Theology in the Raw - From TV to studying the Jewish Roots of Christianity: Kathie Lee Gifford

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Register for the Exiles in Babylon conference! April 30-May 2 (Minneapolis, MN). Kathie Lee Gifford is the four-time Emmy award winning former co-host of the fourth hour of “TODAY,” alongside Hoda Kotb. Prior to NBC News, Gifford served as the co-host of “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee” for 15 years. In 2015 Gifford was inducted into the Broadcast & Cable Hall of Fame. She was recently awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gifford authored five NY Times bestselling books including, It’s Never Too Late…Make The Next Act of Your Life the Best Act of Your Life, The Rock, The Road and the Rabbi, and Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior—the first book of her trilogy. The second book in this trilogy is Nero and Paul, which is set to be released March 10, 2026.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Because really to me, the Bible now that I've read it, for 11 years I read it beginning to end, and I was not learning anything. And I realize that the scriptures are really written in black and white. But if you know context and you know history, the cinematic aspect of it comes, and it has Dolby Sound, and now it makes sense. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Rob. My guest today is actually the one or only, Kathy Lee Gifford. for those of you who are like under 25 years old

and may not know who Kathy Lee Gifford is. She's a four-time Emmy Award-winning former co-host of the fourth hour of today. Prior to NBC News, Gifford served as a co-host of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee for 15 years, and she was recently awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gifford is a five-time,

New York Times best-selling author, whose recent book is Herod and Mary, the true story of the tyrant king and the mother of the risen Savior, the first book of her trilogy. The second book in this trilogy is Nero and Paul, which is set to be released on March 10th, 2026. This interview was recorded in person in Franklin, Tennessee. So, wow, I was a little starstruck.

I grew up watching Regis and Kathy Lee, and couldn't believe she agreed to come on the podcast. And I didn't know she was such a, such an fascinating thinker when it comes to the first century Jewish context of the New Testament. So I read her book and it was really, really well written, fascinating stuff. And I would invite you to check it out. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Kathy Lee Gifford. All right. Welcome to Theology, Jennifer, Kathy Lee Gifford.

Won't lie, a little nervous about this episode because you are a professional. professional in this space. Yeah, I'm on to you, buddy. I want to know. How did a four-time Emmy Award winner with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame become a writer in the first-century church context of the New Testament?

I'm listening to your book right now, Herod and Mary, and I'm a New Testament scholar, so I'm always skeptical of anybody touching, like, you know... Touching the truth? Yes, exactly. I'm blown away at how obviously it's very well written, very engaging, but I'm paying attention to like the accuracy. And this is like, this is an extremely good historical book. I'm absolutely loving.

I'm so glad. And I'm glad you're listening to it. It can be dense, you know, a lot of history there and a lot of complicated relationships and stuff like that. And sometimes you lose people in our modern world. We don't have much of a, you know, people don't sit. still for very long and they get, you know, but so I, I've been an actress of my entire life. I enjoy doing my audio books. And this one, this one's juicy. You know, I've never written thrillers before. But my, my writing career goes back long before I ever sat on a stool and talked to Regis

or talked to Hoda or did anything like that. People, you know, I left the show with Regis after 15 years. I left the show with Hoda after 11. And everybody says to me still, how could you have left your dream job twice at the height of your success. And I look at them and I just, I go, you're just assuming that was my dream job. There was when I was out of the womb with a prat fall and a rim shot from my mother's Vajaja, and that's how I came out of the world, baby, ready to put on a show. And I can't believe I just said Vajaja to you. Theology Narah, Kathy, you could say Vajaja on theology.

I've had much worse on Theology Narva. We're just getting more bad. Well, I cleaned it up. But anyway, yeah, all I wanted to do is put on a show and be a singer and a dancer and a writer. And so that's all I wanted to do. And now that I don't have to be in New York on a daily basis, you know, commuting from Connecticut every day, year after year after year, I'm just freed now to make those dreams come true in my mother's womb. as David talks about in that secret place.

So, and my father was Jewish. And so I was always very well aware of my Jewish heritage. And when I was always, I came to know Jesus as my Messiah. When I was right on the cusp of womanhood, Billy Graham put out his first movie from his, and he got such criticism for it because how can you go put something in the movie theaters? Like the devil owns the movie theaters. Look what that man did on.

television. He'd said, God owns the airwaves. He owns everything. He owns everything. And he was so courageous of him to say, no, I'm going to take use for God's good and for God's glory what the devil's been using to harvest hearts, you know? And I was blessed beyond words to be really close friends with Billy since I was my early 20s. Early, early 20s. And he said to me, even then, long before my career was taking off. Well, I just had started. When I was 22, I did name that tune, and that sort of made me the la-la girl on Name That Tune, and that started the whole thing.

I haven't been out of work since. So you pray for your big moment, and that was it. I learned how many songs I forget? Like 200 songs in five days. Oh, my word. Yeah, and I couldn't do that today. I had an unbelievable memory back then. I still do have an excellent memory.

My body inside is falling apart. I'm a pile of arthritic ash. But my brain, thank you, Jesus, is still strong. But anyway, when I was 17, my daddy, he knew how much I loved studying the Bible at the time. I don't even call it the Bible anymore. Preston, I don't. I call it the scriptures because there's so many horrendous, horrendous translations of the Bible. And I like to study the original Greek and the original Hebrew,

because otherwise you're getting a lie. You're getting a lie. And I want to base my whole life on truth or else it's not worth it. You get one life, you know, until you get the best of them. And so anyway, my daddy found out, we found out that there was a big, the first Jerusalem council on biblical, what was it? Prophecy. Okay.

Yeah, was being held in Jerusalem in 1971 in June. Well, that was when I was supposed to graduate from high school. go to my prom and all that stuff. You know, my daddy gave my mother and I tickets to go. And so we went to Israel, and a minute my feet landed on Jewish soil. I said, oh, my God, dear God, I'm home. Because all my life I have identified as a Jew and a messianic Christian. But I didn't know that much.

