The Eric Metaxas Show - Jeannie Constantinou (Encore)

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Theologian and historian Jeannie Constantinou is in the studio with Eric and takes us on a fascinating journey through the most monumental event in human history with her new book, "The Crucifixion of the King of Glory." (Encore Presentation)

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metaxe. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Eric Mattaxas show with your host, Eric Metaxis. Ladies and gentlemen, I am really excited. If you follow me on social media or you get my newsletter, which you really should, ericmetaxis.com.

You know that I've been lately talking about a book called The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, the amazing history and sublime mystery of the passion. We had the author, Eugenia Scarvelas Constantinu, on this program via Skype. But then I went to California. She had me over to her home, had Suzanne and I over to her home for dinner. She and her husband and her brother, and was this wonderful thing. And at some point in the conversation, she let slip. she's going to be in New York City. I said, wait a minute. What? You're going to be New York City. I think you need to come to the studio. We have a pretty nice studio. Why don't you come to the studio? So we worked it all out and suddenly here she is. Eugenia Constantino. Welcome.

Thank you very much for having me in studio. I can't believe you're in New York City and I'm thrilled because it's always more fun to talk to people in person. But I think since, since, Once I interviewed you the last time we did it via Skype, I finally got to read the book. And I said this to you over dinner at your home. It's a magnificent book. It is so many things. It's a work of devotion. When you read it, you cannot help draw closer to Jesus, which is huge. Well, I mean, yes, and that's a fact.

But there's all kinds of historical information in here. genuine scholarship, and I say genuine scholarship, meaning that, you know, you're a very humble woman and you kind of act like, oh, well, I just wrote this book. There is scholarship in this book, Jeannie, what you let me call you Jeannie, that I think is going to really amaze some people. So first of all, welcome to the program and congratulations on the book. Thank you, Eric, and thank you so much for supporting the book and promoting it. I really appreciate that a lot. Well, listen, I get a lot of books. I don't read that many of them.

But when I read a book like this book, you know, it's my passion to get it in the hands of anybody who can read it. Because I don't think there's anything quite like it. And so why do you try, if you can, to help my audience understand. How is it that you came to write this book? What I really mean is you bring more. multiple disciplines to bear on the subject. And I think that's why there's some original, exciting, new information here. I mean, really exciting, really exciting information that comes from your scholarship.

Yes. Well, it's because I have read a lot. I've been speaking about this subject, the Crucifixion of Christ, and also the trials of Christ, for a very long time, for literally for decades. and I've read a lot about it, but I never found any book that combined a lot of these different elements of it, and that's what I really wanted to present, because there are books by lawyers about the trials of Christ, but they're not New Testament scholars, or there are books by doctors about the crucifixion, but they're not biblical scholars or they're not Roman historians. Then I read a very nice book by a Roman historian, and I didn't agree with a lot of his conclusions,

because he's not a Bible scholar and doesn't really know, you know, first century Judaism. So because I have an expertise in all these areas, I felt like I was equipped to present the passion and crucifixion of Christ in a way that use the best scholarship and the best insights from all these disciplines because ordinary people would never stumble across the things that I have in the book. And I have to say that, you know, this is, I, We talked about this over dinner. I think being interested in several disciplines can give you a perspective. And that's what you have in this book, that a real expert on one discipline, they're so focused on one thing that they may miss other things.

And that's what you bring to this. But, you know, when I read it, I think I was kind of astonished that I hadn't bumped into some of this information before. I want to get into some of that. There are things in this book, folks, that are genuinely groundbreaking and important. And so it's kind of amazing that 2,000 years after these events, only now are we putting some of these pieces together. So part of the problem, I'm guessing, I'll just throw this at you, is that the Jewish tradition, in many ways after Constantine in the 4th century, we kind of pulled away from the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. And so I feel like we just missed, we pulled away from a lot of important stuff.

Maybe that's the first place to start. Well, we're not very connected to the Jewish roots of the faith. I feel like I'm closer to that because as an Orthodox Christian, we're very connected to the early church. And I also think that this is one of my strength. when we're talking about anything to do with the early church. We're very connected to the early church, and a lot of things that we do in the church, in the Orthodox Church, are very similar to what happens in Judaism, believe it or not.

