Ralph Ellis The Real History of Jesus & the Biblical Stories

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 2:40) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Raffidi and Erasmus Stelionesis. All right, everybody, welcome to episode 49 of Here for the Truth podcast. What you're about to listen to and watch is an epic interview with esteemed historian Ralph Ellis, whose research over 40 years of knowledge really strikes at the core of what is traditionally accepted as the perceived truth of the biblical stories. In the first half of this episode, we discuss the biblical story surrounding Egypt, the Exodus, Moses. And in the second half, we get into who is the real Jesus? Who was the Jesus Christ that we know today? And what were the true circumstances surrounding the story that takes place in the gospel? This episode may present as challenging to some listeners and viewers who are coming from a particular dogmatic reference in terms of Christianity. However, with an open mind, there is a great wealth of knowledge and understanding to be taken away from this episode. And we understand that you guys are here for the truth. So we'll leave you with that. And without further ado, here is episode 49 with Ralph Ellis. All right, everybody, good to be here with you all. Welcome to episode 49 of Here for the Truth podcast. And this is an episode that I certainly am excited for and have been looking forward to for a while now. We have Ralph Ellis. Ralph has been researching biblical and Egyptian history for more than 40 years. Being independent from the theological and educational establishments allows Ralph to tread where others do not dare. And it is through this independence that Ralph has discovered so many new biblical and historical truths. Ralph, welcome to Here for the Truth. Good to be with you. Thanks for the invitation. Absolute pleasure to host you. Before we get into the deeper stuff, the body of work that you're so well known for, I'd like to just get a bit of backstory. How did you come to find your interest in the history of Christianity and the biblical story in particular? And yeah, how did that come about? [Speaker 1] (2:43 - 3:39) Sort of by accident, I suppose. I was I was forced into it because I was always skeptical from the very beginning. And people are always asking. And we were talking back in junior school days here, you know. Yeah. 10, 11, 12, 13. People always asking me why I did not believe. And of course. I didn't have an answer. So I had to go and find the answer. So I had to go and start reading the books to explain to people why I didn't really believe them. And I found out very quickly that. I knew more than they did. Because they professed belief, but had never actually read the books. And so it became a bit of fun jousting with people when I could tie them in knots and sort of disprove what they were actually saying. [Speaker 2] (3:40 - 3:40) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (3:40 - 8:27) And it sort of went on from there. I sort of wrote my first chapter when I was 14. So this is going back quite a quite a long time. I mean, it didn't go into print, of course. But I wrote this just as a thesis for myself about the crucifixion story and things of that nature. You know, the number of multiple names around the crucifixion story. Everyone was called Mary, you know. And that sort of found its way into my first book, which was Jesus, Last of the Pharaohs. So that actually did go into print many, many years later. So, yes, it's been a longstanding interest based on my skepticism of everything. And I've sort of become a sort of professional skeptic in a way. Because I don't know if you know, I do the same with climate science. I'm a climate scientist as well, I like to say. And my climate paper, peer review standard, you know, climate paper, is also on the skeptic side. And also explanatory. You know, it's not just being in opposition for opposition's sake. It's actually explaining things that we didn't know before. And that's what I like about my theological research is it's explaining things that we didn't know before. Things that, you know, even theologians will say, you know, God just works in mysterious ways. You know, well, sorry, that's not good enough. You know, we want some explanations here. We want some history. And I found that there were very few people looking at the history. Theology seems to have divided itself into two camps. You know, the believers, the literalists who believe everything that's in the Old and New Testaments. And then there developed, you know, the skeptics, the mythicists who decided that we couldn't find this in the historical record. And therefore, it's all mythological, which is not unreasonable to say that because, you know, there is no obvious evidence for this story. And so they became mythicists. Well, I didn't sort of that didn't resonate with me because there's a lot of history in the biblical story. So, OK, if there's if there's history in there, why can't we find all of these characters and events that are not obviously in the historical record? What happened to those events? You know, are they mythical or is there some history behind it? And very early on, I started finding real history where no one would acknowledge it previously. And that spurred me on to do more and more research in different parts of the text. And again and again and again, I found reasonable continuity between the biblical story and real history. If you read it in a very critical light. So I'm coming from an agnostic atheist viewpoint. I'm not coming from a religious viewpoint. I'm not finding history simply because I want to find it. I'm finding history because I think it's a history book. And I think if you disregard the theology, the tenets that the church has built around this story, if you disregard those and look more critically at the story, you will find that story in history. And it doesn't really change the story very much. You know, we'll go through this in a minute. But all I've done is maybe changed one or two dates. I've changed one or two locations. So resetting some of the story back into Egypt, which is where it came from, of course. I do that with the United Monarchy story, the Solomon story. And again, coming onto the New Testament, again, just really changing the date. That's pretty much all I do. And then you can find this story in the historical record. But of course, it's not the same story because it's not the the fairy story that we get from the gospel story. It's real history. And so what I say has happened is we've got real we've got real history that has been sprinkled with fairy dust. And that ends up as the gospel story. So it's the same story, but they've amended it slightly and made it more fanciful, made it into a nice story for children. [Speaker 3] (8:27 - 8:39) Rob, why do you think that's the case over time that, you know, this occurs where there's, you know, some truth sprinkled in with lies or fantasy? [Speaker 1] (8:40 - 12:16) It's political. More than theological, it's political. So if we look at the Old Testament, the Israelites were kicked out of Egypt because they were in Egypt. That's where they were. And they found themselves out in exile. Well, how do you explain that situation to your people? How do you maintain a cohesive society now you've been kicked out of your homeland? Well, the easy way out is to adopt, you know, the persecution complex. Oh, it was the evil Egyptians. They kicked us out. And if you run the narrative through that set of glasses that you want to give this political explanation as to your reason you're stuck in somewhere else in exile, then you have to change the story very slightly to meet that expectation. So, you know, everything to do with Egypt has to be evil. It was the evil Egyptians. No mention that you were actually pharaohs in Egypt yourselves. You don't want to mention that. It was the evil Egyptians persecuting you. And therefore the story has to change. But we know that the Israelites were pharaohs in Egypt because Josephus Flavius says so. And then everyone, you know, regards Josephus Flavius, you know, the first century historian of Judea, as a fairly good historian. But then when he says something that is political, you might say, it's rather explosive, they ignore it. So Josephus Flavius says that the Hyksos pharaohs of Egypt were our people. He is saying that the Israelites were the Hyksos. And yet everybody disregards that because it's politically sensitive. It's not the story that they've been teaching for the last, you know, two, three thousand years. And so it has to be covered up. It has to be sprinkled with fairy dust. And the New Testament story is somewhat even more interesting because what's happened is, is this is a Roman story. So there was a real revolt. We'll go through this later. But that revolt was lost. It was a revolt against Rome. And Rome didn't want anyone to know about it. Because the last thing they wanted people to understand is you could revolt against the power of Rome. And so they wanted to cover it up. The question then comes, how do you how do you cover up an event that's happened? Do you just delete it from history? Do you deny that it happened, even though obviously loads and loads of people, millions of people will know that it has happened? Or do you just change the story very slightly? And the route they chose is to change the story very slightly to sprinkle it with fairy dust. And lo and behold, suddenly you get the gospel story, which is the story of the Jewish revolt. [Speaker 2] (12:17 - 12:21) Well, it doesn't sound very much different from kind of what goes on still today. [Speaker 1] (12:22 - 15:09) Precisely. Yeah, even today with, you know, the plethora of fake news, whether you believe the news or don't believe the news, there's half the population don't believe the news. And you can it's quite interesting to do because I try not to be overtly political. And you can watch one news program about a specific event. And then watch another news program on another channel about exactly the same event. And it's as if they are talking about two entirely different events. You know, nothing matches whatsoever between the two accounts of this story. And that's just last year, you know, that's not 2000 years ago. So the ability to change the narrative is well known. And this, I think, was it was a very, very clever policy by the Romans. This is by the Flavian emperors to change the story to their advantage. Because, of course, the new story they crafted was all pro Roman, you know, render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Turn the other cheek. Obey your masters because they are appointed by God. Oh, well, that's just, you know, that's just perfect, isn't it? You know, for an emperor, just what the doctor ordered. So that is why the story got changed. It's political rather than theological. And people bought into it. And once one or two people buy into it, and once one or two people in power give their backing to it. It becomes a bandwagon. And off it goes as a bandwagon. So you don't have to even coerce people into this. The people join the bandwagon because initially probably because it gives them direct power. It gives them a channel into the aristocracy, into the emperor and so on, into the levers of power. But other people join in because it's a nice story. They're virtuous. You know, they're joining this wonderful society, this peaceful society, you know, for a better world. And God will look after me. Not you. No, he's not going to look after you. He's going to look after me. And so these people join on this bandwagon and off it goes. And it gets more and more power. [Speaker 2] (15:12 - 15:43) Yeah, that was my next question. What is it about the nature of belief that hinders people from actually being willing to look deeper to what the facts or history may present? Because it seems like such a strong force to penetrate. And we're talking about now what I guess you're potentially propagating as propaganda that has been within the psyche of humanity for quite some time. [Speaker 1] (15:48 - 18:16) Yeah, religion has always been personal. It's been about your relationship with God and therefore your relationship with a deeper power that is maybe a greater power than the secular powers. So you have the secular powers in your boss at work, you know, within your family, within your region, within your nation, and you're subservient to all of these powers. But then there's this other power, which doesn't work for all these other people. It works for you. It's your relationship with this God. And so you've got this way of bypassing all of this power that affects your life, you know, suppresses you and, you know, makes you go to work and do all of this. And suddenly you've got this other power that you can address and talk to that goes beyond that. That is your own personal power system. And people find that very helpful. You know, this power system, this God figure will help you pass an exam. Not sure why, but there we go. It will help you pass an exam. It'll help you get a better job. It'll help you get a better life. It'll help you get better money. And so it goes on. And so it becomes a very personal belief system that is for your benefit, not necessarily, although they will profess that it's, you know, it's peace for the whole world, but it's also for your personal benefit. And so of course people would join on this bandwagon. And that's what they managed to craft. Because the Christian God became much more personal, in my view, that it came much more into the family, that it was a personal God to you. And lots of people bought into that. And it was very, I forget what the word is, but you understand what I mean? You know, people would join this bandwagon. [Speaker 3] (18:16 - 18:32) Yeah. And then once more and more start joining it, then it's like, well, you know, go along to get along. You don't want to be the outcast. You don't want to be the only one that isn't believing it, because then what does that mean about you? And so then we get into like social psychology, mass psychology, etc. [Speaker 1] (18:32 - 21:14) Absolutely, the carrot and sticks, you find that a lot in Christianity, you find it even more in Islam. If you join Islam, you get the benefits of the Jizya tax. So under Islam, I don't know if you know, you've got three choices within Islamic lands, when a land becomes Dar al-Islam instead of Dar al-Harb. You get three choices. And these are the choices that people had all during the sort of Middle Ages, when Islam took over the Near East, which was all previously Christian. Remember, all of the Near East, all of Syria and most of Iraq and all of Turkey and all of North Africa was all Christian. When it became Islamic, you were given three choices. You could convert to Islam. You could pay the Jizya tax, which was a tax on unbelievers, or you could be killed. And those were your three choices. And so, yeah, big carrot and stick there. You know, do I join this religion because it gives me advantages? I get the benefits of the Jizya tax, which is the tax on unbelievers. And I don't get killed. Or you could become a dhimmi unbeliever. And you have to pay all of the taxes for the land. So you're basically, you become a serf to your Islamic masters. So there was a great incentive in order to join that particular religion. Because you got all the benefits of it. I mean, that was the whole reason Islam was set up. You know, it was