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Speaker 1: Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of

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Speaker 1: hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic radio programs. Had

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Speaker 1: to purchase Dennisprager's Rational Bibles. Go to Dennisprager dot com.

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Speaker 2: Should be arriving at your house sometime before December. It's

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Speaker 2: the January issue. I'm always about two months late. Are

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Speaker 2: you raising your hand already? You can't hear me? Well,

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Speaker 2: I don't want to boom? But is that better? Okay? Well,

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you this is retger. If this happened on radio,

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Speaker 2: spending the first twenty minutes asking all listeners can you

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Speaker 2: hear me? Would it be nice if you just thought

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Speaker 2: all of you had volume controls. That's what you're used

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Speaker 2: to with me is having a volume control. And this

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Speaker 2: is live which presents all the dilemmas of live thing.

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Speaker 2: I have been searching my whole life for one book

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Speaker 2: that I think would make the Holocaust understandable in its

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Speaker 2: immensity to anyone of any background, faith, race, religion. And

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Speaker 2: I found one just two months ago, and it's out there.

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Speaker 2: I just want you to be aware of why it's

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Speaker 2: out there. It has nothing to do with the course,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's it's life changing type of book. Just

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Speaker 2: wanted to make that where oh, Shadows of Auschwitz I

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Speaker 2: don't sell. Well, that's very serious flaws. But isn't it

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Speaker 2: out there. That's the reason I'm waiving it, because there's

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Speaker 2: only one book out there, all right, besides mine. This

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Speaker 2: is not my book. It is a great book, and

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Speaker 2: it is available outside if you want it. That's why

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Speaker 2: it's out there. It is absolutely unique, and books go

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Speaker 2: out of print very rapidly, so I strongly stry. In fact,

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Speaker 2: I beg you for the sake of just knowledge. And

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Speaker 2: you'll see when you see it why I feel this

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Speaker 2: way about it. It's mostly pictures, but it's pictures that

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Speaker 2: the Nazis themselves took. And his commentary. He's a Christian,

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Speaker 2: it's Christian theologian. His commentary on every picture is what

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Speaker 2: is so incredible about this book. Harry James Cargus Crossroad

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Speaker 2: is the publisher. Okay, thank you. Next, I have a question,

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Speaker 2: the philosophic question, which I'm just curious. It's a point

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Speaker 2: that I have made every so often, and I would

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Speaker 2: like to see if it continues to be valid. People

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Speaker 2: often ask about suffering, Why is there so much suffering

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Speaker 2: in life, unjust suffering, and one of the reasons, or

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Speaker 2: one of the ways in which I respond, is to

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Speaker 2: distinguish between natural suffering and man made or human made suffering.

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Speaker 2: I would like you to raise your hand when you

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Speaker 2: think of the greatest pain in your life, pains a

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Speaker 2: plural that you've experienced unjust pains, if you will, I

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Speaker 2: think that's the best way to put it. That you

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Speaker 2: felt were terrible pain and not terribly just if you

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Speaker 2: feel that they were induced by people, or they were

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Speaker 2: induced by natural thing like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, or

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Speaker 2: were they induced by people hurting you or hurting someone

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Speaker 2: you love. Okay, Therefore, if it has been if the

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Speaker 2: great majority has been one or the great majority has

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Speaker 2: been another, I'd like you to raise your hand. If

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Speaker 2: the great majority seventy five percent, three quarters of the

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Speaker 2: pain in your life has been induced by people rather

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Speaker 2: than of natural causes, please raise your hands. That's dramatic,

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Speaker 2: isn't it. I think that that helps immediately. It helps

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Speaker 2: a lot of people who ask about the question of

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Speaker 2: unjust suffering to recognize that it doesn't reflect on God.

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Speaker 2: It reflects on people. Just when you realize how overwhelmingly.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter what group. This is a mixed

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Speaker 2: group religiously and so on. It doesn't matter where I

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Speaker 2: have asked this question. That is exactly the response I got.

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Speaker 2: And I was just it's something actually which we're validating

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Speaker 2: for the sake, for God's sake, who gets a bad rap?

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Speaker 2: And I just thought that he would be pleased before

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Speaker 2: Genesis that we gave him a good name. All right,

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Speaker 2: I thank you for that, and now let me begin. Now.

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Speaker 2: First of all, I wear a keep how whenever I

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Speaker 2: teach Torah, because to me this is not literature. To me,

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Speaker 2: this is holy and therefore you'll understand normal courses. I don't,

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Speaker 2: but for Torah I do. I do not roach this

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Speaker 2: as great literature. Shakespeare is great literature. This is the Bible.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't mean, though, that I leave my brain at

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Speaker 2: home and just bring my spirit or my theology to

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Speaker 2: the Bible. I read the Bible exactly as it is,

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Speaker 2: but I do regard it as more than great literature.

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Speaker 2: My task in this course with you is to show

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Speaker 2: you why it's more than great literature, why it tells

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Speaker 2: you about life more than any other book or series

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Speaker 2: of books ever written. I've given a course here on Deuteronomy,

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Speaker 2: and I've given one on Exodus. Two of the five

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Speaker 2: books of Moses, the first books of the Torah or Hebrew,

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Speaker 2: and of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Bible for

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Speaker 2: Jews and Christians. The first five books begin, of course,

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Speaker 2: with I come to teaching Genesis with fear and trepidation.

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Speaker 2: To use care of Guard's famous terms, I have always

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Speaker 2: found it a daunting task to get through Genesis one

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Speaker 2: and two, let alone the whole book. Everybody knows the

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Speaker 2: story of Genesis one. And it's much harder to teach

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Speaker 2: what everybody knows than it is to teach what nobody knows.

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Speaker 2: Everything's a revelation. You've all thought about creation. You've all

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Speaker 2: thought about the garden of Eden. You will know about

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Speaker 2: Adam and Eve. You all know about an apple and

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Speaker 2: a serpent. You all know about all that stuff. What

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Speaker 2: is there to say? I have read Genesis one and two,

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Speaker 2: the first ten chapters of Genesis, so many times since

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Speaker 2: I'm a child, and in Hebrew. I studied all of

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Speaker 2: this as a child in Jewish schools called yeshivas, and

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Speaker 2: yet so much was not clear to me. After all,

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Speaker 2: that study, and I wasn't prepared to ever go public

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Speaker 2: with Genesis un till some things got clear to me.

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Speaker 2: And some of the things that I'm about to tell

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Speaker 2: you became clear to me. Four o'clock today, my wife

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Speaker 2: is here. She is a living witness to how true

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Speaker 2: that is. I keep coming up with these revelations, or

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Speaker 2: what I thought were revelations, and I'd say, now, I'm

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Speaker 2: not going to tell you. You'll hear it in class.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to ruin it for you. But it's true.

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Speaker 2: It's just really to the last minute things were beginning

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Speaker 2: to fall into place. I didn't quite understand what is

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Speaker 2: the message in all of this. I think the message

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Speaker 2: in all of it is staggering, and I want to

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Speaker 2: I want to do today Genesis one. We may not

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Speaker 2: even finish Genesis one. We may get to Genesis two.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure. So your four classes on Genesis may

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Speaker 2: bring us up to Genesis four. I'm not sure it's true.

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Speaker 2: It's truly a matter of how it goes. If you

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Speaker 2: have questions, please jot them down so that you can

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Speaker 2: ask them at the end of the class or next time.

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Speaker 2: But if I stop each time, anyone has a question

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Speaker 2: A very often, I'll answer it as I go on.

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Speaker 2: B I couldn't go on. I know you'll have questions.

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Speaker 2: It's not possible. It's too rich. We are about to

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Speaker 2: enter a Maler symphony, I mean, with themes going on

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Speaker 2: in every instrument, and you just have to listen so

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Speaker 2: carefully to what is going on. Every choice of word

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Speaker 2: in Genesis one has something to say, as I will

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Speaker 2: show you in most cases a few more preparatory words.

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Speaker 2: Do I read this as a religious person? Do I

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Speaker 2: read this as a person? Do I read this as

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Speaker 2: a Jew? Do I read this as a Western person?

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Speaker 2: The answer is I read as all of those combined.

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Speaker 2: I can't separate myself in that manner, but I do

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Speaker 2: first enter with intellectual honesty. I am not here with

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Speaker 2: an agenda. My agenda is not to prove to you

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Speaker 2: God wrote it, because that is not my concern anyway.

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Speaker 2: Even theologically, I am convinced that if there were no God,

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Speaker 2: it would not have been written. Did God dictate every

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Speaker 2: single word? I don't know, And frankly, it doesn't really

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Speaker 2: matter to me. What matters to me is what is

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Speaker 2: it that I could learn from it? Most Jews don't

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Speaker 2: know this let alone non Jews. Torah, which is the

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Speaker 2: five Books of Moses, doesn't mean law, it means teacher.

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Speaker 2: The purpose of biblical text is to learn, is to

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Speaker 2: be taught something by it and learn. I think the

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Speaker 2: way you will understand life will be affected by how

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Speaker 2: you understand Genesis one. Virtually every theme in life in

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Speaker 2: the first two chapters of Genesis is covered, male female relations,

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Speaker 2: the way we should look at our parents, the purpose

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Speaker 2: of life, is there a God, how should we treat nature?

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Speaker 2: It's all there in the first two chapters. It's overwhelming.

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Speaker 2: So those are my preamble words. Now, I photo copied

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Speaker 2: Genesis one here for you. I hope that there's enough

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Speaker 2: for at least you look over somebody's shoulder. And obviously

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Speaker 2: next time you'll probably want to bring your own Bible.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't care less what translation you have, or of

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Speaker 2: course the original if you know Hebrew. So I just

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Speaker 2: whatever was in the office was translated. This is not

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Speaker 2: my favorite translation. The truth is, I'm not thrilled with

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Speaker 2: any translation, but it's par for the chorus. Translations from

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Speaker 2: this are very difficult, Okay. In the beginning, God created

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Speaker 2: the heaven and the earth.

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Speaker 1: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless.

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Speaker 2: Wisdom, or the heavens in the earth, which is more

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Speaker 2: accurate because heavens are the plural and Hebrew, and I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna talk about that word at some point, shall I

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Speaker 2: in Let me begin with answering the question of science

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Speaker 2: versus religion. I think that this is a stumbling block

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Speaker 2: to a lot of people understanding Genesis. I begin, I

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Speaker 2: begin with the premise that there cannot be can not

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Speaker 2: be a controversy, an argument between science and religion. If

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Speaker 2: something is true, then religion cannot deny it, or it

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Speaker 2: is a false religion. Therefore, the whole notion that there

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Speaker 2: is a problem between Genesis and science strikes me as foolish.

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Speaker 2: If a scientist says it, I think he's a foolish scientist.

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Speaker 2: If a religious person says it, I think he's a

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Speaker 2: foolish religious person. The purpose of Genesis, as I will

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Speaker 2: show you, is not to teach the nature of science.

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Speaker 2: It is to teach the nature of God. That is

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Speaker 2: my first and foremost statement to you. You will leave

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Speaker 2: understanding God better. The purpose of Genesis one is not

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Speaker 2: to tell you how the world was created. That is

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Speaker 2: the purpose of the biology and physics books that you

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Speaker 2: have at college. And they do a good job. And

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Speaker 2: as you know, they change every year because the more

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Speaker 2: we learn, the more we have to change the past

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Speaker 2: science books. So they are constantly exploring something that will

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Speaker 2: never be fully resolved, how did everything happen? But I

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Speaker 2: love science. Science teaches truths about how things happened. That

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Speaker 2: is not at all the purpose of Genesis. If God

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Speaker 2: wrote it, Moses wrote it, brilliant people wrote it. Whoever

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Speaker 2: wrote it, it would be the furthest thing from their mind,

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Speaker 2: or from his mind or her mind that we would

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Speaker 2: learn science from this. It's preposterous. That is not the task,

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Speaker 2: as I will show you. But you will learn about life.

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Speaker 2: That is what it is here to teach. Therefore, the question,

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Speaker 2: for example, did God create the world in six days?

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Speaker 2: Literally or not? I will show you from internal evidence

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Speaker 2: you cannot hold at least at the first days were

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Speaker 2: twenty four hour days from internal evidence, and maybe it

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Speaker 2: was understood by who wrote it as a miracle of

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Speaker 2: six days. So what so what do we therefore have

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Speaker 2: to live by it and call fossils the works of

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Speaker 2: the devil. All we do is make God and religion

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Speaker 2: seem silly. Then there is a very famous Jewish saying,

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Speaker 2: the signature of God is truth. If something is true,

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Speaker 2: then by definition, you must believe it. You cannot suspend

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Speaker 2: your intellect when approaching God. It is one of the

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Speaker 2: basic beliefs of my life, and I don't want it suspended.

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Speaker 2: When we look at Genesis, now, the first sentence itself

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Speaker 2: is overwhelming. It is overwhelming. In the beginning, God created

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Speaker 2: the heavens and the earth. And by the way, there

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Speaker 2: are alternate and legitimately alternate translations. When God began to

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Speaker 2: create the heavens and the earth is another alternate and

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Speaker 2: legitimate reading, just for those of you who are interested

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Speaker 2: in that. It doesn't make any difference, however, to the

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Speaker 2: points that I am about to make. Let me show

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Speaker 2: you how much is in this sentence. This sentence changed

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Speaker 2: human history. Okay, this sentence changed history. I will explain why.