And as a Bible scholar, however, there were many things I did not know because we're not reading the Talmud, and we're not reading the rabbinic commentaries. We're not aware of many of the things that were happening in first century Judaism. Many Jews today aren't because Judaism changed a lot. from the first century when it was Second Temple Judaism until today when it's entirely rabbinic Judaism. So that's part of it, definitely. Okay, so there's a lot here, and this is what I find really just extraordinary, is that you've waded through these things.

And, you know, to bring the perspective of what did Jews in the first century, not Jews who accepted Jesus, but what did the rest of the Jewish world think about who the Messiah might be, what some of the antecedents to the Messiah were to give us an idea of what to look for. The fact that much of that has been lost, literally until now that you put it in the book, I almost don't know what to make of it, because you can't think of anything more important. And yet, for 20 centuries, we've kind of missed it. How in the world, you know, I want to ask God, why did you let us wait 20 centuries before we made these connections? I don't, I think the early church knew the connections, and they are present in very subtle ways in the Orthodox Christian church traditions.

It's there, but then they, the Orthodox Christians today, don't know what it is because they have forgotten those Jewish roots. So it's there. And I didn't really find anything that wasn't known, but what has happened is many of these discoveries, as I said, are in one place. Either the Jews know them, so I read a lot of articles by Jewish scholars. or there are Bible scholars who know these things, or there are people who know medicine and their doctors who've written on the crucifixion. So my point is that I'm not really finding anything brand new.

It's just that none of those details about the crucifixion of Christ were brought together in one place and made accessible to an ordinary person. Because even if you had a question, like, why did the temple curtain tear, for example, this was something that I was always curious about. Where are you going to find the answer to that? You might read one book.

It has one opinion. Another book has another opinion. And then you don't really know where to go for information. So, and then when you try to find out, it's sometimes over your head. Well, again, this is what is so fascinating. When you bring up things like the temple curtain tearing. Now, a lot of people listening, maybe they're not familiar with that. But it's there in the Gospels.

I don't know how many Gospels mentioned that. Three. Three of them. Okay. Pretty crazy. that John doesn't mention it. Some of this stuff, we're not going to get answers to we're face-to-face with Jesus.

You're going to be like, excuse me, Lord, how is it that you allowed the story of Lazarus? Kind of amazing not to be in Matthew Mark and Luke. What's going on there? How come it's in the story of John? There is no more amazing story. So there are lots of questions. The temple curtain tearing.

I want to get into that with you. We're going to go to a break. But this is just seminal, information, hugely important information. Folks, I don't normally rave about books. And if I do, I never want to do it when the author is sitting right here, but I have no choice. Jeannie is sitting right here. I'm just going to say, this book is extraordinary. I recommend it really as highly as I can recommend a book. It's called The Crucifixion of the King of Glory by Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinu. We will be right back.

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slash Eric, Patriotmobile.com slash Eric, or call them at 878 Patriot. Get free activation today with the offer code Eric. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my new friend, Jeannie Konstantino. And Jeannie, we connect on one level, huge level, just because we're Greek. And you had Suzanne and me over to your home on, it's like a holy day for the Greeks, 25th. of March, Icosi Pempti Martiou, it's like July 4th. It's like the day, Zito yelada. And you, you know, you're not only a New Testament scholar and a lawyer and have six degrees and write these books, but you served us this amazing Greek meal.

You're not supposed to be able to do all that stuff. Do you understand? Like you got some extra gene or something like that. Well, you have to come back when we can have meat because it's lent, so we weren't eating any meat. Oh, well. So I have to come back for suvlaki. Okay. Zahiri Suma.

It's not. Okay, so, but we, we were just talking a minute ago how you really get into a lot of interesting mysteries and things. So when I was reading, and there's so much like this in the book, and we'll get to as much as we can, but the tearing of the temple curtain, anybody who has a modicum of understanding of what happened at the crucifixion, theologically that Jesus makes the way into the Holy of Holies. We can understand the symbolism. But the Gospels say the actual temple curtain in the temple was torn into, which sounds, I mean it sounds, if it actually happened, which we think it did, this is called miraculous. This is an astonishing miracle.