it was set up with Muhammad as being a. He was basically a warlord who was harassing all of the caravan trade across the Middle East and raiding caravan trains and taking the spoils from those raids. And Muhammad himself got a 20% cut of all of the spoils, which is why one of the chapters in the Koran is called the spoils of war. It's how to divide up the spoils that they got from raiding these caravan trains. So, yeah, there was a great incentive to join that particular religion. And Christianity does the same, but not quite to that degree, but it does more or less the same. [Speaker 2] (21:15 - 21:50) Yeah, well, I'm a basic student of astro theology. And so from the astro theological perspective, we have cults initially, right, stellar cults, lunar cults, solar cults. And it was my general belief that then these cults simply split into Christianity being a solar cult, Islam potentially being a lunar cult, right, with the present moon, etc. How much of that is true in your research and understanding? [Speaker 1] (21:51 - 22:29) Well, all of them were, you could call them stellar cults, cosmic cults. That was the original theology of ancient times. So you look back into Egypt, and they worship the heavens, all of the gods were identified with heavenly bodies. I take that one step further and I say that some of the original gods of Egypt were the heavens themselves. So we have Newt and Geb was two of the very earliest primeval gods from Egypt. [Speaker 2] (22:35 - 23:06) You've cut out just, you've frozen there just a bit. Let us know when you're back, Ralph, if you can hear us. Let's pause it for a second. We were talking about Newt's just before you jumped off there. [Speaker 1] (23:07 - 24:21) Yeah, so I take this one stage further and I say that some of the primeval gods of Egypt were actually cosmic bodies themselves. So we have Newt and Geb, which were two of the very early gods of Egypt, with Newt being the woman who arches her body across the sky, and then Geb is the earth underneath. Well, I've not really heard it mentioned before, but it's pretty obvious that Newt is the Milky Way. So, and you can actually see her in the heavens, arching her body across the sky, and she appears to have arms and legs at each end because, you know, the Milky Way splits up as it runs towards the horizon. So, yes, Egypt had a stellar theology, as did many, many of these early religions, and you can see it across all of their iconographies, all something to do with stellar bodies. And the major thing that they were looking at is the procession of the equinox. So would your viewers be familiar with procession? I think so. Most of them? [Speaker 2] (24:22 - 24:27) Briefly, but I'd say let's bring a brief understanding as to the procession, anyway. [Speaker 1] (24:27 - 35:43) Yeah, I'll give it a two minute explanation. The earth, when it spins on its axis, it actually wobbles, and it has a 26,000 year wobble, so it's quite a long wobble. But what it does is it makes the axis of the earth point in different directions. But the other effect it gives is that the constellation that is rising at the vernal equinox, the Easter equinox, changes every 2200 years or so. And we go from one constellation to the next. And so you can use that as a method of tracking history. Yes. And tracking the monarchies of the ancient world. And so people identified themselves with that particular constellation. That's why some people say that, you know, the pyramids are 10,500 BC, because of the Sphinx looking very similar to Leo in the night sky, as if the Sphinx is honoring the constellation of Leo, and that would place it way back 12,000 years ago. But coming into more recent history, we know that the monarchs of those eras were using the symbolism of those constellations. Because we had the era of, well, we had Taurus that turned into Aries, and we have this great long chapter in the Old Testament, which is talking about Taurus and Aries. Perhaps we should just mention this very briefly as we move through. We have the situation where Joseph, him of the coat of many colors, was coming back down into Egypt. And he wanted to bring his family down, which he did, but he warned them, you know, we're going to see Pharaoh. And whatever you do, don't say that you are shepherds. Say instead that you are bull breeders, and you have been for all your lives. And it doesn't make any sense, you know, why would they be talking about sheep and bulls agriculture in this fashion in Egypt, it made no sense. Well, of course, they weren't talking about agriculture, they were talking about the procession of the equinox. Because the constellation of Taurus had changed into Aries in 1750 BC. And this had caused a split within the society of Egypt. And they had a civil war. And the shepherd kings, the Hyksos, were thrown out of the country. And that's the exodus that I equate with the biblical exodus. Because it's exactly the same. And that's the exodus that Josephus Flavius identifies as the biblical exodus. So Josephus Flavius says that the Hyksos were the Israelites, he says they were our people. And this exodus was exactly the same. So you know, we had, you know, this is from real history. So from real history, we have darkness for three days. Storms, we have an ashfall. We have a tsunami, the parting of the waters, but we had a real tsunami as well. We had a volcano, the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke. And we had an exodus. And something like, well, they say 500,000, it was probably less. But anyway, let's call it 250,000 people were pushed out of Egypt. On a great exodus. And they went from Piramacy, Avarice. And they went to Jerusalem. And on the way, they destroyed Jericho. Familiar story? Well, that story doesn't come from the biblical story. That story comes from real history. That comes from the history of the Hyksos people of Egypt. And they had this exact same exodus that you find in the biblical record. And I find that to be conclusive evidence that that event actually did happen. That the biblical event is a story, is recording this particular history. Because we have a whole series of events here that no historian or chronicler could have linked together in that fashion. Because they wouldn't know that they were all linked. And they're all linked, of course, because of a volcano. And that volcano was the eruption of Santorini in the Mediterranean. Now, that eruption happened in 1600 BC. And we're pretty confident of that date because of the carbon dating of that event on Santorini. And that was the largest eruption in recorded history. It was absolutely huge. Where a whole island sank beneath the waves. Well, that would have caused a tsunami, of course. You don't get a volcano of that size without having a tsunami. And that's exactly what's recorded in the biblical story. Wow. We have the parting of the waters. The waters recede, as you know, from tsunamis. The waters just disappear. And if your army goes walking out along the beach, you know, catching the fish which are flopping around on the shoreline. And then the waters come back in again. Well, you've just lost your Egyptian army. And then the ashfall. Why would they mention an ashfall? And it's pretty specific within the biblical story. God says to Moses, take you handfuls of ash from the hearth of the fire and throw it into the sky. And it will become small dust in all the lands of Egypt. That is a pretty specific. It's not talking about snow or mist or dust or something. It's ash from the hearth of the fire which landed all across the lands of Egypt. When did that happen? It happened during the Santorini eruption. And we know it did because we found the ash in the historical record in Egypt. So it would have caused ash. It would have caused a pillar of fire and pillar of smoke because that's what you see. You know, if there is a volcano, you will get a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke. It will cause darkness for three days. It will cause, it caused, how did Josephus describe it? The air was so thick to breathe that people were inwardly consumed by the air. Wow, I'm sorry, but that's exactly what happens in a, you know, the long range fallout from a volcano. You get all of this dust coming down from the volcano, which is full of silica shards. And it will, if you're not careful, inwardly consume your lungs. So it's a perfect description. And this is not just simply a black swan. A black swan event is something so obscure you could never invent it in a story. This is five black swans all at the same time. And yet some chronicler in the Bible knew that all of these black swans were linked together. Because they are linked to a large eruption. And that eruption was the eruption of Santorini, which happened in approximately 1600 BC. And of course, just after that eruption, we have the exodus of the Hyksos peoples. And they all go off on this exodus. And they, basically because the nation was split, this wasn't really a problem about the volcano. But there was a theological split after the volcano erupted. So it caused, well, someone had to be to blame, you know, someone must have upset the gods. And so it caused this civil war within Egypt, which resulted in the exodus of the Hyksos peoples. And the Hyksos, they all went from Pyramacy, famous place. It was actually called Avarice at the time. But there we go, it's the same city. And they all went off and they destroyed Jericho. And this is something, you know, if you look at standard history, they'll say that the exodus event doesn't exist. Because there is no evidence for it. And there was no one living in Jericho at that time anyway. So it doesn't match up. Well, of course, they're looking for a exodus event in the 13th century BC. Well, of course, you're not going to find it if you're looking in the wrong date. This is what I was talking about before, about resetting the biblical story into the correct chronology, into the correct era. If you look for this event in the 13th century BC, you're never going to find it. But if you look in 1600, it was actually the 16th century, it was about 1580 BC, you will find that the Hyksos destroyed Jericho. And it was never inhabited again after that. So it matches perfectly with the idea that the Israelites were the Hyksos pharaohs of Egypt. A fully Egyptianized, very powerful force who had taken over Egypt circa something like 2100 BC or more. [Speaker 2] (35:43 - 35:56) So I just want to clarify one thing. So the Hyksos people, are they Egyptian when they're in Egypt and they're known as Israelites as they trek to Jerusalem? Or are they Israelites in Egypt? [Speaker 1] (35:58 - 40:12) They adopted a new name, quite obviously, because they were not known as Israelites when they were in Egypt, only after the exodus. At the time, they were known as the Hykaukasut. And the Hykaukasut, from the Greek, we call it Hyksos, but the Greeks weren't very good at pronunciating any of the Egyptian names. So the original is the Hykaukasut, which tends to mean the kings of the foreign countries is what you will say. But Josephus Flavius says that that name, Hykaukasut, means the shepherd kings. So they were known as shepherds, exactly the same as the patriarchs were known as shepherds. They had the same title. And we know that's probably true because Hykaukasut is spelt with the shepherd's crook. It's a good indication that it might mean something to do with shepherds. So they were all called shepherds. And this is why when we come back to after that long digression, if we come back to Joseph, him of the coat of many colors, when he's talking to his brothers, he says, don't say to Pharaoh, because this is after the exodus, of course. Don't say to Pharaoh that you were shepherds, because otherwise you'll be thrown out of the country. Say instead that you have been bull breeders. They're talking about agriculture here. But of course, they're not talking about agriculture. They're talking about religion. And they're talking about the Apis Bull of Egypt, which was the great and the standard religion in that era, until someone changed it into the worship of sheep and the shepherd kings. Why did they do that? Because the constellations had changed in the heavens above. So in 1750 BC, Taurus changed into Aries. And this is a real astronomical event. You can't deny that it happened. It happened in the heavens above. We know from if you look at any standard planisphere today that has procession on it. So what Joseph was saying is, don't say to Pharaoh that you are shepherd kings, ex-shepherd kings coming back down into Egypt, because otherwise you'll be thrown out of the country. Why? Well, because only X amount of time before, say a century before, they just had a civil war in Egypt. Of course, they're not going to be wanted as shepherd kings, as shepherds back into Egypt. And well, despite all of the advice, of course, the brothers say, actually, we're shepherds. And for whatever reason, and they are still allowed to stay in Egypt. But anyway, that's the story as given by the Torah. But the important thing to note is that none of that makes any sense in the classical fashion. It doesn't make any sense in terms of agriculture, and it doesn't make any sense in terms of the chronology that they are using. And that's why people cannot find it in the historical record, because it's not there. If you look in the 13th century BC, you're not going to find any of this history. And it has no meaning. But if you look in the 16th century BC, and you recognize that it's not talking about agriculture, it's talking about the procession of the equinox, the standard thing of Egypt, you know, everything had something to do with the cosmos. Then it suddenly makes sense. We're talking about the Hyksos exodus from Egypt. And we're talking about procession of the equinox with Taurus changing into Aries, the bull into sheep. [Speaker 3] (40:14 - 40:34) Hey, Ralph, are you one of the only ones that has found this discrepancy between the dates and been able to connect the dots? I think so. Obviously, I don't want to say simple because it's not simple, you can do a lot of investigation. But why would you say that it's slipped through people's fingertips? [Speaker 1] (40:36 - 46:19) I don't know. Various elements of this have been discussed before. Of course, the procession of the equinox has been discussed before I was discussing it. It's been discussed with regard to Jesus, of course, because Jesus was born as a lamb of God, but became a fisher of men. And that was because in 10 AD, Aries turned into Pisces in the heavens above. So again, there was this momentous change of the great months, I call them. We have a standard month in which the constellations will change. As you know, from your standard newspaper column, we'll have all of the constellations for each month. Well, they do for each two millennia as well. So you could have exactly the same with the constellations changing for every couple of thousand years. And there was another change in 10 AD because that constellation was a bit smaller. And that's why Jesus was born as a lamb of God, but became a fisher of men. He went from Aries to Pisces. So a lot of that has been mentioned before, but not many people have used it as a dating method to actually decide where the Exodus event should be. There have been one or two people who have said that, you know, the Thera eruption, the Santorini eruption, is very similar to the Exodus, the plagues of the Exodus. But they've not really managed to