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Speaker 2: First of all, it tells us that everything came about

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Speaker 2: by God. That in and of itself is staggering. It means,

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Speaker 2: among other things, that everything has a purpose and intelligence

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Speaker 2: created the world. The very moment you say that God

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Speaker 2: created the world you are making an argument for purpose.

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Speaker 2: God does not do things purposelessly. I mean, that is

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Speaker 2: just something even an atheist. I'm not asking you to

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Speaker 2: be a believer. I'm asking you to take from within

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Speaker 2: its own evidence. If there is a God, all right,

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Speaker 2: we'll use an if. If there is a God and

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Speaker 2: God created everything, there must be a reason for it.

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Speaker 2: You can't argue he was bored. You can even argue

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Speaker 2: he was bored by the way argue he was bored. Okay,

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Speaker 2: but at least then there's a reason God wanted to

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Speaker 2: be interested in us. But whatever there is, whatever your

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Speaker 2: reason you will give, there is reason. It is the

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Speaker 2: antithesis of the atheist Veltenshall, the atheist worldview, the a theist,

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Speaker 2: non theist, no God involved. What is the choice to

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Speaker 2: God creating the heavens and the earth. The heavens and

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Speaker 2: the earth came about by themselves, then there's no purpose.

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Speaker 2: There is no point. This changed history. There is a

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Speaker 2: divine will in creation is already one of the most

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Speaker 2: important things stated in Genesis one one. There is a

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Speaker 2: point to this universe and therefore, obviously to our lives. Okay,

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Speaker 2: number one. Number two, it implies that it is creation

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Speaker 2: which is Latin for from nothing, the beginning. In the beginning,

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Speaker 2: God created, God started, and he didn't create from something.

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Speaker 2: God created. How do we know that it's out of

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Speaker 2: nothing because of the word create. The word create, which

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Speaker 2: is in Hebrew brah, is used in the Bible only

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Speaker 2: when God does it. There is no time in the

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Speaker 2: entire Bible where you say vaevra adam and something that

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Speaker 2: man or woman has created. It is a term reserved

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Speaker 2: for God. Because only God can create from nothing. We

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Speaker 2: can do everything else God can do. We can order things,

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Speaker 2: we can make things, but we cannot create. Even if

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Speaker 2: we were to make life and attest to it's not

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Speaker 2: creati ox nihilo. It's not creation from nothing. So to say, well,

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Speaker 2: man will then be God, No, man will not be God.

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Speaker 2: God did it from nothing. We live at a time,

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Speaker 2: by the way, where scientifically this is no longer easily

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Speaker 2: scuffed at. The big Bang theory just got a very

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Speaker 2: big bang this week, a big boost apparently in one

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Speaker 2: of apparently being called one of the great finds in cosmology.

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Speaker 2: The study of the origins of the universe is now

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Speaker 2: apparently coming close to proof that there was a beginning.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing. I remember I've been arguing theism for years,

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Speaker 2: and I remember the most famous and eloquent, I think

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Speaker 2: argument of atheists. I would say, as a theist that

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Speaker 2: God always existed, and the atheist would answer, matter always existed,

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Speaker 2: and it would be a draw. The universe was always here,

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Speaker 2: God was always here. Pick your choice. We don't have

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Speaker 2: to pick that any longer. One of them wasn't here

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Speaker 2: all the time. One of them came out of nothing.

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Speaker 2: And it's pretty dramatic that God begins with let there

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Speaker 2: be like given the intensity of the light of the

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Speaker 2: Big Bang. Now, I am not saying that who wrote

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Speaker 2: this said let there be a big Bang and so on,

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Speaker 2: because a thousand years from now they will have other

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Speaker 2: ways of understanding the beginning. And I don't want to

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Speaker 2: be stuck with hanging religion on science. I'm merely here

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Speaker 2: to say to you that if there was a beginning,

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Speaker 2: that's a pretty powerful thing. Robert Jastrow is a famous astronomer,

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Speaker 2: actually geologist astronomer, and he wrote an article in the

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Speaker 2: New York Times magazine about fifteen years ago about the

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Speaker 2: Big Bang, which then became a book, a little book

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Speaker 2: called God and the Astronomers. You must pick it up, Jastro. Jastrow,

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Speaker 2: you can read it in an hour and a half

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Speaker 2: if you're a slow reader like me. If you're speed reader,

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Speaker 2: you could do it while drinking a pepsi. And the book,

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Speaker 2: the book is Thesis, was great. And at the end

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Speaker 2: of the book he says, well, physicists and astronomers are

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Speaker 2: now climbing the final peak of knowledge of the origins

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Speaker 2: of the universe. And as they finally get to the top,

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Speaker 2: they look around and they find that there's a band

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Speaker 2: of theologians who have been sitting there the whole time.

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Speaker 2: Jastro is an agnostic geologist, and that's what he wrote,

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Speaker 2: that the higher astronomers climb a mountain, the more they're

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Speaker 2: likely to find theology. That is what is happening, because

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Speaker 2: in the beginning God created the world, and creation means

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Speaker 2: from nothing. Therefore it is used rarely and only with

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Speaker 2: regard to God. Number three. The first sentence tells us

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Speaker 2: something that people today this moment need to hear terribly.

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Speaker 1: This episode of timeless wisdom will continue right after this.

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Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

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Speaker 2: That God created nature. God is not part of nature.

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Speaker 2: There is no more important inference to be drawn from

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Speaker 2: this at this time and history. One of the reasons

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Speaker 2: I deeply believe in the Torah is because it has

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Speaker 2: something to say to every generation that is deeply needed,

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Speaker 2: and in this case, this is deeply needed. There are

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Speaker 2: people today who hold that God is in nature or

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Speaker 2: nature is God. I don't only mean simple worship of trees,

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Speaker 2: though sometimes it even devolves into that, just an argument

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Speaker 2: Nature is divine and God is in nature, or as

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Speaker 2: New Age would put it, God is in every one

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Speaker 2: of us. That is not true. God is outside of us.

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Speaker 2: That's what's here. God precedes us. It's humbling, but God

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Speaker 2: does precede us. You are not God. You are in

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Speaker 2: God's image, something we will talk about because it's in

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Speaker 2: the first chapters. But we are not God and we

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Speaker 2: are not God's. God is outside of us. He created

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Speaker 2: the heavens and the earth. The importance of God being

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Speaker 2: above nature I will talk about a little later. Let

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Speaker 2: me make one obvious point which has always disturbed me

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Speaker 2: about people saying that nature is God or equating nature

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Speaker 2: with God. Nature is a moral Nature has no morality.

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Speaker 2: Nature's only law is survival of the fittest. There is

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Speaker 2: no commandment to animals. Love your neighbor as yourself. The

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Speaker 2: command to animals is eat your neighbor before you are eaten.

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Speaker 2: And I don't blame them. I'm not anti animal for

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Speaker 2: making that point. I'm being realistic. A safari opened my

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Speaker 2: eyes to this. Should all take a safari. What if

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Speaker 2: any of you romanticize nature? Please go to Africa, spend

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Speaker 2: a couple of weeks as I did in Kenya Tanzania,

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Speaker 2: and watch the way animals live, not in the zoo

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Speaker 2: or at home with your cats and dogs that you love,

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Speaker 2: but how they live in real life. They spend most

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Speaker 2: of their day trying to avoid being eaten and trying

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Speaker 2: to find who is smaller than them that they could eat.

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Speaker 2: That's that's nature. Hitler used nature for survival of the fittest.

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Speaker 2: Hitler said that should be our law, and we arians

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Speaker 2: will show we are the fittest. The Jews are the

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Speaker 2: least fit, and we will we will eat them, we

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Speaker 2: will devour them. It's no coincidence the Jews were called

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Speaker 2: by Nazis vermic and equated to animals. That's what you do.

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Speaker 2: It's what one animal does to another. Eradicates it if necessary,

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Speaker 2: so This identification of God with nature is terribly a

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Speaker 2: moral God is above nature. God created nature, and you

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Speaker 2: will see in the entire first chapter repeated, God tells

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Speaker 2: nature what to do. Nature has no will of its own.

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Speaker 2: Next was really a separate point, but I tied it

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Speaker 2: in God commands no. Nature has no independent will of

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Speaker 2: its own. Fifth, I believe it is God's existence is

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Speaker 2: taken for granted. One of the extraordinary revolutions caused by

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Speaker 2: Genesis one is its complete rejection obliteration of all ancient

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Speaker 2: ways of looking at the gods. They had what were

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Speaker 2: called theogeny jenny as in Genesis, as in Cosmogeny is

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Speaker 2: the Latin for beginning. What's theogeny the beginning of a god?

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Speaker 2: All the ancient stories of creation had theogeny. They asked

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Speaker 2: what superficial atheists is opposed to profound atheists asked today, well,

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Speaker 2: where did God come from? That's exactly what the Pagans asked,

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Speaker 2: where did the gods come from? So in all parallel

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Speaker 2: creation myths, you have the creation of the gods. You

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Speaker 2: don't have the gods creating first. You have the gods

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Speaker 2: being created first. How did they come about? And look

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Speaker 2: at the simplicity of the first sentence of the Hebrew Bible.

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Speaker 2: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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Speaker 2: God was there. It's just a given. There is no

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Speaker 2: beginning to God. Let me read to you from one

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Speaker 2: of the scholars who's written on ancient cosmogonies. His name

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Speaker 2: is Bernhardt Jakobsen. Excuse me, Bernhard Andersen. Yakobsen was another

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Speaker 2: one who wrote on him, Bernard Andersen. Although the Bible

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Speaker 2: takes for granted the contours of ancient cosmology, in other words,

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Speaker 2: it understood how other people wrote their cosmogonies beginnings of

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Speaker 2: the world, and it utilized some of the language, it

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Speaker 2: has de mythologized the ancient understanding of existence. The Hebrew

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Speaker 2: Bible contains no theogeny, no myth which traces the creation

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Speaker 2: to a primordial battle between divine powers, no ritual which

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Speaker 2: enabled men to repeat the mythological drama and thereby ensure

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Speaker 2: the supremacy of the national God. Mythological allusions have been

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Speaker 2: torn out of their ancient context of polytheism and nature

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Speaker 2: religion and have acquired a completely new meaning within the

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Speaker 2: historical syntax of Israel's faith. My friends, I have a

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Speaker 2: lot of faith in my ability to explain things, But

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Speaker 2: I truly believe that I failed to communicate to you

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Speaker 2: how Genesis one changed history. How this notion of a

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Speaker 2: god who created the world above nature, invisible, non pagan,

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Speaker 2: monotheistic changed all of history. Genesis one to one changed

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Speaker 2: things more than anything you can imagine, anything, more than

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Speaker 2: the French Revolution, more than the American Revolution. It made

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Speaker 2: subsequent thinking about life possible. I will show you why later,

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Speaker 2: but please understand the revolution. Remember this sentence. No matter

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Speaker 2: how you look at biblical origins, this sentence is probably

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Speaker 2: three thousand years old. That's incredible. That's incredible. You know

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Speaker 2: people were doing three thousand years ago. I mean, do

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Speaker 2: you know how primitive the conception of the world was.

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Speaker 2: And then somebody came along and said, in the beginning,

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Speaker 2: an invisible, unknowable, untouchable god who had no birth created

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Speaker 2: the world, Give me a break. Would have been the

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00:28:52,180 --> 00:28:56,620
Speaker 2: reaction of any pagan. It is too wild. It is

403
00:28:56,820 --> 00:29:01,420
Speaker 2: so unbelievably abstract. And how did he do it? The

404
00:29:01,459 --> 00:29:03,940
Speaker 2: pagan will come over to this Jew and say, oh,

405
00:29:04,060 --> 00:29:07,060
Speaker 2: really not, how did this god do it? He just said,

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Speaker 2: let it happen. Oh, come on, He didn't make it

407
00:29:10,620 --> 00:29:13,380
Speaker 2: out of clay. He didn't make it from a turtle.

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00:29:14,060 --> 00:29:16,420
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? He just said, let there

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00:29:16,500 --> 00:29:22,660
Speaker 2: be life too. It's too abstract, but that's exactly its greatness.

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Speaker 2: Number six or seven, whatever number I'm up to. Bere

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Speaker 2: sheet in the beginning means God created something else, which

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Speaker 2: is incredible for three thousand years ago, it's incredible for

413
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Speaker 2: anything prior to Albert Einstein, God created time. There was

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Speaker 2: no time, because prior to the beginning is nothing, including

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Speaker 2: no time. How do you think that sat with the

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00:29:54,979 --> 00:30:00,259
Speaker 2: ancient pagans. It doesn't sit well with you. You understand

417
00:30:00,300 --> 00:30:03,860
Speaker 2: no time. What happened ten minutes before the beginning, wasn't

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00:30:03,860 --> 00:30:09,460
Speaker 2: it ten minutes to the beginning? Right? That's how the

419
00:30:09,500 --> 00:30:12,660
Speaker 2: mind would think, But that's not how it works. There

420
00:30:12,780 --> 00:30:17,340
Speaker 2: was no time. Einstein has shown this God created time

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Speaker 2: in the beginning. He's outside of time. God is not

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Speaker 2: only outside of nature. God is outside of time. This

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Speaker 2: is an incredible God. That's part of the reason. By

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Speaker 2: the way that you could begin to grasp how God

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00:30:32,900 --> 00:30:35,580
Speaker 2: could look at the world. God is outside of this

426
00:30:35,780 --> 00:30:39,780
Speaker 2: confine and that is what makes one, i think, even rationally,

427
00:30:39,820 --> 00:30:42,940
Speaker 2: hold it there must be something beyond this life. This

428
00:30:43,100 --> 00:30:47,260
Speaker 2: is one variant of the possibilities, and God has other

429
00:30:47,340 --> 00:30:56,860
Speaker 2: things in mind which we cannot grasp. Next, God is monotheistic,

430
00:30:59,380 --> 00:31:03,380
Speaker 2: it says Breshit bar Alohim in the beginning, Elohim created.