We weren't practicing Jews. We weren't even practicing Christians really in my family. We honored God, but we were never church people. And I'm glad. A lot of people love their churches, and I would never put anybody down for it. I am so glad I don't have church baggage. I was going to say, yeah. If you don't go up in the church, you don't risk having church baggage,

which sometimes can push you further away from the faith than if you didn't have any church background at all. That's exactly right. I don't want religion. I want relationship. And that's always been my thing. So Billy said to me years ago, He said, Kathy, I want you to do, if you want some advice, and I said, from you? Yeah, hello.

Can I bottle this and keep it from? He said, I don't regret much in my life. I said, but the one time I do regret is that the times that I got political, that I got off my message and got political. He said, don't do that, Kathy, if you possibly can. You know, you open your mouth and you get political, you lose half your audience. You are going to have. a huge career in the entertainment world. Nobody had ever told me that.

I just wanted to make a living doing what I love to do, you know? He said, you're going to have a huge, and if you stay on what your message is, which is God loves you. You know, like when I came to know the Lord through Billy's movie, I felt like I was hearing the voice of Yeshua Jesus saying to me, Kathy, I love you. And if you'll trust me, I'll make something beautiful out of your life. And I just couldn't get down that aisle. a movie theater fast enough. My brother didn't want me to go because it was in a bad part of town.

I said, well, then you're coming with me. And he came to faith quite a few years later. But anyway, that was the beginning of it. And so I've avoided politics, you know, all my life. I'm very, I have strong opinions privately. But I, you know, when Billy Graham takes you aside and befriends you and tells you something like that, it stayed with me my whole life. Frank and I sued the state of New York three times and because of political issues but that was all about the care of children that was all about children

that was not I'm a Republican I'm a Democrat I'm a it was nothing about that it's like no no no you are you're border babies and and that's a whole other podcast that's you know unbelievable but we won all three of them we won all asthma different things that you know you just it makes me mad it's righteous anger when people are not taking care

of the most vulnerable of all our citizens, little ones, the babies. Don't forbid them to come unto me because they are the kingdom of heaven. It's a basic Christian value. Totally, totally, totally. And so I did it all in the name of the Lord, not in the name of some political party. I love that. So I was doing that kind of work long before I was on a seat talking nonsense and making people laugh and getting in sumo outfits and you know.

dumb, just dumb stuff, but funny. And Regis and I never had an unkind word between us the entire time. Really? No. We were dear friends. And we became even better friends in the 25 years since I left the show. Oh, really? Wow. And he just died a couple of years ago. And I miss him every day. Yeah. I used to watch you, too, if I had a sick day at school. Yes. You know, on in the morning. And I'd always watch Regis and Kathy Lee. So I have people tell me, I used to pretend I was sick. so I could stay home and watch you guys. We had fun.

Everybody said, what was a secret? I said, fun. Yeah. And we looked so natural. It looked like you guys weren't performing. It just looked like you were genuine friends, but it happened to be recording your conversations. Yeah, yeah, there happened to be cameras around.

That's exactly right. And we adored each other. We respected each other. There was never a mean moment on our show. We didn't, I could not survive one day on daytime television now because I'm so outspoken and I'm so authentic, Whatever I say is what I feel and mean. I may be wrong, but at least I'll admit it.

That's good. Yeah. So all of the other stuff with the writing and all happened when I was 17. And going to Israel changed my life. But back then I didn't know how bad so many of the translations are. A lot of people still think to this day that the King James Version is the only divinely inspired word of God. And it's the worst of all of them. It's the worst of all of them.

of them. And I remember going on my first rabbinical trip with an incredible gentleman that I just was with a couple of weeks ago. Ray van der Leyen. Ray van der Leyen. I love Ray van der Leyen. He was like a mountain goat going up those. He would never take us the easy way. You had to climb, climb, climb. And he had to have back surgery the day that we came home from Israel, but he was still going up that mountain faster than anybody. And I learned so much from when we get to the top of the, um, the the crest of a mountain, you're ready to just kill the man. And it was one of the first days we went to the Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath.

And it hasn't changed in 3,000 years, except for there's foliage there now. There's trees. Back in first century AD, there was, you know, people go, well, I'll get to the point pretty soon. Let's see, he said, well, how many of you in this group, about 25 of us, How many of you in this group remember what Jesus and his earthly father, Joseph, did for a living? And everyone, he was a carpenter.

He goes, well, actually not. And my first thought was, oh, my gosh, I'm stuck in Israel for 10 days with a guy who doesn't even know the Bible. I mean, we're so arrogant, you know, in our, in our, I don't know, ignorance, arrogant and happy, you know. Happy in my ignorance. And so he went on to talk about the fact that, you know, there was no buildable wood in first century AD. All of it was, you know, from the Cedars in Lebanon. And they were cut down and basically floated down the – I'm telling you stuff that you know. I love this.

This is for your audience's sake, if they don't know this stuff. Because people go, what do you mean Jesus wasn't a carpenter? That's like one of the basic faith things we have. I like thinking he's a carpenter. Well, of course he worked with some wood, but there was nothing buildable about it. And Israel, in terms of anything that would be permanent, you had to get that from way north and taken down the Mediterranean and taken off in what was it called Joppa at the time, but it's modern-day Tel Aviv. And right where Jonah took off from, right where, you know, I don't know, a lot of things happened.

That's where Peter was when he had his invisible. vision. And anyway, I thought, oh my gosh, and he explained that the word used in the New Testament is tecton in the Greek. You know this. It's you. You really do know. Oh, yeah. T-E-K-T-O-N. And it means if you look it up in the Greek, architect slash builder. And when King James had, it translated into English, the guys were English guys who happened to no Greek. But they had never been to Israel, from what I understand. They'd never been there. They didn't know it. It's a desert, basically. It is a desert. And most of the trees, if you go to Israel now, they're beautiful trees everywhere. Most of them were planted after Israel became a nation in 1948. And people still go to Israel to plant trees in honor of somebody they've lost. I've done it. Not a whole tree, but seeds. And my mother's ashes and my husband's ashes. They're both in Israel. Well, something of my mother's. My mother wasn't cremated.

My husband was. And I went to the Garden of Gassanemi and buried some ashes there, my favorite, you know, olive tree. And some of those olive trees have been there. Jesus could have been praying them under them at the time that he said, not my will be done, but yours, Lord. They're that old. Yeah. They're just magnificent, gnarly things.