link it up to the Hyksos Exodus. They've not managed to link it up to what Josephus Flavius was saying about the Hyksos. So I think, I think I have to say I'm the first person to have linked all of these together into a cohesive story. The other guy who mentioned some of this was Ahmed Osman. And he mentioned that the, what was he talking about? He mentioned this in one of his books, I think it was part of Stranger in the Valley of the Kings or something, he mentioned some elements of this. But again, I don't think he tied it up into one cohesive story. He did a very nice analysis of who Yuya was. So, moving on a couple of centuries to the sort of 13th, 14th century BC, we had during the New Kingdom, so we're now in the New Kingdom era, we had a very influential patriarch known as Yuya, who was the father of the Amarna dynasty of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. And he made a very good argument that Yuya was Joseph. And I think he's probably correct in that. So the father of the Amarna dynasty was Joseph, him of the coat of many colors. And in the Egyptian record, he's known as Yuya. So again, we can tie this all back into real history. And then we start, we then get a confusion in the chronology. Because if you read the, if you read the Torah, it seems to indicate that there was only one Exodus. But from history, if you read the works of Manetho, who was a third century BC historian, he clearly states there were two exoduses, not one. So there was the great Exodus that we've already talked about, that was the Exodus of the Hyksos people. And then there was the second Exodus of the 80,000 lepers and maimed priests. And that quite clearly was the Exodus of the Amarna dynasty. So if viewers are not familiar with Amarna, Pharaoh Akhenaten set up his own new commune in Middle Egypt. So he set up this commune. And I'm just going to have a look because I've forgotten the name of the film. Because sometimes it's very difficult for us to imagine what these events were like from history. And I think it's called Wild Country. Yes. It's called Wild, Wild Country. It's a Netflix film about the setting up of this commune. [Speaker 3] (46:19 - 46:21) Oh, it was about Osho, the documentary. [Speaker 1] (46:22 - 47:50) Yeah, about the guru from India. Rajneesh, then he went by Osho. Yeah, that's right. And they set up this commune in America somewhere, in Oregon or somewhere remote. That film is the Amarna story. So if you ever get confused about what on earth was going on, this is circa 1330 BC or whatever, when they set up the Amarna dynasty, it's exactly the same as Wild, Wild Country. So if you just imagine that the guru there is Akhenaten, and then the scheming little woman is his wife Nefertiti. Everything that happened in that Oregon commune happened to Akhenaten. You know, there was this belief in this guru that he was going to, you know, take over the world and bring peace and whatever. And they had to build this commune because there was nothing there. They chose this new plot of land on the east bank of the Nile. And they had to build an entire city from nothing, an entire commune, exactly the same as they did in Wild, Wild Country. [Speaker 3] (47:51 - 47:56) Did Akhenaten have multiple Rolls Royces as well, like Osho? Yes. [Speaker 1] (47:56 - 52:22) In his terms, yes, he did. He was remarkably wealthy. I mean, he had taken a lot of the wealth from the previous regime. And he maintained his status by giving out gold necklaces. And that's how it was sustained. It was sustained on a belief in this, you know, this new religious commune, this new belief system, you know, because he was the first of the monotheists setting up his new belief system in just one god. And he was destroying all of the other gods. And he was correct and everybody else was wrong. And they took over the whole of Egypt eventually. Very much like this commune was doing. You wouldn't believe, if you've not watched this film, what they were getting up to. They were so convinced of their correctness, they tried to poison the local town to get rid of all the detractors that were stopping them from expanding. So they tried to poison them all. And then, of course, it started to collapse. There was greed, there was machinations, there was, oh, you name it, it happened. And this commune started to break up and then they all went on an exodus. Because the commune failed and they all had to go on an exodus. Well, exactly the same happened, of course, in Egypt and Akhenaten and Nefertiti and all of the rest of them, they all had to go on an exodus. And this is what Manetho is talking about when he describes the exodus of the maimed priests and lepers. Now, Josephus, I don't know why, takes this rather literally. And he says, this is a stupid account because you would never find 80,000 lepers in Egypt and the priests would not all be maimed and so on. And he takes it ever so literally. And you're thinking, hold on a minute, Josephus, how dumb can you get? He's talking about not real lepers. He's talking about theological lepers. Because these were the guys who were trying to change the whole belief system of Egypt. And it failed and they got kicked out. And, of course, they would call them theological lepers. And so this was the great exodus of the 80,000 lepers from Egypt. And what the biblical story has done is it's taken these two exodus events and it's combined them into one. And that's why we have this strange chronology where everybody thinks that the biblical exodus happened in, you know, 12th century BC or something. Just because they mentioned Piramacy, which was the city of Ramesses, which is 12th century BC. But it's exactly the same city as Avarice, which is where the Hyksos were. It was the same city with a different name. Obviously, cities don't, you know, just disappear from the face of the earth necessarily. So the biblical story has amalgamated these two exodus events into one. And then we can pass from this some of the characters that were involved. So the two brothers of the Amarna exodus were Akhenaten and Moses. And the two brothers of the biblical exodus were Aaron and Moses. And of course, if you read the glyphs of Akhenaten incorrectly, his name was Aaron. It doesn't take much of a misreading of the glyphs to turn Akhenaten into Aaron. And so this is the biblical exodus. It's now talking about the smaller exodus of 80,000 lepers and maimed priests who were monotheists. And of course, Akhenaten was the first of the monotheists. [Speaker 2] (52:23 - 52:34) So while we're here and we've touched on it, can you shed light potentially on the true history of the primary Moses story with the commandments in Sinai? [Speaker 1] (52:37 - 1:01:36) Yes. Yeah, that's an interesting story. So from Manetho, we are told that they were pushed out of because initially he says that they were in the stone quarry on the east bank of the Nile. And of course, that is what Amarna was. It was a stone quarry because there was nothing there. They had to quarry their entire new city out of nothing. So the whole region would have rung with people cutting stones out of the cliffs to make their new city. And of course, people making mud bricks to make their new city. And of course, they ran out of straw. So Pharaoh Akhenaten got annoyed and started shouting, you are lazy, you are lazy. You will make mud bricks whether you have straw or no straw. Remember the quote from the Old Testament? The only thing the Old Testament doesn't do, and it does this all the time, is it just leaves out the little bit of information that will tell you what it's talking about, like the name of the Pharaoh. You know, if that story had told you who the Pharaoh was, you would know exactly what's going on. But it just says Pharaoh got upset with the Israelites and forced them to make bricks. Well, if it just said Akhenaten, we'd have known what it was all about. And the problem with that is they try and blame it on the Egyptians, the Pharaoh. What they don't say, it was their own Pharaoh who was getting upset. So their own leader had turned into a bit of a tyrant and was now ordering his people to make bricks, whether they had straw or no straw. So that was the story. And we were going up with Moses, weren't we? So Moses goes up because they're kicked out of Amarna, which is in Middle Egypt, and they go up to... They were given, according to Manetho, they were given Avaris or Pyramacy, which had been the previous city of the Hyksos. They were given that as a refuge by the other Pharaoh who was now down in southern Egypt, who was trying to kick them out. So they ended up in the Nile Delta. And, of course, what do they do on the Exodus? They go to Mount Sinai. OK, where is Mount Sinai? How do the Israelites lose their sacred mountain? These are people who record everything. Every last name of every last, you know, monarch, courtier, prostitute, pimp, everybody is named in the Bible. But they lose, well, A, they lose the name of the Pharaohs, which is really unfortunate because they lose the chronology. But they lose their sacred mountain. How do they do that? Strikes me that there's been another cover-up here because they didn't want you to know where Mount Sinai was. And how do we find Mount Sinai? Well, we only have to look at the attributes of this particular mountain. So it was on the edge of a desert. It was the highest mountain. It was sharp and difficult to climb. It had a cavern inside it where God lived, where Moses went up and he went into Mount Sinai. Not on top of, although he could have done that as well, but he went into the mountain. And at the bottom of this mountain, oh, it was small enough, although it was a big mountain, it was small enough that you could cordon it off. You couldn't touch it because it was sacred. You were not allowed to touch the bottom of it. So it's a sort of mountain that sort of is almost like a cliff. It comes out of the ground like a cliff. It doesn't just gradually rise up into a hill. And at the bottom of Mount Sinai, there was a pavement that was smooth and black and or dark blue and looked like the night sky. OK, so where do we find this mountain? Well, it was, well, we can see it, we can identify it by its absence from the biblical record. The trick is you get a digital version of the Bible and you type in Great Pyramid. And it'll run through the Bible and it'll say nothing found. How's that possible? These are guys who lived in Egypt for 400 years. Joseph was the prime minister of Egypt and high priest of Heliopolis, which is just down the road from the Giza Plateau. And he never, ever went to the pyramids for a cup of tea. It's not possible, is it? The secret that they don't want you to know, which is why they have deliberately lost their sacred mountain, is that Mount Sinai is the Great Pyramid of Egypt. And it conforms to all of those requirements. It's on the edge of a desert. It's the largest mountain, the largest pyramid in the whole of the country. It's sharp and it's difficult to climb. It has a cavern inside it. It's delineated from the ground, so you could put a cordon around it, a fence around it, so you can't touch it because it was sacred. And at the bottom of the pyramid, on the eastern side, going out on the eastern causeway, there is a black basalt pavement that looked like the night sky. So Moses was not going up some obscure, rugged mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. He was going up the sacred mountain, the sacred mountain of the Egyptians, of the Hyksos Egyptians, which was the Great Pyramid of Egypt. And we know that the cavern at the bottom of the Great Pyramid was always open because Strabo tells us so. He gives a description of it. So Strabo, you know, first, second century BC, he knew how to get into the Great Pyramid through the original entrance. And he describes the door that was on the entrance to the pyramid. So that's, again, how they've changed the story. Here we have a story, a very normal, believable story, about people moving from Middle Egypt and going up into the Nile Delta and using the Great Pyramid as a sacred temple, because it always was. It was never a tomb. No pharaoh would ever be buried in a tomb that had no inscriptions in it. So it was built as a temple to the cosmos. It was never a tomb. And so they were using this temple to the cosmos and a temple to mathematics in the original fashion that it was intended. And they called it Mount Sinai. So that's how the story has been changed. It's the same story. But, you know, unless you know that Sinai means Great Pyramid, you're lost. You don't know what they're talking about. A few missing bits and pieces, that's all. Yeah, it doesn't take much, does it? You know, change the date a little bit, change the name of the mountain, and you have a different story. [Speaker 2] (1:01:37 - 1:01:55) Yeah. All right. Well, we've got the backstory. Shall we fast forward? Yeah. So let's get to the Gospels and to Jesus. However, I think we might need to... [Speaker 1] (1:01:55 - 1:02:01) Just for one minute, just before you introduce that, can I shut the window because it's suddenly got cold in here. Just one minute. [Speaker 2] (1:02:03 - 1:02:20) Okay, so the Gospel and the story of Jesus. However, I think we might need to bring some clarity on who actually the notorious character of Josephus Flavius is before we get there. [Speaker 3] (1:02:20 - 1:02:29) Yeah, Ralph, I've heard you refer to him as Quicksilver Quilled Charlatan. Someone who's had the most influence in the world. So I'd love for you to talk more about that. [Speaker 1] (1:02:29 - 1:06:37) Yeah, and he was known as the liar all the time. In both of his guises, he was known as the liar. Because here's the guy who crafted Christianity. As we were talking about before, before we started this, the guy who made Christianity was Saul. Saul wrote the majority of the books in the New Testament. It was Saul who created what I call simple Judaism. So there was a split between the two churches. Jesus was a Nazarene Jew. And not one jot or tittle of the Mosaic law would be changed. But Saul, he was a Romophile. He was a citizen of Rome. And he invented what I call simple Judaism. On his tours across the Mediterranean, his evangelical tours, he noted that the Gentiles were more interested in this new church, this Nazarene, Ebionite church, which was slightly different form of Judaism to Temple Judaism. But the Gentiles were more interested in this than traditional Jews. And so he went to James and said, look, can I preach to the Gentiles? And James said, yeah, off you go, chum, because he was only a youngster at the time. And probably nobody thought any more about it. So he goes off and he gathers quite a following. And the following grew and grew and grew until his church was actually more powerful than the Nazarene church. And it was from his church, his Romophile Gentile church of simple Judaism that had dropped most of Mosaic law, of course, and circumcision and all of those other shibboleths of Judaism became much more powerful than that Nazarene church. And that became Christianity. Is Saul known as St. Paul as well? I always call him Saul because his name was Saul. Gotcha. And then, well, luckily, we have that one verse that clarifies this. Otherwise, we would be none the wiser and we'd all be speculating again. But there is one verse that says Saul is Paul. But he was renamed Paul because Paul means the junior. The youngster, which is what he was. That's important in a way because we'll see who he was in