431
00:31:04,380 --> 00:31:10,019
Speaker 2: Elohim is plural. It is plural. However, just like the

432
00:31:10,060 --> 00:31:15,380
Speaker 2: word in Hebrew, water is plural. There is no singular

433
00:31:15,580 --> 00:31:22,620
Speaker 2: for water in Hebrew. It's mayan. There's no word. It's

434
00:31:22,820 --> 00:31:26,780
Speaker 2: just the way it is. An analogy to English is fish,

435
00:31:27,180 --> 00:31:31,219
Speaker 2: the fish swim or the fish swims. You can have

436
00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:35,620
Speaker 2: it either way we sow to in Hebrew. This is

437
00:31:35,660 --> 00:31:38,779
Speaker 2: not meant to disagree with my friends here who have

438
00:31:38,780 --> 00:31:42,459
Speaker 2: a Christological reading of this. It's merely to say that

439
00:31:42,500 --> 00:31:47,020
Speaker 2: the evidence doesn't support a plural reading of the word

440
00:31:47,060 --> 00:31:51,259
Speaker 2: Elohim for a very simple reason, with one exception that

441
00:31:51,300 --> 00:31:57,780
Speaker 2: I'll come to. It always uses the singular verb Lohim creates.

442
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:02,579
Speaker 2: If it were plural, it would be Yelohim create, And

443
00:32:02,700 --> 00:32:07,779
Speaker 2: here Barrah is the singular. Ylohim is also one of

444
00:32:07,820 --> 00:32:12,020
Speaker 2: the two major words in Genesis and the Torah, generally

445
00:32:12,140 --> 00:32:17,140
Speaker 2: for God. The other one is a do Nai or Jehovah.

446
00:32:17,820 --> 00:32:24,020
Speaker 2: In the literal origin. The second name Jehovah comes in

447
00:32:24,020 --> 00:32:28,060
Speaker 2: in chapter two, which leads a lot of Biblical critics

448
00:32:28,180 --> 00:32:32,499
Speaker 2: to hold that those are two different documents, the Yelohim

449
00:32:32,580 --> 00:32:36,540
Speaker 2: document or eedocument, and the Jehovah document the Jay document.

450
00:32:37,219 --> 00:32:40,460
Speaker 2: I have no desire to get into the documentary hypothesis.

451
00:32:40,900 --> 00:32:44,380
Speaker 2: It doesn't interest me particularly. The reason it doesn't interest

452
00:32:44,420 --> 00:32:46,500
Speaker 2: me particularly is because I read the Bible to learn

453
00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:49,660
Speaker 2: from it, not to figure out who wrote what. So

454
00:32:49,860 --> 00:32:52,700
Speaker 2: I appreciate that there were those who will find that fascinating.

455
00:32:52,780 --> 00:32:57,219
Speaker 2: I don't. But what is clear is Ylohim is the

456
00:32:57,260 --> 00:33:02,219
Speaker 2: God of the world, and Jehovah is the personal God.

457
00:33:03,660 --> 00:33:07,100
Speaker 2: The God of nature or the world is in chapter one.

458
00:33:07,860 --> 00:33:11,340
Speaker 2: God gets personal in chapter two, and so you then

459
00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:17,140
Speaker 2: have God Jehovah speaking the personal God. Those are two

460
00:33:17,340 --> 00:33:22,340
Speaker 2: separate understandings God. God is one, but God has many facets.

461
00:33:22,700 --> 00:33:26,100
Speaker 2: One of them is the universal facet, the natural facet

462
00:33:26,340 --> 00:33:29,940
Speaker 2: of creating the world. The other one is the personal

463
00:33:33,100 --> 00:33:39,339
Speaker 2: Next revolution and verse one. This is all Verse one,

464
00:33:39,700 --> 00:33:44,700
Speaker 2: no pre existing matter. God didn't make the world from anything.

465
00:33:45,140 --> 00:33:48,860
Speaker 2: He didn't form it from something that I had mentioned

466
00:33:48,900 --> 00:33:52,700
Speaker 2: that in Exnihilo out of nothing. But you must understand

467
00:33:52,739 --> 00:33:57,660
Speaker 2: this as well. Because all pagan mythologies had God forming

468
00:33:57,780 --> 00:34:01,300
Speaker 2: the world out of something. This one doesn't. He makes

469
00:34:01,340 --> 00:34:06,140
Speaker 2: the something and that forms it, and finally the other revolution.

470
00:34:06,300 --> 00:34:15,060
Speaker 2: Here is the utterly and totally universalist nature of Genesis one, meaning,

471
00:34:15,460 --> 00:34:21,060
Speaker 2: it isn't Jewish, it is I will be paroke for

472
00:34:21,140 --> 00:34:24,259
Speaker 2: a moment. It is a source of great pride to

473
00:34:24,340 --> 00:34:28,980
Speaker 2: me that the Jewish Bible is so universal in its origin.

474
00:34:30,180 --> 00:34:32,899
Speaker 2: It isn't here to tell you about Jews. It isn't

475
00:34:32,940 --> 00:34:35,620
Speaker 2: here to tell you about Judaism. It is here to

476
00:34:35,660 --> 00:34:39,459
Speaker 2: tell you about the God of everyone. This is as

477
00:34:39,580 --> 00:34:45,940
Speaker 2: valid in Japan and Africa, in America as in Israel,

478
00:34:46,420 --> 00:34:50,580
Speaker 2: that in the beginning God created the world. There is

479
00:34:50,700 --> 00:34:57,180
Speaker 2: nothing whatsoever nationalist. There is nothing religious, in other words,

480
00:34:57,219 --> 00:35:00,660
Speaker 2: specifically in a religion. It's very religious that God created

481
00:35:00,700 --> 00:35:04,379
Speaker 2: the world, but not of a specific religion. It is

482
00:35:04,420 --> 00:35:08,739
Speaker 2: a very powerful statement. It isn't the Jews God who

483
00:35:08,779 --> 00:35:11,940
Speaker 2: created the world. It is the God of the world

484
00:35:12,100 --> 00:35:16,459
Speaker 2: who created the world. And we will see if we

485
00:35:16,500 --> 00:35:20,459
Speaker 2: get that far, that God wanted it to be that way.

486
00:35:20,739 --> 00:35:26,100
Speaker 2: He wanted to be everybody's God and be obeyed as

487
00:35:26,180 --> 00:35:30,779
Speaker 2: everybody's God. The idea that he had to reveal his

488
00:35:30,859 --> 00:35:35,899
Speaker 2: will to one group came later from the internal evidences

489
00:35:35,980 --> 00:35:38,500
Speaker 2: I read it. That's why I have always called the

490
00:35:38,620 --> 00:35:45,939
Speaker 2: Jewish people an ad hoc movement with a temporary assignment,

491
00:35:47,660 --> 00:35:52,459
Speaker 2: and when fulfilled, theoretically at least, it can go out

492
00:35:52,460 --> 00:35:57,020
Speaker 2: of business. It was formed for a task, the task

493
00:35:57,020 --> 00:35:59,540
Speaker 2: will be fulfilled, and then we would end in the

494
00:35:59,700 --> 00:36:05,620
Speaker 2: very different world. But God's original intent was totally universalist.

495
00:36:05,739 --> 00:36:09,339
Speaker 2: It's the God of the world, the God who created everything.

496
00:36:12,259 --> 00:36:18,580
Speaker 2: That is Genesis one one. The revolution inherent in that statement,

497
00:36:18,620 --> 00:36:22,379
Speaker 2: which is why everybody knows it, why it is so

498
00:36:22,700 --> 00:36:29,379
Speaker 2: deeply part of the Judeo Christian, Muslim and Western cultures.

499
00:36:29,859 --> 00:36:34,140
Speaker 2: It is so deeply embedded in it. People have tried

500
00:36:34,180 --> 00:36:37,940
Speaker 2: to fight it. Nature created itself, the world created itself.

501
00:36:37,980 --> 00:36:41,379
Speaker 2: There is no God, there is no supervisor, and so on.

502
00:36:41,940 --> 00:36:47,140
Speaker 2: But this is their battle against Genesis one on. The task,

503
00:36:47,180 --> 00:36:49,700
Speaker 2: as I said, is to tell you the nature of God,

504
00:36:49,980 --> 00:36:53,100
Speaker 2: not the nature of science, and so keep that in

505
00:36:53,140 --> 00:36:56,700
Speaker 2: mind as we continue. I'm not going to go over

506
00:36:56,779 --> 00:37:04,580
Speaker 2: every sentence. I'm picking out specific ones. One three. God said,

507
00:37:05,580 --> 00:37:08,819
Speaker 2: let there be light, and there was light that great?

508
00:37:09,900 --> 00:37:13,219
Speaker 2: That's it. I always had this vision as a kid

509
00:37:13,259 --> 00:37:15,820
Speaker 2: of you know the God. Did God say it with effort?

510
00:37:16,620 --> 00:37:19,460
Speaker 2: Did he yell it? Did he whisper it? Did he

511
00:37:19,580 --> 00:37:23,299
Speaker 2: think it? Did it take any effort at all to say? Oh,

512
00:37:23,380 --> 00:37:27,859
Speaker 2: of every life, of every life? Or was it? You know?

513
00:37:28,140 --> 00:37:33,340
Speaker 2: What there be like? It is so extraordinary. The simplicity

514
00:37:33,420 --> 00:37:39,780
Speaker 2: here is staggering. He wills it and it happens. Again.

515
00:37:40,060 --> 00:37:42,540
Speaker 2: The only way you could begin to appreciate what a

516
00:37:42,620 --> 00:37:46,259
Speaker 2: revolution this all is is to read ancient mythologies, what

517
00:37:46,380 --> 00:37:49,220
Speaker 2: the whole rest of the world, not just the ancient

518
00:37:49,259 --> 00:37:55,419
Speaker 2: Middle East, everywhere, Japan, Africa, the Americas, anywhere you wish,

519
00:37:55,859 --> 00:38:03,779
Speaker 2: read every beginning, The beginning was physical. Just the universal

520
00:38:03,980 --> 00:38:09,700
Speaker 2: God willing something is a staggering change. God wills it

521
00:38:10,299 --> 00:38:14,059
Speaker 2: and it happens. Let there be light now, by the way,

522
00:38:14,219 --> 00:38:18,700
Speaker 2: it's a very interesting thing, which I am sure twenty

523
00:38:18,739 --> 00:38:21,620
Speaker 2: five fifty one hundred to one Ndred years ago was

524
00:38:21,660 --> 00:38:28,899
Speaker 2: a great source of scuffing by atheists. I remember hearing

525
00:38:28,940 --> 00:38:30,660
Speaker 2: it as a kid. How could there be light? The

526
00:38:30,739 --> 00:38:34,819
Speaker 2: sun wasn't even invented yet, the stars weren't even created yet.

527
00:38:36,819 --> 00:38:40,860
Speaker 2: That's pretty interesting. Isn't it. Now, you gotta admit whether

528
00:38:40,900 --> 00:38:42,819
Speaker 2: it was men or God who wrote this, they had

529
00:38:42,859 --> 00:38:46,140
Speaker 2: to be pretty well aware of that question. One thing

530
00:38:46,219 --> 00:38:48,860
Speaker 2: most people grant is that whoever wrote it wasn't stupid.

531
00:38:49,339 --> 00:38:52,060
Speaker 2: Whoever wrote it also would have realized, how was their

532
00:38:52,140 --> 00:38:58,700
Speaker 2: light before stars, before the sun? It's a good question.

533
00:38:58,779 --> 00:39:00,419
Speaker 2: I don't have an answer to that, but you have

534
00:39:00,500 --> 00:39:03,419
Speaker 2: to admit that that's quite something. It's pretty impressive, isn't there.

535
00:39:03,580 --> 00:39:06,180
Speaker 2: That's a pretty risky thing to write because it would

536
00:39:06,219 --> 00:39:09,899
Speaker 2: have seemed to anybody pre Big Bang, that's pretty weird.

537
00:39:10,540 --> 00:39:16,339
Speaker 2: Where did it come from? Well, there's no answer to that.

538
00:39:16,420 --> 00:39:21,180
Speaker 2: I know. I find that very compelling force, say God

539
00:39:21,219 --> 00:39:23,860
Speaker 2: writing every word. But I will say for a divine

540
00:39:23,940 --> 00:39:27,979
Speaker 2: element of wisdom here that transcends the norm because it's

541
00:39:27,980 --> 00:39:30,979
Speaker 2: a very obvious question that not all of you might

542
00:39:30,980 --> 00:39:35,380
Speaker 2: have thought of. Where did the light come from? Nothing

543
00:39:35,500 --> 00:39:42,899
Speaker 2: that makes light had been created? One four? God saw

544
00:39:42,940 --> 00:39:46,180
Speaker 2: it was good. This also knocked out a lot of

545
00:39:46,219 --> 00:39:52,180
Speaker 2: ancient cosmologies because in the ancient creation things it was miserable.

