Chambumo-ron Lectures & Discussion 5th April 2025 - Session 3/4

All right. So, good afternoon. Hope you had a good lunch. Nice conversation too. Okay. So, moving on to lecture three. Shoggook era true parents theology course materials. Okay. So, this is what it's going to be about. Uh the essence of 2,000 years of Christian history. The essence of 2,000 years of Christian history is to await the second coming. Let's turn off my sound. Await the uh second coming of the Messiah. Prepare for the birth of the only begotten daughter. Participate in the marriage supper of the lamb. This is kind of interesting. Only begotten daughter.

That comes from um well, we looked at that. that comes from the gospel of John because of a mistransation by Jerome uh who introduced the whole thing said as only begotten daughter when he changed the Latin uh which was a mistrans instead of just sticking with the what the Greek actually said and the marriage supper of the lamb again that's in the book of revelation so you can see various bits really just verses I would say out of the Bible have been picked out to use so this is often called the appropriation of scripture.

So the Hebrew Bible was written by Jews and so the Hebrew Bible has it has its own sense of God's providence. So when you read it, you can see this is you know the Jewish understanding of the Hebrew Bible is very clear and it's much better than the Christian understanding of the Hebrew Bible because it's a different way of looking at it. So what's often said is talk about a Christian approach to the Hebrew Bible. So here it's called the Old Testament as opposed to the New Testament. So the idea of calling the Old Testament, it means it's been superseded

and is now redundant. That's the basic Christian view about the Old Testament. Mosaic laws then don't need to be followed. That comes from St. Paul. Instead of observing the law, it's all about grace and love. So as long as you repent, then you can be forgiven and you can be loved and forgiven as to receive God's grace. And so waiters and St. Paul and I had this interesting conversation um about within the last month. Anyway, I went along what did I go along to? Oh yes, I went along to the Jonathan Saxs memorial lecture

and it was given by the former archbishop of Canterbury called Rowan Williams and anyway he's uh always he's my favorite archbishop basically. Anyway, so he gave a talk and then afterwards I thought I might meet somebody out there I knew and then I went to the the underground station. And I was looking for my my freedom pass and there's another man standing there and I thought I recognized him. Anyway, then he looked at me. Oh, we recognized each other because he'd only met about a month before in Lambeath Palacy Lambeath Palace Council Christian Jews event

and we met 10 years before that again at Lambeath Palace because he was the um the Archbishop of Canterbury's interfaith adviser. He was Rome Williams interfaith advisor. Anyways, he got into conversation and um and then he said, you know, he's finally coming to think that maybe a Christian's got it wrong, that you're actually supposed to follow the law. And I said, yeah, I agree. I had somebody who told me, "We don't need to observe the the Jewish law anymore, Mosaic law. It's all about grace

and forgiveness and being born again and that's it." I said, "Okay." and which of the ten commandments don't we need to [Music] observe? And this anyway guy said, "Yeah, I mean he really Yeah, you're right. You know, he said the I mean he'd been involved in interfaith activity a long time. So lots of Jews had told him Christians don't get it. They don't understand what law is. that don't understand the important significance of the moral law revealed by God through Moses to create a good society you need to be a lawgoverned society you know where murderers get punished

and etc etc and he said finally he's beginning to get it yeah maybe we maybe Christians haven't got it right I said exactly just because Jesus came it doesn't mean the Mosaic law became old and unnecessary and you Yeah, cuz when you read the Mosaic law, it's not just the Ten Commandments. It's all about the kind of laws you need to create a just society. So, for example, the laws in there, if you happen to be working in a marketplace, you go to the market to buy some potatoes or some eggs and they have scales. You know, you plunk this bit of metal, a kilogram or a pound, depends where you are. one of the scales

and you put the tomatoes on the other one, do the balances. And one of the mosaic laws is you shall not corrupt the the the the weight. Yeah. And that's the way it is. You look at old you look at English old weights and underneath they drill a hole to make sure it's exactly right and then they put lead in and there's a seal, you know, to say this is exactly right. Because in the past people used to drill holes in the weights and just fill them with wax or something so they were lighter. So you could, you know, claim

that you were selling a a pound of something but actually only selling uh 14 ounces. Anyway, that's in the Mosaic law and it says because I am God. So here is the whole idea of bringing godliness into the marketplace. So every single person who's buying and selling things, working in the market, working in the business actually realizes that by behaving honestly in the right way, this is their way in which they could worship God. And that's what God wanted. Yeah. There's other things, you know, you come across a cow which has fallen into a ditch. It may not be your cow,

but you have to take it out. It also says, you know, before you have breakfast, make sure you fed your cows or your cattle. So many laws like this to create a good society. But then most of these were just dumped. Yeah. And it's only in the 19th century it started to get back into European law the ideas of compensation. Yeah. You go to work, your finger gets chopped off, you should be compensated. that those laws only appeared in the 19th century in this country was those laws are found in the Mosaic law the idea of compensation.