a minute. But he was the youngster. That's why they called him Paul. It's like calling him junior. So he was Saul Junior. His original name was Saul. And that's probably original name. I don't know. It's based, obviously, on the original King Saul. So it's a reasonable name for someone to take. So Christianity came from Saul. So anyone who believes in Christianity is believing in the enemy of Jesus. Because Christianity did not come from Jesus. He was a Nazarene Jew. The only church that really later on came from Jesus was what they called the Jewish Christians, which were the Abionites over in modern Jordan and so on. But they didn't last very long. They only lasted a couple of centuries. And I suppose there's some influence, some evidence that they lasted in the Galilee region for a while because of the Jewish Zodiacs there. We'll look at those in a minute. [Speaker 2] (1:06:38 - 1:06:44) Yeah. So just to be crystal clear, because I don't think we made the connection, Joseph Flavius is Saul is St. Paul. [Speaker 1] (1:06:45 - 1:20:34) Yeah, but you have to wonder that that's the trouble with this story. We have this guy who saw who is poor, who is missing from the historical record. Why is he missing from the historical? Why are all these famous characters suddenly missing from the historical record? We have so much real history in the gospel events. You know, all of these emperors are named and governors of Syria and Judea. They're all named. The kings of Judea are all named. And then suddenly we get these very important characters who cannot be found in the historical record. People like Saul Paul. Why is that? Why have they dropped off the historical record? Why can't we find them? The reason is because they don't want you to find them. Because it changes the story too much. And in this case, it changes the chronology. It doesn't change the story. Well, I suppose it does, because these people become more important, more powerful than they're made out within the gospel text. But the main thing it does is it changes the chronology, and therefore it changes the politics of what the gospels were about. So for many reasons, I immediately saw, and this is years and years ago. I mean, I wrote about this in 97 in my Jesus Last of the Pharaohs. And that had been based on even earlier work from 10 years before that. It was pretty obvious to me that there was a very, very similar character from the historical record who was very, very similar to Saul Paul. And that was Josephus Flavius. And they are very, very similar indeed, including both being on the same shipwreck on Malta. So both of these characters, Saul and Josephus, were sent on a prison ship to Rome to go and see Nero. And the ship was called the, it had a name, it was the Castor and Pollux. So the ship has a name and they go off to Cyprus first and then they go down to go to Naples in Italy. And they get caught in a storm. And it's a very good description of a boat being caught in a storm. And they get wrecked on Malta. And then they both, later on, they both survive and they both get taken to Naples and then to Rome to go and see Nero. Well, is this two characters on this same boat and this same shipwreck or is it just one character? For many, many reasons, it has to be the same character. So Saul was Josephus. And the reason they don't want you to know that is because it changes the story. It changes the chronology. Saul was not, sorry, Josephus was not born until AD 37, which is much later than they insinuate. Although there is no history for Saul whatsoever, we don't know who this guy was. And they all say when I came out with this, that can't be true because Josephus would have been too young. And I had to turn around and say, well, no, that's not true at all, is it? His first evangelical tour was in about AD 52, which would have made him 15 years old. And they say, oh, it's too young, it's too young. And I'm saying, no, hold on a minute. No, he was a man at that stage. As a Jew, you become a man at your bar mitzvah at age 14. So he was a man. OK, he was a young man, but he was still a man. And who do you send out on evangelical tours? If you get a couple of Mormons knocking on your doorstep, do you get a couple of old geezers there? No, you don't. You get a youngster, probably about 19, and his sidekick who's probably about 16 or something. That's what you get, because that's the sort of person you send out on the evangelical tours. You can't send a married guy out for a whole year going across Anatolia and Greece evangelizing for this new religion because it's just not possible. They have too many responsibilities. You send out the youngsters. And that's exactly what happened to Saul Josephus. And it makes sense. If you are open enough to change your mind about various things, it makes sense because who was Josephus? Well, we get a. We get another similarity with the Acts of the Apostles, because in Acts of the Apostles, we have Saul again, same guy going out across Galilee and Syria as far as Damascus, arresting people, arresting these proto Christians and putting them in prison. Well, how how is he doing that? Who under what authority was Saul arresting Christians and putting them in prison? Who was this guy? We're not told who gave him this authority that he could go out across Galilee and Syria and arrest people and throw them in prison. Well, as Josephus Flavius, of course, we know exactly why he had this authority, because Josephus Flavius was the army commander in command of Galilee. And what he was doing was chasing a guy called Jesus all across Galilee. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? As Jesus said to Saul. It's exactly what Josephus Flavius was doing. He was putting a guy called Jesus in jail in Galilee. And you might say, oh, that's great. You know, even as Christians, we can say, hey, we've we've found the biblical Saul in historical record. And therefore, we found the biblical Jesus in historical record because those two stories match. And Christians will have to say, no, no, that's not him at all. Go away. Don't mention that. Because it's the wrong type of Jesus. The guy we found is not necessarily the biblical Jesus. The guy we found is Jesus of Gamala, who was the governor of Tiberias in Galilee. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And he was quite rich and powerful. And this was the 1860s. This was not the 1830s. We're 30 years, 40 years after the standard life of Jesus here. It's what I call the chronological chasm. Nothing makes sense if you put it into the 1830s. That's why you can't find the historical Saul and the historical Jesus and these historical events. Because they've relocated it deliberately. In the wrong era. The 40-year chronological chasm. If you fast forward from the 1830s, 1820s and 1830s up into 1860s and 1870s, suddenly all these events and characters pop out of the historical record and you can find out who they are. So who's the Jesus I'm talking about? I'm talking about Jesus of Gamala. Sort of famous guy from, although he's been largely deleted, so it's very difficult to find references to him. But we do have references to him in the Talmud and in the works of Josephus. And what I'm saying here is that the biblical Jesus was Jesus of Gamala. Same name, of course, and a very, very similar character. This was a guy who was being persecuted and locked up in prison by Josephus Flavius, a.k.a. Saul. Same story. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? This is a guy who changed sides. He had a flash of inspiration on the road, not to Damascus, but on the road to Jotabata. And he changed sides. The same as Saul did. He was a duplicitous character. Saul and Josephus were both known as the liars. Interesting. But this Jesus character is even more interesting in a way because we have some details about him from the Talmud. And the Talmud says that Jesus of Gamala married Mary Magdalene. Now, that's a problem, you see. Well, it's a problem for a couple of things. OK, it doesn't say he married Mary Magdalene. What it says is that he married Mary and Martha, both of us. But if you read Professor Robert Eisenman's, I think it's in his James, the brother of Jesus. He devotes a couple of hundred pages into proving that Mary and Martha, both of us, were Mary and Martha, the Bethany sisters. Because they both lived at the house of Simon. Obviously, Mary and Martha lived at the house of Simon. And Mary Botheis was the daughter of Simon Botheis. All the names are the same. And the events are the same. And anyway, to my satisfaction, Robert Eisenman proved that Mary Botheis was Mary Magdalene. And then at the end, he says, oh, no, no, they can't be the same person. The story of Mary and Martha were just based upon this woman. They can't be the same person. Why does he say that? Well, because there is a 40 year chronological chasm between the two. The Bethany sisters are supposed to be 8020s, 8030. And these sisters we're talking about were 8060 coming on to 8070. There's a 40 year chronological chasm. And Professor Eisenman cannot bridge that chronological chasm. So he has to say they're not the same person. They were just basing the, you know, the story of Mary Martha upon Mary and Martha Botheis. The other reason that he has trouble with this. Is because it changes the story somewhat. Because. Mary and Martha Botheis stroke Magdalene. Was the richest woman in Judea. In fact, she was the richest woman in the whole of the Near East. That changes the story. This is a woman who had a dowry when she got married to Jesus, Jesus of Gamala. She had a dowry of one million gold denarii. That's worth about 20 billion dollars in today's terms. And that's just a dowry. That's not the wealth of the family. The wealth of the family was something like, you know, 200 billion dollars. I mean, they were the Bezos and Musks of that era. Now that, to me, that's a more believable story, but it changes the story. We no longer have this poor carpenter story. We have a story about important people. That's why their story was recorded, because they were important people from that era, who were making the headlines and changing society and fomenting the actual physical events that happened at that time. Things like the Jewish revolt, which they were involved in. So these were very important and very influential people. That's why their story is so famous. [Speaker 3] (1:20:35 - 1:20:42) Well, it makes sense. Even when I think about when I was growing up, going through school, like we learned about kings and queens, we didn't learn about carpenters. [Speaker 1] (1:20:43 - 1:21:19) Precisely. I mean, that carpenter business is nonsense. Again, very easy to cover something up. If you just tell the children, and that's all they know, and they don't read the text, and especially if they don't read the text in the Greek instead of reading it in the English, it doesn't say carpenter. Nowhere does it say carpenter. It says tecton. And a tecton in the Greek is a freemason. [Speaker 2] (1:21:20 - 1:21:20) A freemason. [Speaker 1] (1:21:21 - 1:23:53) Wow. So yeah, he was the grandmaster of the Judean lodge. That's why we have the raising of Lazarus. What is the raising of Lazarus? It's a third degree raising. It's exactly the same as the third degree raising I went through when I became a master mason, including him coming out of the tomb hoodwinked, which is exactly what you do nowadays. The only difference as far as I can see, it was probably more difficult as an initiation goes, because it sounds like they actually spent three days in the tomb. Whereas nowadays you're just dead for 30 minutes, sometimes in a tomb, sometimes they just wrap you in a cloth, in a shroud, and you're only dead for 30 minutes before you're brought back to life. You go through a resurrection, basically. And Lazarus went through a resurrection, which is a funny thing because if resurrections mean you're the Messiah, then surely everyone should be worshiping Lazarus. Because he was resurrected first, long before Jesus was. So that doesn't make much sense, but it looks like that they went through a proper burial and resurrection, lasting maybe for three days, which is quite a trial. And that's what a lot of these initiations are when you go through an initiation into a brotherhood. It gives you an allegiance to that brotherhood because you are solely dependent upon that brotherhood. So you've been locked up in a tomb, which has a rolling stone on the front of it, which you cannot move. And you're stuck there in darkness for three days. And you're wholly dependent on your brothers coming to rescue you after three days. And then you're reborn again into that new life, into that new brotherhood. That's what it's all about. And that's what the raising of Lazarus was all about. So yeah, he wasn't a carpenter. It had nothing to do with carpentry. [Speaker 3] (1:23:53 - 1:23:59) Ralph, real quick, you mentioned in modern day like masonry and being initiated that you're dead for 30 minutes. [Speaker 1] (1:24:00 - 1:27:50) Well, masonry goes back, a lot of people will say, oh, that can't be true because masonry is only started in 1717 with, you know, the foundation of Grand Lodge in London. Well, that's not true. The whole story of masonry. All of the ritual you go through is about the building of the Temple of Solomon. So the ritual within masonry is all based upon the united monarchy of Israel, of course, and Egypt in 900 BC. A long, long time ago. And that's where this ceremony comes from. It comes from not from and it's strange in that fashion because it's based on masons. It's not based so much about on kings and queens or gods, for that matter. So the guy who's venerated within masonry is not the king. It's not Solomon or David. The guy who's being venerated is Hiram Abiff. Who was the chief architect of the United Monarchy. So their leader of this group is a mason. A Freemason. And he was the chief architect. And you can hear the same word in the Gospels, they call Jesus a tecton, an architect. It's the same word we use in English. And he was the architect who was building the Temple of Solomon. And that's what this history is based upon. So Hiram Abiff was killed. He was killed by three Jews, as they call them. And he was roughly buried in a shallow grave. And he was the grandmaster of masonry at that time. And they finally find him after three days. And he's brought back to life. He's resurrected via the lion's grip. And that's what you do in the ceremony. So you become Hiram Abiff, you are killed in the same manner with three blows to the head. And you are buried in a shallow grave, which in most lodges is just a shroud, basically, because they can't afford any shallow graves. Although I do hear that there are some lodges that put you in a tomb, but that's unusual. And then you are resurrected again after three days. Well, it's only 30 minutes, of course, but there we go. A symbolic three days have passed. And so you go through exactly the same ceremony as Lazarus did when he was inducted into the Judean lodge. So this is a very old fraternity that goes back to the beginning of the Egyptian pyramid building era, because there are groups of masons, because even masons don't know their own history. A lot of this is shrouded in mystery and history. And a lot of the information has been lost, of course. But there are many masonic groups who say that the original building was not the Temple of Solomon. It was actually the Giza pyramids. And so the great building event that these