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So start the new year right and use code T-I-T-R to get 50% off your purchase of a new night guard. That's 50% off at shop Remy. K shop R-E-M-I dot com forward slash T-I-T-R with code T-T-R. Thank you, Remy for sponsoring this episode. When was that first trip? So you went with Ray Vanderlorn. I want to say, if I remember, 2012. Was that an eye-opening, transitionary time in your? Totally changed my life. Okay. Where the Bible in the first century context, ancient contexts, really started to come alive? Absolutely, because he's a great storyteller. Everybody calls her R-L-V-L, R-V-L, but I always call to Michigan-R-V, because he'd take his hat as like his, you know, the movie was the movie with the whip

I mean, anyway Indiana Jones. Oh yeah, yeah. Instead of Indiana Jones, I'd call it Michigan Ray. He'd take off his hats, throw it into the dust. And that's where I became fascinated with Herod. Really? We only know Herod from about a couple of references

in the nativity story in the Bible in the New Testament. But Herod's life, when I came back from that trip, I thought if Jesus is the greatest story ever told, and we all believe that. You and I do. Not the whole, I wish the whole world thought so, but they're getting there.

But I thought then Herod's the greatest story never told. Because I'd never heard everything about him. Everything about his political sphere of influence from Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, to all of it's in our book. And, well, yeah, most of it's in our book. And a lot of it's in my book, The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi,

which I should have brought you. That's the one I wrote with my rabbi friend after I got back from the trip to the rabbinical one with the Ray. I changed because I realized that all the things that have bugged me my whole life about the Bible and I said to myself, I don't believe that. And you're a heretic, of course, if you say such a thing. I got kicked out of Sunday school when I was 10 years old. I got kicked out of the brownies, kicked out of Sunday school, and kicked out of the America's Junior Miss Pagent. Why? Because I don't like rules that are stupid.

I don't like man-made rules. No, I got because in Sunday school, my teacher was talking about the story when Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives along that road, and he's hungry, and he sees a sycamore fig tree, and he goes over, and it has no fruit on it, and he curses it, and it shrivels up. And I said, teacher, you know, and she goes, what, Kathy? And I said, I don't believe that. And she goes, what do you mean? You don't believe it? I just read it from the Bible. No, no, no.

My Jesus would never curse something he made. Oh, wow. He loves what he's created. She was on that Sunday school teacher. Yes, yeah. And so she just, I was asked to not come to Sunday school anymore. Oh, my word. Which was fine with me.

I was, had none of that. My own 10-year-old little mind knew. Something's wrong about this story the way they're telling it. Years later, I'm on another rabbinical trip walking down that same little. That's where Jesus came down on the donkey on Palm Sunday. That's the same road that divides the garden from the Mount of Olives. It's ancient. And that's where Jesus told this parable.

We know that from other sources. But anyway, well, not a parable, but the story of Jesus, his disciples were there and watched it happen. And he was at that time being covered. I mean, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were following him everywhere. They were looking to get him. And there was never a time where there was a gathering that they weren't out there as spies to report to Chaya. Especially that last week. They were all over him.

Yes. Well, we think my teachers, not me. And everybody says, well, you're such a biblical scholar now. I go, no, I'm not. I started too late in life to become a scholar. But I'm a great student. And I love to learn. And when I learn from the best of the best of the best, I've tried to quote Ray so many times I say, Ray, do you mind if I use this? I will let, I'll tell people I got it from you. He goes, no, you don't have to tell them to tell them that. I got it from somebody else. You know, we're all, we're all, we all, we all, we all, we all, our students and people teach us now they can teach us right or they can teach us wrong. And I want to learn the truth. So this particular time, I'm coming down the same. I don't go, oh, here we go.

Buckle up. And this time, I don't remember who was teaching. It might have been Rabbi Jason, but probably was Ray again. No, Rod, you know, Rod Libby? No, huh? Okay, well, I have to give you their information. They're incredible. They're from Grand Rapids.

Okay. And he was Ray's best student ever. Oh, wow. I'll be there next week, Grand Rapids, yeah. Really? Yeah. Oh, okay. I'll try to get a number if you want to meet.

He'd be great on your podcast. He would, he and Libby Bow. I loved studying with a husband and a wife. She would do the homily first when we did the shmah, before we'd head out, hear, oh, Israel, the Lord, the Lord is one. The Lord your God is one. I love the Shema. And, you know, I love the original languages.

I'm crazy about them. How do you have you, did you take classes or teach your own? No, no, no, no, no. I just study. I just go to Israel. When people go, where do you go to church, I go Israel? You know, I go to Israel. and I haven't been able to for various amount of reasons lately.

But I'm headed back. I'm headed back soon, Lord, if it's your will. Anyway, we start on the teaching. And the teaching basically is that in first century A.D., when Jesus was on the earth physically and doing his teaching and having his ministry, there were no trees, as we know them. They were like glorified bushes. There was the balsam.

There was obviously the orange fruit trees, and there was the olive tree. And he said when only people that lived in that time would understand the context of the sycamore fig tree and why Jesus cursed it. He cursed it because, you know how the olive tree represents the people of the Jewish people? The sycamore fig tree represents the learned, religious learned people. You know, the so-called Pharisees and Sadducees at that time. And Jesus was cursing them for not feeding his people, for not taking care of the sheep, for stealing from them, from lying to them, to taking their money, to burdening them more with more and more taxes and more and more laws that they could barely keep the law of the Judaic, you know, the Mosaic law,

much less, what, 600 other things that they made them, you know, live by? Who could? These people were not what, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't students of the word. They, they, they, they knew, they knew tradition, they knew the oral traditions and they, and they would go to, to, um, to, their synagogues and learn the word from the scrolls when the rabbis came by. But they didn't, they weren't learned people as I guess the word I'm looking for, but they had a hunger, a deep hunger for what, community with God, relationship with God. And, that's what Jesus finally came to represent. He and the father were one. And he said, if you believe in me,

you will be one with me, too, as I am one with the father. And they got excited. They were, they were poor. They were under tremendously evil rule, not just by by Pontius Pilate and the Romans, but by their own people. You know, Caiaphas had his own police, you know, his guards, his temple guards. And they weren't full of love for their people at all. They were full of the law. Right. Full of the law. And Jesus said, I didn't come to destroy the law.