So that's part of the result of St. Paul and Christianity and saying oh it's old stuff we don't need to follow these oldfashioned laws anymore. It's all grace and forgiveness and as long as I'm born again I'm going to go to heaven as long as I don't annoy the pope. And so the prophets then so when you look at were m mined for useful verses to support Christian theology. So when you look at the new testament you find that lots of references there to old testament prophetic verses quoted over and over again about 300 I think.

But so the early church then they went through the old testament and all they were interested in was to find verses which supported Christian theology nothing else. So in Isaiah for example, you know, got the whole prophecy in Isaiah about the crucifixion of Jesus and this this and this and this, it's all there. Well, then the thing is, okay, how did that work? Personally, I think what happened is that the people who wrote the New Testament, the Gospels, they tried to write a life of Jesus that fitted with the prophecies.

And this is the way in which they could justify the idea the crucifixion was God's will because it's all predestined. It's all predicted. It's all part of the plan. And so that's the way in which they use the Hebrew Bible not to find spiritual moral truths but just to support their own theology. That's why we call it appropriation. And Jews don't like that. They're taking the Hebrew Bible and using it for one's own purposes. There's like taking someone else's scripture and claiming the authority

and legitimacy that comes from it and reinterpreting in a way that serves one's own purposes and theology. So, we just looked at that with blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That's an example approp of appropriation. You just that's a useful little few verses there. Let's take those out and apply them. Well, they don't mean what they mean something different to what the people are taking them and applying them as for. But most of the rest of it just gets ignored and left out. So yeah anyway so he looks at the only begotten daughter how

that was take only begotten son how that was taken out how the blasphemy against the holy spirit has been taken out and there quite a few things you find a in divine principle but also in jumbon where that kind of thing that kind of approach to the scriptures has been taken. Now it never really bothered me before to be perfectly honest. Now, it really bothers me. It's all I can say. It bothers me. You know, you stealing somebody else, stealing some verses from somebody else's scripture and using them

and claiming they have authority and legitimacy, but actually only the particular ones that you claim. So, all these quotes, verses in the Bible about the fa the fatherhood and the motherhood of God, no, we're not interested in all of that because it doesn't support what it is we want to teach today. That's dishonest. So, Christian appropriation of Judaism. And so, Christianity was a non-rebbitic alternative carrying on something of Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem and a second temple.

And so, when the temple was destroyed, then the whole priestly uh group within Judaism, they no longer had anything to do because there was no longer a temple anymore. And uh the part the part of Judaism that remained became up until today as rabbitic Judaism. So the Christian alternative though was to submit to paganism by Judaizing the Greeko Roman mystery cults. So the the Greeks and the Romans had all their mystery cults. They own the vision of gods. Lots of gods lived amongst on Mount Olympus

and they had all these kind of temples and you know the different kind of gods Arteame Artameus and anyway can't remember all these names and um some of the huge temples you know you can if you go to Rome that's why you go to Athens you can still see them you know they're still there worship where they worship these um these idols these these gods and Uh so the Christian alternative then was to submit to paganism by Judaizing the Greek Roman mystery cults instead of a gnostic suffering instead of the Gnostic suffering. I'll talk about Nostism later. Gnostic suffering of or dying savior gods or demigods who would rise again or otherwise triumph

and help their followers do the same. deities such as Oserius which is Egyptian Bal which you find in the Canaanites Dionis who's Greek there was God the son Jesus who was crucified but who rose in glory from his tomb so they decided anybody read oh god Frasier I can't even remember the name of the book now it's all about this he wrote it 19th century anyway. And uh that's just the way it was. The whole idea within these pagan gods, you had a god that existed in the spir in the spiritual world, you might say, comes down to earth, gets killed,