546
00:39:53,020 --> 00:39:56,219
Speaker 2: Everybody was fighting everybody. The gods were killing each other

547
00:39:56,259 --> 00:39:59,700
Speaker 2: to see who would win. They were battling major sea,

548
00:40:00,779 --> 00:40:05,779
Speaker 2: sea monsters and big giant turtles, and there was a

549
00:40:05,819 --> 00:40:11,899
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of sex and cruelty. God says, let there

550
00:40:11,940 --> 00:40:15,739
Speaker 2: be light and saw it was good. Can you get simpler?

551
00:40:16,140 --> 00:40:19,739
Speaker 2: Can you get more more beautiful than that? He liked

552
00:40:19,739 --> 00:40:22,100
Speaker 2: what he did? That, by the way, isn't that touching?

553
00:40:23,620 --> 00:40:26,299
Speaker 2: If we're supposed to learn from God? Clearly one thing

554
00:40:26,339 --> 00:40:28,739
Speaker 2: you might want to pick up is what real humility

555
00:40:28,779 --> 00:40:32,539
Speaker 2: is about. You're allowed to say your work is good,

556
00:40:32,580 --> 00:40:36,700
Speaker 2: if it's good, if you want to imitate God. Don't

557
00:40:36,739 --> 00:40:41,820
Speaker 2: go around saying of something good you've done. Yeah, that's fake,

558
00:40:42,100 --> 00:40:47,180
Speaker 2: that's false humility. Real humility acknowledges what you've done. I

559
00:40:47,180 --> 00:40:49,419
Speaker 2: think I've always been touched by that. God looks at

560
00:40:49,460 --> 00:40:52,819
Speaker 2: what he did. Yeah, that was a good job. Isn't

561
00:40:52,859 --> 00:40:57,259
Speaker 2: that something you sawt was good? And to teach us too,

562
00:40:57,339 --> 00:41:00,900
Speaker 2: There is goodness inherent in this world of even though

563
00:41:01,060 --> 00:41:03,939
Speaker 2: there's so much evil. It's why seventy five percent of

564
00:41:03,980 --> 00:41:06,459
Speaker 2: you said more than seventy five percent of your pain

565
00:41:06,500 --> 00:41:10,339
Speaker 2: came from people, didn't come from God. God created a

566
00:41:10,380 --> 00:41:14,739
Speaker 2: good world. We screw it up. It's a famous theological

567
00:41:14,819 --> 00:41:24,739
Speaker 2: term to screw up from the Latin. Screw them. Tremendum.

568
00:41:24,859 --> 00:41:27,300
Speaker 1: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will.

569
00:41:27,100 --> 00:41:28,219
Speaker 2: Continue right after this.

570
00:41:32,700 --> 00:41:37,419
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

571
00:41:38,219 --> 00:41:43,100
Speaker 2: Now, very interesting thing coming up here. We're still now

572
00:41:43,180 --> 00:41:48,140
Speaker 2: in Genesis won three. Then God said, let there be

573
00:41:48,219 --> 00:41:51,499
Speaker 2: light in There was light. Okay, God saw the light

574
00:41:51,540 --> 00:41:54,219
Speaker 2: that was good, divided the light from the dark, got cold,

575
00:41:54,259 --> 00:41:57,419
Speaker 2: the light day in the darkly cold night. So the

576
00:41:57,500 --> 00:42:03,859
Speaker 2: evening and the morning were the first day. Now, this

577
00:42:04,660 --> 00:42:09,140
Speaker 2: is the answer and answer I believe to creationists who

578
00:42:09,219 --> 00:42:14,299
Speaker 2: wished to posit twenty four hour days as God's creation

579
00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:17,700
Speaker 2: of the universe, that there were six twenty four hour

580
00:42:18,420 --> 00:42:23,020
Speaker 2: time periods because there was day and night before the sun.

581
00:42:24,739 --> 00:42:27,220
Speaker 2: But it's the sun that gives us days and nights

582
00:42:27,219 --> 00:42:33,620
Speaker 2: of twenty four hours altogether. No sun, no day. We're

583
00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:38,100
Speaker 2: talking about a day and an evening of totally different conceptions.

584
00:42:38,739 --> 00:42:41,580
Speaker 2: It's a divine day or evening. It's a metaphor, if

585
00:42:41,620 --> 00:42:44,660
Speaker 2: you will, it's a period, it's an eon. I don't

586
00:42:44,700 --> 00:42:47,259
Speaker 2: know what it is, but it can't be a day.

587
00:42:47,819 --> 00:42:51,140
Speaker 2: Even if you are a literalist, I'll grant literalism to

588
00:42:51,219 --> 00:42:54,860
Speaker 2: Bible literalists. You still can't have a day here because

589
00:42:54,900 --> 00:42:57,859
Speaker 2: there is no sun. So the very use of the

590
00:42:57,980 --> 00:43:02,620
Speaker 2: term day doesn't mean obviously the day as we know it,

591
00:43:02,700 --> 00:43:05,660
Speaker 2: because the day as we know it is dependent entirely

592
00:43:05,980 --> 00:43:10,780
Speaker 2: upon there being a sun. That's how we measure our units.

593
00:43:11,739 --> 00:43:16,180
Speaker 2: So that's that's why I am troubled by creation It's

594
00:43:16,180 --> 00:43:20,580
Speaker 2: because they're they're battling the correct battle with the wrong weapons.

595
00:43:20,660 --> 00:43:23,819
Speaker 2: It is a correct battle to battle. The atheist who

596
00:43:23,859 --> 00:43:27,499
Speaker 2: says everything came about on its own, that I join

597
00:43:27,620 --> 00:43:33,460
Speaker 2: that battle, But to oppose it with ideas that I

598
00:43:33,500 --> 00:43:36,500
Speaker 2: think are foreign to the text itself, just to go

599
00:43:36,540 --> 00:43:39,980
Speaker 2: to the other extreme, from the secular extreme, cannot I

600
00:43:40,140 --> 00:43:44,939
Speaker 2: personally cannot support. So I find myself and I might

601
00:43:44,940 --> 00:43:47,899
Speaker 2: as well handle this right now. In the middle. On

602
00:43:47,940 --> 00:43:50,379
Speaker 2: the one hand, you have those who believe everything came

603
00:43:50,420 --> 00:43:53,820
Speaker 2: about by evolution without God, and now the others extreme

604
00:43:53,900 --> 00:43:59,060
Speaker 2: is the creationists, no evolution in everything as written. I

605
00:43:59,100 --> 00:44:01,900
Speaker 2: have no problem with evolution. I have problem with evolution

606
00:44:02,060 --> 00:44:05,419
Speaker 2: with God. The notion that everything came about on its

607
00:44:05,460 --> 00:44:10,419
Speaker 2: own strikes me as absurd, just absurd, that it just

608
00:44:10,620 --> 00:44:14,700
Speaker 2: happened on its own. And by the way, according to

609
00:44:15,060 --> 00:44:18,299
Speaker 2: one of the great paleontologists of our times Stephen Jay Gould,

610
00:44:18,339 --> 00:44:21,660
Speaker 2: who is an agnostic or an atheist, the heart of paleontologist,

611
00:44:21,660 --> 00:44:25,620
Speaker 2: who writes on evolution. He has recently said that he

612
00:44:25,739 --> 00:44:28,700
Speaker 2: believes that if time went backwards and we started all

613
00:44:28,739 --> 00:44:33,219
Speaker 2: over under the same conditions, life wouldn't have arisen as

614
00:44:33,219 --> 00:44:37,620
Speaker 2: it did. It's a fluke. It's too much of a fluke.

615
00:44:39,500 --> 00:44:42,580
Speaker 2: So there was no inevitability, even an evolution. Even the

616
00:44:42,620 --> 00:44:46,940
Speaker 2: evolutionists will have to say, it's a quirk between quirk

617
00:44:47,500 --> 00:44:53,580
Speaker 2: and instrumentality and intelligence. I'll take intelligence over quirk as

618
00:44:53,620 --> 00:44:56,859
Speaker 2: having created intelligence. But please understand that we do have

619
00:44:57,060 --> 00:45:00,660
Speaker 2: a day before we have the sun. Now, the second

620
00:45:00,739 --> 00:45:06,339
Speaker 2: day is very interesting. Second day nothing gets created. Find

621
00:45:06,339 --> 00:45:09,419
Speaker 2: that a very interesting thing that may be new to

622
00:45:09,500 --> 00:45:12,259
Speaker 2: many of you. Look at the second day is six

623
00:45:12,339 --> 00:45:15,380
Speaker 2: to eight. Then God said, let there be a firmament

624
00:45:15,420 --> 00:45:17,580
Speaker 2: in the midst of the waters. One of the things

625
00:45:17,620 --> 00:45:20,379
Speaker 2: that one of the things I love about this is

626
00:45:20,420 --> 00:45:24,260
Speaker 2: how how you get these English words which mean nothing.

627
00:45:25,380 --> 00:45:29,660
Speaker 2: Anybody used firmament in the last month. Wow, look at

628
00:45:29,660 --> 00:45:37,379
Speaker 2: the firmament. Oh, what's a firmament? Look? The truth is

629
00:45:37,460 --> 00:45:41,979
Speaker 2: that the people working on this don't have a real

630
00:45:42,020 --> 00:45:45,259
Speaker 2: answer because the Hebrew is not really translatable. The Hebrew

631
00:45:45,299 --> 00:45:48,340
Speaker 2: is a rakia, and I remember it drove me crazy

632
00:45:48,380 --> 00:45:51,060
Speaker 2: when I first learned this, like in second grade. The

633
00:45:51,100 --> 00:45:55,299
Speaker 2: teacher acted like everybody knew what rakia was, Like you know,

634
00:45:55,380 --> 00:45:57,100
Speaker 2: like you do all know what firmament is. Oh well,

635
00:45:57,140 --> 00:46:00,580
Speaker 2: of course there's a rookie up there, and it didn't

636
00:46:00,580 --> 00:46:03,140
Speaker 2: make sense. But now I will try to explain to

637
00:46:03,219 --> 00:46:06,140
Speaker 2: you what probably didn't make sense in Sunday school or

638
00:46:06,140 --> 00:46:09,140
Speaker 2: Hebrew school, or for that matter, Yeshiva. If you went

639
00:46:10,180 --> 00:46:14,020
Speaker 2: the ancient mind understood the universe as this, now you

640
00:46:14,060 --> 00:46:16,100
Speaker 2: have to enter their mind. It's not, obviously not the

641
00:46:16,100 --> 00:46:19,940
Speaker 2: way you see it. The universe is divided into three sections,

642
00:46:20,819 --> 00:46:24,700
Speaker 2: waters above, waters below, the waters of our land as

643
00:46:24,739 --> 00:46:28,660
Speaker 2: it were, and in the middle is what we would

644
00:46:28,660 --> 00:46:36,060
Speaker 2: call space or atmosphere. Okay, so the beginning what God

645
00:46:36,140 --> 00:46:40,380
Speaker 2: did was, apparently in this understanding, was to separate the waters.

646
00:46:40,940 --> 00:46:44,940
Speaker 2: The word for heaven or sky or heavens in Hebrew

647
00:46:45,620 --> 00:46:50,259
Speaker 2: is the word for waters or water with a shin

648
00:46:50,380 --> 00:46:53,660
Speaker 2: in front of it. The word for water is mayan.

649
00:46:54,580 --> 00:46:59,540
Speaker 2: The word for sky is shaw mayan. So obviously that's

650
00:46:59,580 --> 00:47:02,060
Speaker 2: why it comes from this. It comes from this. This

651
00:47:02,100 --> 00:47:04,500
Speaker 2: is where we first encountered the word for the heavens,

652
00:47:05,060 --> 00:47:09,020
Speaker 2: or for the or for the sky. So what you

653
00:47:09,180 --> 00:47:11,299
Speaker 2: have is the notion in the word. It would be

654
00:47:11,339 --> 00:47:15,259
Speaker 2: as if the word were waters, would be our word

655
00:47:15,339 --> 00:47:19,660
Speaker 2: for heavens the waters. So the waters were separated, that

656
00:47:19,779 --> 00:47:23,339
Speaker 2: made room. Then how did it rain? It punctured the

657
00:47:23,339 --> 00:47:26,620
Speaker 2: firmament or the rakhiah, it would be there would be holes.

658
00:47:26,660 --> 00:47:30,980
Speaker 2: That That's how the ancient mind would understand it. Okay,

659
00:47:32,219 --> 00:47:35,899
Speaker 2: therefore that's what God did. God was not creating a

660
00:47:35,940 --> 00:47:38,859
Speaker 2: thing on the second day. Spent the whole second day

661
00:47:39,739 --> 00:47:43,980
Speaker 2: just making some order out of the beginning. That is how.

662
00:47:44,140 --> 00:47:49,819
Speaker 2: That is what is being taught here God is. And

663
00:47:49,819 --> 00:47:51,859
Speaker 2: and by the way, there's another proof that there was

664
00:47:51,859 --> 00:47:58,020
Speaker 2: no creation. It's the only day where God didn't say it. Anybody,

665
00:47:58,100 --> 00:48:00,419
Speaker 2: you know, what did God create on a second day?

666
00:48:00,900 --> 00:48:03,219
Speaker 2: I'd be shocked if anybody you know would be able

667
00:48:03,259 --> 00:48:07,660
Speaker 2: to answer. The answer is nothing. God didn't create a

668
00:48:07,739 --> 00:48:10,739
Speaker 2: thing on the second day or the second period, which

669
00:48:10,739 --> 00:48:14,580
Speaker 2: would be more more clear. What he did was create

670
00:48:14,859 --> 00:48:18,180
Speaker 2: the order of the of the separating of the waters,

671
00:48:18,620 --> 00:48:21,180
Speaker 2: which obviously meant a lot more to peace. Well, then

672
00:48:21,420 --> 00:48:24,100
Speaker 2: now you'll say, well, this proves God didn't write it,

673
00:48:24,460 --> 00:48:27,299
Speaker 2: or this proves that it's you know that it's just

674
00:48:27,420 --> 00:48:30,580
Speaker 2: primitive literature or ancient literature. Let me tell you something.