I came to fulfill it. So the more I learned about this stuff, every time I read something now in the scripture, I just go straight to Google. And I say, what does this word actually mean in the Greek or the Hebrew? You know, one of the biggest mistakes in all of the translations in the Bible is the word fear. Fear is a lot, fear not, fear not in the Bible, right? Many admonitions do not fear. Because if we're fearing, if we're afraid, we're not trusting. And that's what honors God.

That's what blesses him, you know, the praises of his people. He knows when we're afraid, and he gets us through the shadows of death. You know, he gets us through everything we're afraid of. But the word is Yere, I think I'm pronouncing it right, Y-I-R-E-H for fear. In the Hebrew? Oh, okay. Yeah, the Greek words. Yeah.

And you have to understand the context in which it's used. Now, what I learned about Yere is that we as children of God have no reason to fear God. No reason. Right. When Jere is used in that context, it means awe and wonder. Yeah. what so many people have when they get religion. I'm afraid, what's God going to do to me because I sinned. You know what God's going to do? He's going to forgive you and get you back on your feet

and get you walking on the path again. That's what he's going to do. Crawl up in your Abba, which means daddy. Crawl up in your daddy's lap and let him hold you until you're not trembling anymore. And then let him set you down on firm ground. So that has changed my life. Learning what the words actually say. If people that are listening are interested in this. And I don't expect most people to be. Although I'm finding more and more and more people, Preston, are. They have a hunger for truth. Absolutely. They've been lied. They want to go deep. They want to question long-held traditions and say what does a text actually say? Right. Yes. So the best book that I've written out of my many, many, many, and I co-wrote this with

Rabbi Jason Sobel, brilliant messianic rabbi and rapper. I say, please don't rap. Don't, don't. Just teach me. I hate rap. I started out writing about my experience on this first trip. My publisher wanted me to write a book about it, and I said, I didn't want to. I don't like writing books. I like writing children's books. It takes me an hour, you know. But books are hard.

Books are hard. And you have to really, really devote yourself to it, a lot of time to them. Writing one sometimes is the easiest part. Then you've got to, you know, go out and go out. sell them and do all of that. Anyway, the point of it is that I realized after about 50 pages, I didn't have a book. I had a pamphlet. So I called my friend Rabbi Jason, whom I just adore, and I've learned so much. I love to study under him. I'm going to hear him speak tonight. Or maybe tomorrow and I'm not sure which. He's here in Nashville speaking. And so anyway,

I called him up and I said, would you co-write this book with me? Because the rabbis, the good rabbis, there's phony rabbis too, but the really good ones always take you 10 layers deeper down in understanding. Especially about the numerology in the scriptures. You know, I was told when I was growing up, oh, no, no, no, no, you can't do numerology. Well, there's nothing random in the scripture. As for God, his ways are perfect. The word of the Lord is flawless. It's not flawless if you're reading King James or some of the other versions.

It's not flawless. It's very flawed because flawed people interpreted it and not under the not under the Holy Spirit's leading, you know. So he did that and people, I mean, the stuff this man knows about why everything, every number in the whole Bible is important. You know that. It's a very Hebrew way of thinking. Yeah. Every number has some kind of symbolic significance to it, you know. It's so, so deep. And I love that. I want to know why was, why were, you know, we formed on a certain day. People say, well, the Bible was, I mean, the creation happened in one, a literal seven-day week. But, you know, and the day for, the word for day is yam in Hebrew, right? Yom.

And, like Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement Day. And but day, day can be, in Hebrew can mean 24 hours or it can mean a long period of time. Yeah. People don't know that. So they get mad at you. What do you mean? You don't believe the Bible was made. God can do anything.

Yeah, but he didn't do it that way. He didn't do it the way you've been taught. Whether or not it's a literal seven days, I think we all should agree that that's not the main point. There's a main point of creation in six days resting on seven. And those numbers are significant. There's so much poetry and creativity going in, even in the presentation of the creation account. You've got, you know, three days creating heavens and earth,

the sea, the land. And then the next three days, he's filling in that, those parts of creation and those kind of days correspond with each other. So people get hung up on the, whether it's a little seven or not, whatever. And I think you're just, you're kind of missing the main point if you get so sidetracked with those. Yeah. I don't want to be, I don't want to be sidetracked and I don't want to just preach to people because I'm not a preacher. I like to share.

Jesus was a teacher, not a preacher. And I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and so, you know, that's, that's what, that's why I do what I do now. And my, and when I came home from this first trip, so on fire about the stuff I learned about Herod, I went, why don't, I know this stuff. Yeah. I would just get, so when you're in the land, what, whatever, because when you go to the Land. Herod's footprints are everywhere. So tell us what, I want to know your experience when you're in the land. You started, your eyes started becoming open to the incredible complexity and wickedness and greatness and ingenuity and just this complex figure.

Yes. Tell me about that experience. Well, it just blew my mind. It blew my mind because, you know, I've interviewed most of the great people in this world. You know, I'm not great leaders around the world. But I mean, you know, in the Zitex, is that what's called Zygeist? Zyggeist of our world. I've done it.

I've been there. I sat with them. I've partied with them. I've, you know, yeah, pretty much name them. And I have a, that's why I can fill these many books with stories about all these people. And it's been fascinating life. But Herod, I had no idea. And I get mad when I say, why didn't anybody tell them?

me this. Why didn't I learn this in Sunday school? Why don't I hear this in church today? You know, I want to know the truth. And there's lots written about Herod. It's harder now, well, and Nero too. But there wasn't a whole lot with Mary's on the back. You know, you have to go back to early church teachings and things like that about Mary. We know, all we know is what we've been told in scripture, and that's enough, you know, but it wasn't enough for me to write this book. So we had to really delve into, that's where my partner, Brian, came in because he has a magnificent knowledge of early church teachings and, you know, all of the other scriptural-ish things that were written at the time. And by eyewitnesses and first century stuff outside the Bible, but fills in the context. Because really to me, the Bible now that I've read it, for 11 years I read it beginning to end.