architects were involved in was pyramid building. And that takes us back into the mysteries of time. So it's a very, very old institution that has lasted through many millennia. [Speaker 2] (1:27:52 - 1:27:58) Wow. So should we just call this episode Jesus was a Freemason? You could do. [Speaker 3] (1:28:00 - 1:28:11) Our brains are totally aligned. That's exactly what I was thinking, just in terms of whether or not it was the title or not. I was just like, so, Ralph, what you're saying is Jesus was a Freemason. [Speaker 1] (1:28:13 - 1:31:38) All right. Which is why you get so much building technology, of course, within the Gospels. That's why Jesus was called the cornerstone. That's why his primary disciple was Simon, who was given the title Peter. The rock, the stone. In fact, he was called Peter Kephas, the stone stone. Petra means rock in Greek. It means rock, so does Kephas, means rock. And they had a very specific rock they were talking about since we're here, and it's allied to the Gospel story. The sacred rock they were talking about was the Amphalos. So we have this sacred rock that has gone through history that has been linked to these people because it was Jacob's pillow. You know, Jacob's pillow was actually a rock. It was a mastaba. It was a small pyramid, which he poured oil upon, because that's what you did with this particular rock. It was the Benben stone of Heliopolis. We're talking thousands BC here. It was taken to Greece because of the Greek invasion of Egypt, where it became the Amphalos of Delphi, the great Amphalos stone. And there's still some copies of that if you go to Delphi today. It's a sort of like a domed, it's not as big as the one in Delphi. It's only about, in American terms, about two foot high or something. So it's quite small. And then it was taken to Parthia with Alexander the Great. And then it came back again, and it went to Edessa. As you know, I link the biblical story into Edessa. We've not talked about that. It ended up in Edessa. And it was obviously linked to the gospel story, because the keepers of the sacred stone were known as the Gali, the Galileans. And, of course, Jesus and Saul were both Galileans. And everyone says that, OK, that's because they lived in Galilee. Well, I don't think it is, actually. I think it's because they were Gali, Gali priests. And the Gali priests who looked after this sacred stone were supposed to be eunuchs. And that's why I'm just looking for the quote here. I'll have to look this up, because otherwise people won't believe me. So the Gali priests who looked after the sacred stone, they were known as the Gali, and they were eunuchs. And that's why Jesus asks for... Oh, no, I've spelt it wrong. Just a minute. No worries. [Speaker 2] (1:31:41 - 1:31:42) Not sure they're going to believe you anyway, Ralph. [Speaker 1] (1:31:46 - 1:34:11) That's why Jesus asked for his disciples to become eunuchs. And again, people won't know that because it's not something that is preached from the pulpit, because they don't want you to know that. But if you look at Matthew 19, 12, Jesus says, there are some eunuchs which were born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men. But there are also eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He that is able to receive it, to become a eunuch, then let him receive it. So here is Jesus in Matthew 19, 12, asking his disciples to castrate themselves. And this was a great ceremony in Syria, the cult of the eunuch. And it's all a bit different to the standard story. But I mean, this is what it actually says. And I'm just looking up. You might have to cut a little bit of time out of this because I was going to get a quote from you. That's right. I should have had this up. Yeah. So, this is something that's not talked about from the pulpit because they don't want you to know about. All of this got banned within Rome, the Romans banned all of this. So, we've just... We're still talking about Christianity here. [Speaker 3] (1:34:12 - 1:34:16) I just made Joel laugh with a little joke. I sent him a little message. [Speaker 1] (1:34:19 - 1:35:32) Jesus asked for his disciples to become eunuchs, but there was a ceremony involved in making these galley. That's why Jesus was known as Galilean. There was a ceremony involved with this. And we have this from Lucian. And from Juvenal, Juvenal 6512, and Ovid as well mentions it. And they say, on these days the galley priests are made, while the rest are playing flutes and performing rites, a frenzy comes upon many, and he throws off his clothes and takes up a sword and castrates himself. And then he rushes through the city holding his testicles in his hands. And he takes female clothing from, and women's adornments from whichever house he throws the testicles through or into. Well, pretty clear. So that's the ceremony. There's a big festival and you castrate yourself and then you get women's clothing from whoever you throw the testicles in through their window. [Speaker 3] (1:35:33 - 1:35:35) Is this the origins of the trans movement? [Speaker 1] (1:35:36 - 1:35:47) Yep, absolutely. Yeah, they have a long history and this is, I think it's a much more spectacular way of doing it, you'd think. I think so. Yeah, nevermind. [Speaker 3] (1:35:47 - 1:35:49) How many pronouns, how many pronouns did they have back then? [Speaker 1] (1:35:50 - 1:37:58) One or two, I think. Well, it gets worse actually. Because we have a quotation from Josephus Flavius about the Galileans during the Jewish revolt. So one of the questions I came across was, how were these people involved in the Jewish revolt, if they were just Galilean priests, castrated Enoch, Galilean priests. And of course they were also warriors. And Josephus Flavius tells us so. And so he says of the Galileans, and remember Jesus and Saul were both Galileans. He says, the Galileans, they indulged themselves in feminine wantonness. They decked their hair and put on women's garments and they smeared their faces with ointments that may, they may appear very comely. They had paints under their eyes and imitated not only the ornaments but also the lusts of women. But while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with their right hands. And while their gait was effeminate, they attacked men and became warriors and drew their swords from under their finely decked dresses and ran everybody through that they alighted upon. Yeah. That's talking about the Jewish revolt. And as we go on in this, we will see how this is linked to the Jewish revolt, but one of the aspects of the Jewish revolt was the rise of the Sicarii, as in Judas Iscariot, he was a Sicarii. And they were the rebel dagger men who used to mix with the festival crowds, and then thrust a dagger into the back of their enemies. They carried these little Sicarii, which is a small knife. And so obviously the Galileans were doing exactly the same thing. [Speaker 3] (1:37:59 - 1:38:04) Is that where the whole idea that Judas stabbed Jesus in the back comes from? [Speaker 1] (1:38:04 - 1:44:22) He was a Sicarii. So yes, in some respects, yes, but Arthurian legend, because I go on to, so most of this is from the book, King Jesus and Jesus King of Edessa. But then I went on to write the Grail Cipher, which was about Arthurian legend. And you might say, well, what on earth has that got to do with, you know, the gospel story? Well, one of the heroes of Arthurian legend was Joseph of Arimathea. So obviously we're talking first century Judea. And that is all mixed into the Arthurian story. Which is all very confusing, and I did sort of eventually untangle all of that, but on the face of it, it's very confusing. But one of the things it says is that Judas was innocent. The guy who sold Jesus to the Romans was Joseph of Arimathea. Now that's a bit of a heresy. In fact, I don't even know how they got away with that, you know, because this is a fairly early manuscript. This is a manuscript from the 13th century. And they say that the guy who sent Jesus to the Romans was Joseph of Arimathea. So, yeah, the two different accounts obviously came out of this, depending on who wrote the various accounts and who they wanted to blame. And somebody didn't want to blame, somebody wanted to blame Joseph of Arimathea, and obviously some people didn't. And the other heresy that they have, which links into our 40 year chronological chasm, is that, well, let's start at the beginning of the story. I mean, it's only very short, it's only a couple of minutes, but Joseph of Arimathea is the guy who takes Jesus down from the cross. So this is AD 30s, according to the traditional story. And he takes Jesus down from the cross, puts him in a tomb, and he's captured by the Romans and put into prison. This is from Arthurian legend. And so he goes to sleep for three days, and he wakes up 40 years later. And he's not aged at all, he's just the same age. And now he's in AD 70, and now he becomes a soldier working for Emperor Vespasian. Okay, so who was the Jewish soldier working for Emperor Vespasian in AD 70? It was Josephus Flavius. So we now have another pseudonym. It's quite obvious that Joseph of Arimathea, because who was this guy? Again, he strides into the story at the end of the gospel text. You're supposed to know who he is, but of course, nobody explains where he came from or who he was. He just strolls into the story and takes Jesus down from the cross as if he obviously knows everybody. He knows the governor. He just takes him down from the cross and sticks him in a tomb. And you're thinking, well, who is this guy? Well, it was quite obvious that he was Josephus Flavius, because they both end up working as soldiers, working for Emperor Vespasian. And if you read Josephus Flavius, he gives the same story. So obviously, this is later. This is just after the Jewish revolt. Josephus Flavius has a story about him coming back from because he's an army, a Roman army commander. Now he's working for the Romans. He has a story about him coming back from Tekoa with an attachment of troops. And he comes across three of the leaders of the revolt being crucified. Who were his former compatriots? Remember, he's changed sides now he's working for the Romans. And he's disgusted by this and shocked. So he goes to the Roman governor and gets permission to take them down from the cross. He takes them down from the cross. Two of them die and one of them survives. Familiar story. This is the gospel story. This is the passion of Christ. But this is in AD 70. And the people being taken down from the cross are the three leaders of the Jewish revolt. And they are former compatriots of Josephus Flavius of Matthias. So we have a confluence of names as well. So we have Joseph of Arimathea and Josephus of Matthias. Because the father of Josephus was called Matthias. So now we know where Arimathea comes from. It comes from Matthias. It's the family name. It's the name of his father. So Joseph of Arimathea was Josephus Flavius. Which is exactly what our theory and legend says. When it's saying that Joseph of Arimathea was a Roman army commander working for Emperor Vespasian. And there was only one famous person of that nature who was doing that. And that was Josephus Flavius. [Speaker 3] (1:44:23 - 1:44:50) So Ralph, real quick, obviously Josephus is a major player. And for some reason in my head, I feel like he's this narcissistic screenwriter that just writes a movie. And he puts himself in every role. He does. He does. And just changes the name. So then I wonder, did all these changes by they, for political reasons, did he do it? The people after him make the changes and change all the names? What are your thoughts on that? [Speaker 1] (1:44:50 - 1:45:00) He had to do it himself because there were certain roles he had to take that he could not declare himself to be Josephus Flavius. [Speaker 3] (1:45:00 - 1:45:00) Gotcha. [Speaker 1] (1:45:01 - 1:46:41) I mean, nobody in the world. Yeah. Nobody in the world would want their chief, the person who created Christianity, who wrote all of the books of Christianity to be Josephus Flavius. You would just not want that. A, because he's, as we've said, such a slippery, horrible, egotistical character that everyone said was a liar. And B, it changes the story because it has to be an 80s, 60s story. It cannot be an 80s, 30s story. So there is no way he could have said that Saul was Josephus because it changes the story too much. And so he had to call himself by a different name. And his original name may well have been Saul because he was a Benjamite. And so he might have been called Saul. And Paul was an obvious pseudonym because he was the junior. Because when he goes across on his evangelical tours, he was under the guidance of Barnabas, who was the older brother basically. So Paul was an obvious pseudonym as well. But Flavius, of course, came later because that's his name when he joined the Romans. He became a Flavian and he could well have been called Josephus. But yeah, he had to call himself by these different names because they are incompatible. You can't have Josephus Flavius taking Jesus down from the cross in 1830. Yeah, it's not possible. [Speaker 3] (1:46:42 - 1:46:49) It's so much easier to lie back then. Now with the Internet and video footage of everything, it's a little more challenging. [Speaker 1] (1:46:49 - 1:54:58) Well, you've got to remember that he had another advantage. He ended up as the last man standing in Judea. After the Jewish revolt, all of the Jews pretty much from Judea were exiled and taken as slaves or exiles into the rest of the Roman world. And so the guy who was left standing as effectively the king of Judea, although he didn't call himself that, was Josephus Flavius. And he was given a commission from Emperor Vespasian to write this history, which he did. So he wrote all of the books. We know that from the story of Josephus Flavius. But the question then becomes, okay, he wrote the secular books of this era, determining everything that happened. But did he also write the theological books, the gospel story as well? And the thing about the gospel story is that it is dependent quite a lot on Josephus. That's why they say if you ever read anything about the gospels, they say, oh, the gospels were written in the A.D. 70s. So there was 40 years of oral transmission before the gospels were actually written down. And you're thinking, hold on a minute. Why? As we've said before, the Jews are consummate scribes and chroniclers. They write down everything about what's happened. So why couldn't they write it down in A.D. 35, in A.D. 40, at any time? Why do they have to have this period of oral transmission? Well, it's because it didn't happen in the A.D. 30s. They couldn't write it down because it hadn't happened yet. That's why they can only say that it happened in it was written down in the A.D. 70s, because the gospels contain so much Josephus and material. It's been recognized that a lot of what's in the gospels has been lifted from the works of Josephus, especially in the Gospel of Luke. And you can't have a gospel written before Josephus was actually writing his material. So the gospels have to come later. And they do come later. So we have various aspects of the gospels which prove a later date. I mean, the obvious one is where Jesus is describing the siege of Jerusalem. So he describes Jerusalem being surrounded by a wall and a trench, and not one stone will be left upon another. That's a description of the siege of Jerusalem from the works of Josephus, where Jerusalem