It completely changed what it meant to be Jewish and basically meant the religion and people had to reinvent themselves of the culture and society. it was the inflection point of Judaism. If a messiah was going to come right before the Jewish apocalypse and prepare an iteration of Judaism that worked without the temple, which is what’s said about the apocalypse, this would have been the time for it to happen. Yeah. Right? Like, and it is odd, as I’ve said in other tracks, and it’s one of the core things that convinces me that Christianity is the right branch of Judaism, is that that he came down and predicted all of this. And, like, even Jews don’t like they there’s all of these things in the Jewish tradition will likely do attract on it eventually where a lot of their miracles stopped working, like, at exactly at this time, like, around Jesus’ death. And they even recorded in their own writings.

Simone Collins :
You alluded to this. Yeah. Miracles like

Malcolm Collins :
the temple doors blowing open all the time and the the the scapegoat ceremony that something wasn’t turning red in the way it was supposed to to imply that it was still working. And so, like, a lot of the temple rituals stopped working during this time. Basically, you can say God left the temple before he destroyed the temple. And this is Jesus, which would make sense if it turns out that Jesus was actually the Jewish and the Messiah, this was the function he was meant to fill, which to me seems like the, like, ethical direction Judaism would have went during this period if it was actually a true religion. And I think it was, and that’s why it went in this direction. So that’s where I’m gonna leave off today. I I thought about going into the wedding story because it’s very interesting, and some people

Simone Collins :
story is bizarre. I don’t know why we had to use that.

Malcolm Collins :
Well, so the wedding story is actually pretty good, but a lot of people take it to be proof that Mark was written after the destruction of the temple. And I’m like, no. It doesn’t read like proof that it was after the destruction of the temple because the story literally sits immediately before. It’s sort of talking about why, you could say, why the Jewish people would be punished during this period, which is to say, and we know that God punishes the Jewish people when they do things that Jesus doesn’t like, that all Jews, like, believes this is part of Judaism. and and and immediately after this, he gets in an argument with a pharisee, and then he gets into an argument with a sadducee. And these were the two primary major sects of Judaism during this period. and so it’s sort of like presenting him as an alternate to the pharisees and the sadducees. And if you’re talking about, like, the rearranging of thrones stuff like this, you know, this makes a lot of sense. In this context, I I think just, like, holistically was the wider narrative. It makes so much sense that Jesus appears to have been trying to promote that it doesn’t, to me, read as if it was written afterwards was like a we knew this was going to happen mindset. Now for you, I had something like you because this was the one line that you had really believed.

Simone Collins :
Really, yeah, really bothered me.

Malcolm Collins :
That Jesus thought that the world was gonna end in his lifetime, and this is what he taught people. Because this is what the historical theology teachers have taught you. And then you read the line in context. Do you actually think, like, my reading is like, it seems very plain what he meant.

Simone Collins :
It does seem very plain. Yeah. I think maybe when I did pull quotes in the past, I was pulling from a different book, and so that’s you know? And it seems like again, this is why I’m so uncomfortable with the New Testament because I feel like so many things are written so long after and with so many different agendas at play that I just don’t really know what to trust. And it’s a very complicated act. Well, this

Malcolm Collins :
is a very techno Puritan part to this, which I should explain to people. Like, the the bibles themselves, the various books of the bible, when we’re talking about how much authority do we assign them, we would assign something like Mark dramatically more authority than something like Matthew Yes. Because of the what we know historically about that book if you believe, like, we believe that Jesus was the actual Jewish messiah. Now we believe that God had stuff written in Matthew or had stuff written in Luke or had stuff written in other other books of the bible because we were supposed to interpret something from it. But when we are trying to find out what actually happened in Jesus’ life or what Jesus actually believed about things, because that’s what we’re supposed to, you know, learn from, We need to understand that look. If you’re a Christian today, many Christians today, they will say things like, oh, well, I know that in in, like, the 10 commandments, it says, you know, don’t worship other gods before me, which sort of implies other gods are real. Well, people of that time period in that region did believe other gods are real. We just know today that they’re not. Right? And and and we do this with all sort of you know, when you talk about why does Genesis use a plural for god in in in some places. So, know, but people back then you know? So And it’s it’s very common for Christians today to be like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these were real people. They were writing something real, and understanding updated through time. Right? and so, but when you talk about the New Testament, they’re just like, no. No. No. No. It’s often many of them are like, no. That didn’t we don’t take that perspective. I take the perspective they yeah. Some of the stuff written in the New Testament might have been added after the fact and might not correlate with the actual events of Jesus’ life. That said, if they were added after the fact and didn’t correlate with, like, a real exact thing he said because somebody wanted to add some clarification for it, God meant for that to happen, and we are still supposed to learn from that. But that doesn’t change how we investigate these texts. which is to say and this affects some of our beliefs that we’ll get to in future tracks. Like, a big one is, if you do apply this to how seriously you take different texts in the bible actually, I’ll just lay out this belief here so we don’t need to do a full track around it, because it does have a, a page on technopuritan.com that you can put into AI and go through how we broke this down, how how I sort of did the research on this. But, basically, if you don’t really include a lot of stuff from acts as being as serious as the stuff that happened in Jesus’ life, right, like, a lot of stuff that the early Christian communities were doing, it really looks like communal prayer is not supposed to be a big thing or was it not a big part of the tradition.