And I was not learning anything. And I realize that the Bible, the scriptures are really written in black and white. But if you know context and you know history, then the cinematic aspect of it comes and it has sound and it has Dolby sound and it's got, you know, it's magnificent when you fill in like the context of the story I just said about the sycamore, the fig sycamore tree. You know, knowing that the story I just said, I said, now it makes sense. I like things to make sense. Now there is a mystery to scripture too and a mystery to the Godhead and a mystery to where we're going when we go to be with the Lord. A mystery still is from where we came from. But I love that kind of mystery.

That's sort of deep, deep. awe and wonder that that year A is supposed to be for us. The only people who should be afraid of God are his enemies. Right. Yeah. His enemies. What was your, of all of Herod's

architectural achievements, there's many? Were there any that stand out as particularly impressive to you? Well, all of his palace, as I realized, you know, they're one day's journey from each, from the, from the, near the Golan Heights all the way down. So he can go from

if he's in trouble or something. That was his escape route to get back to where he came from, which is Edom. He was not even a Jew. And people don't realize that. King of the Jews, no. No, no, no. He died about four years after the actual king of the Jews was born. You know?

And the king of all of mankind, you know, mankind. So I love Herodium. Herodium's amazing. I love Herodium. That's where, that's where, you know, Michigan Ray threw down his hat and he'd say, he'd talk about all the things that Herod had done and built and all the conquerings and all the, probably the richest man that ever lived.

And yet he dies with his genitals, you know, like charcoal. Your description in the book of that, I mean, I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Oh, I'm sorry, yeah. Oh, my word, I was listening to this. Oh, oh, larvae. Gang green and all, everything. No, he had sex with every. and probably every animal in Israel at the time, and in Rome, where that's not uncommon.

But the one person he did not sleep with, his wife? No, he slept with all of his wife. Cleopatra. Cleopatra was known as to be the biggest vixen in the world and the biggest seductress, and she tried to seduce Herod. But he was afraid of Julius Caesar, and he was afraid of Mark Anthony. Because he wasn't going to mess with that. He wasn't going to mess with that.

So I thought that's kind of the stuff you learn from Herod and Mary. Can you describe, for those who don't know, the Herodium, it's a magnitude. The fact that this was built in the first century is mind-blowing. All of the stuff, and the most amazing thing to me, architecturally. Yes. And is the, when you go to, give me a moment to think about it, Cessaria, not Philippi, but Cessaria. Are you talking about the aqueduct?

No. Cessoria, Maritime. Maritime, yeah, on the coast, yeah. Cessaria. Where he, I love to go there. Okay. I love to go there. It's on the Mediterranean.

It's beautiful. The amphitheater right there. One time, Frank, on that one trip that we went, was the only trip he ever did to Israel. He got up on a mound right there by the amphitheotho, and he did his Frank Gifford thing. This place is rocking tonight, and he did it. And we have that on video. He just loved being there because sports has, you know, been around for, you know, since caveman days.

Who could throw this rock for, you know, the kind of thing, men. But anyway, then a woman picks it up and throws it further. A nine-month pregnant woman gets it. But anyway. The Herodium. So, I mean, it's a man-made, he built a mountain and then carved out a fortress inside of it. He moved the earth because he wanted to be buried at Herodium. He moved the outside earth.

There were two hills there. One was, there were the same height, basically. Two mountains, they're not mountains, but they're high. Yeah. And he saw that and he said, no, I'm going to make mine, where I'm going to be buried will be higher. Let's just push these mountains together. So how many slaves died doing that? And you can go down and see where the earth was pushed.

It looks like an ant hill almost. It does. It's like, it's a cistern you go down and you can see it. Last time I was there, it was closed for, I don't know, and I was disappointed because I find that so fascinating. But then we were at the top where he had a synagogue at the top of his Herodium was home. See, all of these palaces were homes whenever he was there too. But every one of them had a synagogue as well. And he threw down his hat and he goes, Herod!

And it would echo Herod, Herod, Herod, Herod. Was it worth it? Was it worth it? A question every single one of us have to ask ourselves, look at the life you have lived, the choices you have made, the mistakes that came from the choices that you made. Was it worth it? You know, was it worth it? But to me, the harbor and Cesarea is the most amazing thing that he did. He built a harbor.

He dug it. 2,000 years ago before they didn't have anything. How many slaves drowned? Yes. Going down and putting stones down under the water. They finally figured it out a few years ago how he actually did it. It's all about rocks. I can't even get into it today.

I was like, that's how he did it. He was an absolute genius architect. Absolutely. And so when I go there and I stand there and you can see the sides of the – and, you know, I heard from one of my teachers, Josephus doesn't say this, But that when he built that harbor and called it Cessaria after Caesar, of course. But he built that so that Caesar's ships could come directly to Israel from Rome.

Okay. Now, why did Herod want Caesar's ships? Because Herod wanted soldiers. He was afraid. Okay. He had a relationship with Caesar. And with Rome at that time, they were allies. And so he would.

He, the Pontius Pilate came over on that ship. Okay. Landed at, and there's a, if you go to Cesarea now, there's a statue of, and a thing, a plaque said about, about, a pilot? Oh, wow. That's why we know that Pontch's Pilot was a real person. And so he came over on one of those ships. And now, you know that ships leave, but they would, they would let empty. But they weren't empty when they left Israel.

They would bring soldiers. No. Oh. No. They would bring what was, what we were. would call modern day Viagra. Harrod's family had this secret, like the secret sauce KFC, had the secret ingredients from a balsam tree to make what was very much a, what would you call that, a sexual aphrodisiac.

Sexual aphrodisiac. And you know the kind of lives that the Romans lived. They couldn't get enough of that stuff. So it would leave with tons and tons and tons of. of Viagra. I did not see this coming. That and Vajaja, whatever. I've never called it a Vajaja in my life, but I like it.

First century Viagra. All right, yeah, that's your next. Maybe I'll be the third part of your trilogy. No, you know, the third one, I don't even know. We'd like it to be just more and more and more of these. Because people ask me all the time, Kathy, do you think there's more evil in the world? It seems like there's more evil.

