Bible Scholars are WRONG about the New Testament 

Richard C. Miller, Ph.D Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity (Routledge Studies in Religion) www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Reception-Christianity-Routledge-Religion-ebook/dp/B0CQPZ9RK2?ref_=ast_author_mpb independent.academia.edu/RichardMiller140

Not to mention that the early Christians were recruiting gentiles. These gentiles brought their own beliefs into the faith, which likely became part of the overall set of Christian beliefs

Anyone who gets Richard Miller is a boss. Thanks Gnostic...

There is a really good reason why people comment on you giving your scholars a chance to speak. Close your mouth for a moment…listening and allowing for space is most often much more valuable than having to take up the space allotted to another. Give your audience that Grace..please. Your voice shines plenty in your excellent compilation your videos.

Dr. Miller is awesome!

Love this guest and I love this channel !

Richard is great. Knowledge. Manners. Class.

19:40 loved you mention Bithynia. I picked up on this in my independent study for my MA. I did a research project on the formation of Christian Identity and noted that the region was receptive to Christianity because of their quasi Greekness and discussion to Greek and Roman culture. Few possessed Roman citizenship. See Roy Gibson Man of High Empire.

amen. When them Bass-y Gnostic Informant Theme Tones kick in... Wooo, that's good stuff!!

I enjoy your narrative and your passion. Great job!

Awesome. Had never thought of this aspect. Thank you Neil

My absolute favorite Bible scholar. Listeningin from Colorado!!!

Cooking ❤🇿🇦

I would really like to know why Norse and proto Germanic beliefs stayed basically unchanged since they left Egypt before the dynasties took over. I mean we are talking close to 7000 years and “Wodan” (Odin) is still known today. Through stories, no writings. That amazes me. You talk about the Greeks and Jews and yet this Wodan has predated Zeus and Yahweh for nearly 3000 years. What’s going on with that?

Great discussion will be getting Richards book.

It's important to remind ourselves that it's all fictional. We are here to debate fiction, like debating the merits of one Sherlock Holmes novel relative to another. It's perhaps interesting, perhaps we can learn something about the human mind or condition. But it never rises above the level of fiction. Proceed from there, and we'll all be better off.

We ❤ scholarly discussions. Keep the fire burning.

Idolotry is what drew the boundary around Israel and separated them from the nations. Israel’s idea of an indefinable source of oneness as the creator was different than worshipping objects , animals and other humans.

It’s funny, because as someone raised in an atheist family and broader environment, the term Pagan never seemed derogatory to me. The terms Christian and Religion probably had more negative connotations. And these days, I think “Paganism” is pretty cool. 😂

I don't know how anybody who sees you videos can be certain (like Erhman says) that Jesus existed. At the very least, any informed person should have reasonable doubts.

Did the novel Alexander Romance have any influence on early Christianity?

I’m I have written expensively on Paganism as it relates to today - and I think there is value in identifying the Pagan world from the Christian world if we look at the legacies of the Pagan world being democracy, science, academies, and indeed fields of academia, all sorts of things -and it shows you how my Christianity was that followed it was barbarism. I would be very happy to have a discussion with you on this and if you would like me to send you the chapter out of my book and I will do -some very interesting Points. It’s true. Paganism was originally defined as a term by the Romans meaning redneck - but now there is value in it - like black people own the N word - like women owning the word bitch- The word Pagan has power - and I’m happy to discuss that with you at some point -as always great work- so proud of you ! Thank you.

I commented here years ago about Bithinya and chrestianity, but we have to look to gothic Armenia.

Neal, hello from Brazil! I first discovered your channel through MythVision and after many months now watching you I can say I am your fan! You really delve even deeper from Derek as you go thougth the cultural milieu of the Old and New Testament, specially considering the hellenic and eastern mediteranean influences. In general even scholars go through the jewish influences a lot but not the hellenic influences. Congrats on this and other videos!!

Seminarians don’t learn Plato?? That’s ridiculous if true

Brilliant - also loved your book ratings !!!

What a video for a sunday morning. Thanks Neal!

God is NOT GREEK!