was actually surrounded by a wall and a trench that the Romans built around it in A.D. 68. Okay, but this is Jesus describing it. And then Jesus describes the death of Zacharias, Zacharias Baruch or Barachias, who was killed in the middle of the temple. And he was a colleague of Jesus. But we know when this happened, because Josephus also describes it. And Zacharias Baruch was killed in the middle of the temple between the, between the altar and the temple in the middle of the temple in A.D. 68. This was a Jewish revolt story. Jesus was arrested and jailed alongside revolutionaries who had committed murder in the revolt. What revolt was this? It was the Jewish revolt. Jesus mocks Ben-Zizit HaKeseth. And you can't really see this in the gospel story because it's written in code. He talks about phylacteries and tassels and cushions and things of this nature, making fun of the people who have had a good life in the temple. Well, we have exactly the same story in the Talmud. And the Talmud says that this was actually a mockery of Ben-Zizit HaKeseth, because it rhymes with his name, the tassels and the phylacteries and the cushions and everything. It all rhymes with his name. And they're making fun of this guy because he was very rich and very wealthy and very pampered. And he had the biggest tassels and the biggest phylacteries in the whole of Judea. And Jesus is making the same mockery. The trouble is that this guy was an A.D. 68 leader of the Jewish revolt. It's an A.D. 60s story. And the reason it's been thrown back into the A.D. 30s is because it's a Roman story. You know, when you read the Gospels or if you go to church and you get any of the readings, it's taken completely outside its political roots. There's no politics involved in this. You know, the Romans were just well, they were just sort of, you know, walking around Judea. They weren't doing much, you know, nothing to do with the story. No, this was central to the Roman story. This was Roman politics. And the reason it was Roman politics is because they were involved. They were the leaders of the Jewish revolt. And the Jewish revolt was a revolt against Rome. It wasn't a revolt against Judea. Again, even if you read the history rather than the theology, they seem to indicate that the Jewish revolt was a revolt in Judea. About the throne of Judea, perhaps, or something. We're not quite sure. Yeah, it had nothing to do really with Judea. The whole point of the Jewish revolt was that the throne of Rome was empty. And it was empty to whoever could grab it. If you had enough money, if you had enough backing, if you had a big enough army, you could become the next emperor. And four people tried. So we had the year of four emperors, you know, from 1868 after Nero died, murdered, suicide, whatever. The four emperors came and went. It was the year of four emperors, where four people put their hat in the ring and said they wanted to become emperor. And they marched on Rome with their armies, but were defeated by someone else who was also marching on Rome. So we had four emperors came and went. And then we had the Jewish revolt. Which is what I say is the last of the battles for Rome. So it wasn't the year of four emperors. It was the year of five emperors. And the last battle we had in that year was between Vespasian and the leaders of the Jewish revolt. And the leader of the Jewish revolt, we haven't been through this yet, was the Jesus character. He was the leader of the Jewish revolt. [Speaker 3] (1:54:59 - 1:55:07) So Ralph, real quick, you mentioned Jesus of Gamala before, and then you have a book called Jesus King of Edessa. Are those the same person? [Speaker 1] (1:55:08 - 2:03:38) Yeah, same guy. So we haven't been through the Edessa story yet. But we have this guy called Jesus of Gamala. And he is the biblical Jesus. And you might think, great, wonderful. We know who this guy was. He was an 80s, 60s governor of Galilee. And that's all we know, apart from what the Talmud says about him marrying Mary Magdalene and becoming high priest. That's all we know. We don't have him in the historical record. And the question then becomes, who was Jesus of Gamala? And Jesus of Gamala, of course, was the leader of the Jewish revolt. It says that. Well, that's a problem because we don't find this guy in the historical record. We don't have any coins. We don't have any palaces or inscriptions or whatever about this guy. So it's quite obvious because the Talmud talks in code as much as anything else talks in code. The Talmud was afraid of what Rome would say because Judaism at that time under Rome was very subservient to Rome, of course. And later on, the Jews were subservient to Christianity and had to be careful about what they said. And so they write everything in code. So it's quite obvious that Jesus of Gamala is a bit of a pseudonym. So who was he? Well, we can get the answer from Josephus Flavius. So Josephus Flavius says that he was the leader of the Jewish revolt. But he also says that this group of Babylonian Jews who had come out of Babylon were also the leaders of the Jewish revolt. And he calls them the kings of Adiabene. And so he has a couple of chapters on the kings of Adiabene who had come out of Parthia or Persia. And they were the leaders of the Jewish revolt. They started the Jewish revolt in AD 66 when the the legion of Sestius, the Roman legion, was destroyed. And it was destroyed by Monobazus and Cenedius of Adiabene, the princes and kings of Adiabene. And the Jewish revolt only ended when Monobazus and Isus, familiar name, the kings and princes of Adiabene surrendered to Vespasian in AD 69. No, in AD 70, they surrendered to Vespasian. Only then was the Jewish revolt ended. And the question then becomes, who on earth were these Adiabenans? And there's been an awful lot of historical rubbish written about Adiabenans because they say it's over in Mosul, Arbela, Mosul, over in Iraq. And these are the people who started the Jewish revolt. What on earth have these people got to do with a revolt in Judea? Well, it's only because they don't understand where these people came from and what they were trying to do. The first thing you need to know is that the queen, the famous queen of Adiabene, was Queen Helena. And again, this story is not told. So how can you make the links if you're never told the story? It's not in most history books. You know, you really have to dive deep to go and find it. But Queen Helena was the queen of Judea in AD 50s. And you might think, oh, hold on a minute. Queen of Judea. They had a queen. Yeah, the queen of Judea was Queen Helena, and she owned the largest palace and the largest tomb in Jerusalem, which are being excavated now, as we speak. And she was the queen of Judea. And she came from this mysterious place called Adiabene that nobody knows, really, because there's no history, there's no archaeology. We don't know where this place actually came from. And so who was she? Well, luckily, we get some other accounts by the Syriac Armenian historians. And they had a different tradition. Because remember, they had been cut off. Christianity had been split between West, Central, or Eastern as they call it, and Far Eastern. Ever since the Council of Nicaea in the third century, fourth century, and the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century. Those parts of Christianity got separated from each other. And so you ended up with the Western Roman church, you ended up with the sort of Eastern Orthodox Constantinople church, the Greek church. And then you had another church, the Syriac church, over in the Far East, the Near East, as we call it nowadays, who were then cut off behind the Iron Curtain of Islam in the seventh century. And they had a different tradition, different texts, different explanations. And the thing we're concentrating on here is that they said that this famous Queen Helena of Adiabene was the wife of King Agbarus of Edessa. Okay, now we found where these fictitious places and people are. Nothing to do with Adiabene. I still don't think Adiabene exists. It was made up to separate Edessa from anything to do with biblical texts. Because there's a curious thing here. Edessa was very, very famous in the first century. Very, very powerful. Had this monarchy in Edessa, which is in northern Syria. It's now in Turkey, but it used to be in Syria. And you can do a word search through the works of Josephus and Josephus knows everything that happened in first century in this region. And you can type in Edessa, and it will say, nothing found. You can type in Izzatis, the kings, Abgarus, or even Agbarus as he's sometimes known. And it'll say, nothing found. It's been deleted from history. It's been deliberately deleted because these were the people who started the Jewish revolt. And Rome didn't want you to know anything about the leaders of the Jewish revolt. They became persona non grata. Rome said, delete them. Josephus was working for Vespasian, so he said, yes, sir, yes, sir. And he deleted them from all of his histories, the biblical histories and the historical histories. And where he had to mention them because they were such an integral part of this story. He calls them Adiabenons, and he throws them way over into Iraq in order to separate them from anything to do with the biblical story. [Speaker 2] (2:03:40 - 2:03:45) So Josephus is the original influencer. Oh, absolutely. [Speaker 1] (2:03:45 - 2:03:49) I mean, talk about none. [Speaker 3] (2:03:49 - 2:03:56) Absolutely. I thought they called Edward Bernays the father of propaganda. But no, he's got nothing on Josephus. [Speaker 1] (2:03:57 - 2:03:58) He's got nothing on this guy. [Speaker 2] (2:04:02 - 2:04:25) So you have this powerful allegory within the Gospels that millions of people worldwide are empowered by and they put on a pedestal and they live by. What is the basis of these allegorical stories, which is so prevalent? [Speaker 1] (2:04:26 - 2:13:55) Well, it's Roman propaganda. And it's Roman history, it's Edessan history, it's Judean history, sprinkled with fairy dust. And so everything that happened has to happen in that spiritual fairy dust fashion. So events which everybody knew about and are quite common and normal had to be dressed up as fairy stories. Miracles, they call them. But most of those miracles are entirely normal. So things like turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana. And of course, the wedding at Cana was the wedding of Jesus where he married Mary Magdalene. Turning water into wine. Well, that was a very, very famous first century party trick. And I don't know why people don't talk about this because it's so obvious. But in the first century, they had a mechanos man, I think they called him, the mechanical man. He was the Leonardo da Vinci of the first century. And his name was Hero or Heron of Alexandria. And he built all sorts of wonderful machines, singing birds, automatic doors, fire engines. He built what was effectively a steam engine. All this sort of stuff. First century. They had a lot of technology back then. He made an odometer as well, which measured the miles down the Roman roads. And his most favorite trick was turning water into wine. And nobody mentions this. Nobody mentions it. He made, I think, four or five different trick jugs for turning water into wine. And they're very technical, very well made. So you obviously have two compartments within your jug. And via a combination of surface tension and siphonic action, you can put a finger over a hole in the handle. And by cutting off the air supply to this handle, you can either pour out water or you can pour out wine. It's a well-known first century party trick, which was used by the aristocracy, by the monarchy, sometimes by the priesthood, to amaze their people, to amaze their visitors or the congregation or whatever it happens to be. And we still have the design. You can see the original design. It's on the web. Did he have sandals that could walk on water as well? Well, yeah, a lot of these things. The walking on water was probably just the Dead Sea. You know, if you've ever been to the Dead Sea, you can sort of walk on water. In Egyptian history as well, walking on water was known as a test of your confidence. So that comes from Egyptian history. But what are the other miracles? I've explained so many of these. What other miracles do we have? Oh, the feeding of the 5,000. Oh, yes, yes. It's not a miracle. It was a meeting of the legion. You've got to remember, this guy was a king, an army commander, and he was the commander of his own legion, and the legion was 5,000 men. That's why when they met in the wilderness, they were divided up into 50s and 100s, just as you would with a legion. So that the 5,000 people in the wilderness was a legion, his own personal legion that he was leading. And they are given loaves and fishes, which fed everybody. But of course, again, we don't have to take everything literally. In the Gospels, bread is synonymous with knowledge. And we have this from the story of the Greek woman who went to Jesus and she was asking for bread. And Jesus said, no, go away because you're a Greek. And he called her a dog because she was a Greek. And she said, well, master, even a dog can have the crumbs from the master's table. OK, well, again, that still doesn't make full sense. But if you read the Nag Hammadi Gospels, it's made perfectly clear that she was talking about knowledge. She wanted the knowledge and he said no. And she said, well, at least we can have the crumbs of knowledge from the mouth of the master. So bread is knowledge, just as the leaven, the yeast in the Gospels is the way that knowledge is spread, the way it spreads throughout the bread is how it spreads. And the fish, the fish is the, I'm going to have to clear my throat. And the fish, the fish is the constellation of Pisces, Piscean reference. It's it's the procession of the equinox. It's the knowledge that they have entered the new great month of Pisces, the era of the fish. That's why Jesus became a fisher of men. So what he's saying in this supposed miracle to his legion of 5000 men out in the wilderness, which was probably out in Qumran or something like that, he was giving them the knowledge of the new great month of Pisces. The loaf and the fishes. And that's why they had two fishes, because of course, the symbol of Pisces is two fishes. And when they collected up all the scraps, they ended up with 12 baskets. They ended up with 12 constellations of the zodiac. And if people are not sure about this, this zodiac business within Judaism, the primary symbol of Judaism was the zodiac. And people won't know that because it's not taught, it's not in any of the books, you can't see it. But if you go to Galilee, just south of Tiberias, you go to the Hamat Tivera synagogue, which was an old synagogue. They say it's from 4th century, but I've proved it's from the 1st century. And the central thing on the floor is a mosaic of the zodiac. And this is not alone, they've dug up an hour, I think, eight synagogues, and they all have a zodiac on the floor. A big zodiac, we're talking four meters across, huge. And this was a Jewish zodiac. I mean, above the zodiac, you have the temple, you have the Ark of the Covenant, you have the shofar, all of the accoutrements of Judaism are there on the top of the zodiac. Dedications below saying it was a synagogue. The interesting thing about the zodiac is A, it's processional. And the processional date is indicating is AD 10, beginning of the 1st