And I said, no, Satan was in the garden. You know, he was there. He's always been there. But the truth is so is the Holy Spirit was too. And people are afraid now. They're terrified. They see more evil because of our phones and 24-hour cable television, that sort of thing. But, no, I think Satan knows his days are numbered.

He's always known that, and they're getting short now. Is that my, oh, that's my daughter, Cassidy. Oh, my goodness. It's face. timing. Cass, look at this, Preston. This is, this is Rosie May. My word. My fourth grandchild. Look at those cheeks. Oh, I want to grab those cheeks so bad. Cass, I'm doing a podcast with my friend. That's my daughter, Cassidy. Hi, Cassidy. I'm sorry. I thought I turned my phone off. You're good. Yes, he did. Oh, yeah, yeah. Look at those cheeks, Preston. Look at that. Those cheeks are

unbelievable. Oh, my gosh. My daughter is the tiniest thing you've ever seen. My daughter is the tiniest thing you've ever seen. This was a nine pound three-ounce baby. Oh, wow. And the only baby that was bigger than her mother when she came out of the womb. I love you, sweetheart. She's embarrassed. Bye-bye.

So I turned it off. It's off. Oh, you're fine. You're fine. Silent mode. Kids and grandkids are more important than a podcast. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, we want to do, we want to keep these coming. So you're two books in this trilogy, Herod and Mary, and then now Nero and Paul, And anybody that knows even a little bit about the background of the first century, you pick two of the most evil characters that are barely mentioned in the New Testament but play a significant role in the movement.

In church history. Yes, yes. Well, you know, people think... I'm curious why these... Because it's such a stark contrast. You juxtapose Herod. Yes. He got more evil as the days grew on.

And then he became insane with his, you know, if I had charcoal on my genitals, I probably would too. And larvae and worms. You know, I'm not. I'm not. I know. It was horrible. And he was walking around, I think he was in his Jericho, his palace in Jericho. And he was going, Miriamne.

Yes, Korn. Miriamne. He's the only woman he ever truly loved. And he murdered her too. Yes. This was a very, very difficult book to do the audio on. It took me, usually these books. My normal books take a day and a half, you know.

I like to do the audio because they're my words. But this one, the only other name that was easy to say, Herod, Mary, and Doris, his first wife. The rest are Aristobulus and the names and the places all just, I was losing my mind. Antipater, or Antipater, you know, I said, how do I pronounce this? You might have it sort of right, but I wanted to be accurate, you know. So I'm about to do the name. Nero and Paul one.

And that's going to be the same problem. I'll give you three and a half days. That one took four and a half days. Well, I was also having my hip replaced the next day. And that was, I was in excruciating pain too. So anyway, but I'm glad you're listening to it. I love, yeah. I mean, you're, I wonder, I don't normally listen to books,

but I was like, I know you're probably going to be an exquisite reader, you know, and you were. And it's just that you were able to, your, intonation and just the phonetics of you reading the language. And the language is so beautiful. Your writing is incredible. Oh, and I give most of the credit to Brian for that. Brian for that. And my son, Cody, this was his idea to do these books. We're hopefully we're turning them into docu dramas or movies. We don't know yet. There's some people we're talking to. Just to be clear, this is not, it's not historical fiction. These are historical books

written with a, the color and you open up the history. But it is, it's not historical fiction, right? No, no, it's not made up. Right. No, it's not. Everything you're saying is like, I mean, you're adding color to the scene. That's right. But the scene you're describing is from Josephus and from the new.

Mostly Josephus when it comes to, yeah, at Josephus. And that's the main, I mean, Brian, that's where Brian was, you know, so helpful because he's got, yeah. He knows this stuff. He doesn't have to research it. Right, right. He's already knows it. And so. With Nero, we have a.

of various sources for Nero. He would be a little harder to, I mean, Scytoneus would be one, Josephus would be another. So with going from Herod to Nero, like, why, of all the different characters you could have described, which attracted you didn't,

not attracted to... Yeah, nothing attracted to... What got you interested in Nero? This guy's a wild cat. Wild, wild, wild. He started out, you know, and he was very, very dramatic. Okay.

You know, dramatic. It's been a year since we, you know, wrote it so I'm you know I'm not up on my Nero I'm still still still sell inherit as you can see but um yeah I'm looking forward to doing the the book so that I remind myself of his unbelievable life I mean every one of them if you if they had an enemy they just murdered them they just got out got them out of the way and inherits you know herod murdered most of his entire family. Isn't that crazy? Yeah and then you know and and the only one he felt bad about was well the two sons, you know, and then Miriamne. And then Doris is the only one that he kept in alive. He,

he'd say he asked, he outcast her. Yeah, he, he, he, I don't even remember where he sent her to, but she came back on the scene. You're not to that part of it in the book yet. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, the history, I'm a history buff. Anyway, I love, I love historical things. We tried to be extremely, I mean, excruciatingly true to history. You know, anywhere we had a question about it, we footnoted it. Okay. And said, where it came from and this could be what happened, but this is the best we have. And people appreciate that.

We don't try to sell it as this is the gospel truth, you know, unless we use words that are in the gospels or in the scriptures. And then we use them in the way that they were meant to be used. Right. And Brian, I mean, Brian has a PhD in this stuff. This is something that, yeah, he's not going to let something go. He's a brilliant teacher. He teaches at Liberty University, and he's such a lovely man.

He's a very man, of a good man. Cody, my son, got his Oxford. He got his master's at Oxford University in Cambridge. In theology or? No, in basically script. I mean, he's a writer. Oh, wow. He writes films.

He writes everything. So he was our, what do you call it? He was our, he put the whole thing together because I wanted to do a movie. I said, get me every book, every book on Herod when I get home. I'm going to call Mel Gibson and we're going to make a movie about Herod

because his life is unbelievable. And so... Is there not been a movie on Herod yet? No. It's like low-hanging fruit. Low-hanging fruit. And this one would be the one to do it. Mel, if you're listening, honey.

If Mel Gibson listens to my podcast, then I might just retire. No, I actually love Mel. I love Mel. He's a brilliant, brilliant man. And he's fun. And he had his troubles, don't we all? Is he who he is behind?