But my question would be. would I have any extra-biblical information that would say, oh, yeah, something crazy happened? I wouldn't expect outside of the Gospels to find any mention of this genuinely extraordinary experience. But you say that Josephus mentions it, and you go into great detail. He doesn't mention the tearing of the curtain. What he talks about are the portents of the destruction of the temple. So the tearing of the curtain is. not mentioned outside of the Gospels, but there was also an earthquake that is mentioned

outside of the Gospels. And what is also mentioned outside of the Gospels is the breaking of a lintel, the big lintel that, you know, that stone that goes across, spans across the opening to the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. That is mentioned, I'd like to look at the book to tell you. I love this when you talked to office. They don't remember. They wrote it, but they don't remember. These are a lot of little details. But it is mentioned. by Jerome and by other, some other, early writers. So it is definitely mentioned that the lintel also, it's in one of the non-canonical Christian writings. So there are other writings that did not get into the New Testament. So some of these things are mentioned, but we have to remember something

that's, I think, really important when we're dealing with history, because what happens is there's a tendency to insist that everything be documented, that we prove every, thing historically. But the problem is that most of the documents that existed, most of the books that existed in antiquity no longer exist today. So we have maybe only 10 percent, most scholars think, of the books that actually existed in antiquity. So we don't know what we have lost. Right. But to say that, well, there's no proof of that because it's not in some other, is there any corroboration? There is some corroboration that something happened. And of course, we have to remember something else. The Gospels themselves are historical documents. They're not a

fiction that was written by somebody to promote Jesus Christ, and that is a very common accusation that's being made. I think I have to say this, since it's my program, I get to say this. Most of those kinds of objections are utterly idiotic. And when I say idiotic, that's the strongest word I can use for family audience. Honestly, people say the dumbest things. If you don't agree with something, fine, but don't come up with preposterous, like, joke theories. I mean, one of the things, and I want to say this up front again, part of the joy of reading this book is you walk us through a lot of what the Bible says, but you really break it down and make it understandable, and it deeply enriches our faith and our understanding of the gospel. So that's, I mean, if people buy the book and

read it just for that. They're going to be blessed. But you get into some of these details. Like, look, even if you don't believe the curtain was torn or you're not sure, you talk about what we know about the curtain. Yes, what we know about the curtain. And it is so amazing that these Jewish writers, Josephus, and others give us a picture of a, like, wow. Talk about the curtain that, you know, I mean, talk about the temple a little bit, you know. I'd like to talk about that, but I also want to talk about, Can I talk about why the Gospels should be taken seriously as historical sources? Because I start the book with that. Why is it?

So when people say, well, they just made it up. They just made it up to prove that Jesus was God or something like this. Like you mentioned, it is utterly idiotic. It's very lazy thinking. And while it might make sense to some people on some level, we have to remember when the Gospels were written, these authors were not writing for us in our time. they were writing for an audience in their day, and people would know if the temple curtain tore.

They would know if Jesus, if Herod, for example, Herod the Great, killed a lot of little baby boys around Bethlehem. So this idea that all of these things were invented, and that the gospel writers would simply put this in just to sort of embellish their stories. Now you're thinking like a lawyer, and you are a lawyer, you have a law degree. You're going over the evidence and you're saying, does it make any sense that these writers, would write this incredibly detailed account, knowing that there are tons of people living who are going to read what I wrote, who could say, this is nonsense. Correct. This is nonsense.

So they knew that there were hundreds of witnesses to almost everything that they mentioned. That's right. And Luke even mentions that at the beginning of his gospel. He checked everything out with the eyewitnesses. Even Luke testifies to this. So when historians, ancient historians are looking at the Gospels and using them, and they do use them as historical documents, they evaluate them the way they evaluate any other historical documents by the Romans or by ancient Greeks or anybody else. So they look at this and they try to determine whether or not this is credible and it's based on certain factors. and one of the factors is whether or not it can be corroborated by other sources, whether or not they're generally true.

In other words, when we read the Gospels, can we say that do they meet the expectation of a historian that the person who's writing is reflecting what really happened in that time and place? Okay. So, for example, were there such things as Pharisees? Yes. Was there somebody named Pontius Pilate? Yes. And so, in other words, it's genuine. when it's true because it suits the times.