So again, I think Miller is doing a better structuring of his arguments than he has done in previous interviews, but I want here to merge christianity in to the god issues of my other post. What is god? God is a sumerian construct that declined in importance in the dynastic period but was adopted by/coerced onto the canaanites in the middle bronze age that, in the early iron age there was a temporary romantic nostalgia for. This is the base notion of god in the Hebrew bible, the el of abraham is largely distilling old mesopotamian notions and the layering of mesoptamian stories, but are these stories about El and Enlil, the high god and supreme god which were used to reconstitute the ilu of Canaan? No. The biblical stories tilt heavily in favor of Enki, the savior of the flood, the instructor (logos) of creation. He is also the wisdom god homolog of Jonah. We could argue that all of these identities are addons that occured in exile because Enki was not present, except for the fact that the original cultic center of Yehudah was Beth Lahkmi, the house of the guardian of Enki. We are in fact merging two pagan gods to form 'god', and that would be a simple explanation, but its not simply an Enki attachment on a An/Enlil high god, the specific attachment is with desert sages and more importantly that attachment is a local chimeric derivative that had many cults spead from the Arabian Cush to Samaria. Let me make this clear. The Jewish god as developed in its writing is not singular, its a plural redefined as a singular, in principle no different from the trinity. So WE DONT need a greco roman source for trinitarian logic, its already in the Hebrew bible. What the Jahwist writer did was take all the gods, euhemerized them where they could and then took the powers and folded then into divine messenggers in so making their god a politically. independent high god. The idols of the old gods are still in the Jewish religion. The menorah of the first century tombs is the exact same symbol used at Luz before Yosiah busted the alter. These symbols used to be in the temple, the Ark for El and the asherah pole for Asherah, but the symbols were supoosedly smashed, or not. So Judaism is an antipathy of its past pagan origins that retains, ignorantly, symbols of its pagan past, often in disobediance saying dont pray to wood and stone idols (what is the western wall if not a large carved stone idol). Im not going to argue with Dennis's work, the Jury is still oit on alot of his memesis. But if we look at the work of Margaret Barker and the excessive use of works seldomly used in the bible to define god, there is an excessive use of the world father as almost to tip the hat to the canaanite god 'el, which is to say maybe jesus thought the yahweh cult was to extreme and to much like a patron god of a city. IF we recall, the macabbees only 120 years earlier than Jesus birth took galilee from people who were not practicing second temple Judaism. Lingering ideas about father divines separate from yahweh may have persisted. Finally, read other post. The greeks philosohers stole ideas from the east. Ive been studying pythagoras, alot of the data pythagoras took credit for was not his, its from 1700 years prior in Babylon, even among the greeks, his cult mathematicians were doing most of the work. The ideas embedded in the stories of homer are great, but they are collections of ideas of men, by the very text itself, that came back from travels in the mediterranean. I want to break this idea that there is a consolidated unique greek culture. Early Hellenic culture is a composite of a martime culture of the NE mediterranean and the blended culture of anatolia, pellepponese, mainland, balkans and peninsukar itslian. Athens was a sort of place were incoming ideas from many places were assembled and reported. Why? NW edge of the LBAC was first to emerge from the collapse. Because as Persia fell apart, it began first from the nile and then from greece giving greece an upper hand in the classical period. And mistly because British, french and German cultures are obsessed with the west and ignored Eastern culture for many hundreds of years.

Do you have an episode on the divine council? Deuteronomy 32 8 + psalm 82 Etc...

These texts were targeting the world, not just the broader Mediterranean area... "For God so loved the world".

not even the apostles got it while in His presence, how does one expect "christianity" to?

Make a serious study of The Book of Mormon, especially what it says 600 years before Christ about the rise of the Gentiles.

Spankingly we saw it through the prophets of the Crist but they are idiosyncratic in severe ways - our sources hide this truth and on the ground realities

In the past few years, Pope Francis acknowledged that Christianity is platonic in nature. Unfortunately I can't locate the quote.

I think that the similar thought patterns also extends, albeit indirectly, outside the Hellenistic world. We see similar beliefs going as far in the Far East as well

What a great guess . The host is hitting some high notes as well. Very interesting topic covered here. And its true the view of Christian studies seen by the west is flawed.

The consensus agrees: It was always berenstein bears And fruit on the loom has a cornucopia in its logo

Ain't necessarily so ...things in the bible ...weaponised by politics influenced the times still continues

i guess these people forgot that the greeks were heavily influenced by the phoenicians who were canaanites. zeus is just a copycat of baal. the history of the alphabet seems to be something they skip.