Because he seems like he, there's no distance between who he is publicly and who he is behind. He's very real. Yeah, yeah. I mean, people always ask me, so, well, you're the same person that I see on television. I go, I never separated the spiritual from the secular. I am the same person. We're not supposed to be a different person when we're doing our job. job than we are at home or we are at church or we're we're supposed to be the one that god made in

his image we're supposed to be authentically who we are and um that has been a freedom for me i don't i don't i don't have to think who should i be today you know you try to read your your audience you don't you try not to offend but um i uh i never wanted to be famous my daddy said find something you love to do and then figure out a way to get paid for it Because where your joy is will be your bliss. And so I was doing what I was good at, singing and dancing and putting on a show, making people laugh. And never dreamed in my wildest dreams. Because I'd go to these casting calls.

I was never the prettiest girl. I was never the best actress. I was never the any of it. But I was a great communicator. And I was funny. And I could make people laugh. and you just learn to use the gifts that you have, you know, and then just leave the rest of God.

Just show up and be who he made you to be. He'll do the rest. He'll do the rest. So they go, how do you? Somebody said, well, I couldn't be, like one guy said to me one time we were starting to see each other. He goes, I could never be your guy. And I go, what? Well, who asked you?

And I said, what were you talking about? This is a guy 15 years younger than I was at the time. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, what's it like to be you? I'm just the guy I was writing with and writing songs. And I said, this is me. You know, we've been writing over a year together on a project. I said, you know me.

He says, I know, but you can't go anywhere. You can't people, you know, all of that. And I said, you know what? God, he said, I don't want to be famous. He ended up becoming extremely famous. But I said, I didn't want to be famous either. But God wanted me to be. because he knew I would be bold.

I went on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, any show. If I had an opportunity to share the gospel, I just shared it. And they never asked me once, Preston, to shut up. Really? Never once. They used to say in their meetings, can we let her say that? And then they go, well, look at the ratings. You want to stop her?

You know? I was wondering, what was it like being an outspoken Christian in an environment that from someone like me and probably a lot of people listening to don't know that environment, we just kind of assume it's like, gosh, it's to be really, really difficult to be an outspoken Christian in television, film, and all that. Well, most of the criticism I got was from Christians. How can you call yourself a Christian and be in show business? I said, how could I be in show business without being a Christian?

Because it tests your faith every single day. It's brutal. It's brutal. But I cannot tell you how many people. If I'd been a missionary and went like a good little Christian girl to Nigeria or something, went to Africa or China to spread the word, I may have, who knows how many people I could have shared the gospel with, but millions heard the gospel because of my career. Millions heard it.

And you got more criticism from Christians and your coworkers maybe didn't agree or whatever, but they respected me. They respected me. And I can't tell you how many of them I led to Jesus privately in addressing. room or privately, they'd come to me and say, Kathy, I don't believe the way you do, but I have a question, and they just, you know, and I'd answer it, and I'd pray with them, and one girl couldn't have babies, and I said, we're praying right now, you're going to have a baby before the end of the year. Prayed over, she has three now. Oh, wow. And, you know, I believe in miracles.

I believe in miracles. I believe that when two or more are gathered, and Jesus is there. He's there with me privately all the time. He's there with you. I've been a widow longer than 10 years, and, you know, it's incredibly lonely. It's, it's, it's, uh, crushingly lonely at times. It, it truly is. And, um, you know, you wonder if you'll ever have that kind of joy that you once had in it. My, my marriage to Frank was troubled during a period of it because of his infidelity, but we had a fabulous, loving, sexy marriage. We really did. We had more fun together. And we were 23 years apart to the day. Wow. Wow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you ever consider getting remarried? Is that, uh, You know what? I came close, I thought, a couple of years ago.

But you're not supposed to marry everybody you fall in love with. I've been in love only three times in my life. And the one time I was, my first marriage was a disaster. It wasn't a marriage at all in any way. It was loveless, sexless. It was not a marriage. My marriage to Frank was a real marriage, almost 30 years. And I remember when I fell in love with him, I remember saying to myself,

if I, Lord, if you give me 10 years with this man, I'll be grateful. And he gave me triple that, you know, pretty much. Now, the last 10 years of Frank's life, he was very, very, I mean, he was still sharp in many, many ways. The day he died, we were going to church. It was August 9th. It was Hoda's birthday. I remember. And I went to, he got on the scale that morning.

He got on the scale every day. Your weight is 178 pounds. And I went, oh, it's going to be a good day. day. That was his favorite weight. That was his playing weight. And even at 85, almost in a week he would have been 85, he was in phenomenal shape. He was phenomenal shape. He read every day. He was up on the news. He was sharp. But we had to take his keys away and stuff like that. He was starting to show signs of not Alzheimer's, but we donated his brain to Boston University because they were the the leaders in studying CTE, chronic, traumatic, and thap, I can never say,

encyclopathy? Nope, I got it. See, that's what happens when I'm doing my books. I could say it before, you know, but I don't like to think about it. We saw his brain scan, and he was riddled with it. And that's from concussions. That's from brain trauma all those years. But the parts of his brain that were not riddled with it, I'll just call it CTE,

to save everybody the pain of listening to me about it, it was called heavy brain, heavy brain. And that was like the brain of a 20-year-old man. It didn't, he was, he was riddled with it all through. Yeah. But he had places where he was as sharp as he was. Is that from reading and learning? Keeping your mind, yes.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. I do believe so. Wow. And he was sitting there, eating, having his coffee and eating a piece of cornbread when I left him. And I said, I'm going upstairs, sweetie. I'll see him a little bit. And we're getting ready to go to church. And I came down and he wasn't where he had been sitting in his favorite chair watching television with his Bible out.

And I looked down and there he was in his favorite room, sun room there. The water were surrounded by water in Greenwich, Connecticut. And this was the look on his face. The people watching, I'll do it into a camera. It was like, that was the look on his face. And I said to a guy named Brett James, whom we recently lost in a terrible, terrible plane crash. When I met him, he said, how's your family? It was two years after Frank had died.