675
00:48:34,060 --> 00:48:38,140
Speaker 2: It had to be understandable to the people a three

676
00:48:38,219 --> 00:48:41,700
Speaker 2: thousand years ago, or nobody would have passed it down.

677
00:48:42,580 --> 00:48:45,419
Speaker 2: Of course, the Torah had to speak in a language

678
00:48:45,540 --> 00:48:48,300
Speaker 2: that was related to by the people of the time.

679
00:48:49,420 --> 00:48:53,020
Speaker 2: It's just natural. It had to be done. To me,

680
00:48:53,100 --> 00:48:55,819
Speaker 2: the miracle is that the Bible speaks to me in

681
00:48:55,940 --> 00:49:00,620
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two and to ancestors three thousand years ago.

682
00:49:01,060 --> 00:49:03,739
Speaker 2: That's what's incredible to me. But that there will be

683
00:49:03,779 --> 00:49:06,300
Speaker 2: stuff that they would have related to better. I relate

684
00:49:06,380 --> 00:49:08,859
Speaker 2: better to let there be light. You don't think the

685
00:49:09,140 --> 00:49:14,219
Speaker 2: ancient people, ancient Jews, thought this is weird light before

686
00:49:14,339 --> 00:49:17,980
Speaker 2: the sun and the stars. But now we relate to

687
00:49:18,020 --> 00:49:23,259
Speaker 2: that terrifically big bang rate glows prior to this. But

688
00:49:23,339 --> 00:49:25,419
Speaker 2: you got to give the ancients something for them to

689
00:49:25,500 --> 00:49:28,580
Speaker 2: relate to too, because they were all wondering, gee, how

690
00:49:28,580 --> 00:49:32,819
Speaker 2: did the waters get separated? That was their big wonderment.

691
00:49:33,299 --> 00:49:39,979
Speaker 2: Here's your answer, day number three. So there was nothing good. Right.

692
00:49:40,020 --> 00:49:41,899
Speaker 2: God didn't look around and say, gee, I made a

693
00:49:41,940 --> 00:49:46,580
Speaker 2: good separation. Okay, that was the one day of the

694
00:49:46,660 --> 00:49:50,180
Speaker 2: creation process when God did not say, what a terrific thing.

695
00:49:51,980 --> 00:49:57,460
Speaker 2: Number day number three, Genesis nine to thirteen. What happens

696
00:49:57,460 --> 00:50:00,299
Speaker 2: here is God gathers the waters to make for a

697
00:50:00,420 --> 00:50:04,940
Speaker 2: dry area. He calls the water sea, calls the dry

698
00:50:05,540 --> 00:50:09,739
Speaker 2: area earth, and that he saw was good. But we're

699
00:50:09,779 --> 00:50:12,980
Speaker 2: not done on the third day because now with the

700
00:50:13,060 --> 00:50:18,340
Speaker 2: land and the sea, God God can asks the earth,

701
00:50:18,500 --> 00:50:23,140
Speaker 2: tells the earth to sprout vegetation, sea bearing plants and

702
00:50:23,259 --> 00:50:29,219
Speaker 2: fruit trees bearing fruit. The obvious question is, how do

703
00:50:29,259 --> 00:50:33,060
Speaker 2: you get vegetation prior to the sun? Okay? This is

704
00:50:33,100 --> 00:50:39,260
Speaker 2: one of the Biblical critics or skeptics greatest questions. Uh huh.

705
00:50:39,540 --> 00:50:44,299
Speaker 2: You see, now, first of all, whenever I argue with anybody,

706
00:50:44,580 --> 00:50:47,779
Speaker 2: I try to assess their intelligence. It's one of the

707
00:50:47,819 --> 00:50:49,939
Speaker 2: things that you try to do. You would think that

708
00:50:49,980 --> 00:50:52,859
Speaker 2: those who attacked the Bible on this ground would at

709
00:50:52,940 --> 00:50:55,459
Speaker 2: least acknowledge that the people who wrote it also knew

710
00:50:55,540 --> 00:50:59,019
Speaker 2: sun was important to growing things because they saw, gee,

711
00:50:59,140 --> 00:51:02,299
Speaker 2: very little grows in caves. I bet they knew that

712
00:51:02,380 --> 00:51:05,620
Speaker 2: three thousand years ago that things don't grow in caves,

713
00:51:06,700 --> 00:51:10,700
Speaker 2: so obviously they knew too. They planted things, they had trees,

714
00:51:10,819 --> 00:51:13,219
Speaker 2: they had olive trees, and none of them were indoors.

715
00:51:14,660 --> 00:51:17,620
Speaker 2: Everything they grew were outdoors, so they too knew you

716
00:51:17,700 --> 00:51:22,939
Speaker 2: needed sun. So obviously whoever wrote this would understand that too.

717
00:51:23,900 --> 00:51:26,979
Speaker 2: So asking a question, the presupposes I really caught them

718
00:51:27,180 --> 00:51:31,060
Speaker 2: in an internal inconsistency, implies that they didn't know that

719
00:51:31,100 --> 00:51:35,259
Speaker 2: there was a theoretical inconsistency. The point is, however, that

720
00:51:35,299 --> 00:51:38,459
Speaker 2: it doesn't say what. The point is that I see

721
00:51:38,500 --> 00:51:44,819
Speaker 2: it is. God creates on the third Day, the possibility

722
00:51:44,980 --> 00:51:49,500
Speaker 2: of vegetation. The seeds, as it were, are planted. First,

723
00:51:49,580 --> 00:51:52,299
Speaker 2: you need the earth to be able to sprout these

724
00:51:52,339 --> 00:51:57,899
Speaker 2: things the other. That's number one. Number two. Remember what

725
00:51:58,060 --> 00:52:02,460
Speaker 2: is being told here not science. What is being taught

726
00:52:02,500 --> 00:52:07,299
Speaker 2: here is the nature of God. The most important thing

727
00:52:07,500 --> 00:52:12,580
Speaker 2: in Genesis one is to kill mythology, to kill polytheism,

728
00:52:12,819 --> 00:52:16,899
Speaker 2: to kill paganism. That's the intent. When you read it

729
00:52:16,940 --> 00:52:21,140
Speaker 2: that way, everything becomes clearer. If you read it for science,

730
00:52:21,219 --> 00:52:24,259
Speaker 2: you're finished. If you read it to combat polytheism, it's

731
00:52:24,299 --> 00:52:31,980
Speaker 2: all clear. God says, Let there, let nature produce these things.

732
00:52:32,739 --> 00:52:37,580
Speaker 2: As Nahumsarna, who was author of this wonderful work and

733
00:52:37,660 --> 00:52:41,700
Speaker 2: the Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Torah. He's the

734
00:52:41,700 --> 00:52:44,739
Speaker 2: one of the genesis. It's a professor at Brandeis University,

735
00:52:44,940 --> 00:52:50,739
Speaker 2: publical scholar, and he wrote, this meant no room for

736
00:52:50,940 --> 00:52:58,979
Speaker 2: fertility cults. Fertility cults worshiped the ground, worshiped nature. If

737
00:52:58,980 --> 00:53:02,580
Speaker 2: they only did the right thing, then the goddesses or

738
00:53:02,900 --> 00:53:06,339
Speaker 2: the nature goddesses will give us fruit. No, what are

739
00:53:06,380 --> 00:53:09,579
Speaker 2: you talking about. It comes from the earth. I said

740
00:53:09,580 --> 00:53:13,900
Speaker 2: it that way on the third day. Cult fertility, schmertility.

741
00:53:15,420 --> 00:53:19,779
Speaker 2: Remember that is what is being done here. Judaism loathes

742
00:53:20,060 --> 00:53:25,620
Speaker 2: superstid doesn't mean Jews load superstition. Very important. Little puff,

743
00:53:25,900 --> 00:53:28,780
Speaker 2: that's what you will get after I give you the sun.

744
00:53:29,580 --> 00:53:31,859
Speaker 2: First I give you the seeds. Then I'm going to

745
00:53:31,900 --> 00:53:34,059
Speaker 2: give you the sun, and the stuff's gonna come out.

746
00:53:35,540 --> 00:53:38,020
Speaker 2: God saw that was good. He liked his work. On

747
00:53:38,100 --> 00:53:41,580
Speaker 2: the third day, I just wished to announce that day

748
00:53:41,660 --> 00:53:49,459
Speaker 2: number four is verse fourteen to nineteen. Interesting the way

749
00:53:49,739 --> 00:53:57,180
Speaker 2: we have here verse number fourteen hearkens back to verse one.

750
00:53:58,100 --> 00:54:03,900
Speaker 2: Let there be lights. First there was let there be light.

751
00:54:04,020 --> 00:54:07,579
Speaker 2: So an it's obvious that they knew that the first

752
00:54:07,660 --> 00:54:12,739
Speaker 2: light wasn't sunlight or starlight, because it's a different term here.

753
00:54:12,779 --> 00:54:15,380
Speaker 2: It's the lights, the things that give light. The first

754
00:54:15,380 --> 00:54:20,379
Speaker 2: one was just light. Let there be lights. You will

755
00:54:20,380 --> 00:54:24,219
Speaker 2: love this next point, which is not mine. I don't

756
00:54:24,219 --> 00:54:26,180
Speaker 2: remember whose it was, but I loved it when I

757
00:54:26,219 --> 00:54:31,540
Speaker 2: read it. You will notice that the sun and the

758
00:54:31,580 --> 00:54:37,300
Speaker 2: moon and the stars aren't mentioned. This is God's way

759
00:54:37,779 --> 00:54:44,780
Speaker 2: of dumping on all of them. They are not even

760
00:54:44,980 --> 00:54:49,700
Speaker 2: worthy of a mentioned in the creation story. Let's have

761
00:54:49,739 --> 00:54:55,060
Speaker 2: some lights. Thank you, the sun, the moon. You know

762
00:54:55,140 --> 00:54:58,219
Speaker 2: why because the Sun, the moon, and the stars were

763
00:54:58,219 --> 00:55:04,060
Speaker 2: all worshiped. That's why. Remember if you read Genesis one

764
00:55:04,219 --> 00:55:09,500
Speaker 2: is a battle against superstition, paganism, polytheism. It's all understandable then,

765
00:55:10,259 --> 00:55:14,180
Speaker 2: not as a geological tale. And the fact that we

766
00:55:14,259 --> 00:55:18,419
Speaker 2: don't live in a in a polytheistic world unless you

767
00:55:18,460 --> 00:55:22,020
Speaker 2: get really involved with some left wing environmental groups. That

768
00:55:23,299 --> 00:55:26,739
Speaker 2: is a it is a reason for this is the

769
00:55:26,779 --> 00:55:32,979
Speaker 2: reason for it. People worship the sun, people worshiped the moon,

770
00:55:33,420 --> 00:55:37,180
Speaker 2: and the stars of course, were seen as signs for

771
00:55:37,299 --> 00:55:40,339
Speaker 2: dictating your life. They weren't even worthy of a mention

772
00:55:41,580 --> 00:55:44,419
Speaker 2: that was astrology. I'm not here to not astrology. I

773
00:55:44,420 --> 00:55:48,980
Speaker 2: think it's a lot of fun. But they don't determine life.

774
00:55:49,219 --> 00:55:54,899
Speaker 2: God does. They may have characteristics otherwise. The Talmud later

775
00:55:55,020 --> 00:55:57,579
Speaker 2: is ambivalent on the issue when I couldn't care less

776
00:55:58,420 --> 00:56:00,500
Speaker 2: as I say. I get a kick out of it,

777
00:56:00,580 --> 00:56:03,980
Speaker 2: and I'm open to anything. But if you truly believe

778
00:56:04,020 --> 00:56:07,460
Speaker 2: that the stars determined as opposed to God, that's idle

779
00:56:07,500 --> 00:56:11,580
Speaker 2: worship in Judaism. But they're not even mentioned. It's just

780
00:56:11,660 --> 00:56:13,979
Speaker 2: time to set the lights up, and that was it.

781
00:56:14,700 --> 00:56:17,740
Speaker 2: So that's what happens. On the fourth day. God says,

782
00:56:18,060 --> 00:56:21,539
Speaker 2: let there be lights, and there were lights. Ye. Here

783
00:56:21,660 --> 00:56:25,580
Speaker 2: is the best part. Just in case you're still worshiping

784
00:56:25,660 --> 00:56:28,259
Speaker 2: those lights, God tells you what he put them up

785
00:56:28,299 --> 00:56:31,979
Speaker 2: there for. He actually insults them. They're not even there

786
00:56:31,980 --> 00:56:34,779
Speaker 2: to give you all all the things you expect from them.

787
00:56:35,180 --> 00:56:39,180
Speaker 2: Why look at one fourteen, look at fourteen? Why should

788
00:56:39,180 --> 00:56:42,500
Speaker 2: they be there? Look at their big role to divide

789
00:56:42,500 --> 00:56:44,779
Speaker 2: the day from the night and to be signs for

790
00:56:44,859 --> 00:56:49,339
Speaker 2: seasons for days and years. Isn't that amazing? That's all

791
00:56:49,380 --> 00:56:53,180
Speaker 2: they are? What you know, what a dethroning of that is?