Does the author have any kind of motivation to lie? Well, all authors have some kind of motivation. But we're not talking about theological claims here. We're talking about historical claims. So there are many standards by which they evaluate the Gospels, and ancient historians generally accept the Gospels as good historical documents. And it's the Bible scholars that are trying to come up with some theories about why these things didn't happen.

Well, again, this is such a rich book. There's so much in here. But you get into some specifics and you bring it to life. And when you do that, it's obvious that whoever wrote these things couldn't have been making them up. And I mean, I write about that a little bit in some of my books that only if you're not reading this, can you make preposterous claims like that? Because once you dig into it. Yes.

Anybody who understands anything knows that, hey, this is not made up. There's so many details, just tremendous details. But let's go back to the curtain because it's one of those moments where when you read it in the Gospels and it says the curtain tour in two, you think, wow, let's talk about some heavy-handed symbolism. Yes. Well, that's the question. The question was, what does it mean? But let's talk a little bit about the temple curtain. This was not like a curtain that we didn't have in a theater today or somebody's house.

This was very, very thick. They say it was the thickness of a hand, a hand width. And it took two years, and a lot of women who were employed in this to weave these curtains. And they were, the temple curtain, there's debate about whether there was one or two at the time. But it was very, very thick. And it would require 300 men, and very heavy, to put it in place and also to raise it and to lower it. because it had to be purified, it had to be washed, it had to be dipped into water. But they would wear out and they would change them.

So it was supposed to be spectacular. Now that curtain is described in Exodus, but we have reason to believe that the design of the curtain was different in the time of the second temple. And also there's a question among scholars whether there was one curtain or two, because Exodus says that there should be two curtains. But Josephus, who's our only real source of information, about the second temple says that there was only one curtain. He doesn't mention two curtains. Now, was he was Josephus? I mean, he's the historian, but was he also, did I read in your book

that he was a priest? Yes, yes. That's why I think we should take that into consideration. This is what I mean. Like, I'm reading your book, and I'm thinking, how did I miss this? Josephus was a priest. Was intimately acquainted with the temple in the time of Jesus. I mean, it's absolutely astonishing that we have this information. Okay, folks, we're talking to the author of the crucifixion of the King of Glory, Eugenia Constantinio. We'll be right back. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question. Well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal. And I agree with them.

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I'm talking to the author of the Crucifixion of the King of Glory, Eugenia Constantinu. Jeannie, since you let me call you Jeannie, when I was in your home, Suzanne and I were looking at the icons and the cover of the book, which I'm holding up now, it's such a beautiful book, which is not always true of books, but this is a beautiful book. And on the cover, you have the picture, you have Jesus from an icon that is in your dining room. And I've never seen this icon before.

It's a beautiful, beautiful icon. Talk a little bit about, I mean, I love the idea that in the Orthodox Church, there's some nuances. The Catholic Church often portrays, Jesus on the cross in paroxysms of pain. And for some reason, the Orthodox Church tends not to do that. That's right. That's right. It's a good point. May I have the book? Yeah. I'll show you. Okay, so you're absolutely right about that. The presentation of Jesus on the cross is very different in Orthodox iconography, because Orthodox iconography is not intended to depict realistically what happened historically. Can we look at Jesus?

It's not a photograph. It's not, right, because it's theological. in line and color. So an icon is teaching us something about what's actually more important. So whenever we depict Jesus on the cross, by the way, King of Glory, I wanted a different icon, because above his head is the titulus where we know it said Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews, but in most Orthodox icons, it says King of Glory. Because that's, I forgot to show that to you when you saw the whole thing. This has been because of the way they designed the cover.

And I don't know the Greek, what's the Greek word for glory? Vasilev's d'oxys. You know, that doxies. These doxies. Wow. Because that's what he was. And that, of course, has to do with what St. Paul said. If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.

But also the Psalm, there's a messianic Psalm that says, lift up your heads and be lifted up you gates, that the King of Glory may enter. And who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts. So that's a Messianic Psalm. Now, when we see Jesus depicted in an Orthodox icon, on. There is blood. You see that here in his side, there's blood in his hands, because he did have a real human body and he really suffered. So we acknowledge that. But he's always looking, look how relaxed the posture is on the cross, because he went to the cross willingly for our salvation. That's very important. And that's why his face is at peace. He's relaxed. He's almost as though he's sleeping. And his hands are flat against the wood because he went to the cross. He for us willingly.