and is resurrected. That's what happened to these gods as they decided to to um bring Jesus into that Judaism in that sense. So Christianity retains its Jewishness by insisting it fulfills the goals of Judaism and makes that founding religion obsolete. So Christians then they say Judaism is obsolete and we've inherited we're the heir to all the traditions. We're the heir to all the authority. We're the heir to all the blessings. We're the heir to the covenant the new covenant. We are the new Israel. Yeah, that's the old Israel. It's past tense. It failed

because they rejected Jesus. We're the new Israel has this kind of thing going on here fulfills the goals of Judaism makes by claiming that the Christian the Christian view of Jesus and rebirth and everything was the Jewish one but it's not and Jian failed and Christianity was the new Israel with a with a covenant and the heir to the providence for Christians there are the old and new testaments and the whole volume is known as the Bible the old testament is dated and superseded. So all the Old Testament does is it makes the appropriate predictions about the birth of Jesus

and what happens to him. And that's all generally speaking Christians interested in. And so oh yeah, it's all that is of interest in the Old Testament are the prophecies about Jesus. And so then you end up with these Jewish accusations of Jews. Jews were called up until recently and still happening again. Jews are called the blind ones who'd failed to recognize God's miracle working son even when he was in their midst and who conspired with the Rome to execute Jesus the Jewish Messiah. The Jews redoubled their sin by continuing to practice their blasphemous religion even in Christianity's shadow. Jews reject Christianity,

but Christians insist that they, not Jews, but Christians, worship the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, and that Christianity makes Judaism obsolete, even if Jews are too blind, stubborn, and even demonically misled to appreciate this more recent divine handiwork. And so you still get Christians today saying Jews, Jews need to accept and believe that Jesus was the Messiah. You get mooneyies who say the same. Jews need to accept that Jesus is the Messiah. That's the same thing that's going on here. This appropriation. The Jewish critique of Christianity is

that the Christians created something new, a hybrid of Judaism and paganism. instead of having the integrity to admit that that's what they devised Christians react resentfully to Jews rejection of Jesus. And so when you look at the the Hebrew Bible and you look at Christianity, you can see a lot of things within Christianity such that the idea of uh Messiah that already of Jesus being the second person Trinity already existed. He came down was incarnate and then he lived and he was crucified

and resurrected and he went back up into heaven and uh through him then he received salvation. That is a pagan view. And so Jews say, "Well, you know what you're teaching there is not the biblical thing, not the teaching of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, or any of the prophets. It's uh so from a Jewish perspective, Christianity is the blasphemy. Since Christians worship a man of as God, they worship Jesus. That's idolatry. Christians have multiple divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit instead of just one God.

So, they're not monotheists. And Jews say they have a false messiah who failed to usher in a messianic age of universal peace and brotherhood. The Jewish view is the job of the Messiah is to bring about peace and justice. They look at Jesus and say, "Well, you know, 2,000 years later, there's a world we're living in, a world which is peaceful and just. Did Christianity bring peace and justice into Europe or anywhere else in the world?" They say, "No." So Jesus may have had the potential to be the Messiah,

but he wasn't the Messiah because he didn't fulfill the messianic messianic task. So if you ask Jews, why don't you believe Jesus was the Messiah? They said, well, he didn't fulfill the task of the Messiah. The Christian view of course is the t Jesus was supposed to be crucified. Yeah. And supposed to be resurrected so he can bring about forgiveness of sin and spiritual salvation. Which is why the whole focus of Christianity is about where you go to when you die. Not so much about what the world we're living in is like. It's only in the 19th century really

that Christians started to get involved in the social problems. Yeah. and try and start up charities and hospitals and schools and things. Up until then, mostly it just been involved in thinking, well, am I when I die, am I going to go to heaven or am I going to go to hell? And who has the authority to decide whether I go to heaven or hell? Well, the priest does, etc., etc. Well, the Jews aren't interested in life after death. You ask a Jew, what do you think about the spirit world, life after death? I think there is,

but I'm not interested. And what are you interested in? I'm interested in making this world a better place. This world a better place. Yeah. Changing this world. And that's the whole focus of the mosaic law is to create a good society. As Prager was saying on that video, that's the whole focus is about let's create a good society. To have a good society, you need to have good human beings. You need to have good laws, etc., etc. That's the whole focus is here, this world, not worried about the next world.