century. B, the central character is Helios. Yeah, so although this is a Judaic zodiac, the central character is actually the Greek sun god. So quite obviously, they were still, this is why I call Nazarene Judaism, Egypto-Judaism, they were still carrying on the old Egyptian rites of honoring the sun and the moon. Because if you go down to, if you go down to Beit She'an, and you see the later one there, they have the sun and the moon, not just the sun. I'm going to have to cough again. Yes, if you go down to Beit She'an, they have the image of the sun and the moon. Still hasn't worked. [Speaker 3] (2:13:56 - 2:14:01) Not good. Been going strong for a couple hours, Ralph, you know. [Speaker 1] (2:14:04 - 2:19:57) I always have this problem. After a while. I don't know why I didn't used to but over the last few years it's getting worse. So, yes, if we go down to Beit She'an, there's another zodiac down there which is a calendrical zodiac, and it's Christian actually, that's not even Jewish that's in a Christian cathedral, but they still have a zodiac. And that has a man and a woman dressed as the sun and the moon, surrounded by the 12 disciple constellations. Now who sits in the center of 12 disciples within a Christian church. It's Jesus and Mary, of course, identified with the sun and the moon. So that's a little bit heretical as well. But, yeah, so the zodiac was the central symbol of early Judaism, Nazarene Judaism. And this is why Jesus had 12 disciples, of course, it's the 12 signs of the zodiac, each of the disciples was associated with one of the signs of the zodiac. And that carried on into Arthurian legend, which is why I've written the book, The Grail Cipher on Arthurian legend, because those traditions carried on. So in Arthurian legend, we have the round table. Well, the round table was based upon the Last Supper table. That's what it says. So the Last Supper table was not rectangular, as it was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, it was actually circular. And it was obviously a zodiac. So the original zodiac, sorry, the original Last Supper table was a round table, and it was probably since they used to sit on the floor in those days, and not have a table as such. It was probably the zodiac itself. So the zodiac is large enough that you could use it as a table, and you could all bring your cushions and sit down at your, you know, your station in that circle. In which case the Jesus character would have sat in the center of the table. Not as in the Winchester Arthurian table where it's got the Arthurian character as one of 13, so he's at the top of the table. No, the sun character, the moon character, the Jesus and the Mary would have sat in the center of the table, in the center of the zodiac. Because it's four meters across, you can easily sit in the center of it and have your dining in night there with a meal, sitting on the, on the zodiac. Wow. And when we go into Arthurian legend, it says that this table was copied into the table of Joseph of Arimathea. So he had a round table with 12 knights around it. And then later on, King Arthur had a table with 12 knights. So, quite obviously the 12 knights and the 12 disciples are exactly the same, and they all are constellations of the zodiac. So the Arthurian round table was a zodiac. Surrounded by 12 knights. And it all sprang from this ancient tradition. Going back into Egypt a long time ago, of course, but in the first century, the tradition of the zodiac, which was in Galilee especially, but also out in Jordan as well. And the interesting thing, the reason I say that this particular zodiac on the Sea of Galilee is first century, is because we have a story from Josephus Flavius, that he himself was sent to destroy it. Remember, he was the army commander in command of Galilee. And he was sent by the Jerusalem priesthood, who were effectively of a different religion, to destroy the images of animals in the house, in the palace, that was four furlongs south of Tiberias. Well, if you go to the gate of Tiberias and go four furlongs to the south of that gate, you come to Hamat Tibera, which is the great zodiac on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And of course, it has heretical images of animals. And it's quite obvious that Josephus Flavius himself in the first century was sent to destroy this particular zodiac. And this zodiac was owned by Jesus. That's what he says. It was owned by Jesus and Jesus had this, he had knowledge that Josephus was coming. And so they burnt down the synagogue, so that he wouldn't find the heretical images of animals. And that's why I think it's actually a first century zodiac. They could easily have just covered up the zodiac, you know, cover it up with sand and earth, and then destroy the synagogue on top of it. And so it could have lain there for a number of centuries in that condition. [Speaker 2] (2:19:58 - 2:20:37) Wow. Ralph, we've certainly covered a lot. Very grateful for your time and your knowledge. There's one thing quickly, if you have the time that I'd like to touch on, because I think it's a little bit relevant at the moment. And it's in terms of the book of Revelation, right, there's obviously a large, I guess, community gathering now that's proliferating the idea that in some way, the prophecies of Revelation are quite relevant and playing out now. So who is it from your perspective that wrote Revelation? [Speaker 1] (2:20:41 - 2:29:06) It was quite obviously someone that was linked to the Nazarene sect, who I link, obviously, to the kings and princes of Edessa. We've not been fully through the Edessa story yet, but there's another story. It was obviously linked to the Nazarene, but the prophecy they were making was not for our era. The prophecy they were making was for the fall of Rome, because they were contending with Rome, they were setting up this battle against Rome. And so when it talks about, I mean, in Revelations, Babylon, I forget what it actually says, the whore of Babylon or whatever, built on seven hills. They're talking about Rome there, when they're hoping that Babylon is going to end. And then it talks about some retribution, which is obviously the volcano in Heraklion. What was the other place it was called? Vesuvius, when Vesuvius erupted, because Vesuvius erupted just after these events in the 1870s. And that was seen as retribution against the terrible place called Rome. So most of Revelations is a desire to have vengeance against Rome, because Rome destroyed Judea. And you can read it in that fashion, but it is very difficult to read because it's written in code, obviously, because they couldn't actually mention Rome. Because if you did that, you'd be strung up, you'd be crucified, whatever. So everything in Revelations, in the Talmud, also in the Gospels, it all had to be written in code, because otherwise you might upset your Roman masters. But we know this was a story about Rome, because Jesus was crucified. We've been through how he was the leader of the Jewish revolt. But when he came to be crucified, he was crucified while wearing a crown of thorns and a purple cloak. Well, the crown of thorns was the traditional crown of the Odessan kings. They all wore a crown of thorns. It doesn't quite look like you might expect because they've interpreted this as a crown of brambles, of course, because that fits in with their idea of this guy being a pauper carpenter. He wasn't, he was a king, he was called a king on 36 occasions within the New Testament. The crown they had was a plaited crown of thorns, which looks more like a papal mitre than a bunch of brambles. And it had thorns or some prickly things going along the top of it. We don't know what they are, and I've speculated as to what they might be. I think they might be feathers, not thorns, but they could be. It could be a sun symbol. Some of the Roman emperors, no, some of the Greek kings used to have spikes as in sun symbols coming out of the head a bit like, you know, the Statue of Liberty. But I think they might have been feathers, something to do with the phoenix, the fiery feathers of the phoenix, but we don't know. Need some more information on that. But the other thing that Jesus was crucified with was a purple cloak. Now the purple cloak was the symbol of the emperor. Nobody was allowed to wear a purple cloak except for the emperor himself. Euboe I, who was the king of Mauretania, he went to Rome and wore a purple cloak, and he was executed for it. You don't just go around wearing a purple cloak. Maybe Cleopatra could get away with it because she was a queen, but you don't wear a purple cloak. The reason he was crucified wearing a purple cloak is because it was a symbol of the emperor. It shows that he was actually trying to take the throne of Rome, not the throne of Judea. And that's why he was crucified, which is a Roman punishment, not a Judaic punishment, and he was crucified by the Romans. And to mock him, because he had failed, obviously, the revolt had failed. To mock him, they dressed him up in a crown of thorns, which was the crown of the Odessan kings, and a purple cloak, showing that he had tried to take over the throne of Rome. But he had failed. And that's the political aspect that everybody leaves out of the New Testament story. It was not an event in isolation in the middle of Judea, nothing to do with the Roman Empire because it was just, you know, a minor province having some little difficulties. It wasn't. It was a central component of the Roman story where a very powerful king, the Odessan kings, tried to take over Rome. They had the money. They had the army. We've already seen the 5,000 people in the wilderness where he was teaching them. And then after that event, of course, after the 5,000, Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. Hold on a minute. He hadn't been crucified yet. So what's all this cross business? How did Jesus have the symbol of the cross before he had even been crucified? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But of course, as a Roman army commander, which is effectively what he was, he was an Odessan army commander with an army that mimicked everything that Rome had because they were obviously the superior armed forces in that era. So you mimic what Rome does. Every Roman legionnaire had a cross. It was a wooden cross upon which he put all of his armor and material. So you put your armor on your cross and all of the other things you need, you know, your spade, your food, everything you're going to carry goes on the cross. And then you put the cross over your shoulder and then you march to wherever the army goes to. So the army commander would stand at the front of the army and says, take up your cross and follow me. Nothing to do with the spiritual story they're trying to sell. This is standard military terminology from Rome. And so, yeah, the Jesus character was trying to take over Rome. He was in a battle against Vespasian. Commander Vespasian in Judea, which ended up with the destruction of Jerusalem. And the victor in this particular battle would become the next emperor of Rome. That's why I say this was the year of five emperors, not the year of four emperors. And the fifth contender for the throne of Rome was Jesus, who was known as King Isis of Edessa. His name was Isis in Edessa. So he had the same name, but he lost. And so it was Vespasian who sailed to Rome to become the next emperor. But if he had won that particular battle, then the next emperor of Rome would have been King Isis Manu, or who we know as Jesus, King Jesus. [Speaker 3] (2:29:08 - 2:29:11) What history would be like if he won? [Speaker 1] (2:29:12 - 2:35:00) It would have been probably very difficult. Although, of course, the aristocracy and the administration of Rome is more difficult to take over. It's like taking over the presidency. You can take over the presidency of America. But that doesn't mean you have carte blanche to do everything you want. You still have to overcome the difficulties like Trump was doing. You have to overcome the difficulties of the establishment within Washington, within the standard establishment. You've got to convince all of them to follow you, as well as being the actual leader. And we know this is a trouble for Rome as well, because exactly the same happened as this in the beginning of the third century. When Emperor Elagabalus, who venerated this sacred stone that we were talking about, we were talking about the Elagabal stone, the Omphalos stone. Well, the Omphalos stone became the Elagabal of Syria. And we have lots of pictures of it in Syria, this sacred stone. And Elagabalus was a priest of the Elagabal. He was a galley high priest. That's why he was a eunuch. He castrated himself and he became the emperor of Rome. And again, people won't know about this guy because it's not taught much in history, but he became Emperor Elagabalus, named after his sacred stone in about 220 AD. And so effectively, he was the new Jesus. He was from the same families, the same Emesen-Edesen families as the Jesus character, King Isis. From the same region, venerating the same stone, the same as Peter was, you know, the keeper of the stone. And he took, he became emperor. He took over the whole of the Roman Empire. And he took his sacred stone to Rome. And it eventually became the Sol Invictus. But he couldn't, because he had his Eastern dress, he used to dress as a woman, just like the Galileans, of course, as we saw before. He used to dress as a woman. He violated the Vestal Virgins. He had his strange Eastern ways, because remember, castration was actually against the law in Rome. And yet the emperor now is castrated. He never got to grips with the levers of power, even though he was emperor. Because he could not persuade the establishment to follow him. And so he was murdered. I think he only lasted about seven years or something, you know, and they got rid of him. So taking over an empire is not as easy as just getting yourself voted into or winning a battle to become the next emperor. You have to do a lot more than that. And Elagabalus failed completely. It's a big political story. And unfortunately, the gospel story is not taught as a political story. If it was, I think it would be a whole lot more interesting than the fairy story that it is being disconnected completely with Roman politics and Roman power. If it's taught as a central element within the Roman Empire, a bid for the throne of Rome by an Eastern monarch who was very well connected, because I say he was connected with the royal line of Egypt. He was connected with the royal line of Parthia or Persia, because he had come from Parthia. That's why you have the Persian Magi came to his birth. I mean, why were the Persian Magi coming to the birth of Jesus? Of what interest would the Persians have in a Jew in Judea? Absolutely none. But this guy had been exiled from Parthia, from Persia. He had set up a new city state in Odessa, which was the Odessan monarchy. And if a new child had been born, and again, this was in 84, was when they were exiled from Parthia. If a child had been born at that time, of course, the Parthian Magi, the priesthood of Parthia would be interested in this birth, because this guy was a potential king of Parthia. And so this well-connected king who was linked to the monarchies of Rome and Egypt and Greece and Parthia, he had all the connections to amalgamate even Rome with Parthia. He was a king of the whole known world, if he could find a throne to sit upon. But he didn't. All he had is this