And so the voluntary nature of Christ's passion is very important in the prayers and hymns of the Orthodox Church. And that's why you see him depicted this way. And of course, around his head, we have the O'O'on, which is the I am, because he is God. So there's always a theological meaning behind the icon, but that's why he's not shown in agony. And also because we know that he didn't, he wasn't crying to God, feeling that abandonment, that people identify with Psalm 22. My God, my God, my God, why have you?

I mean, I've corrected that a number of times myself that, I mean, there's so many misconceptions that are, they're hugely popular and hugely perfectly wrong. And one of them is, I mean, we should just say this for people who aren't familiar. And you talk about this in the book, that when Jesus spoke the first line of Psalm 22, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? what we forgot most of us is that rabbis and religious Jews would refer to each Psalm by the first line. That's right. And so in a sense, by saying the first line, he wasn't merely saying the first line, but he was referring to the entirety of the Psalm, which ends gloriously and heroically.

That's right. And it's so amazing because, again, you go into this, and folks, I promise you, you. you will be blessed by this book, but because, you go into the details, and some of this stuff, some people will be familiar with, but there's lots of real surprises. And I want to get to some of those because you really,

the one thing that sticks out to me that you talk about in the book that I honestly thought, how have I never heard this, is you talk about the parallel that Abraham sacrificing Isaac, we often hear, okay, there's a parallel between Abraham sacrificing Isaac with Jesus going to the cross. And then we hear there are parallels of the Exodus and the Passover lamb sacrificed with Jesus, the Pascal Lamb being sacrificed. But I had never heard about the parallels in Jewish tradition of this era between the story of Abraham and Isaac and the Exodus. I have absolutely never heard that.

How did you discover this? I discovered that as part of my research for the book because I had some questions. So you didn't know this? That's what's amazing to me too. How is it that? Some things I knew, but other things I found out that ended up in the book that I didn't know. And I said to myself, how can I? I'm a Bible scholar.

And I don't know these things. Because very often in biblical studies, we end up in a very, very narrow field. and then like it's not just that we're all in biblical studies, but you're a specialist in Gospel of John or Book of Revelation or whatever it is. And sometimes I hadn't really read a lot of things, especially from Jewish literature. But who has? This is what's so amazing is that you dove into Jewish literature and Jewish scholars

who don't believe Jesus is Messiah. So they're kind of letting their hair down. They're letting it all hang out. They're talking and talking. They think just among themselves. And then in the future, somebody like you happens to listen to the conversation and you go, oh my goodness. That's right.

And there was more that I really wanted to include, but I couldn't really bring all the connections together. I didn't have time to do further research, but there were very other things about Passover that are still in the back of my mind. Maybe I should go back and see if I could really make the case that there's even more connection, but it was a little bit more difficult. It wasn't so obvious as some of these. Okay, but the obvious one, which I hadn't heard, talk about Abraham. Oh, actually, no, we're going to a break.

We'll be right back talking to the author of The Crucifixion of the King of Glory. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion, travel, and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there, but did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies through your 401Ks, IRAs, and other investment accounts? Folks, this is a huge problem, and we need to do something about this to send a message to Wall Street through our investments. You need to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric and get a free Inspire Impact Report. This biblical investment analysis will educate you on what's really in your investment accounts, like companies paying for abortion travel.

You need to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric to connect with an InspireAdvisors financial professional who can run your report and help remove companies paying for abortion travel today. Go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. That's inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Advisory services are offered through Inspire Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend, Jeannie Konstantino, who has written a spectacular book, which you should get. It's called The Crucifixion of the King of Glory. Jeannie, we were just talking about what you discovered in the writing of this book, which I've never heard. And I really took my breath away, and I said, everybody needs to know this.