So what was going on here? So you know Jesus was a Jew. All Jesus's disciples were Jews. The early Christian church were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. But then you get Paul comes along who was sort of partially Jewish. He grew up in a Gnostic kind of environment Henistic environment. And so it's interesting you look at the early Christian view of of God of Paul. is the the view of the early Christian church fathers who lived not long after the time of Paul. So Tutillian who's one of the most significant

and important of the early Christian church fathers he said calls Paul the apostle of the heretics. So he regarded Paul as a heretic and he is the one who's going around promoting this heresy. Yeah. Because Paul's writings were attractive to gnostics. So Gnostics were am I going to talk about Gnostics? I think I will can't remember now. Gnostics are like an like these mystery religions and they believe that it's going to, you know, some pre-existing son of God is going to come down to earth. He's going to teach the truth, the knowledge,

and then he's going to get killed and go back up there. And what's important is you have the knowledge. Nosis is means knowledge. So in order to get through all these archons, which are different gatekeepers to get to heaven, you have to have all the right passwords. Yeah. And so that's the the nosis, the knowledge, the secret knowledge which gets passed on through the gnostics. And this is the whole idea, you know, if you don't believe the right things about Jesus like the Nine Creed, you're also not going to end up going to heaven.

So you can see this huge influence by not of naroscissism. The idea that what's most important is not how you live your life, but what you believe that's dominate that whole view has been so dominant in Christianity. People got burnt to the stake not because they'd murdered somebody, but because they didn't believe what they're supposed to believe. That's horrendous. Yeah. Well, Christians and interpreted anostic were attracted to Gnostics. So when Paul was out witnessing, he was thinking, "How can I present Jesus's Jesus in a way that's going to be easy for the Gnostics to accept?" Well, they're looking, they're expecting there to be this being coming down from from heaven, being born, living his life, getting crucified,

and we just need to believe in him. That's what Gnostics say. Okay, I'm going to present Jesus as if he that he'll fit into what they're expecting to find. So that's what Paul was doing. He was presenting. He never actually knew Jesus himself. He wasn't educated brought up really by the disciples. He he himself was very influenced by all these kind of ideas. He had this rebirth experience with Jesus. He thought how can I share it with these people who are gnostics, not Christians or Gentiles. Okay, I'm going to present Jesus in a way that's going to fit into their expectations.

And that's you got this blending which of uh Judaism and paganism. uh Christian Jews found him to stray from the Jewish roots of Christianity. So these are Jews who believed in Jesus. Said he strayed from the Jewish roots of Christianity because Jesus a Jew. Then James Dunn, he's a very well-known. Not sure if he's alive or not, but I do remember reading books by him. He is a theolog Bible scholar, historian wrote about the early Christian church and how it developed from split from Judaism. Anyway, he wrote he writes

that in some cases Paul affirmed views of a closer to narcissism than to protoodox Christianity. This is one of the most significant New Testament scholars of the last century said that actually when you examine what's going on here Paul was closer to narcissicism than proto orthodox Christianity which was Judaism. But actually, you know, when you look at it, Christianity itself became very nosticized. According to Clement of Alexandria, again one of the one of the greatest and most well-known of the early church fathers he according to Clement of Alexandria the disciples of Valentius Valentinus said

that Valentinus who was a Gnostic um Christian he said Valentinus um early Christiannostics Marines and Ela Pagels wrote some very well-known books about this sort of thing notes that Paul's epistles were interpreted by Valentinus in a gnostic way and Paul could be considered a protonstic and a protoatholic. So Paul then was synthesized what which is what Jews have always said. Paul synthesized Judaism and narcissicism or paganism. And so in that sense uh anyway so it's only in the last h 100red years basically

that Christians have started to look into this you know started to look into the the early Christian history and saw what was really going on. The most of the Christian church the last 2,000 years didn't go along with that. Okay. So oh yeah so what is the gnostic myth? This is the Gnostic myth sort of paganism very common in all the mystic cults in the Greek Roman world. So this is written by uh someone called Rudolfph Bulman who was a very again he's not alive anymore. One of the most significant

um New Testament scholars in the 20th century trying to unpack all this stuff. So it's a myth. The heavenly being is sent down from the world of light to the earth which has fallen under the sway of the demonic powers in order to liberate the sparks of light which have their origin in the world of light. So this idea of sparks of light is that human beings have got a spark of light in them but not all human beings to some human beings have got a spark in of light and other human beings don't have a spark of light.