I agree that the Mytholiterary story of Jesus is a return to Antioquien school of thought with respect to St. Paul`s writings. The whole theme of the New Testament is to leave Judaism and go into Jesus` teachings. Which you can separate into before the crucifiction and after the resurrection when he reappears to Paul, which can be defined as the Plenitud with Christ. It leaves all the rituals behind and focuses on a type of Stoicism. It should not be called the New Testament, it should be called the Literary biography of Jesus, the testament is when the person dies, and this takes effect during Paul`s writting. I say literary because these figures did not exist, not even the authors. Very well orchestrated writing which does not stand analysis. Thanks for reading.

I just came in on the mention of Philo and the Logos. Isn't that the Word from John 1? In Philo a human priest becomes the Logos when in the Temple's Holy of Holies and connects to the Mother and Father. So, Jesus connected to the Holy Spirit at his baptism became the Logos. The Divine Feminine came to him in the Form of a Dove. And John is her doing the speaking through Jesus. I and the Father are one. The Divine Feminine. No one comes to the Father but by Me. The Spirit Wisdom from proverbs as the Mother. If you read Philo, you never read John the same way again. Jesus was the Logos. The Mouthpiece of the Mother. In the Gospel of the Hebrews Jesus calls the Holy Spirit his mother. Church Fathers quote it. Philo also has Wisdom from Proverbs (the Amon or Master Craftsman in Proevrbs 8:30) creating the perceptible world.

You brought up the Pope. He sings Christ the son of Lucifer in Latin while young boys are at the alter. Google it. Pope sings Christ is the son of Lucifer. Oh it’s there.

@32 mins: Yes, the idea of trinity originates from Philo of Alexandria.

Scholarship today in the Bible, as a last stronghold of medieval understanding of theology as historical fact…. Great point

Why are you wearing a long-billed cap indoors? Its so dodgy when you can't see someone's eyes when they're talking.

@46 mins: No, 'pagan' is not an insult. It began that way but is no longer so, it has become a term of pride and an acceptable way to refer to polytheists. I studied paganism and neo-paganism and wrote my Master's Thesis on branches of it. Truth is, what these two gentlemen are doing is quite rigid and judgemental. Words change over time and develop new nuances. So so so many terms began as insults but morphed into something very positive. I view the terms "pagan" and "heathen" as positive terms and so do most people.

Let the guest speak

When he says SPL what does he mean?

search for Constantinopolitan Karaites...and Yevanic language use the Romaniote Jews

WHY is the rest of the world ignored and Egypt is the center of God's creation🤔

👍

To end the war you have to understand the atheist logical fallacy. The truth is atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is "sky daddy" to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. To understand you have to read until the end or until you understand. To understand Spinoza's God is the true God and you have been deceived you have to understand from nothing can not be created something. Thank you.

My understanding is that Jesus is the destroyer of gods. His purpose was to remove the rituals of the pantheon of evil gods ruling this plain of existence. By following christ, you remove the insanity of the demands of these gods. Then you are set free. NT identifies these gods so you know who they are to stay away from their influences. Look around at what's going on.

Strawman and false dichotomy.

Why won't you debate me? What are you afraid of?

Absolutely brilliant, Neal! Richard C. Miller is something else, but so are you! The level at which you can communicate with any of your PhD guests, is second to none, and you truly have outgrown many of them. You're kicking as* and taking names! For real. And please continue because this is necessary. Biblical scholarship is a joke and needs to be treated as such. It really has no place in modern day academia since we have Classics, Comparative Religion and Anthropology. The same has long been the case with Theology. We have Philosophy instead.

What's the point of having a scholar as a guest if the host can't shut the hell up and let him speak?

It takes someone like Neal, who has learned much of what academics know, but is not part of academia, to see academia's blind spots.

Thank you for defending Dennis MacDonald Neal!

I no longer care that you cut your guests off to say your piece. It used to bother me a lot more, but if I'm honest, after having watched dozens of hours of your content, and after having pulled my head out of my ass, your contributions to the conversation are brilliant and exciting. I also used to think your explorations were soooo wacky and out there, but after having cross checked your sources, I have learned that you are someone who deserves to be taken seriously. Anyway - thanks for your content. God bless 🙏

Classics as a field is largely disrespected, pushed aside, and/or ignored in public facing academia. New Testament scholars have an outsized impact on cultural issues and sadly most are ill informed about the wider context that Christianity arose from. Whatever the New Testament is has to be separate and made higher than other texts of the time. It is a walled garden that provides some benefits but misses out on potential transformational approaches to looking at what remains the single most important set of texts for large portions of the world.