little principality in Odessa, is all they had. And they were looking to expand that principality, take over Syria and Judea as a stepping stone to taking over the entire Roman Empire. And of course, the throne of Rome was empty. Nero was dead. It was open to whoever could take it. It's an interesting story. [Speaker 2] (2:35:00 - 2:35:21) Absolutely incredible story. And I hope that this conversation perhaps sparks more interest in what is the true history of this story, because it is so interesting. And it's, I guess, so lost within all of it. [Speaker 1] (2:35:22 - 2:36:38) I'd have to point out to viewers, of course, that this is not just a story I'm making. This all comes from the original texts. So everything I say is backed up with an original text. All I've done is interpreted that text in a slightly different fashion, not really changing it, just interpreting it in a slightly different fashion. So when it says that Jesus was a king. I sort of believe it. When it says that Jesus was a tecton, I have a look at that. When Jesus is talking about AD 60s characters, I talk about that. And so all of this comes from real history. It's only a matter of slight reinterpretation of the history as we know it. And really the only thing I've changed is the date. We've jumped from the AD 30s to the AD 60s. And the power and influence of the characters involved. So they were aristocrats and kings, they weren't paupers. Pretty much that's the only thing that's changed. [Speaker 3] (2:36:39 - 2:37:05) Ralph, real quick, and I'm so grateful for the time you're sharing with us. Because it's relevant in general and it's been going on through history when anyone challenges the status quo and we see a lot of that happening today. What has been the reaction by let's say more, let's say, professors in academia, etc. I'm just curious to hear about that. [Speaker 1] (2:37:05 - 2:51:00) I have problems with professors. With theologians, obviously with Catholics, they disregard it. With C of E, Protestants, they are receptive, they are open to, because they never believed the story in its literal state in the first place, in the Protestant church. So they are open to changes. Within academia, they are worse than the Catholic Church. They have, because they are theologians, obviously most of the people involved in this field are theologian historians. And so they've been through a theological background. But worse than that, they have created a historical structure, which has been taught now for a century, more than a century, maybe two centuries. And they are in an institution, and they have taught this as being their career. Maybe they've taught this particular story for 40 years. And then someone comes along and says, No, sorry. Everything you've taught over the last 40 years is completely wrong. They cannot, they cannot accept that. It's just impossible. They cannot accept that they have been wrong for 40 years, they've not seen this for 40 years. And that something needs to be changed within academia. And this is not just true of history. It's also true in the sciences as well. There's a standard joke in science, in academia, is that science only progresses one death at a time. Because the old guard have to die out before the new ideas come in because they cannot change. It's impossible to change. They've been teaching this for 40 years. So there is extreme opposition, more opposition within academia than there is within the church, especially within the Protestant church. And they won't accept it, and they're not very knowledgeable. And I came across this with the Hukuk mosaic, which was discovered about four years ago or so in Galilee again, just to the north west of the Sea of Galilee. Another of these synagogues, so we're talking about these ancient synagogues again has been found with a load of mosaics on the floor. And one of the mosaics has sparked a lot of interest because the archaeologists and the historians and the theologians on site, obviously they've got a big team there. It's not just one person run by Jody Magnus, who's the chief archaeologist. She's from America. I think she's from Carolina. They sold this story to National Geographic as being Alexander the Great. And I'm looking at this, as soon as I saw it, because I'd written about this character, four years before it was actually discovered. So I made a prediction about this mosaic before anyone knew it was there. And as soon as I saw an image of it, I knew exactly who this guy was. It has nothing to do with Alexander the Great. This was Bar Kamza. And unless you've read the Talmud, you will not know who Bar Kamza is, but Bar Kamza is the leader of the Jewish revolt. You see how everything circles around this Jewish revolt, because it was the biggest event in the first century. Everybody was affected by the Jewish revolt. And so we've got this character in this mosaic. It's on National Geographic. You can Google it very easily. Who's handing, giving a sacrificial calf to the high priest of Jerusalem. And the archaeologists said this was Alexander the Great. Well, this is Alexander the Great with a hair and beard, long hair and a beard, which he never had. With a Jewish side lock of hair, a piyot. So this is Alexander the Jew. Yeah, that goes down well. Giving a calf to the high priest of Jerusalem. And he's wearing stockings. And anyway, if you don't know about that, only the Parthians wear stockings. The Greeks and Romans were always bare legged. This is not Alexander the Great. They sold the story. So this is archaeology. This is academia selling a story to National Geographic for cash. Because they held the pictures back for a couple of years before they released them. And that's the only reason, because it's got nothing to do with Alexander the Great. The scene actually comes from the Talmud. And it's Bar Kamza, who's the leader of the Jewish revolt, who, as it says in the Talmud, gave a sacrificial calf from Emperor Nero to the Jerusalem priesthood in order to foment the Jewish revolt. And what he did is he cut the lip. I mean, hey, this was a calf that came from a heathen anyway. You know, it came from a goyim, not from a Jew. So that was bad enough. But then he cut its lip as well. And of course, the calf had to be perfect. Otherwise, it could not be a sacrificial calf. And he did this on purpose in order that the calf would be rejected by the Jerusalem priesthood and thus piss off Nero, who would get angry with the Jerusalem priesthood and start a revolt in Judea, which is exactly what happened. And this was all done by Bar Kamza. Nothing to do with Alexander the Great. It's all to do with the Jewish revolt. And who is Bar Kamza? Well, Bar Kamza means the locust. And the Odessan monarchy, who were the leaders of the Jewish revolt, were always known as locusts. And again, this is Judaic Pesha. This is playing on words and denigrating your opponents so that nobody knows who you're talking about. The Odessan monarchs came from the east. And they destroyed Judea. Because their revolt failed against Rome. So they said they were locusts. They were comparing the Odessan monarchy with the locusts of the plagues. And during the plagues, the locusts came out of the east and they destroyed Egypt and sent all of the Jews on an exodus. And the Odessan kings came out of the east. They started the Jewish revolt, destroyed Jerusalem, and sent all of the Jews on an exodus. It was an obvious parody of the Odessan kings that they were called locusts. And we even get this in Acts of the Apostles. They're even mentioned there. But again, they're mentioned in code. You remember the, I forget what verse it is now, in Acts of the Apostles where Agabus makes a prophecy of the famine in Judea. And they send famine relief down to Judea. Because there is a great famine there. And the money is taken by Saul and Barnabas. So this is integral with the gospel story. But who is Agabus? Well, he's King Abgarus, the king of Odessa. And we know that this is who he is because the other person who sent famine relief, very, very well known story that she sent famine relief for this same famine, was Queen Helena. Who was the wife of King Agbarus of Odessa. And in Acts of the Apostles, he gets called Agabus. Again, play on words because Agabus means the locust. And so that's doubly interesting. A, triply interesting. A, it means that the Odessan monarchy do get a mention in the gospel story. Even if it is under code. B, it means that Saul, i.e. Josephus Flavius, was the ambassador of the Odessan kings. This is why it's so unusual that you get no mention of Odessa within the works of Josephus and within the works of the New Testament, which were mostly written by Saul. Because Saul, Josephus, was the ambassador of the Odessan monarchy. You can see how much he's deleted them from history. He actually worked for them. He was probably actually a part of the royal family because obviously an ambassador in those days was probably linked to the royal family. And C, it means that Antioch, the central component of the gospel story, Antioch, where all of the disciples keep shuttling backwards and forwards to Antioch. Antioch was Antioch-Odessa because Odessa was known as Antioch. Its official name was Antioch, Antioch-Odessa. The central component within the gospel story is not Antioch, which is modern Antakya, over by the Mediterranean. It was Antioch-Odessa, which was beyond the Euphrates. And they were Jewish, of course. The Odessan monarchy had converted to Judaism. They were Nazarene Jews. The Talmud says so, that they converted to Nazarene Judaism. So the Odessans were Nazarene Jews. And in the works of Josephus, all of this has something to do with the Nazarene Jews beyond the Euphrates, the Babylonian Jews beyond the Euphrates. And who were the Babylonian Jews beyond the Euphrates? That was Odessa because that city was beyond the Euphrates and they were Jewish. And of course, the kings, the king of that era, let me turn this off. Someone is trying to phone me. The king of Odessa in the first century, in the 1860s, was called Isis Manu. And of course, Jesus was called Jesus Emmanuel. That's the reason for that strange prophecy. So we have this strange prophecy at the beginning of the gospels, where Jesus, he only becomes a Messiah because of this prophecy, that a child will be born to a virgin and his name will be Emmanuel, which is obviously a prophecy that's been dug out of the Old Testament, comes from Isaiah, which is a strange prophecy because he was never ever called Emmanuel. In the whole of the gospel story. So therefore, he wasn't the Messiah because he was never called Emmanuel. So why did we have this prophecy? It's because those people in the know, if you've got a secret society and you want to give secrets, those secrets have to have some meaning. They've got to be some sort of aha moments, eureka moments for the people within the secret society. And one of those eureka moments is, you have this prophecy that's been in the gospel story, which makes no sense until you say that the king of that era was called Manu, Emmanuel. Ah, now we know what that prophecy was all about. Now we know what it means. Okay, yes, your secret society does have some secrets because I've just seen one of them. And that's what these things were for. Everything was done in code so that you would only know what they were talking about if someone explained them to you. [Speaker 3] (2:51:00 - 2:51:04) Wow, Ralph. Ralph, were you good at puzzles when you were a kid? [Speaker 1] (2:51:06 - 2:52:46) I did enjoy them, yes. Yeah, it's a bit like that. Yes, I always say it's a puzzle. Initially I said it was a crossword puzzle, but now I think it's a proper puzzle. And you've got to fit all of the pieces in. And you get two types of jigsaw puzzle. If you have a jigsaw puzzle with a very confusing image on it, and you're trying to force the bits in to form a picture, you will find it very difficult. None of the pieces will actually fit. If you have a jigsaw puzzle where all of the pieces just fit very, very nicely and smoothly, one against the other, and form a picture, then you know you're on the right track. And that's what's happened here. The pieces of the puzzle fit very nicely. And they've also become prophetic, I suppose you might say. They are actually predicting things in the future, like the hookup mosaic, which I predicted four years before it was even discovered. And the cover of my Jesus, King of Edessa book has Bar Kamza on the front. The King of Edessa. And when they discovered the mosaic, the mosaic looks exactly the same as my jacket cover. And so I predicted that before it was even found, even down to the ginger hair, because I said that Jesus was ginger haired. And lo and behold, in the mosaic, there's a ginger head. [Speaker 3] (2:52:47 - 2:53:13) That's incredible, Ralph. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. I can't believe it's almost four in the morning here in California, where I am. And I feel like I'm awake. I've just been so into what you're saying and everything you're sharing. Before we're going to wrap it up, but where can our audience find you? Where can they support you, buy your books, etc.? [Speaker 1] (2:53:14 - 2:54:37) Yeah, well, my website. I hope I'm coming across because I've got a bit of a breakup in the connection here. You're good. My website. Yeah, I can hear you now. Yeah, that's good. My website is Edfu Books. So E-D-F-U hyphen books. And that's got information on all of my books. I've got a... My Facebook site is ralphellis.144. And that's quite active. I put up a load of posts on the Facebook site. I did get kicked off from Facebook, as many people did. I ended up on Gab for a while. But Gab is very, very slow. So I've migrated back to Facebook again now, unfortunately. And I've got a video YouTube site. I don't know how people can find that because it's not easy to find. But if you search for Ralph Ellis videos, and it's the one with a golden or a red phoenix on the thumbnail that comes up, that's my YouTube site. [Speaker 3] (2:54:37 - 2:54:54) We'll have all your links in our show notes so people can find you and just keep going down these rabbit holes if they're interested, because I'm sure we could have talked for 20 hours with the amount of information that you have in your brain. So it's pretty awesome. Thank you so much, Ralph. [Speaker 1] (2:54:54 - 2:54:59) My pleasure. Yeah, good to be with you. And perhaps we can have a Q&A section next time, maybe. [Speaker 2] (2:55:00 - 2:55:06) Yeah, sounds good. Absolutely. Maybe we'll have to get you back on to talk about the climate science side of things. [Speaker 1] (2:55:07 - 2:55:09) That's another interesting topic. [Speaker 2] (2:55:09 - 2:55:09) Absolutely. [Speaker 3] (2:55:10 - 2:55:12) And Greta's area of expertise. [Speaker 1] (2:55:12 - 2:55:16) I think I know a little bit more than Greta. [Speaker 2] (2:55:18 - 2:55:29) All right, guys. So Jesus was a Freemason. He was leader of the cults. And the biblical story is Roman propaganda about the Jewish revolt. [Speaker 1] (2:55:30 - 2:55:46) And he was nearly emperor of Rome. And he was emperor of Rome. There we go. What an interesting life. Incredible. Yes, it was, actually. You've got to be pretty bold to do that, actually, haven't you? You know, stake everything on that one final gambit that you're going to succeed. [Speaker 2] (2:55:47 - 2:55:55) Absolutely. Guys, thank you for listening to episode 49 of Here for the Truth with Ralph Ellis. We'll see you next time. Take care.