Okay from this you get the idea of Calvin's predestination. Some people are predestined to be saved before they're born and some people are predestined to go to hell before they're born. Some people in other words are born with a spark of light and some people aren't. So much stuff comes from this background completely non-hebraic non old testament which have the origin of the world of light which is God but owing to a a fall in prime prime prime primeval times have been compelled to inhabit human bodies. There's a whole story why

that happens of punishment basically you get punished by being put into physical body. So you can't connect to the real light which is God. And so you get this sort of tradition the physical body is something bad. Mi matter is bad. And again that influences a lot Christian uh theology. The emissary which is this heavenly being which is son of god. The emissary takes a human form and what do we call it? The word became [Music] flesh. It's all in the Christmas carols. Chemistry takes a human form

and carries out the works entrusted to him by the father. As a result, he is not he is not cut off from the father. He reveals himself in his utterances. I am the shepherd etc. like Jesus did. And so brings about the separation of the seeing from the blind to whom he appears as a stranger. So some people can recognize him for who he is and other people just can't get it. Don't get it. His own hearken or his own listen to him and he awakes in them the memory of their home of light. Teaches them to recognize their own true nature

and teaches them also the way of return to their home to which he as a redeemed redeemer rises again. That's a Gnostic myth. You might say, "Well, it sounds familiar." Yeah, it is familiar. Christian church adopted that Gnostic myth. It's not nothing at all in the Old Testament about this nothing. This completely comes from a Gnostic myth tradition and we can see it permeates our own spiritual community as well. It's interesting. So the Christian myth then this is the Gnostic myth. Now we'll look at the Christian myth. Nyine creed I believe in this this

and this and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God which is Gnostic begotten of the father nostic before all worlds God of God light of light very God of very God begotten not made of one substance with the father by whom all things were made who for us men in our salvation came down from heaven already existed in heaven a gnostic idea and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. That's Gnostic. Nothing to do with the Hebrew Bible. And was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered

and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures, and ascended into heaven, Gnostic, and sits on the right hand of the father. He shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. So that's interesting, isn't it? The Christian myth is based on the Gnostic myth to try to appeal to Gentiles by taking the Jewish view, Judaism, and repackaging it in a way which goes is more acceptable and easier to grasp and believe in by Gentiles, by pagans ornostics.

So, as said, the gospels are written drawing upon more than 300 prophecies from the Hebrew Bible to prove that Jesus was the Messiah who fulfilled these prophecies. They got Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, plus in our tradition, the idea of the jewel prophecies. Psalm 22, you look at this, the crucifixion, where Jesus said, uh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the first sentence, but you go through the whole thing and you can see that it looks like this is a prediction of exactly how the crucifixion would take place. It pierced my hands

and feet, which is from Psalm 22. Lots more from that. Matthew 12 again, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit's an example of appropriation using for one's own purposes. And another one which again comes up a lot in the Chong Ron lectures is the idea of new wine and old wine skins. So I hope I'm not boring you to death by going through all these analyzing these verses in the Bible which have been you know picked out and used within our own community for various reasons. New wine old wine skkins. So he told them this parable. No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment

and the patch from the new will not match the old. So, what's the problem with using that p using a patch of new material in an old garment? Why would it tear it? Go on. Someone who does um god, what's it called? Sewing machine person material, dress making, clothes making. Why would it Why wouldn't you do that? Or why would it be a problem? Well, the new one to expand. No, no. Talking about the material. The material. Yeah. Yeah. When leather is No, no, I'm not talking about leather. I'm talking about clothes. Unless you happen to be wearing German wearing the what's it? You do not new one will shrink. That's right. Put a new patch on an old clothes. Yes. Close when it Yeah. When it get washed, it will shrink. It will shrink.

And if it shrinks, they will tear it. So old material, old clothes have been washed and washed and washed many, many times. So they shrunk as much as they're going to shrink. And new material hasn't been washed before. So it shrinks. And when it shrinks, it'll tear it. Okay? That's just that's the way it is. Okay? No one pours new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins. The wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wine skins.