35:08. I was a Catholic seminarian. The undergraduate portion was primarily a study of ancient philosophy up to Aquinas and Latin/Greek. Graduate school was strictly theology. If you entered the seminary with a non-philosophical bachelors degree you had to take 2 years of philosophy. So…to be fair…your criticism falls mostly on Protestant seminaries.

I need to hammer on some of Neal's preconceptions here abit. I think he is doing great work but.... The first question is what is a "World" as this connects to "World views" I think a turning point in how we consider the world begins in Isra'el, in particular the Natufia/Jericho cultures. It is from these sites that the incipient neolithic begins. So Israel is always a player, its roll however shifts over time. We have out there a Afroasiatic language family that has this connection with the levant and the nile, but beyond that we see the spread deep into Africa and western Mediterranean cultures of the eastern Mediterranean starting ~9500 years ago. These culture were up in France and England by 8000 years ago. And we see religious and technological development at Gobekle Tepe. I want Neal to find a globe, find Gobekle Tepe and just put his hand over it, what your hand covers is still too small to cover all influenced by the eastern Mediterranean Neolithic. Even if you outstretch your fingers its too small. Thats the world of the ANE. The next important site is Catalhoyuk. And what we have at this site is cattle domestication, and we see at this site that Ox based rituals are already feeding into religion. All domestic cattle breeds in Western Eurasia come from this site at this time. When you see cheese making culture in Britian, 7900 years ago, that started within 50 miles of Catalhoyuk, when you see ox-horned headdresses in mesopotamia, the same thing. Again, put your hand on the globe at catalhoyuk and outstrecth your fingers, by 8000 years ago these are all the places that are influence by that little regions culture. Between Gobekle Tepe and Catalhoyuk is the site of Giazentep, this is where wheat was domesticated, if we travel a little to the northeast, now Armenia, this is where bread-wheat was domesticated. How many fertility gods do you know from this region? Dagan, Asherah, . . . . We go east. The next site is Tell Shemshara. The site is now in a lake. These sites on the upper Tigris watershed developed about 8500 years ago. On the map find lake Van and draw a line to Mt. Ararat. Next draw a line to Tell Shemshara. This is somebodies world, not a people, but individual persons were traveling by foot from the various mineral sites around this part of the Ararat mountains and trucking those minerals back to Tell Shemshara ..8000 years ago. They may have traveled as far west as central anatolia. To the East, this is the time when neolithic farmers from the west probably related cultures began to populate the Iranian plateau and started moving into India. Your hand can no longer cover "The world" Our next point is Eridu, the people who occupied Tell Shemshara are the same people who built Eridu, At this time we have 5 major cultures, the Halaf, Hassuna, Samarra, Obaid and in the west Jericho and the cultues of the African Sahul, in Europe at this time the first LBK sites are about to be established. These pretty much are all losely connected cultures. The animals that were domesticated in the ANE are starting to make their way into Spain from north Africa. Again sheep have shepherds and domesticated sheep without their shepherds do not cross the Strait of Gibraltar. But Eridu is different just as the Upper Nile is different. Why is Eridu different, because the old notions of gods are becoming obsolete in a developing cultural heirarchy. We need creator gods and we need trickster gods. And we need these gods to play a role in service to increasingly more powerful kings. The year is 4200 BCE. We have returned to the upper tigris river. We watch men as they harvest minerals from the local mountains. But on the northern horizon there is a new people, they also work metal but they are blending other metals into their copper and they have better weapons. Over the next 200 years they organize into a culture with strong trading links to the NE. This is Kura-Araxas culture for all intents and purposes Protoindoeuropean. The origin of all the modern worlds religions essentially straddles a little known collection of mineral gathering routes. To the south, a fledgling settlement merges with another settlement to form Uruk, whose patron sprite is the sky and a female divine being as a god of passion and lust. During the next 800 years, because of their enhanced ability to grow food civilization emerges, and Uruk, along the Euphrates is suited to draw in new peoples, probably Halaf, becomes the dominant organizer of the dozens of settlements in the lower mesopotamia. But why is the high god a sky god, why not a water god. The key element we overlook is that Uruk was centralizing trade, and its god was a sky god. As an organizer it got to place its god on top, and other gods need to step down a notch. This organization schema probably traveled with trade and we know that during the Jemdet Nasr Uruk was trading far up the Tigris probably within Kura-Araxas itself. Kura-Araxas itself was not static, it started a colony in the levant, and obviously there was cultural exchange with Yamnaya and Maycopt. Within a 2 thousand years there will not be a culture West of china or south of the Himilayas untouched. I want to break this notion completely that there are these isolated belief cultures in the post neolithic world. Its a nonsensical argument, beliefs spread with trade and Uruk put trade on steroids. Uruk itself is a product of belief spread from the upper fertile crescent, which itself spread from "Isra'el" . A person in Uruk can say "The martu and their god really suck" on one day and on the next day they are begging their kids not to take marti as their mates as they are running of to war with the Martu to conquer canaan. Think about this. Where do the martu come from? Canaan. Where did they go, Egypt, the hyksos., Babylon, the Amorites. Where also, the canaanites settled all the mediterranean carrying with them martu gods, canaanite gods and mesopotamian gods. There was a letter written by a babylonian woman to her husband way off in eastern Anatolia, who is shacked up with a local woman in a trading quarter in a city. She is begging her husband to come home and be with his son. Tell me how do you keep the origin of gods like cybele, artemis, apollo, dionysus separate from the gods of mesopatamia and Kura-Araxas culture when the hittites, babylonians and hatti are all screwing each other in the same city? It doesnt work. The last leader of the hittites before the LBAC complained that writing trade treaties was a nightmare because you had to recognize everyones god, he had a canaanite priestess as his contract lawyer and wife. At this time their were thousands of gods. Then came the collapse and a kind of collective worldwide amnesia took place. So lets do ourselves a favor and just dissolve the boundaries. Scholars created these out of ignorance. Belief culture is diffusive all beliefs of the western world are related after the neolithic, most are related after from Sumer I.