Simone Collins :
Oh, yeah. You haven’t even done your tract on worship yet.

Malcolm Collins :
Yeah. Jesus is is usually praying alone.

Simone Collins :
We’re with small groups of people. Right? Or at least talking about religion with small groups.

Malcolm Collins :
So, like, how does he do, like, a religious service? What you often would do is you would sit down at a meal with people. This appears we see this in a lot of the earliest enactments of Christian context. They’d they’d all sit down for a meal together, and they eat, and they would talk about their ideas about religious concepts, which to me sounds like a great way to do a religious service. And this is what’s happening at the Last Supper is is one of these. But this isn’t the only place we see something like this happening. You do occasionally have sermons and stuff like that, but they’re never in churches. There there are the sermon on the mount, for example. Right? Like, there there are Heath outside talking to people somewhere. Right?

Speaker 38 :
No. That doesn’t mean that Jesus never talked in a synagogue. For example, in Luke, we see him reading a scripture in a synagogue. And when he’s on trial, he says that he even spoke at the temple. Now this is speaking in, like, a square area, the temple courts where, like, anyone could come and speak. It’s a bit like, you know, one of those public speaking parks or something. So, again, not exactly like a a church in a modern context, but it is the minority of cases.

Malcolm Collins :
In fact, when we when we see something like a synagogue, it’s usually in a negative context. Things are being flipped over, stuff like this. And this makes sense if you’re talking about, like, the early house Christian movement and stuff like this. And what that leads me to interpret or intuit is maybe the way that we are supposed to pray and practice the Sabbath is, at home with our family, right, and not necessarily in a group context. Now there are a lot of places where he points out that, like, the larger community of worshipers is a positive thing and that you should interact or convene, but it’s not said that at those, you’re then supposed to spend all your time praying, which makes sense. I mean, if you’re going to build out a community, you want to meet with the other people. Right? Like, that’s how, you you do this. And and he even talks about these as fairly small meetings. Like, the line that people often say is like, oh, you know, when Jesus says if two two believers are in a room, you know, he’s here with them. It’s like, well, then why did he go as low as two? He could have said more if he expected really large groups, but he doesn’t.

Simone Collins :
That’s a good point.

Malcolm Collins :
And I think it keeps worship a lot more humble, and it prevents it from being performative, which I think is really risky and something that Jesus warned about heavily at the sermon on the mount. And so this can come from this sort of interpretation. Do I think that it’s, like, uniquely bad to build churches to go? I think it works for some people. I just don’t know if it’s what I take away when I read the bible for what I would teach my kids and my family. The other thing that we’re gonna be going over is the Sabbath, which I was very surprised about. It’s very clearly on Saturday and not Sunday. The the Bible is, like, super clear. Nothing in the New Testament or the Old Testament, but especially the New Testament says we’re we’re renaming the Sabbath. We’re we’re making it Sunday instead. This is something that early Christians decide. Not even that early Christians decide.

Simone Collins :
Asked them to do it.

Malcolm Collins :
And then Constantine said, we’re gonna make this about a day about the sun god, and we’ll we’ll use it as, like, a a special day. And since he was a Christian now he specifically said this was for pagan reasons. He he said it was about the sun god. Sunday. And and then Christian well, Catholic councils it might have been pre Catholic councils, decided you you now can’t use the Jewish status, which is a problem because Jesus said the 10 commandments still hold. Oh, boy.