He said, I was a big fan of your husbands. How are y'all doing? I said, you know what, Brett? We're doing great. He saw Jesus, and Jesus took his breath away. And one day I'm going to write that song. And the amazing Brett James said, well, then let's write that song. And I had my first number one hit song ever on iTunes with a song.

with a song called, He saw Jesus, he saw Jesus, number one song. And he took his breath away, you know, because that's what's going to happen to all of us one day. And when Brett was killed in the plane crash just about a month ago, he saw Jesus, even though those last few moments had to be, you know, terrifying for him and the other two people on the plane with him, his wife and his wife's daughter,

had to be terrifying for him. because he was a great pilot and he knew that they were not going to make it. But he saw Jesus immediately. The 2nd Corinthians 5 says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I believe that. I believe that with all my heart. So anyway, that's what gives us all hope. One day, I don't know the circumstances, but I'll see Jesus.

You'll see Jesus. That is the hope of heaven. That's the hope of our Savior. so we could go there and spend eternity with them. So, yeah, so I've written, I have a song coming out this year that I think is going to absolutely change the world. You know, my friend and I, mostly my friend, are producing a film that's coming out, well, Jewish people call it First Fruits,

but it's Easter to the Western culture. And that's what I try to do with my books, is teach people where we came from. Christianity was not called Christianity. It was called the way. Followers of the way, because Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes unto the father except through me.

He's the road. He's the road. It was a sect of Jews. It was like a cult. They never thought it was. They thought of it. It was a cult of Judaism. And you know who gave them that name?

Christians? Nero. Nero stood in a very direct. rice of ways called him. Because Christ, Messiah in, you know this, Messiah in the Greek is Christo. But so he goes, oh, these little Christians. So that's when they started being called Christians because they weren't Christians while Jesus was alive. They were called the way, followers of Jesus, followers of the way. And it was the apostolic period when the Bible, when they were being persecuted and the Bible's very scriptures are clear about how they took the word and took it

forward and took it out to go into all the world and proclaim that Acts 11 in Anniak it says there were first called Christians there and that was after the persecution in Antioch. Anniak, yeah, Acts 11, yeah. But the way, the way was the term Christian that followers of Jesus first started to drive themselves in the book of Acts. Yeah, and I love that. I mean, that's the kind of stuff you learn in any of the books I've written since that fateful. And I don't believe in fate. You know, in the Hebrew language, there is absolutely no word for coincidence or random or fate or anything. God is either sovereign God in all things or he's not God at all. So when you say, good luck, you're leaving God out of the equation. And you leave God out of any equation, you leave it out at your own peril. You know, we live and move and breathe and have our being in him. Not when we're in church.

That's part of it. Not when I'm on my mountainside in Israel or the Sea of Galilee on a boat. It's every nanosecond of our lives is we're supposed to live and move and have our being in him. And that's the thrill of the faith walk. That's the thrill. Well, Kathy, I can't thank you enough for being on the podcast. And when does your, so the Heron and Mary came out last year? Heron is out.

You can get that anywhere. Books are sold. Your own Paul comes out next March. March? March 10th, I think. Right around then. And this song that I'll tell you about at the end is the movie that we're producing. My friend just left after six weeks being at the Vatican, being in Turin.

The shroud of Turin has been. We didn't get to that, but maybe I'll have you back on. Oh, I'd love to come back on and play the song for you. It will be released. It's called Sindone. And it's, that means shroud in Italian. And I have never, I've written a lot of, I've written, the Lord's given me the ability to write some great, great songs. And a lot of good ones.

And some, you know, clunkers. But I've never written a perfect song. So I went out to my little farm that I have here. And I said, Lord, because I couldn't go to Israel. I mean, I couldn't go to all this trip stuff in Europe with my friend because of my hips and my body was in bad. shape this past year. My mind was fine, but my, you know, my body, I couldn't walk because I needed a hip. So anyway, and then I needed a shoulder. And then, you know, it was just that kind of a three-year period where I was just falling apart. But I said, you go, we'll talk every day, we'll face time,

we'll pray together all the time, and we'll, I'll produce with you that way. And so we did. And it was, it was really, he needed it, and he was exhausted, and I needed the thrill of what he was learning. And so together, that comes out on TBN, Trinity Broadcast Network, I believe it's called, in Holy Week, during Holy Week. And he said, well, at least write the music, Kathy, you can do that while you're home. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've written, you know, the music for two films. You know, my one, the one that I did with Brett James called, then came you. It's a romantic comedy for people who no longer think romance is in the, you know, it'll ever happen to them again. And they don't think anything's funny.

I did that for my friend Craig Ferguson, whom I just adore. And then Brett also helped me write something called The Way, which takes four oratorios with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, 68 piece orchestra. And the artists, you'd know every one of them, pretty much all of them that are in. And we shot it in Israel. We shot it in Utah.

We shot it. Yeah. It's cinematically breathtaking. Breathtaking. So I wrote, I went out to my farm to write. And I said, Lord, this song needs to be perfect. It needs to be perfect, Lord. So I write lots of songs very quickly.

But this one, you have to write. You write it, Lord, and I'll write it down. And so I sat there. and with my little doggy who was alive at the time. He saw Jesus, too, a year ago. And I said, Lord, you write it. I'll write it down. So I sat there in my chair that I write lots of stuff in,

and I just waited, and I said, take your time, Lord. I'll stay until you give me something. And the first day was a Thursday. And immediately he gives me this first line. Excuse me. even at his birth, he was shrouded in mystery. And I said, that's good. That's good.

And then I'd wait. And it wasn't until Sunday evening that he gave me the last two lines. And I fell down on my face and worshipped. I won't give it away because there's a surprise. When you watch the video for Sindonay when it comes out, I don't want to give the surprise away. So, yeah, that's going to be. people are going to know the word sindone.

And when you look at it and you separate, it means it says sin done. Sin don'te. So I'm excited about not being on television anymore, you know, showing up and having to be silly. Silly is 5% of me. Serious is the rest. You know, this is a serious book.

That's a serious book. All of mine are, a couple of them are dumb. I mean, they're just fun dumb. But they're, but they're, they're hysteria. Funny, but people need that too. So thank you for having me today. I appreciate it. Really appreciate it. It's great getting to know you. Thanks. So let's do it again in the spring for first fruits. For first fruits.