792
00:56:53,580 --> 00:56:55,939
Speaker 2: It's almost like saying, let there be a president so

793
00:56:55,980 --> 00:57:00,700
Speaker 2: that he can clean the White House floor. I can't

794
00:57:00,739 --> 00:57:05,700
Speaker 2: even think of an appropriate simile for our life today.

795
00:57:05,940 --> 00:57:10,980
Speaker 2: This is a total debunking of ancient mythology. The lights

796
00:57:11,020 --> 00:57:13,140
Speaker 2: are there just to be to let you know what

797
00:57:13,219 --> 00:57:16,419
Speaker 2: day it is, what season it is, and so on.

798
00:57:16,660 --> 00:57:19,420
Speaker 2: And by the way, this is another proof, in my opinion,

799
00:57:19,420 --> 00:57:23,300
Speaker 2: this is a second proof of They couldn't have been

800
00:57:23,380 --> 00:57:27,939
Speaker 2: days before day number four, because this is where this

801
00:57:28,180 --> 00:57:31,499
Speaker 2: only now they've become signed for days. Years. There were

802
00:57:31,540 --> 00:57:34,740
Speaker 2: no years, there were no seasons, and there were no

803
00:57:35,020 --> 00:57:39,820
Speaker 2: days prior to day number four. It says it. Just

804
00:57:39,900 --> 00:57:42,500
Speaker 2: read it. It says it, I give you the lights.

805
00:57:42,740 --> 00:57:47,380
Speaker 2: Now you will have seasons, years and days. So the

806
00:57:47,420 --> 00:57:50,660
Speaker 2: next time you hear six twenty four hour days, you

807
00:57:50,860 --> 00:57:54,420
Speaker 2: just gotta say, come on, don't you know Genesis one fourteen,

808
00:57:56,380 --> 00:58:01,580
Speaker 2: they weren't invented yet. Days, years, and seasons. They start

809
00:58:01,660 --> 00:58:07,700
Speaker 2: over here in day number four, and God saw it

810
00:58:07,740 --> 00:58:12,340
Speaker 2: was good, liked his work. On the fourth day, fifth day,

811
00:58:12,940 --> 00:58:20,060
Speaker 2: Verse twenty, God tells the water to have living beings

812
00:58:20,220 --> 00:58:27,140
Speaker 2: come out again. It is totally God God telling nature

813
00:58:27,260 --> 00:58:32,900
Speaker 2: what to do. I repeat Nature has no will of

814
00:58:32,980 --> 00:58:39,700
Speaker 2: its own none. God tells it what to do. That's critical,

815
00:58:39,740 --> 00:58:45,420
Speaker 2: and we are losing this insight in our ultra modern age,

816
00:58:45,580 --> 00:58:49,540
Speaker 2: where nature is regarded as its own entity, unto itself.

817
00:58:50,180 --> 00:58:55,100
Speaker 2: It is simply the handiwork of this God. Living beings

818
00:58:55,180 --> 00:58:58,180
Speaker 2: come out of the water, and vegetation comes out of

819
00:58:58,260 --> 00:59:02,820
Speaker 2: the earth. Now here is an interesting thing in twenty one.

820
00:59:03,100 --> 00:59:06,419
Speaker 2: So God created great sea creatures and every living thing

821
00:59:06,460 --> 00:59:09,340
Speaker 2: that moves with which the waters are bound, that according

822
00:59:09,340 --> 00:59:11,580
Speaker 2: to con every wing bird according to its kind God.

823
00:59:11,700 --> 00:59:14,700
Speaker 2: So it was good. This is the first use of

824
00:59:14,740 --> 00:59:21,019
Speaker 2: the word creation since Genesis won one. Isn't that interesting?

825
00:59:21,860 --> 00:59:25,460
Speaker 2: And I think there's a deliberate reason here. It was

826
00:59:25,500 --> 00:59:28,780
Speaker 2: because whoever wrote this knew that there would be evolutionists

827
00:59:28,780 --> 00:59:34,940
Speaker 2: in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, and therefore, just

828
00:59:35,980 --> 00:59:42,180
Speaker 2: to annoy them, the notion of creation ex nihilo. That's

829
00:59:42,180 --> 00:59:46,060
Speaker 2: what creation is about. Is thrown in for living beings.

830
00:59:46,740 --> 00:59:51,900
Speaker 2: Everything else came about through whatever means it came about.

831
00:59:52,500 --> 00:59:56,780
Speaker 2: But here is a specific statement. Now when we're talking

832
00:59:56,820 --> 01:00:01,220
Speaker 2: about living beings, the creator comes back. Don't think living

833
01:00:01,300 --> 01:00:06,540
Speaker 2: beings just happened to come about. I create them, and

834
01:00:06,620 --> 01:00:11,059
Speaker 2: the atheist paleontologist will agree on one ground. They did

835
01:00:11,140 --> 01:00:15,780
Speaker 2: seem to come abound by accident. That's why I quoted

836
01:00:15,780 --> 01:00:20,060
Speaker 2: Stephen Jay Gould. They didn't seem to come about inevitably

837
01:00:20,140 --> 01:00:25,300
Speaker 2: by nature. They did. One British astronomer is so convinced

838
01:00:25,300 --> 01:00:27,740
Speaker 2: that life could not have taken place on its own

839
01:00:27,900 --> 01:00:30,900
Speaker 2: in the limited time the earth had. That His conclusion,

840
01:00:30,900 --> 01:00:34,580
Speaker 2: and he's one of the illustrious British astronomers, is that

841
01:00:34,700 --> 01:00:41,540
Speaker 2: extraterrestrials dropped seeds on Earth. Now, between that and God,

842
01:00:41,900 --> 01:00:46,340
Speaker 2: I opt for God on pure notions of rationality. But

843
01:00:46,500 --> 01:00:50,780
Speaker 2: whether you opt for his or or God, please understand

844
01:00:50,980 --> 01:00:55,260
Speaker 2: that anybody who studies this stuff has to acknowledge. I

845
01:00:55,300 --> 01:00:57,620
Speaker 2: don't mean that this stuff the tora. I mean science,

846
01:00:58,420 --> 01:01:04,100
Speaker 2: the very profound unlikelihood of life developing as we know it.

847
01:01:05,620 --> 01:01:08,980
Speaker 2: That's why we have in verse twenty one, God creates

848
01:01:09,060 --> 01:01:13,499
Speaker 2: living beings again. And he looked around and he saw

849
01:01:13,540 --> 01:01:18,460
Speaker 2: it was good. And day number six, from verses twenty

850
01:01:18,500 --> 01:01:22,860
Speaker 2: four to thirty one, the earth brought forth the land

851
01:01:22,900 --> 01:01:29,700
Speaker 2: animals now and the uh and the tunny Nim which

852
01:01:30,260 --> 01:01:35,140
Speaker 2: which came about from the from the waters tannin is

853
01:01:35,180 --> 01:01:38,740
Speaker 2: a giant sea serpent, which they would have been totally

854
01:01:38,820 --> 01:01:42,939
Speaker 2: familiar with and was a profoundly worshiped thing. So they

855
01:01:43,020 --> 01:01:45,980
Speaker 2: threw in the word just to get it off the

856
01:01:46,420 --> 01:01:48,579
Speaker 2: get it out of the way. You know what, even

857
01:01:48,620 --> 01:01:51,900
Speaker 2: the tany nim God created, after all, it's very odd.

858
01:01:51,940 --> 01:01:54,860
Speaker 2: Why would God enumerate one fish? It would be odd, right,

859
01:01:54,900 --> 01:01:57,460
Speaker 2: I mean, what if it was alibate and God created

860
01:01:57,460 --> 01:02:02,059
Speaker 2: the universe in halibit, So you would say, come halibit right,

861
01:02:02,100 --> 01:02:04,820
Speaker 2: to which the Jewish answer is why not? But that

862
01:02:05,060 --> 01:02:06,820
Speaker 2: I'm not going to leave you with the Jewish answer.

863
01:02:07,260 --> 01:02:11,140
Speaker 2: The answer here is that there was a specific desire

864
01:02:11,380 --> 01:02:15,140
Speaker 2: to knock out the notion that these tiny nim, these

865
01:02:15,180 --> 01:02:19,700
Speaker 2: great sea monsters were anything but God's creation too. That's

866
01:02:19,740 --> 01:02:24,700
Speaker 2: the reason that they are listed. But now, one of

867
01:02:24,740 --> 01:02:31,540
Speaker 2: the all time great verses of the Bible, verse twenty six.

868
01:02:33,060 --> 01:02:35,620
Speaker 2: Then God said, let us make man in our image

869
01:02:35,660 --> 01:02:41,580
Speaker 2: according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the

870
01:02:41,620 --> 01:02:44,580
Speaker 2: fish of the sea, over the birds of the air,

871
01:02:44,980 --> 01:02:47,780
Speaker 2: and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over

872
01:02:47,860 --> 01:02:53,380
Speaker 2: every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let us

873
01:02:53,380 --> 01:02:55,180
Speaker 2: make man in our image. Is one of the most

874
01:02:55,180 --> 01:03:01,260
Speaker 2: important statements ever made by biblical or not. Okay, now

875
01:03:01,260 --> 01:03:03,660
Speaker 2: I am going to devote some time to this. Why

876
01:03:03,780 --> 01:03:08,580
Speaker 2: what does it teach? What is so important? First of all,

877
01:03:08,660 --> 01:03:14,740
Speaker 2: Who's God talking to? This is one of the Theologians'

878
01:03:14,820 --> 01:03:20,260
Speaker 2: all time favorite verses. Who is God talking to? For

879
01:03:20,380 --> 01:03:24,660
Speaker 2: men Christians? It is a clear implication of a triune God.

880
01:03:26,100 --> 01:03:30,979
Speaker 2: For the rabbis, they had a poetic way of looking

881
01:03:31,060 --> 01:03:34,020
Speaker 2: at it, that God, when he came to create the

882
01:03:34,100 --> 01:03:39,620
Speaker 2: human being, did so in humility and didn't say I'm

883
01:03:39,700 --> 01:03:43,820
Speaker 2: gonna make man, and said he said, let us as

884
01:03:43,860 --> 01:03:47,180
Speaker 2: the royal we And whom did he speak to? Malatheja

885
01:03:47,260 --> 01:03:52,620
Speaker 2: chere the angels who serve him. Well, those of you

886
01:03:52,660 --> 01:03:54,939
Speaker 2: who know me at all can only imagine how I

887
01:03:55,140 --> 01:04:00,580
Speaker 2: reacted to that when I was a kid. What you

888
01:04:00,620 --> 01:04:04,540
Speaker 2: see today is basically what I was at seven, just seven,

889
01:04:06,500 --> 01:04:09,900
Speaker 2: and I sat in class and when I'll never forget

890
01:04:09,940 --> 01:04:12,419
Speaker 2: when the rabbi said God said it to the angels,

891
01:04:12,860 --> 01:04:18,500
Speaker 2: I almost choked. I can't buy that stuff. It's poetic,

892
01:04:18,540 --> 01:04:22,140
Speaker 2: but I can't buy it said to the angels. And

893
01:04:22,260 --> 01:04:26,780
Speaker 2: until a few years ago, I simply didn't know what

894
01:04:27,060 --> 01:04:29,700
Speaker 2: the sentence meant. And I'm willing to live with that.

895
01:04:30,300 --> 01:04:33,419
Speaker 2: I much prefer to say I don't know then by

896
01:04:33,940 --> 01:04:38,940
Speaker 2: what's called in Yiddish abubba mysee, which is an old

897
01:04:38,980 --> 01:04:42,340
Speaker 2: wives tale in Yiddish. I just can't buy that stuff.

898
01:04:42,620 --> 01:04:45,499
Speaker 2: God looked and said, to the angels, listen, let's make men.

899
01:04:45,860 --> 01:04:48,100
Speaker 2: I finally heard a rabbi. As it turns out, it

900
01:04:48,140 --> 01:04:53,140
Speaker 2: was an Orthodox rabbi who gave another explanation that I

901
01:04:53,140 --> 01:04:56,300
Speaker 2: am now told others have had too, but I just

902
01:04:56,340 --> 01:04:59,740
Speaker 2: had never heard it, which makes absolute sense to me.

903
01:05:01,380 --> 01:05:04,780
Speaker 2: Who could God possibly have been speaking to. First of all,

904
01:05:04,780 --> 01:05:10,060
Speaker 2: there's no mention of angels so until now, so you

905
01:05:10,180 --> 01:05:13,100
Speaker 2: just have to make that up. But there is mention

906
01:05:13,300 --> 01:05:15,740
Speaker 2: of other creatures that God could have said it to.

907
01:05:16,780 --> 01:05:24,340
Speaker 2: Who the animals and boy talk about lights. All the

908
01:05:24,420 --> 01:05:27,860
Speaker 2: lights in his brain went off went on when I

909
01:05:28,020 --> 01:05:33,660
Speaker 2: heard that explanation. That makes perfect sense. God's created all

910
01:05:33,700 --> 01:05:36,220
Speaker 2: the animals on this day and now says to them,

911
01:05:36,740 --> 01:05:41,419
Speaker 2: let's make man in our image, my friends. Nothing I

912
01:05:41,460 --> 01:05:45,220
Speaker 2: could ever say to people is as important as this

913
01:05:45,460 --> 01:05:49,060
Speaker 2: understanding of the human being. We are created in God's

914
01:05:49,100 --> 01:05:53,620
Speaker 2: image and we are created in animal's image. This is

915
01:05:53,660 --> 01:05:56,940
Speaker 2: one of the deepest Jewish understandings of the human being.