And no one after drinking old wine wants the new for they say the old is better. That's me. So, new wine skin, new wine, you point to new wine skins. now as you pour it into people who don't know anything else. Okay. So what's this? What's going on here? How do you interpret this? So traditionally it's been interpreted about the incompatibility of the old and the new. Are they incompatible? So this is um traditional view here. In almost unanimous consent, interpreters and commentators have agreed

that the old wine, old wine skins and the old coat are all symbolic of Judaism and law. Whereas the new wine and the new coat are symbols of Christianity and grace. These are very prominent uh biblical scholars, Christians, evangelists. FF Bruce, he wrote this in 1983. I heard him speak at Manchester University where he was on the faculty in 1984 when I started doing a master's degree in um theology. And so I met him and he was a very u good person all I can say but that's what he's that's the traditional understanding of what this means

but then more biblical scholars who are not as I mean FF Bruce he's a very well-known evangelical very conservative evangelical Christian and I remember when when uh people came to study theology at under as undergraduate at Manchester University. Then they would crowd them all into a big auditorium and you know most of them were Christians and they were wondering about am I going to lose my faith if I study here. So they always invited FF Bruce who's a very well-known evangelical to come and tell them you don't need to worry. We're going to study the Bible. We're going to study theology. You don't need to worry you're going to lose your Christian faith. He's very very traditional. Anyway,

so this person here again another very well-known um uh theologian from the same sort of time Alistister Key professor who was more liberal and scholarly in that sense I guess he said the traditional interpretation of the double parable parabel parable. So a double parable you got the one about the fabric and you got the one about the wine skins can be summed up in one word incompatibility. It is supposed to teach that the old and the new are incompatible. That Judaism is incompatible. It, you know, we listen to Shinshell. You can't coexist. Yeah. Same thing. It's incompatible. Can't coexist with Christianity. To attribute the idea of incompatibility to Jesus as a way of describing his relationship to Judaism is bad theology

and bad history. So people often say, "Is Jesus against the Jews?" But actually, Jesus was a Jew. Oh, Jesus arguing with rabbis. Jesus was a rabbi. All that Jesus is doing was having arguments with other rabbis in the way that Jews always do. Two Jews, three opinions. Four Jews, five opinions. That's just the way it was. It wasn't that Jesus was incompatible. It's just he was having an argument with them in the same way they all had arguments with each other. It's the way it is. You look at Israel today, they're just arguing about, you know, the government

and what we should have been doing in Gaza and demonstrating big big arguments going on. It's just the way it is. So that's your traditional interpretation which he said is bad theology and bad history. It wasn't like that. And the incompatibility of interpretation stems from a supersessionist theology of a later century. To place it in the mouth of Jesus is absurd. So this whole idea that what g that Christianity replaced Judaism is supersessionism. It's old Israel, new Israel. They failed were successful. This kind of idea.

And to place that in the mouth of Jesus is absurd because he was just a regular Jew trying to fulfill and estabic vision of a good structured orderly and fair society, a just society. Yeah, you can read about this new wine and old wine skins. This whole idea. So try and make sense of okay, so what does this thing mean about new and old wine skins? What's really going on? So I said Jesus was a Jew. So this is the kind of things the story from the Talmud the kind of stories that would have been

that would have been around at the time of Jesus. So the Talmud is different rabbis you know having conversation discussions with each other. So Alicia Ben Auya said what can a person who studies as a child be compared to? He can be compared to ink written upon a new sheet of paper. But he who studies as an adult, what can he be compared to? He can be compared to to ink written on a smudged, in other words, previously used and erased sheet of paper. The Rabbi Yse Ben Yehuda of the city of Babylon said, "He who learns from the young, what can he be compared to? He can be compared to one who eats unripe grapes

and drinks unfermented wine from his vat. But he who learns from the old, what can he be compared to? He can be compared to one who eats ripe grapes and drinks old wine. The rabbi said, "Do not pay attention to the container, but pay attention to what is in it. There is no there is a new container full of old wine and there's an old container which does not even contain new wine." So here he's saying it's actually about education. So what the what the rabbis were arguing with is about who were the disciples of Jesus. Just before this thing about the the

um the wine skins and the and the fabric, the rabbis are saying to Jesus, some of the rabbis are saying to Jesus, "Why did your disciples um eat on the Sabbath or go pick grain from the fields on the Sabbath and eat it? Why are your disciples not fasting when John's disciples are fasting?" In other words, they're criticizing Jesus because of his they saying, "Your disciples aren't behaving the way they're supposed to behave." And um so what Jesus is doing, he's responding to this. These are new wine skins

and they're able to understand me whereas you can't. So if you interpret the parable then the new garment and also the new wine skins are previously uneducated students. the old garment and the old wines skkins. They're previously educated students. It's all about education. This whole parable as was clear from you other stories at that time. All about stories and parables. So the old garment and the old wine skin previously educated students. So the new So the patch then is new teaching. So the new wine is also new teaching. The old wine is previous teaching. Okay? Okay, that's all it is. It's about teachings.

And so here it says the new teaching requires previously uneducated students in order to be received. Yeah. So people who haven't heard anything are unable to listen, evaluate what it is that they're listening to and and make a judgment on in that sense. So no one teaches new Torah teaching to old previously educated students. If he does, the new teaching will be rejected. Teaching must be taught to new students. No one after receiving old teaching, previous education, wants the new. For he says the old teaching is better. Exactly what Jesus said, the old wine is better than the new wine. Someone who's never tasted wine before doesn't know how to make compare it. Whereas if you had a lot of experience, you're able to evaluate what it is

that you're hearing the f for for the first time. Whereas the people who haven't had any aren't educated, haven't had any experience, etc. When they hear the new stuff, it sort of, you know, get excited about it. An educated student doesn't know enough to be able to evaluate the new teaching. So what's the meaning of this then? So the parable is comparing Jesus's teaching the new wine with a Pharisees teaching which is the old wine which you can read if you read the Talmud and having come across

and encountered Jonathan Sachs I started drinking the old wine and I realized it makes a well it makes a lot more sense than the Christian understanding of the New Testament of the Old Testament or even the principal understanding of the Old Testament. Whereas when I heard the principle the first time, it's like new wine, but it's certainly a lot better than what I'd heard before. That's all I can say. So disciples have already studied under Pharisees unlikely to be interested in a new approach. Those students will be apt to disregard disar disregard contradictory teaching

because they have already formed opinions and made judgments. They regard the education they've received as superior. So then that's why Jesus chose fishermen and tax collectors precisely because of their lack of formal education. Because they lack of formal education, they weren't going to reject what Jesus is teaching because they didn't know any better. And we find this in the in the go in the book of Acts. Now, as the Sanhedrin observed, so this is when Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin to be punished

because they went around preaching about Jesus being the Messiah and being resurrected. And so they were arrested brought for Sanhedrin to be judged and punished possibly. Now as the Sanhedrin observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. So they were uneducated, they were untrained, they were like new wine skins. They received new wine and they were full of ex enthusiasm, incredible enthusiasm.

And so that's why the Sanhedrin let them go because they could see these are people who are the disciples of Jesus. It's just they got new wine as opposed to the old because they didn't have the old wine. And if you read father's autobiography you find you remember there were lots of students from the ew university girls they went they heard father and they just wanted to go and listen to him all the time. And father said don't go and back to the university and tell people what you've heard here.

So they were like new wines skkins who received new wine and became full of enthusiasm just like the disciples of Jesus. When they went back to the Ya University and started telling the people there most of the Christians who were there rejected them because they were full of old wine. They were old wine skins. Does that make sense? only a few of them like young young Kim and a few others like that were able to accept it because they were still much more open-minded. So that's this this sort of idea here new wine

and old wine skins. So and then you think okay how does that relate to 1984? Some people hear new teaching and become overenthusiastic and some people like me I guess been around too long and not overenthusiastic. Yeah, old teaching I think is better than the new teaching whereas the people who never heard the old teaching in any depth think the new teaching is really exciting and much better. Yeah, it's my view. I would say there's two exceptions. Yeah. Was a very well trained person. Yeah. And a sister named Simon can't remember her name

now who later married seminarian Francis when she was contacted by Henry. Actually she came to convert or to convert or recon convert a number of us who just joined. Yeah. And she confronted Andrew who was very well educated and she herself was extremely well trained in Catholic teaching but we prevailed. Yeah. Well it it happened also in the time of Jesus. There were some extraordinary well educated, extraordinary influential important people like Joseph of Arythea, Nicodemus who are both members of Sanhedrin like within the Catholic Church to be like cardinals