Speaker 22 :
Specifically, Constantine Decree said, on the venerable day of the sun, venerable deus soles, let the magistrates and people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits, lest by neglecting the proper movement, the bounty of the heavens should be lost. Now it’s important to note here that he used the pagan calendar name, day of the sun, not the lord’s day, not resurrection, doesn’t mention Jesus. It is a city rest law for judges, town folks, and craftsmen, and farmers were to keep working, which doesn’t follow traditional Sabbath rules, even Jesus’ Sabbath rules. Like, you’re allowed to save a sheep or something, but you’re not supposed to be tending the land. so this is very clearly a pagan Sabbath. That that’s the best way you could describe it. So the council that said that you can’t practice the Sabbath on Saturday happened at the Synod of Lidacy, specifically Canon 29. Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work that day rather honoring the Lord’s day, and if they can, resting then as Christians. But if in any found to be Judaizers, let them be an anathema to Christ. So they literally even even the wording here say that they cannot Christians cannot rest on the Sabbath, which is clearly Jesus rested on the Sabbath. This is what we see from from the Bible. Right? Like, we see them going directly against the 10 commandments here. And when people are like, oh, just follow the great Christian thinkers of old. Just do what they do. I’m like, well, they made a lot of, like, really big and obvious mistakes. Another one we’ll get to is you are not allowed to do sacrifices on altar of hewn stone, and yet one of the councils literally said you had to do sacrifices on an altar of hewn stone. But this one is probably the worst because they’re literally saying you cannot rest on the Sabbath, which is one of the 10 commandments, which is absolutely wild. You must work on the Sabbath. The early council said that.

Speaker 23 :
So I had I had to look this up because I actually couldn’t believe it. And and note here that many Christians were actually practicing Sunday as a day of rest before Constantine, but it is true that there’s nothing in the New Testament that told them to do this. And in the New Testament, Jesus regularly treats the Sabbath as the Sabbath. But what was really crazy about this is this is before the Catholic orthodox split. So when a lot of people are like, go back to the early church, they got everything right. I cannot imagine, you know, biblically getting something more wrong than commanding that people have to work on the Sabbath. And I even checked and yet that they called it literally the Sabbath. They say you have to work on the Sabbath, which is all throughout the Old Testament, like, no. And even in Jesus’ own teachings, very no. you know, the Sabbath was made for man, man, not for the Sabbath. That’s great. That’s really cool. That sort of lays out that the laws, the 10 commandments, man wasn’t made to follow the 10 commandments, but the 10 commandments were made to make man’s life better. Awesome. Doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to at least attempt to be observant of them, much less make a commandment of your people that they have to go directly against them.

Malcolm Collins :
And so you you do something like almost all Christians are doing wrong, and it’s really bad. And it’s something that will be stricter on in the future. Right? We had to talk about this today, and we’ll probably do an upcoming episode on it. What what really do you get to do during the Sabbath? It’s it’s not an entertainment day. It’s it’s it’s not a for your personal business day. It is a day where you’re supposed to be doing things that are productive for your religion and community and family. So this would be, you know, spending time with family, spending time to educate yourself, etcetera, spending time to learn more, spending time to understand more, studying. And that’s what we’ll be doing going forward. It’s more time with family, more time studying, and, make it a no workday. So in the future, no more emails from me on Saturdays. That’s that’s where we’re going with this. like, Okay.

Simone Collins :
Gotta polish up the pictures. You could tell that Titan is somewhat related to my mom. Look at that mischief right there. That is someone Great. Who is up to no good. 100%. So it’s not just you. It’s not just you. I’m so excited for this one, though. The boys have been boys as always. But I’m so glad that Torsten found Steggy. And he says that Steggy told told him that he was in a factory that produced toxic waste, and that he found his way back to our house somehow, which is wonderful.

Malcolm Collins :
Oh, really?

Simone Collins :
Yes. It’s it’s true. It’s true. Octavian, meanwhile, has been roving our house with his rifle and that blue hat, which makes him look very It’s a look. Alright.

Speaker 34 :
Hello, egg. What does that mean? It just means it just means it just means that he’s gonna have it just means that he has one, two, with four eggs. Steggy, good job. You’re gonna have such a big family. But yeah. But, mommy Do you know that if I don’t have something to get him to eat, he won’t eat anymore eggs? What does Steggy eat? He eats dead dogs. He eats dead birds. He eats dead peas. He eats Macaroni cheese? No. He eats some Squid? No. He eats some Rubbits. Pizza. She wants it right here. Look. And look. It’s a live giant duck, and it wants to eat all the eggs. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah.