This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 514 Aphrahat and Persian Christianity with Sam Tideman This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan: Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And. You are listening to rest of studio podcasts that seeks to recover authentic Christianity. Put out today. Although he's one of the lesser known Christian authors of the 4th century, Africat is extremely important for our understanding of early Persian Christianity. Prior to the advent of Islam in the region. Amazingly, a full length book of his survives, called the demonstrations. In today's interview, I asked about Aphrahat. Beliefs in general and his Christology in particular, and I think you'll find it interesting, my guest today is Sam Tedman. Other than a Masters degree from Harvard and working full time for Google as a data scientist, Tideman is also the host of Transfigure. A YouTube channel and podcast that covers a wide range of Christian topics, including church history. Our topic for today. He's also had all kinds of guests on his show, including many notable scholars within church history, theology, New Testament, and other related fields. In fact, Jordan. Peterson once shared a clip. Of Tideman's conversation with John Vervaeke on social media. A while back. But I can't get into that today. Our focus is on. The research tiedeman has done on offer Hots and without further ado here now is Episode 514 offer hot and early Persian Christianity with Sam Tideman. Sam Tideman, welcome to Russia tudio. So glad to. Talk with you today. Sam Tideman: Thank you for having me. I'm glad to. Sean Finnegan: Be back. So before we jump into afriat and discuss his Christology. Let's let's catch. People up about you. You're no longer just Sam or Sam Adams. You're now Sam Tideman, which is exciting. I'm very excited for you. This is a great moment in the history. Of Sam, could you comment? Could you comment a little? Bit about our audience know, I think I did have you on some. Time ago to talk. About your story. And how you had gotten, I think I might have called the episode like excommunicated for my beliefs or something like that, so. What? What happened? Sam Tideman: I should say I've. Been Samuel Adams Tideman this whole time. It's just I haven't been hearing my name publicly. My middle name is, in fact, Adams. So when I Sam Adams is sort of like a pseudonym, but it's also kind of partly my real name. But so recently. I mean, I had kept my identity somewhat. Undercover on the. Internet, although even. Still, there was like leaks and other ways that one could probably figure out my name if they tried even just a little bit hard. But I had done that too. Who? I don't know, not have online theological life interact with real life too much and to not cause problems. Part of that was I was going to Trinitarian evangelical churches and so on some spillover in. That direction could. Be problematic and some of it was just sort of like some personal. The life stuff in that episode that you referred to the the I think the first time I was on your channel, I think I've been on your channel, this is my third time because I talked with, I talked about evolution with Will Barr. But that first timer I told a lot of my story. I've been excommunicated from a church here in the Chicago area, and so. I went to a. Different church that was very similar after that, mostly because the pastor had been very welcoming of me. I he had been kind of a family friend. I guess you could say. And I've known him for a while. So he he had known about my beliefs and my family's theology and stuff like that. So he was like, I'm really sorry about what happened at that other church. That won't happen here. You know, you're welcome, those sorts of things. So I felt very comfortable going to that church for a long. Time. You know, I just didn't bring up my theology. I just didn't really cause any problems. I went to Bible say, went to church, played the piano. Those sorts of things. Everything was fine. But he took a different job at a different church. And the, you know, the elder board rotates on some regular term based rotation. And so after a while. There was like a completely new set of people in leadership, one of the elders, I think, related to some stuff I had said in Bible study was Googling me. There was a couple. Bread crumbs on the Internet that one could link my real name and part of it tiedeman, is a rare. Name my great, great. Grandfather sort of made-up at Ellis Island. So basically all the people in America that spelled my name away are are descended from my great, great grandfather, so there's not a lot of us that led him to discover my podcast. In my UCA presentation from last year and things like that. He then brought that up to the elder board and the elder board decided I shouldn't be allowed to play piano any. More, they didn't excommunicate me. I had a very intense conversation with the head pastor. His main goal was letting me know that my soul was currently in this jeopardy because of my beliefs, and but he couldn't really defend. His beliefs are exactly saying why it was wrong, but just letting me know that my soul. Was in danger and. It was. It was weird because I had had a conversation with that pastor previously, like I did the sort of a handoff conversation. It's like, hey, you're the new pastor here. Just so you know, here's what I believe. Here's what I had agreed to with the previous pastor. This is the situation was like, oh, I'm fine with that if that was OK with the previous pastor. It's OK with me. But I think that the elder board had sort of. Put in a spot where all of a sudden Sam was no longer going to be allowed to play the piano. Although I was, I would love to take comedian, but that's an open communion OpenTable communion. Policy. So technically they can't excommunicate people because they leave it up to the individual person to decide if you're eligible to take communion or not. But they did recommend I did ask them. So I'm like, are you saying that I shouldn't take him? And he's like, in my opinion, you shouldn't, but it's an open table and we're not going to stop you, but our recommendation. So it's like. A A semi soft recommended self ex communication or. Whatever that would be called. And it just felt really what it felt like is I was being demoted from Christian in the church, who had some weird beliefs and therefore couldn't send the statement of faith and be a member, but was otherwise welcome to non Christian member of the community who we're hoping will change his mind so that he can become a regular member once. Yeah, my wife and I just decided that we were sort of sick of this situation. We're now going. To align Ministries, which is a church that you're familiar with in Naperville, although it's a little far away and ironically, I probably can't play the piano there either because worship. Breakfast is like an hour and 15 minute drive away for me on a weekday, but I could if I wanted to, I suppose. And that makes a lot of different. But because of. That you know. The the reasons for me keeping my identity private were then starting to slip away if I was worried about my podcast going over into real life. Well, that already happened and I had some conversations with some other people in my life. That kind of probably deserve to know these sorts of things. Spurred by that event and just. The reasons why. I was keeping my identity private, were no longer true anymore, and so I now am perfectly happy and comfortable using my last name and the little bit of relief. Honestly, it feels kind of nice. Sean Finnegan: I think of it as an uncaged lion. You're just ready to to do some damage in a in a, in a good way. You know, I was just looking up your name online and I came across your interview with Andrew Perryman. And so he might have been the guy that outed you. I I was just kind of relieved to see that. It wasn't me. Sam Tideman: Yeah, it wasn't you. I think it actually was Andrew Perriman because he mentioned my last name in one. Of his blog. Posts. Yeah, and I. Think that was the? I think that. Was the breadcrumb the single? Breadcrumb where if you search my name and you click on his blog then you can click on my podcast and then all of a. Sudden you have everything figured out. Sean Finnegan: There it is. And you know what? Hey, to even have Andrew Perryman know your name is an honor. You know, he's a great scholar and his his book is fantastic in the form of a God. So actually, I intend to to have him on restitutio I I need. It's just taking me so long to to plow through his. Book it's a little dense but. Anyhow, let's talk about offer Hots. What in the world? Got you interested in him in the first place. Sam Tideman: I I bet that. A lot of theologically. Curious people can relate to this. I think I was just down a Wikipedia rabbit hole one day and somehow ended up on his page and I was like, who is this guy? I've never heard of him. I didn't know that there were. So Afghan is a church father quote UN quote. He was writing in the early middle part of the 4th century, except he's writing in Aramaic, which is his native language, and he lives in the Persian Empire. And so he's not writing in Greek or Latin, and so he's unique in that sense. And he's very isolated figure in that his theology doesn't sound like a lot of other people's theology. It sounds very unique, but I think it's probably because he's very representative of early Aramaic or early Persian Christianity, and we just don't have very many examples of other people. Like him, he is by far the longest book in early Aramaic speaking Christianity that we have. We have a couple other scraps and fragments or small short things here. There, but his book is I I I shared the the document with you. It's like 250 pages or something like that. It's very long and it's 20 chapters long and each chapter is relatively lengthy. So it's a very serious work and it's just kind of like is lightning out of nowhere in terms of how it fits into. Our understanding of that period of time and so I was looking at his Wikipedia page and. I was like who? Is this so? That's why have I never heard of. Him and and so you can find his. Book for free. In a couple of different places, so you have to like really dig to get some of the chapters. But I was. Able to I. It was funny when I posted my episode on him. I'd only read about 11 or 12 chapters of his book, and then once you post something on the Internet, people are like oh hey, did you know that you could find these chapters over here? It's like, oh, great, thanks. And then so I've been able to read his entire book since I recorded that episode. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting too, because his corpus is preserved not only in Syriac but also in Gees. If I'm saying that correctly, the Ethiopic language and. Sam Tideman: I think there's some in Armenia. Sean Finnegan: In Armenian? Yeah. So it's it's like these are these are like the the trifecta of obscure languages when you're doing church history because, like almost everything early is in class more or less classical Greek. Sean Finnegan: Like except for like less educated heresy hunters like Epiphanius writes an actual coin A which is delightful, but then you have a lot of Latin, starting with Tertullian and going forward. But yeah, the Ethiopic language, Armenian language, the Syriac language. These are definitely interesting Eastern and northern and southern. And I looked up too. They suggested that maybe he was from the region of Mosul in Iraq. Which it looked like that was kind of like speculation, but if that's true, it's a it's a corner of the world that's sort of like very close to Armenia in the north and Turkey, modern day Armenia, which in ancient times would have just all been Armenia, right. And then on the West, very close to the border of modern day Syria. So it's kind of. Like, really at the crossroads of a lot of things. If in fact he's from that area of northern. Sam Tideman: Yeah. No one really knows quite. We we don't know very much about him at all. It's funny that we have this huge 200 something page book from him, but we know almost nothing about his biography. We can tell. A couple things about him from his book that he seems to have been a convert to Christianity that he seems to have been. A clergy member of some level, maybe a Bishop, but not quite really. Sure, he identifies himself as a celibate monk, isn't quite the the right word. They didn't have monasteries. At this period. Time because Christianity is still a little bit persecuted in the Persian Empire, so it would have been unsafe for them to have their own monastery buildings and stuff like that. But he's very aesthetic and is I I think that the celibate leaders of the Christian communities lived in people's homes because. They they didn't have jobs and so they would have needed financial support and all of those sorts of things. And there weren't elaborate monastery institutions that could provide those sorts of things. So I think that celibates would live in a other Christians home at the time. And he he uses that Aramaic phrase, which translates to brothers of the Covenant to describe Christians like him that have committed themselves to lifelong celibacy as like a kind of extra holy year class of Christians above the regular sorts of Christians. And there's also daughters of the covenant. So that's basically like. Monks and nuns. But it's, you know, still slightly different in this period of time. Sean Finnegan: I don't know if you ever heard of the the two by twos. It's kind of an obscure biblical Unitarian movement in the United States. Sam Tideman: I have heard of it. Sean Finnegan: But yeah, I at some point in my. Life I attended one of their meet. Things you know, it was it was sort of run by this pair of sweet old ladies. And I guess the rule with with that particular leadership structure is that. They they are. They're also celibate, and they also live in the homes with other members of the community. So you just reminded me of. That a little bit. Sam Tideman: Yeah, I think. Something like that is probably the case where there's this special set of part leadership group that is committed to celibacy that is still intermixed with the regular folks. Sean Finnegan: Alright, so when I did some research on Persian Christianity, especially in this period, I found this quote by sosman, the church historian from the 5th century, and he talks about how in that part of the world the Persian Empire, there were lots of Jews and lots of what he calls Magi or Zoroastrians. And he also mentions an incident after Constantine converts to Christianity, which you also mentioned on your podcast, transfigured, where the the Persian ruler decided to persecute Christians because he thought there was. They were like passing their secrets of the Persians. Over to the room or somehow spying? On them or whatever. So this would have. Presumably happened during Afghan's lifetime, or when he was an older person, because I think it was in like the three 40s. Sam Tideman: Yeah. So one thing, it's funny, we know next to nothing about Opera Hut, but he was really nice and that he wrote the date of his composition in the back of his books. And so we know exactly when he wrote them. I wish every church father practice that just write the date in the back of your book when you're writing it that. Would be very helpful. More people did that, but we know that he he basically wrote his 23 chapter book in two phases. The first phase was in 337 AD, so by comparison, that's the year Constantine Dines. And then he wrote the second part of the book in 340. 80 and so we we know that. With right in the middle of the area in controversy? Yeah. And. And you're right. That probably the Persian Empire had persecuted Christianity less than the Greco Roman Empire had. And that might be because they already were slightly more religiously diverse. And they had. A lot of Jews. And I think Christianity was just smaller in the Persian Empire than it was in the Roman Empire. So just maybe didn't seem that threat. And and but then what happens is after Constantine starts the process really of converting the Roman Empire into a Christian empire. Then suddenly the Persian Empire and the Persian and the Roman Empire are huge rivals. They're always fighting. They're always in some state of a little bit of battles or a lot of battles. And so the Persian Empire. I think somewhat justifiably is worried that the Christians might have greater allegiance to the Roman Empire than to their own empire, because they would be sympathetic with the cause of spreading Christian. Sanity. And so then because of the Constantinian Constantinian revolution, the Persian Empire starts persecuting Christianity. More just to make sure that they're not acting as spies or a vehicle for Roman influence, or something along those lines. Sean Finnegan: Let's shift gears to talk about Christology. This is definitely the area where I'm most interested in offer hot. I mean his his asceticism is to, to be frank, a little weird. Sam Tideman: It's pretty extreme. It's about it. His asceticism is about. As extreme as any like even if. You read Saint Anthony. Of the desert who's like about as ascetic as it gets. Our thoughts basically at that same level it it's pretty intense. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, which which might have helped him be preserved. Because yeah, people in the West love to sexism. They thought it was just like the. List and so maybe that that actually helped him in his in a sense because he is he is well preserved. But let's talk about his Christology. You had referred me to the 17th demonstration which is called on the son of God and I was just amazed by reading that that was. That was incredible, ID written a paper recently. And was was going over the different options for like how people would think of Jesus as God, specifically in like the 2nd century. And I was saying, you know, well, there's this ancient Jewish idea that, you know, Jesus is God because he represents God in some sense. And we see it with Moses and. Whatnot. But like. The only reference Sam that I've ever been able to find to this in church history, and of course I don't have exhaustive knowledge of everything that's been written because just so much in the Clementine recognitions there, there was like a mention of like John 10 and this whole thing with Moses and they kind of like. Talked about it. A little bit. And then they're like, yeah, but that's not really what we mean when we talk about Jesus. And I'm like, well, that's about all I can find. But coming across this holy smokes, this is this is like the nail on the head. So talk to us a little bit about his Christology. How would you describe it? Sam Tideman: Sure. So in the context of this book, it seems like he's mostly writing his book as sort of like an introductory text to explain Christianity to a new Christian who's wanting to learn more. It's sort of like his his catechism class are almost like his, you know. Power for abundant living class or something like that. It's that that's the main purpose of. His book, but you can also see in his book that main theological enemies are Jews, which is interesting because by the three hundreds AD in the Greco Roman Empire, basically none of the Christians worry about Jewish attacks on Christianity anymore or defending Christian ideas against Jewish theology. They're basically sort of. Given up on that task, and if anything, there are arguing about why Christianity is right compared to paganism, but offer house is very concerned about arguing why Christianity is right in comparison to Judaism. Still, and I think that's because the Persian Empire still had a lot of Jews, he might have like another place where he could have lived was Babylon, which is funny to think that Babylon was still a city then. But Babylon probably had a couple 100,000 Jews and various other cities in the Persian Empire had tons of Jewish population, like the Jews that basically never returned from the exile. And so Judaism seems very prominent in his context, and that he needs to spend a fair amount of political energy explaining why Christianity is right in comparison to Judaism. And so one of the attacks that Judaism is laying on Christianity that he is reacting to is, well, how can you call Jesus God? And how can you call Jesus, the son of God? And so he says that we're perfectly happy calling Jesus God, so that might seem like he believes in a high Christology or even something like the Trinity or something like that. If he's defending why Christians call Jesus God. But when he does that, what he points out is that in the Old Testament there are multiple human beings that get called God. Specifically, Moses gets called God a couple times like I will make you God to Pharaoh or I will make you errands. God, he points out those passages and he points at other passages where kings or judges get called. God in the old test. And he says basically that the venerated name of Godhead has been applied also to righteous men. So basically this idea is that super special humans can get called the title God, and that we're only calling Jesus God in that same way. And there is nothing unprecedented. About doing this in Jewish tradition, it's there in the Old Testament. And so there's nothing wrong with us doing it, and that there's a clear distinction between when we use God to describe the creator of all things. That is God the father, and when we use God to describe Jesus because we're just talking about him as a specially righteous man. And if it's OK to call Moses or various kings God, then how much more can we call the exalted Heavenly Messiah? So basically the same sort of thing that a lot of people would point out that there's. 2 uses of. The word God you can. Use it for the God. The creator of the universe or important empowered people and we're using it in that second sense for Jesus. And there's nothing wrong with that. And in that passage he calls Jesus a man multiple times and just sort of assumes his humanity. It's not like he ever says. Oh, it's OK to call Moses. God, how much more can we call this person who came down from heaven and was the logos before all ages, God or anything like that? He doesn't do anything like that. He's just like Jesus is an extra special, powerful human. And so it's therefore legitimate to call him God. And then he defends the title, son of God. Also, and a couple other things like that. But it's clearly a title. That's given to him and it doesn't impinge. On the uniqueness of God the Father. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, I really appreciated that. Third paragraph that you were just quoting from. It's alright, I just probably read. It out a little bit. For the venerated name of Godhead has been applied also to righteous men, and they have been held worthy to be called by it, and the men with whom God was well pleased. Them he called my sons and my friends when he chose Moses, his friend and his beloved, and made him chief and teacher and priest unto his people. He called him God, for he said to him, I have made you a God. Went to Pharaoh's exit to six one and he gave him his priest for a profit, and Aaron and your brother shall speak for you unto Pharaoh, and you shall be unto him as a God, and he shall be unto you as an interpreter. Exist 7. One thus not all. Own to the evil pharaoh. Did he make Moses God, but also unto Aaron the holy priest, he made Moses God. And you know this explanation is something that it's kind of like a drum I've been. Beating for years. Like when people bring up, for example, John 2028 and they say well, Thomas calls Jesus God here. Or Hebrews 18, Hebrews 1/8 is is probably the clearest example of this phenomenon, because it's quoting from Psalm 45, where a king. Presumably A Davidic king is called God, but also has a God, and it's just a way of talking about the word God that we don't have in Western thought. You know, it's just it's just so weird to you to to us, like I I remember. When you you were talking to Hank about. It you kind. Of went through this and you said. What? What do you think about that? And he just said. My mind is blown. I can't, I can't think. That's too Eastern for me. Right. If you say something. Yeah, yeah. Sam Tideman: Like that? Like it's just. It's just not in. It doesn't fit. Sean Finnegan: In the categories, right, where's the Russia? Where's the the ontology? That's what we want to to go for in the West. Sam Tideman: Right. And after Hut is basically saying that the word God for him isn't so much like an ontological or essence based thing. It's a title of authority and power and. Mission and that that's how he understands why Christians can call Jesus God and how he's defending, explaining it to Jewish people who are criticizing that. Sean Finnegan: And then at the towards the end and 11 there, he says we call him God talking about Jesus just as Moses was called. God and it's. Like I I keep I kept. Sam Tideman: Right. Sean Finnegan: Expecting him to say. We call him God, just like Moses like, like, almost like an argument from lesser to greater I I keep like expecting him to say, but he's also God for these other reasons, but he doesn't. He's just like, no, it's just like these other examples of Moses. And you, you you pointed out before like the judges or the the Kings and so. So really powerful. Interesting like I just hadn't seen this explained or understood in church history, in the church fathers. So this is exciting to me. Very exciting. Sam Tideman: Yeah. And there's an interesting question of whether or not Abraham believed that Jesus preexisted it's a little fuzzy, and the fact that it's fuzzy after a 250 page book, regardless of our answer, says that it's not very important to him. In either case and I I have a couple different options that I could understand how for how it's beliefs on pre existence. And I think that one thing that's really important about opera is that he has a huge emphasis on the Holy Spirit. He talks about the Holy Spirit a lot and he some of his books are just purely dealing on the Holy Spirit. And it's very important to him that basically being a Christian is getting baptized. And when you get baptized, that's the time when the Holy Spirit. The sense on you and indwells. You and that this is like the most radical and important part of being a Christian, is that you have the Holy Spirit within you, and it's sanctifying you and guiding you into more righteousness and helping you have connection to God and to make the right decisions and all those sorts of things. And that the Holy Spirit is just very, very central to his whole theology. And that's kind of a clear contrast from a lot of. Greco Roman theologians who? Don't talk about the Holy Spirit. Very. Much when you read a lot of. Them they're very. Obsessed with Histology, but pneumatology sort of gets, you know, a third wheel sort of status, but not for heart. It's very much front and center that that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the main deal of becoming a Christian. Like that's that's the real thing that you're wanting out of the whole experience. Is to have the Holy Spirit toiling within you. He makes a really big deal of the Holy Spirit being in Jesus in a unique way. That he talks about those passages in the Old Testament where Moses had the Holy Spirit, and then he sort of divides the Holy Spirit among the other people to the 70. And then he talks about how Elijah had a portion of the spirit and then Elijah Shai gets a double portion. So like, there's this sort of like divisibility. Almost of the Holy Spirit he when he talks about the Holy Spirit, it's almost like like it's a tangible, almost physical in a certain sense, like this invisible physical substance is sometimes how he talks about it. And then Jesus gets a dose of the Holy Spirit without measure. And so this is really the center of his Christology is that Jesus has this really amazing Holy Spirit in a new higher quantity than we've ever seen before. And then when Jesus is resurrected, he almost like fuses with the Holy Spirit is I think some way to understand some of what our Fahad is saying. That the identity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit almost like merge when Jesus becomes a life giving spirit when he executes those passages in First Corinthians 15. And so then