and they accepted they became disciples of Jesus also according to Christian tradition Camille who was the leader of all the Pharisees also became a disciple follower of Jesus except he didn't go around doing it publicly because he would have got fired. It's the way it is. But that he did and that's why he was influential in letting John and Peter set them free. You know, if if it's from God, you know, it's going to prosper anyway. So I can't remember at least that quote now. Anyway, so that's the way it works. That's all I can say. Some people like Yang

and Kim have that capacity uh and other people don't. So it was very careful the way in which Jesus was working also very you know he told people his disciples don't tell people I'm the Messiah because he could see it's going to lead to him getting killed and father said don't go and tell the people in our university all about me what I've been teaching because you're going to get kicked out and some of them were kicked out including two of the three professors but a dozen students and of course

that led to the whole rejection of father by Christian world and the Methodist church particular Okay. Yep. It's the way it works. So, what about this then? It's about thinking skills. Okay. This is uh Bloom's technology taxonomy of cognitive domain. So, you start off with knowledge. You know that 2 plus 2 equals 4. You know that in 1066 the Normans invaded England. Certain knowledge you have. But then you have to have comprehension. Do you understand what was going on? Okay, this is I know these facts. Okay, next level. Do I understand what was going on

and why it was happening? Okay, then you start to think, okay, now I understand why 2 + 2 equals 4. Now I understand why, you know, you divide 12 by four and you end up with three. I understand it, how the arithmetic works. And then you have to move to the next stage, which is application, which is more difficult. Lots of people can learn the basic arithmetic but they don't know how to apply it. So you have to learn how to apply it. There's the next one. Then you have to be able to analyze something. Okay, this works

but that doesn't work. Why is that? So you learn to analyze things. And then you also be able to synthesize things. Bring together lots of things from different places to create a new interpretation. And then the highest stage is evaluation where you know enough and you understand enough and you can analyze things well enough to be able to evaluate something. You come across and decide whether it's true or false or whether it's worth this or that the you can evaluate it. So that's the highest level of education is evaluation. Yeah.

And so much of our thinking left to it skill itself is biased and distorted, partial, uninformed or downright prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of which we produce, make or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Okay. So you can see that you know how well do we think? So it looks at I mentioned David Watson there who is evangelical very conservative Christian but he also moves through this until he started getting involved in interfaith work. He even got involved in realizing

that maybe there's something in Catholicism after all whereas he's an evangelical Protestant and he started getting involved in that and then he started getting involved in Northern Ireland in the in in the demonstrations of peace marches that were going on there in the 1970s and so he got to that sort of level and I remember Linian Smart some of you may have met him who was very close to our true parents and interfaith work even receive the blessings He's one of the most outstanding Anglican theologians in this country in the 20th century. Well, he spent most of time later in America.

And then he moved back here and he gave a a lecture here in Lancaster the gate. And uh he was he became a liberal Christian. And you know somebody asked him why is it that liberal Christianity is not so popular? Well, he said, you know, you start off here getting born again, be a fundamentalist and gradually you grow and your mind gets a bit broader and gradually get to this stage where you recognize actually God works through all the different religions. Yeah. So it's a level which one reaches. Yeah.

And so it's the same with all these things. So this is Socratic questioning which goes on. Socrates was just asking people questions. Yeah. And that's they didn't like it and that's why he was executed and put to death because he went around asking the kind of questions you were not allowed or supposed to ask in those days or any days really. So is a systematic method of disciplined questioning. So Socratic questioning is a is a systematic method of disciplined questioning that can be used to explore complex ideas to get to the truth of things to open up issues

and problems from what we don'tations of thought. So this just what I do. I read philosophy at university and I haven't been able to escape from being a philosopher much to some people's annoyance. So, how are we doing? 14:23. Okay. So, we'll take a break before we move on to the next part of the lecture part of lecture three. You find this interesting? I hope so. I mean, I find this interesting for me. is you know I've been able to to think about things I haven't thought about for decades to reexamine not just the principle

and chambon but also re-estab rethink the whole way in which theology had developed the whole way in which myth plays a role the whole way in which all these things have been going on and also yeah for me it's it's it's been very interesting to be able to explore all these different things and try to make sense of okay people you know pick this little verse out of the Bible and use it for this purpose of what's going on there, etc., etc. It's interesting for me. All right, so rake, tea, coffee, whatever. How long should we do this? What do you think? What do you recommend? It's half past two now.