20:45 FYI Litwa just released a book on early Christianity in Alexandria (2nd century, tho he places Apollos there too). Huge hotbed of Christian thought

Hmm interesting 😮 I'll definitely tune in and watch this brother ❤ hail! And thank you for sharing this with other humans of all walks of life.

Re-watching this again. At about 40:00 in, I would add folks like Ken Dowden, the classical scholar, who has a great RU-vid lecture on how Homer's Illiad is a retelling of the Mahabharata. It seems, to me anyway, that Literary Mimesis is part and parcel of the storytelling process.

Yes I noticed that Paul taught in the core mystery cult areas,coincidence?

Hi Neal, I've been following your progress for some time now, and I'm wondering, Are you at some point considering to explore the fasets of mystical/magical practice that these symbols (not mainly in reference to this vid) point to? If not.. why? By this I mean the reality of what you can know internally vs what you'll have to speculate about historically. By this, I'm thinking in terms of the occult or esoteric strands of 'adept' magick/ritualistic/invocation practitioners. Not religion specific. But in terms of practitioners with paranormal bits of actual magickal/spiritual "Gnosis"? One good western example of this would be Josephine Mccarthy (founder of Quareia) but there are certainly more out there. I mean you have been getting bits and pieces here and there of these endeavors in your historical explorations. (The various rituals leading to "revelations" for ex) But those are and will always remain fragmentary as far as you don't have actual inner Gnosis of these powers. And by this I mean you could try to bridge the gap in knowledge by using mystical interpretation tools (such as "Pardes" it's great, look it up) to give multi perspective on cryptic texts. But those tools can only get you so far, without inner knowing and 'real' communication with the figures we may call "deity" or divine. By that I mean beyond any psychological framework may try to project unto it's reality. I'm not really expecting a reply, but I hope you take it into serious consideration and maybe check some interviews from Josephine if you don't know what value this would provide. If you do get her on the show, I'd become a member instantly.

😊A joint study with Carrier would be interesting, but I don't know if he could be capable of sharing any of the attention

The podcast goes fast and smoothly when I fast forward through Neal's talking!