This is big news from the world of scholarship, thanks to you, that there are parallels that the Jews of the first century in that period. When they talked about the story of Abraham and Isaac, it had direct parallels for them with the Exodus story. That's right. So talk about this. Okay. So what happens is, you know, Abraham and Isaac, that story that Christians call the sacrifice of Isaac. The Jews call the binding of Isaac, and that's a very important story in Jewish history. And it turns out that they associated that with the Passover.

So it doesn't say in Genesis exactly what date Abraham took off, you know, with Isaac to walk to Mount. So should I tell the story? Why not? We'll try to make it real quick. So Abraham was told by God after Isaac was grown up that he should take your son, your beloved son, your agapidosios, or your only son, your Yahid in Hebrew, and take him to the mountain of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt sacrifice. So Abraham, of course, is completely tortured by this thought that he has to offer his son,

but he does it without questioning. That's Abraham's character. And he goes with Isaac and a couple of servants, and they walk for three days, and they arrive at Mount Moriah, and Abraham ties up Isaac. He binds him and puts him on the wood of the fire, and he is going to sacrifice him to the Lord when he stopped. So this has really captured the imagination of many people, not only Jews but Christians also.

Why would God ask that of Abraham? Why is this story in the Bible? And that has been something that has been discussed by Jews for almost 4,000 years because Abraham is back at like 2000 or 1800 BC. So the question was, why is this story there? and what does it have to teach us? Well, for the Jews, they have difficulty understanding why the story was preserved because it's so horrific, the idea that God would ask you to sacrifice your own son. But as they talked about it, imagine them talking about this for centuries and really thinking about this. They came to the conclusion of many things, certain conclusions, one of which was that Isaac was a willing participant because on the way to the sacrifice, he didn't know. that he was supposed to be sacrificed. He said to Abraham, Father, we have everything we need for the sacrifice. And Isaac was carrying the wood on his back. And he said, we have everything that we need

for the sacrifice, but not the lamb. Where's the lamb? And Abraham said, God will provide the lamb. So as the centuries passed, when you look at the story in Genesis, it doesn't say that Isaac resisted or anything. So the rabbis and Jewish sages and scholars came to the conclusion that Isaac willingly allowed himself to be bound by his father much, much younger than his father, who was over hundred years old at the time. And he allowed himself. He could have taken the old man, is what we're saying. He could have taken him. He could have said not me. But you know something, this is, because we forget these stories, I forget that he bound his son. He bound his son. He bound his son. That's what's called the binding. And I always think, I can never stop thinking

of like the comic version of this. Like, hey, hey, pop, where's the, where's the lamb for the sacrifice? And you could see Abraham gets shift. He's like, uh, we can't. We can't talk about that now. You know, like you try to think, how did this work itself out? Yes. And then when you get to the idea that he bound his son, the son then knew. The son knew before the being bound, obviously. He allowed himself to be bound.

And according to Jewish traditions, he said to his father, tie me tightly, father, because he didn't want to be afraid and just change his mind. So this is part of the Jewish tradition. And it was part of the Jewish tradition before the time of Christ. This is the case. the first century. And because Isaac was the willing victim, this is what made him very important in Judaism. He's more important in the story than Abraham is. We Christians always think about Abraham. How could he do that? Well, what faith? But for the Jews, Isaac is the hero of the story,

because of his willingness to be sacrificed. And because of this, it was believed in Judaism, still is believed in Judaism. Because remember, the Jewish people today are alive because of Isaac. from Abraham, so are the Arabs, but the Jews are descended from Abraham through Isaac. So they're alive today because of Isaac. And when they were enslaved in Egypt, they believed that God answered their prayers for liberation because of Isaac's meritorious deed, being willing to die. Okay. I didn't quite understand this, but this is important. They, the Jews believe that God allowed them to leave Egypt and to go to the promised land as a direct result of Isaac's willingness to die, to be a sacrifice.

It's like the reward. I mean, I've never heard that. That's true. It's because they called it meritorious or almost expiatory. In other words, there's actual language in there are, there were some Jewish authors of the first century BC and CE or AD who believed that Abraham maybe even shed some of Isaac's blood or that he actually burnt Isaac but Isaac rose from the dead. There's actually this is present in the early Jewish writings. So the idea is that this is present before Jesus. Before the time of Christ.