916
01:05:57,660 --> 01:06:00,180
Speaker 2: It is one of the great understandings that has kept

917
01:06:00,180 --> 01:06:04,380
Speaker 2: this particular jew saying because the understanding that I am

918
01:06:04,500 --> 01:06:10,220
Speaker 2: part animal and part God keeps me sane. I know

919
01:06:10,340 --> 01:06:13,579
Speaker 2: what I need to aspire to God, but I also

920
01:06:13,780 --> 01:06:16,380
Speaker 2: know that I have to make peace with the fact

921
01:06:16,620 --> 01:06:22,660
Speaker 2: that I'm also an animal. Therefore, I have both things.

922
01:06:23,100 --> 01:06:26,380
Speaker 2: I am given with this understanding, peace with my nature

923
01:06:27,380 --> 01:06:30,980
Speaker 2: and yet something to aspire to. I'm not only animal,

924
01:06:31,460 --> 01:06:35,740
Speaker 2: I'm half animal. My task is to become holy. Holy

925
01:06:35,820 --> 01:06:41,220
Speaker 2: is what God is. Animals are not created in anybody's image.

926
01:06:41,940 --> 01:06:46,979
Speaker 2: We are in their image and God's image. And if

927
01:06:47,020 --> 01:06:50,300
Speaker 2: you walk around understanding your half animal and half God,

928
01:06:51,140 --> 01:06:54,620
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. You know who you are, you know what

929
01:06:54,740 --> 01:07:05,300
Speaker 2: there is to try to be. Number two, let us

930
01:07:05,340 --> 01:07:07,540
Speaker 2: make man in our image means that we are created

931
01:07:07,580 --> 01:07:11,820
Speaker 2: in God's image. That is why we are different in

932
01:07:11,980 --> 01:07:18,260
Speaker 2: worth than animals. It's that reason and that reason alone

933
01:07:18,300 --> 01:07:21,220
Speaker 2: why you should save a stranger before the dog you

934
01:07:21,340 --> 01:07:26,180
Speaker 2: love when both are drowning. There is no secular reason

935
01:07:26,780 --> 01:07:30,580
Speaker 2: to save a person whom you don't love before the

936
01:07:30,700 --> 01:07:33,500
Speaker 2: dog that you do love. And since we live in

937
01:07:33,540 --> 01:07:37,420
Speaker 2: a secular age. Most people are voting for their dog

938
01:07:38,460 --> 01:07:42,540
Speaker 2: because they haven't been raised with Genesis one twenty six

939
01:07:43,340 --> 01:07:47,340
Speaker 2: that we are created in God's image. The animals are

940
01:07:47,380 --> 01:07:51,019
Speaker 2: not created in God's image. They were created. We saw

941
01:07:51,060 --> 01:07:54,180
Speaker 2: their description. They just came out of the earth and

942
01:07:54,220 --> 01:07:59,419
Speaker 2: came out of water. They're part of nature. We're not.

943
01:08:01,100 --> 01:08:06,820
Speaker 2: We're half part of nature, but we're half divine. They're not.

944
01:08:07,740 --> 01:08:13,420
Speaker 2: We are sacred, they are not. And to prove that point,

945
01:08:13,540 --> 01:08:19,179
Speaker 2: the very same verse that says that we are created

946
01:08:19,220 --> 01:08:23,540
Speaker 2: in God's image tell that we are to have dominion

947
01:08:23,940 --> 01:08:29,140
Speaker 2: over the animals and the earth. It scores. It makes

948
01:08:29,220 --> 01:08:35,140
Speaker 2: the point that much more sharply. We are higher than animals.

949
01:08:35,180 --> 01:08:39,099
Speaker 2: We are not another animal. Whenever I hear a person

950
01:08:39,220 --> 01:08:42,139
Speaker 2: say people and other animals, I know I've met a

951
01:08:42,180 --> 01:08:47,420
Speaker 2: secular person. It's a giveaway. I remember in the sixties

952
01:08:47,460 --> 01:08:52,700
Speaker 2: that famous sixties button war is not healthy for children

953
01:08:52,740 --> 01:08:55,780
Speaker 2: and other living things. It was a sign of the

954
01:08:55,860 --> 01:08:59,580
Speaker 2: times that children and other living things were equated. We

955
01:08:59,700 --> 01:09:07,260
Speaker 2: are not another living thing. Broccoli is even sea otters

956
01:09:07,300 --> 01:09:09,380
Speaker 2: may they live and be well and lie on their

957
01:09:09,460 --> 01:09:15,419
Speaker 2: back and be cute, are also not just another living

958
01:09:15,500 --> 01:09:18,260
Speaker 2: They are another living thing. Excuse me, we are not

959
01:09:19,420 --> 01:09:27,460
Speaker 2: we are in God's image. We are sacred. Animals are

960
01:09:27,500 --> 01:09:34,580
Speaker 2: not sacred. Number three, Because we are created in God's image.

961
01:09:35,380 --> 01:09:42,419
Speaker 2: Every human being is infinitely valuable. It doesn't say white

962
01:09:42,540 --> 01:09:45,780
Speaker 2: people are in God's image, or black people are in

963
01:09:45,820 --> 01:09:50,660
Speaker 2: God's image, or Jews are in God's image. The human

964
01:09:50,939 --> 01:09:57,019
Speaker 2: being is in God's image. It's so radical and revolutionary,

965
01:09:57,939 --> 01:10:06,019
Speaker 2: the human being period. This verse one twenty six should

966
01:10:06,180 --> 01:10:11,460
Speaker 2: have undermined slavery. I would love to have known the

967
01:10:11,700 --> 01:10:17,059
Speaker 2: answer to the question to a religious slave master, what

968
01:10:17,260 --> 01:10:21,300
Speaker 2: do you say to one twenty six? Because all of

969
01:10:21,340 --> 01:10:25,860
Speaker 2: his answers would have been crap. It is too painful

970
01:10:25,939 --> 01:10:31,220
Speaker 2: that a religious person could have kept a slave in

971
01:10:31,380 --> 01:10:36,540
Speaker 2: light of this extraordinary statement that every human being is

972
01:10:36,580 --> 01:10:42,020
Speaker 2: created in God's image period, the human being, and it's beautiful.

973
01:10:42,140 --> 01:10:45,820
Speaker 2: There is no hint of a race or religion of

974
01:10:45,860 --> 01:10:52,019
Speaker 2: Adam or Eve, no hint, thank God, because if there

975
01:10:52,019 --> 01:10:57,979
Speaker 2: were just a hint, boy, would it be used. Maybe?

976
01:10:58,540 --> 01:11:01,340
Speaker 2: You know, the Muslims believe that the earth that God created,

977
01:11:01,420 --> 01:11:05,540
Speaker 2: and I think it's in the Quran was red, black

978
01:11:05,979 --> 01:11:12,099
Speaker 2: and white. Was the Koran's way of saying that there

979
01:11:12,140 --> 01:11:14,860
Speaker 2: is no, one color better than another one. But of

980
01:11:14,900 --> 01:11:24,420
Speaker 2: course that comes about two thousand, six hundred years, No,

981
01:11:25,099 --> 01:11:27,820
Speaker 2: about two thousand years later, it's six hundred. My math

982
01:11:27,939 --> 01:11:31,540
Speaker 2: is a joke. One thousand and six hundred, sixteen hundred correct,

983
01:11:32,099 --> 01:11:35,259
Speaker 2: so far from there, and this was so about yeah,

984
01:11:35,340 --> 01:11:42,020
Speaker 2: about two thousand years. But it is an extraordinarily, extraordinarily

985
01:11:42,059 --> 01:11:46,059
Speaker 2: important idea that we are created in God's image. It

986
01:11:46,140 --> 01:11:51,219
Speaker 2: makes every one of us infinitely valuable. The animals are

987
01:11:51,260 --> 01:11:55,700
Speaker 2: not in God's image. If you lose your dog, you

988
01:11:55,820 --> 01:11:59,260
Speaker 2: get another one, But if you lose your child, you

989
01:11:59,420 --> 01:12:05,860
Speaker 2: don't get another one. It's a big difference. And I

990
01:12:05,939 --> 01:12:08,660
Speaker 2: love our dogs. I know what to love a dog

991
01:12:08,780 --> 01:12:12,620
Speaker 2: is like. You can still love your dog and understand

992
01:12:12,660 --> 01:12:17,059
Speaker 2: that they're replaceable. They're not exactly replaceable. I understand they

993
01:12:17,099 --> 01:12:21,620
Speaker 2: have their own little quirks and large you can get

994
01:12:21,660 --> 01:12:27,099
Speaker 2: another one. Can you imagine anybody saying about a person, Oh,

995
01:12:27,140 --> 01:12:31,580
Speaker 2: you lost your brother, and get another sibling. Tell your

996
01:12:31,580 --> 01:12:37,099
Speaker 2: parents to make a new one. It doesn't work like that.

997
01:12:37,180 --> 01:12:40,059
Speaker 2: You lose a friend, well you got another friend. My

998
01:12:40,140 --> 01:12:44,179
Speaker 2: friend died. Oh you're gonna get another one. Imagine somebody

999
01:12:44,180 --> 01:12:50,860
Speaker 2: reacting that way. The infinite preciousness. That's why murder is

1000
01:12:50,900 --> 01:12:53,740
Speaker 2: so evil, and that's why murder will be mentioned in

1001
01:12:53,780 --> 01:12:57,459
Speaker 2: the beginning of Genesis the only crime. Because it's so evil,

1002
01:12:57,540 --> 01:13:08,620
Speaker 2: you have destroyed uniqueness and number four equality. We are

1003
01:13:08,820 --> 01:13:16,580
Speaker 2: all created in God's image. That means we are identically equal.

1004
01:13:17,420 --> 01:13:20,019
Speaker 2: It is irrelevant to what a group we come from,

1005
01:13:20,740 --> 01:13:28,700
Speaker 2: or are in or join. Let me read to you

1006
01:13:28,979 --> 01:13:34,500
Speaker 2: from Sarna on image on the revolutionary element of being created,

1007
01:13:34,500 --> 01:13:38,020
Speaker 2: that every human being is created in God's image in Genesis.

1008
01:13:40,620 --> 01:13:44,979
Speaker 2: The words here used here to convey these ideas can

1009
01:13:45,019 --> 01:13:49,180
Speaker 2: better be understood in the light of a phenomenon registered

1010
01:13:49,220 --> 01:13:54,540
Speaker 2: in both Mesopotamia and Egypt, whereby the ruling monarch is

1011
01:13:54,620 --> 01:13:58,139
Speaker 2: described as the image or the likeness of God, of

1012
01:13:58,180 --> 01:14:03,259
Speaker 2: a god you see who. You understand that the Bible

1013
01:14:03,380 --> 01:14:07,820
Speaker 2: is using the language that people knew then, but it's

1014
01:14:07,939 --> 01:14:14,380
Speaker 2: totally changing it. In Mesopotamia we find the following salutations

1015
01:14:14,900 --> 01:14:18,099
Speaker 2: quote the father of my lord, the king is the

1016
01:14:18,220 --> 01:14:22,340
Speaker 2: very image of Bell, that's one of the gods. And

1017
01:14:22,420 --> 01:14:25,500
Speaker 2: the king, my lord is the very image of Bel.

1018
01:14:26,180 --> 01:14:28,420
Speaker 2: The king, lord of the lands is the image of

1019
01:14:28,500 --> 01:14:32,580
Speaker 2: shamash O, king of the inhabited world. These are all

1020
01:14:32,620 --> 01:14:36,580
Speaker 2: different salutations. In Mesopotamia, o king of the inhabited world,

1021
01:14:36,620 --> 01:14:40,740
Speaker 2: you are the image of Marduk. In Egypt, the same

1022
01:14:40,860 --> 01:14:44,219
Speaker 2: concept is expressed through the name Tutinhamen. You've all heard

1023
01:14:44,220 --> 01:14:48,820
Speaker 2: of Tutankhamen, right, which means the living image of the

1024
01:14:48,860 --> 01:14:54,299
Speaker 2: god Amun, and in the designation of Thutmost the fourth

1025
01:14:54,900 --> 01:15:00,059
Speaker 2: as the likeness of Rain without doubt. The terminology employed

1026
01:15:00,059 --> 01:15:05,380
Speaker 2: in Genesis is derived from regal vocabulary, which serves to

1027
01:15:05,460 --> 01:15:08,939
Speaker 2: elevate the king above the ordinary run of men. In

1028
01:15:09,059 --> 01:15:15,660
Speaker 2: the Bible, this idea has become democratized. All human beings

1029
01:15:15,700 --> 01:15:19,700
Speaker 2: are created in the image of God. Each person bears

1030
01:15:19,740 --> 01:15:26,059
Speaker 2: the stamp of royalty. Isn't that powerful? Only kings were

1031
01:15:26,059 --> 01:15:29,979
Speaker 2: in the image of gods in the ancient world, And

1032
01:15:30,059 --> 01:15:34,299
Speaker 2: here comes an ancient world document to Satan. Every one

1033
01:15:34,340 --> 01:15:38,139
Speaker 2: of us is in the image of God. I get

1034
01:15:38,140 --> 01:15:40,540
Speaker 2: the chills when I think of what a revolution that was.