I think the NT is highly gnostic, with much in common in Buddhism and Taoism. I call these "The Teachings," the wisdom of the ages. Whichever school you attend, The Teachings will always be taught according to the culture and traditions of each locale in ways (metaphors and symbols) that the local people can understand. I think that that Paul, in particular, presented The Teachings within the context that his fellow-Jews could understand and draw likeness from; similar to the way Christian teachings were taken to China and presented to that community with the context of their culture. Christian teachings were corrupted early on by the Powers-That-Be. Modern American Christians bought the lies and are happily enslaved to their dogmas. "Take our word for it. We are the experts. Don't try to understand the scriptures for yourself or use your own discernment. Your salvation will be endangered if you read anything else." I agree with everything you said here. When any expert tells me not to look somewhere, I automatically ask what s/he doesn't want me to know and why.

I have written expensively on Paganism as it relates to today - and I think there is value in identifying the Pagan world from the Christian world if we look at the legacies of the Pagan world being democracy, science, academies, and indeed fields of academia, all sorts of things -and it shows you how my Christianity was that followed it was barbarism. I would be very happy to have a discussion with you on this and if you would like me to send you the chapter out of my book and I will do -some very interesting Points. It’s true. Paganism was originally defined as a term by the Romans meaning redneck - but now there is value in it - like black people own the N word - like women owning the word bitch- The word Pagan has power - and I’m happy to discuss that with you at some point -as always great work- so proud of you ! Thank you.

Thank you for having Dr. Miller on! You know it's not just what sort of character "the historical Jesus" was and whether he had any similarity to the NT Jesus , not just about the rise of Christianity, and not just what sort of society the Greco-Roman world was, it's also about really technical subjects such as crucifixion. The way the Christian churches describe it, crucifixion never happened. The Romans never nailed someone up as a god or as the image of a deceased emperor for the express purpose of torture! Yet except for scholars like Gunnar Samuelsson and David Tombs they're all like, nailing to crosses was all over the Mediterranean World and beyond from Persia to Carthage to Britain and Germany to Greece and Asia Minor and back, when the reality was probably far different and, in the case of Rome, far more atrocious, obscene, hideous and shameful than popular portrayals let on. The scholar who supposedly wrote the last word on the subject, John Granger Cook, who even looked at imagery that was obvious, asserts that simply nailing or tying to a cross was what crucifixion was all about, and _sometimes_ the executioners provided a small peg that jutted out horizontally for a seat. Neal, you got to have David Tombs on, he's at Otago University in New Zealand. Also Gunnar Samuelsson, he's in Sweden. These two know what they're talking about. Frankly, I don't know where Christians and the New Testament scholars get their nonsense from, but the scholars need to get their act together because political forces set into motion by Christianity are about to be able and willing to render us all _extinct!_

Yea but we have to be very careful not to think of Judaism as any way running out of platonism, when plato says that God can only produce good , and is not jealous, and when he gives the example of zeus sending lying prophecies into I believe agamemnons mouth being blasphemous, and you shouldn't talk about God and sex, it's almost like someone read that, and then wrote yahweh saying "my name is jealous" "I create good AND evil" "if you were deceived by the prophets, just know that I sent lying spirits into their mouth" and it goes on to write about yahwehs genitals. Josephus said the 2 were the same, we already know they were the same, but remember, plato HATED that version of zeus/jove/yaveh. We have gmirkins work, we know the biblical authors were reading plato, but look what they did with his God, the most important part,.. they made him the complete OPPOSITE to how plato thought of him. When you really take in how much judaism pulls in from the most influential greek figures, constantly speaks to greeks(only the talmud is jews speaking to jews. Philo for ie. adopts the platonic dressings fashionable to the times, and promotes a book about an opposite God and about a people with an entirely fictitious and embarrassing origin, TO THE GREEKS), but also trashes their ways, bolstering up their own, subtly proselytizing constantly.. i mean, whats up with the big push to usurp platos true message, change it to benefit the kings, cuz remember the philosopher kings are meant to benefit the people, (these kings didn't like that idea apparently), and the rewriting of platos doctrines that just so happen to serve them, the kings and rulers. The Old Testament gave them a bs history, put them in service to a baby smashing god, and pushed the hell out of it to non jews. They never wrote to jews. I mean think about the ultimate effect the old Testament had on the world, it completely uprooted and displaced an entire thriving culture and placed them in a fictitious world under the dictates of a fictitious fear based God that discourages reason and logic, encouraging ppl to just accept it on faith. That is the opposite to condusive to a souls growth, like plato promoted. No, these men were one hundred percent against pure platonism spreading to the masses like it was, and what did neitchze say? Christianity is platonism.. for who tho? The masses. He didn't stop and just say Christianity is platonism, he sees how true platonism was watered down and confounded. Well that's what these writers did effectively. They hated platonism. I leave you with an excerpt from Euthyphro that I believe comports with my claims quite well, and remember, he's being indicted for his views on God. " Euth. : ...you can hardly have a suit pending before the king, as I do. Soc : In Athens, euthyphro, it is not called a suit, but an indictment. ..... Euth : But who is he(that indicted him)? Soc : I do not know the man well, Euthyphro; it appears he is young and not prominent. His name, I think, is Meletus with stringy hair, an ill grown beard, and a hooked beak." Just f----n sayin guys.