What has happened is a lot of Jewish scholars don't like that so they would say no, no, no, they got this idea from Christianity but we can prove now without a shadow of a doubt and Jewish scholars are also acknowledging this, that these ideas were part of Judaism before the sacrifice of Christ. But the early Christians saw this parallel, and even Paul alludes to it, God who did not even spare his only son, or the baptism of Christ, when God opens the heavens, the father opens the heavens and says, this is my beloved son, right? And those exact words is exactly what is in the septuagint. This is Abraham, take your son, your beloved son.

Since you did not spare your beloved son or your only son. You see, now I know that you really love me. So it's not an accident that the ministry of Jesus begins with those words from the father at his baptism. Can you see the connection there? I mean, it's amazing and it's of course amazing to think that

first century Jews would have made the connection and it would have driven them to see Jesus as the foretold Messiah, which we've lost. It's one element, but if you take all of those elements together, the fulfillment of prophecies, the healings, and all those other things, but definitely that. But here is a key piece that has been lost until now. Until right now, the book is the crucifixion of the king of glory. And the Greeks, you know, typically what we say, we say,

po, po, po, which means, wow. We'll be right back talking to Jeannie Constantino, the crucifixion of the King of Glory. Hey there, folks. As you know, today we are playing my interview that we did months ago with Jeannie Konstantino for a couple of reasons to wet your appetite for the Socrates in the city event that is coming up this coming Tuesday, February 28th. I want to encourage people to live stream it. We've never done this before, ever. And we were very excited.

Anyone, anyone who has a computer or whatever. You can go to Socrates in the city.com. Now you have to do this ahead of time. You've got to register for the live stream. But you go to Socratesinthecity.com. And when you click on that event, you can live stream. It's like $10. And you can watch it live.

We have never done this before. We're very excited for you all to join us. And I'm excited anyway. So you want to go to Socrates and the city.com. But you've got to register for the live stream. Obviously, if you want to come in person, you've got to register for that. but if you want to live stream it, you also got to register. So Socrates in the city.com, Jeannie Konstantino, she'll be my guest in the next hour

because her stuff is just amazing. I think it's a beautiful time of year as we begin lent to really prepare our hearts to think about the deeper meaning of what it is that happened. And her book, I'm telling you, I've never read anything like it. It's amazing. And maybe the most amazing thing about what's, she does, she takes you back to Passover week and to what happened. And she gets into the Roman law in the first century in Jerusalem. And she gets into the priestly law, the Jewish priestly law,

and kind of weaves it together. So it's just, it's amazing. Now, I want to say, by the way, part of this, you know, when I read her book, I thought to myself, I cannot wait to get back to Israel. because I thought this is to be there, do you see where this happened, folks? Oh my gosh. If you read my book as atheism dead, I talk about the, they now know where the trial of Jesus happened. For years, they kept talking about it. It's in this other place. No.

They now know, I talk about it in my book. But anyway, to go to the Holy Land is a big, big, big deal. And one of the sponsors on this program is the Israel Ministry of Tourism. So let me give you their website, actually. It's holyland. com Israel. com. Holyland.

Israel. Travel. And, Albin, you like their tagline. Oh, yeah, the tagline. Read it. Eric, read it. Israel. Exactly like nowhere else.

That's good. That's great. But it's kind of funny because it's really true. Mike drop. It's really true. It's like amazing. So holyland. dot Israel

travel is the website but it is true when I went there a few years ago you really can barely take in that you're

where these things happen it's life changing and so I want to go back of course and I probably will be going back on a Salem trip about at the end of

2024 we're trying to work that out with Denis Chesuza but I just want to say that the website is holyland.israel.travel. I want to go back there also to film when I talked about my book is atheism dead. There's a lot of archaeological stuff in there, and we want to film a TV series and stuff. But it's just exciting to me. So holyland.israel.com travel.

So in hour two, we'll continue the conversation with Jeannie Konstantino. And if you want to sign up for the Socrates and the city live stream, you just, go to the Sockton City website and you click on the Jeannie Constantineau event and you'll see it's for 10 bucks. Anyone anywhere can be with us live. I'm a little freaked out by this album. Are you freaked out? A little bit. It's hard not to be freaked out.

Anyway, we'll be right back. Up to 10 years. It's open to them with your place see the truth.