1035
01:15:42,300 --> 01:15:46,979
Speaker 2: Now this one twenty six is so important, and I

1036
01:15:47,059 --> 01:15:49,820
Speaker 2: will end with one twenty six so that we'll have

1037
01:15:49,860 --> 01:15:56,059
Speaker 2: time for your questions. One twenty six has and it's

1038
01:15:56,140 --> 01:15:59,860
Speaker 2: not a non sequitur. After we're told we are created

1039
01:15:59,860 --> 01:16:04,460
Speaker 2: in God's image. It just to send home the point,

1040
01:16:04,580 --> 01:16:08,979
Speaker 2: as I said earlier, more sharply, that we are greater

1041
01:16:09,220 --> 01:16:12,620
Speaker 2: and sacred, that more sacred, not more sacred. We are

1042
01:16:12,660 --> 01:16:16,660
Speaker 2: sacred and greater than animals. We are to have dominion,

1043
01:16:16,700 --> 01:16:25,500
Speaker 2: We're to dominate the natural world. This bothers some modern people.

1044
01:16:26,180 --> 01:16:30,500
Speaker 2: So you see, look at the biblical tradition. Look at

1045
01:16:30,500 --> 01:16:34,660
Speaker 2: what it did to Jujaeo Christian Western world. It told

1046
01:16:34,780 --> 01:16:38,139
Speaker 2: people that they can lord over nature. But no, we

1047
01:16:38,260 --> 01:16:42,340
Speaker 2: are partners with nature, we are one with nature. And

1048
01:16:42,380 --> 01:16:45,660
Speaker 2: then you get even more extreme. We are a cancer

1049
01:16:45,700 --> 01:16:50,900
Speaker 2: on nature as the head of earth. First said ladies

1050
01:16:50,900 --> 01:16:56,420
Speaker 2: and gentlemen. This is stating categorically. You may reject it,

1051
01:16:56,660 --> 01:17:00,939
Speaker 2: but you can't change it. It is a categorical statement

1052
01:17:01,180 --> 01:17:05,379
Speaker 2: that God created the world for our use. The reason

1053
01:17:05,580 --> 01:17:09,740
Speaker 2: for all of these things was for the ultimate in creation,

1054
01:17:10,340 --> 01:17:15,419
Speaker 2: you and me. That is why God created the world

1055
01:17:15,780 --> 01:17:20,979
Speaker 2: for us to use it, not abuse it. Use and

1056
01:17:21,099 --> 01:17:24,300
Speaker 2: abuse are very different. We have no problem with drug use.

1057
01:17:24,340 --> 01:17:29,259
Speaker 2: We have problem with drug abuse. You may use, you

1058
01:17:29,420 --> 01:17:33,939
Speaker 2: must use the world, because you are creating the divine image,

1059
01:17:33,979 --> 01:17:37,660
Speaker 2: and you will make use of it properly. But that

1060
01:17:37,820 --> 01:17:41,340
Speaker 2: is the only reason it is there when we talk

1061
01:17:41,380 --> 01:17:44,740
Speaker 2: about the flood. That's what I'll show you. I remember

1062
01:17:44,820 --> 01:17:49,019
Speaker 2: asking this this time the Rabbi came through, and about

1063
01:17:49,059 --> 01:17:51,660
Speaker 2: third grade, I said, Rabbi, why did God destroy the

1064
01:17:51,700 --> 01:17:57,700
Speaker 2: animals in the flood? They didn't sin good question, though,

1065
01:17:59,540 --> 01:18:02,420
Speaker 2: and he gave a better answer than the question even.

1066
01:18:03,460 --> 01:18:07,339
Speaker 2: He said, because if we're not going to have people around,

1067
01:18:08,380 --> 01:18:13,660
Speaker 2: why have animals? Now? This will rub some people today

1068
01:18:14,180 --> 01:18:19,660
Speaker 2: terribly the wrong way. You mean, the only reason for porpoises,

1069
01:18:20,380 --> 01:18:27,139
Speaker 2: the only reason for the great Burundian gorilla is for

1070
01:18:27,300 --> 01:18:31,939
Speaker 2: our sake, yep. And the proof is they don't do anything.

1071
01:18:35,300 --> 01:18:37,900
Speaker 2: This kills people, It just kills them, to hear it.

1072
01:18:39,099 --> 01:18:43,939
Speaker 2: They don't build anything. Every animal today lives exactly like

1073
01:18:43,979 --> 01:18:45,780
Speaker 2: it's great great Gat, great Gret great gat Gat great

1074
01:18:45,780 --> 01:18:49,700
Speaker 2: great great grandfather did. They don't do a damn thing.

1075
01:18:53,019 --> 01:18:57,299
Speaker 2: They eat, they have sex, they roll, they play, they

1076
01:18:57,340 --> 01:19:00,059
Speaker 2: lick and drop dead, and then the next one does

1077
01:19:00,059 --> 01:19:09,380
Speaker 2: the same thing. I love them. They relax me incredibly.

1078
01:19:10,180 --> 01:19:15,059
Speaker 2: I give money to save species, but that's it, that's it.

1079
01:19:16,420 --> 01:19:21,099
Speaker 3: They do not wonder why they are there. They couldn't

1080
01:19:21,140 --> 01:19:27,780
Speaker 3: care less. We build, We are in God's image. We make,

1081
01:19:27,979 --> 01:19:31,379
Speaker 3: we build, we think, we create. We can be good.

1082
01:19:32,099 --> 01:19:33,419
Speaker 3: Dog can't be good.

1083
01:19:34,340 --> 01:19:37,059
Speaker 2: If dogs could be good, then dogs should have been

1084
01:19:37,099 --> 01:19:41,259
Speaker 2: put up with these Nazis at the Nuremberg trials because

1085
01:19:41,300 --> 01:19:46,060
Speaker 2: of all the German shepherds that we used to eat prisoners, genitals.

1086
01:19:47,900 --> 01:19:52,099
Speaker 2: The use of dogs and Auschwitz is notorious. The same

1087
01:19:52,220 --> 01:19:58,660
Speaker 2: dog that you love at Auschwitz eight people alive. Do

1088
01:19:58,740 --> 01:20:02,379
Speaker 2: I have anything against that dog? No, he's not evil.

1089
01:20:03,300 --> 01:20:05,700
Speaker 2: A dog can't be evil anymore than a hammer can

1090
01:20:05,740 --> 01:20:09,740
Speaker 2: be evil. That's used to smash your brain. The wielder

1091
01:20:09,820 --> 01:20:14,139
Speaker 2: is evil, but the same with good. They can't be

1092
01:20:14,260 --> 01:20:17,299
Speaker 2: good either. We can be good, we can be evil.

1093
01:20:17,580 --> 01:20:21,939
Speaker 2: We can create. That's what God wanted in the world.

1094
01:20:23,140 --> 01:20:26,939
Speaker 2: We alone do that. That's why one twenty six is

1095
01:20:26,979 --> 01:20:31,340
Speaker 2: so critical. We alone are in God's image, and we

1096
01:20:31,540 --> 01:20:36,419
Speaker 2: alone are to rule the world. The world was created

1097
01:20:36,460 --> 01:20:40,500
Speaker 2: for us. One of the lovely things I learned from

1098
01:20:40,540 --> 01:20:45,499
Speaker 2: the Talmud when I was a child is every person

1099
01:20:45,580 --> 01:20:51,019
Speaker 2: should walk around saying bishfili nivra alan for me, the

1100
01:20:51,059 --> 01:20:58,099
Speaker 2: world was created. It's actually been very effective with Jews

1101
01:20:58,099 --> 01:21:02,340
Speaker 2: that attitude, and a lot of Jews do believe the

1102
01:21:02,340 --> 01:21:05,820
Speaker 2: world was created for them. This is my old theory

1103
01:21:05,820 --> 01:21:08,460
Speaker 2: about why Jews would complain far more than Catholics or

1104
01:21:08,460 --> 01:21:12,259
Speaker 2: Protestants if the grapefruit weren't quite ripe in a test

1105
01:21:12,380 --> 01:21:15,700
Speaker 2: of the three groups in any given room. For me,

1106
01:21:15,939 --> 01:21:20,019
Speaker 2: this grapefruit was created it. Actually, I am convinced them

1107
01:21:20,019 --> 01:21:23,820
Speaker 2: all serious nones. That has been imbibed very well in

1108
01:21:23,939 --> 01:21:27,339
Speaker 2: Jewish life. But every human is to see the world

1109
01:21:27,380 --> 01:21:29,860
Speaker 2: that way, which means, of course, of course you don't

1110
01:21:29,900 --> 01:21:33,780
Speaker 2: abuse it. If the world was created for you, why

1111
01:21:33,780 --> 01:21:37,660
Speaker 2: would you abuse it. It's also created for your children,

1112
01:21:38,580 --> 01:21:41,059
Speaker 2: so if I abuse it, they don't have it to enjoy.

1113
01:21:41,860 --> 01:21:47,099
Speaker 2: That is a good, good argument for environmental groups, but

1114
01:21:47,180 --> 01:21:52,099
Speaker 2: it strikes it's a little too anthropocentric for them. When

1115
01:21:52,140 --> 01:21:54,540
Speaker 2: I make these arguments on radio, they call me up

1116
01:21:54,580 --> 01:21:57,900
Speaker 2: and say, oh, you have an anthropercentric view of the worldly,

1117
01:21:58,220 --> 01:22:04,420
Speaker 2: man centered human centered view. They're right, I do. I do,

1118
01:22:04,979 --> 01:22:09,660
Speaker 2: And it's from one twenty six. There's another reason though,

1119
01:22:10,380 --> 01:22:14,740
Speaker 2: that this is so critical to dominate the world. Remember

1120
01:22:14,820 --> 01:22:19,540
Speaker 2: the battle of one of chedis one. It's against superstition

1121
01:22:19,979 --> 01:22:27,979
Speaker 2: and payaganism. To the Pagans, nature ruled them, and so

1122
01:22:28,140 --> 01:22:32,900
Speaker 2: that's why they worship nature. Please I will do something

1123
01:22:32,979 --> 01:22:36,340
Speaker 2: for you Nature. If you give me fruit, if you

1124
01:22:36,460 --> 01:22:44,420
Speaker 2: give me rain. This opened the way to finding a

1125
01:22:44,460 --> 01:22:49,500
Speaker 2: cure for cancer. It is no coincidence that the world

1126
01:22:49,580 --> 01:22:53,660
Speaker 2: influenced by this, the Western world, became the world that

1127
01:22:53,740 --> 01:22:58,580
Speaker 2: developed overwhelmingly what we know is modern medicine, because in

1128
01:22:58,740 --> 01:23:02,740
Speaker 2: order to develop medicine, you must first understand that you

1129
01:23:03,180 --> 01:23:11,019
Speaker 2: must conquer nature. If nature is dominant, you can't stop it.

1130
01:23:11,380 --> 01:23:16,379
Speaker 2: You can only voodooize it. You can stab little pins

1131
01:23:16,380 --> 01:23:19,820
Speaker 2: and things and hope that it'll work. You can do incantations,

1132
01:23:19,860 --> 01:23:23,740
Speaker 2: you can bring sack revices, you can say the right

1133
01:23:23,820 --> 01:23:28,259
Speaker 2: prayers to the right nature, God or goddess. Because nature

1134
01:23:28,300 --> 01:23:32,900
Speaker 2: is in control. God made it, and we're in control

1135
01:23:32,939 --> 01:23:36,740
Speaker 2: of it. And if we ruin it, we'll suffer. When

1136
01:23:36,780 --> 01:23:39,620
Speaker 2: we abuse it, we will suffer. When we use it,

1137
01:23:39,660 --> 01:23:44,860
Speaker 2: we will benefit. But that is why this is so critical.

1138
01:23:46,260 --> 01:23:48,979
Speaker 2: And today there is a movement to see nature in

1139
01:23:49,019 --> 01:23:53,979
Speaker 2: the driver's seat and not the human being. But this

1140
01:23:54,340 --> 01:23:58,700
Speaker 2: was the war. It was the war against nature, gods,

1141
01:23:58,979 --> 01:24:04,219
Speaker 2: and against nature as being a god. You might not

1142
01:24:04,260 --> 01:24:08,740
Speaker 2: have thought that there is so much in the first

1143
01:24:08,860 --> 01:24:13,139
Speaker 2: chapter of Genesis. So I have good news. There's more

1144
01:24:14,500 --> 01:24:17,179
Speaker 2: but I can't. I won't get to it now. There

1145
01:24:17,300 --> 01:24:21,740
Speaker 2: is I have so much more to share with you,

1146
01:24:21,860 --> 01:24:27,019
Speaker 2: but it is. It is just an overwhelming task. These

1147
01:24:27,019 --> 01:24:31,339
Speaker 2: were some of the critical elements to get through. Next

1148
01:24:31,340 --> 01:24:38,219
Speaker 2: time we will talk about the second recapitulation. Others will

1149
01:24:38,220 --> 01:24:43,340
Speaker 2: say the second story of the Creation, which involves extremely

1150
01:24:43,460 --> 01:24:46,459
Speaker 2: complex subjects, and I ask you to read it in advance,

1151
01:24:47,099 --> 01:24:53,139
Speaker 2: chapter two with a different way in which the in

1152
01:24:53,180 --> 01:24:58,219
Speaker 2: which God created people. And I'm going to but I'm

1153
01:24:58,220 --> 01:25:00,379
Speaker 2: going to start next time with one twenty seven.

1154
01:25:02,900 --> 01:25:07,220
Speaker 1: This has been timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit Denisprager

1155
01:25:07,260 --> 01:25:10,780
Speaker 1: dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses

1156
01:25:10,820 --> 01:25:18,700
Speaker 1: in classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.