Love listening to Dr. Miller, can't wait to he can produce (if he is) a layman's style book that's priced so I can afford it.

Thank you both 👏👏

“Who were the Barbarians?” Lol perfect analogy!

WE are now entering another 'Age Of Piety" ...

Oh, man, great statement right at the beginning, in excerpt... when Dr Miller says, '...existential threat to our own species... to not have clarity on these issues...' YES. This is what keeps me exploring these subjects!

These are just the things I have been pondering!

Oh such a great show, but it bothers me when the host interrupts and almost seems to overshadow their guest.

Absolute banger Neil. This guy is great .

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OQd4N7pW4MQ.htmlsi=esVyBK5cjTlt_nKU sounds like your AI voice on this guy's video about Buffalo

they got ppl worshipping MITHRA and it actually aint Christianity at all! 😁✌ 😂🤣😂 ☘☘☘ 3⃣ 6⃣ 9⃣

In light of this, can we speak of academic cult-thinking, as well as parallelophobia?

Are you familiar with one of the pioneering works that addressed the question of the Greek & “pagan” mystery schools etc influence on Paul by JM Robertson titled “Pagan Christs”? The book was written some 100+ years ago now. I first read it decades ago. Another one is The Mystery Religions and Christianity by Samuel Angus which I also read decades ago. There are others. Investigation into this question is not new, but has certainly not been taken up by academics in New Testament studies the way it should have been. I’ve been interested in all this for a long time, but found myself in a tiny minority, and am quite pleased to have found your channel and discovered that this is becoming more widespread and popular and there are scholars taking up the mantle. The downside is watching you and your guests and realizing I don’t know as much as I thought I did and now having a lot to catch up on that’s happened that I missed! Excellent work!

Anyone who signs a statement of faith in order to conduct their research should prima facie be discounted as a real scholar. And SBL should be discounted as a real scholarly location. Secular critical scholarship should have its own institutions.

You are pretending that Christianity is the same thing that Jesus taught. You know that’s not true. If you were serious, you would be talking about James and the disciples not someone who never knew Jesus.

I never use the word pagans. Scholars never should use it. Glad Richard mentioned. Brilliant interview! Anybody that uses that word, already has fallen in the trap of the (Judeo-)Christian world view. Another Christian trap a lot of people fall is saying "the Gospels" instead of "the canonical Gospels", and ignore the other ~90 gospels

Another AWESOME discussion Neal!! THANK YOU and Richard!!

Richard C Miller is one of the best academics alive today along with Macondald and jorjani

no one called themselves pagan and no one called themselves gentiles. People are people man...good points.

I wanna like this 100 times! Also I am very, very excited for Richard C Millers new project he’s working on. Will it coincide with what Dr Ammon has been saying?😮🤔

Question: Is there a bible in existence that contains an ACCURATE translation of the original Greek?

By the way Neal,I really love the intro into this video - again, congratulations to both of you. Well done.

Not sure how I just now found this channel, but I'm loving it. Flying through your videos haha, probably will start rewatching them as there's so much thought provoking information in each one. Appreciate you doing these and keep up the great work!

The condescension is real in this one

I’m a newbie to all this info… it’s overwhelming all the info out there… so, I’m now confused…and feel like all this is above my head right now… Can anyone point me into a direct direction to start???

Always happy to see a conversation with Dr. Miller! Thank you both. I respect you for standing up for evidence over mere concensus.