when Christians get the Holy Spirit, it is God and Christ in us, through the Holy Spirit. That's truly just the basis of his Christology. So he thinks of Jesus as divine. But I think it's because he's been divinized through the Holy Spirit in him. And he also clearly says that. When we get the Holy Spirit, we have a particle or a portion of divinity or godhood within us. So in a certain sense, all Christians have a little bit of divinity, but the divinity is from the holy. In them. And so I really think that that's like the essence of. Ofer, how it's Christology is that it's the Holy Spirit that makes Jesus special. Sean Finnegan: Right after the the part with Elijah there in section 14 where where you were just talking about it. I've read through a little bit of this. I noticed that the translator used the pronoun. To refer to the spirits couple of times, it says for from baptism do we receive the spirit of Christ, for in that hour in which the priests invoke the spirit, the heavens open, and it descends and moves upon the waters, and those that are baptized are clothed in it, for the spirit stays aloof from all those that are born of the flesh, until they come to the new birth by water, and they receive the. Spirit, which you don't really see much in. Translations you know, even though in Greek. More often than not, the pronouns referring back to spirit are neuter, and I would argue should be translated with neuter pronouns. But. I'm guessing in Aramaic or Syriac that it's just like Hebrew, where it's just like masculine and feminine, and there is no near category. So like I'm I wonder what this translator is doing here, but it it it it certainly is kind of like agreeing with what you're saying there that there's this idea of the spirit is like. More an empowerment than you know, a Trinitarian sense of, you know an equal person. Sam Tideman: Yeah, they're. There are sometimes where it sounds like the Holy Spirit to him is a person, but like so, here's here's another interesting thing about Oprah's theology and this relates to his views of the afterlife is that he believes in soul sleep when when humans die, humans are made-up of a body and. Animal soul, as he calls it, and Christians then also have the Holy Spirit in them. But people who aren't Christians don't have a spiritual side to them, they're just body and soul. So when we die, our body decays and our animal soul, as it's as it's translated, sleeps and is seemingly unconscious until the resurrection. But Christians who had the Holy Spirit, the portion of the Holy Spirit that was in us then goes back up to heaven and is with Christ. And it sort of gives a report card. On us and that if we were good Christians, the Holy Spirit will be like ohh that person that I was just in. He was a good one. So we should definitely raise him up on the last day or if we behaved badly after our baptism, then the Holy Spirit and within us could give a bad report and that we might suffer. Same nation at the resurrection as a consequence. And so that to me it, I don't know if that's like a poetic idea, but it it kind of gives. Is that a metaphor or does he really think that the Holy Spirit is like a person that can kind of give a report to Jesus or something like that? So there are sometimes where it seems like the Holy Spirit has its own personality. I guess you could say, but there are a lot of times where you just talked about as if it's the power of God. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, there are some quasi personal passages in the New Testament too, right? Like in Romans 8, with the interceding for us with groanings. That cannot be uttered. Sam Tideman: And don't grieve the spirit and. Sean Finnegan: Breathe spirit. Yeah. So there you know, there's certainly some quasi personal components to the spirit biblically and he, you know, he may be just picking up on that, but really fascinating to think of. His emphasis on the indwelling of the spirit within Christ as a key to Christology. You can see how. Western Christianity or Christologies, I should say, got so twisted around with this whole idea of adoptionism, because this is not something that we're seeing in africat. But you can see that like from an external perspective, he doesn't really fit in any of the categories. And you're like, oh, well, he only thinks that Jesus really becomes the son of God. Had his baptism, because that's when he receives the spirit, which I don't think after had ever said that, but you can almost like see how like the misunderstanding could occur anyhow. After Hot has a high. View of the spirit, the spirits involvement and how strongly and empowered Christ. To do the things that he did, especially the miracles. So rather than looking. At the miracles and saying he must be God in disguise or as a human or something. You don't have that option because you're like, Oh no. Like he's empowered by God, he's he's in a sense divinized, you know, through the spirits involvement. Sam Tideman: Right. And it's very clear that Arhat believes that Jesus's miracles were done through the power of God through the spirit in him and not as some sort of intrinsic ability that Jesus had by his own essence, that that's very clear multiple times and not forgot that Jesus has this ability received from on high. Not as something native to himself. It's also very clear he believes in the. Birth and when he's defending the title, some God, he connects it with the virgin birth. So you're right that he's not an adoptionist in the sense of he believes that Jesus was some ordinary dude who then got chosen to suddenly become the son of God as an adult or something like that. That's not what he believes at all. Sean Finnegan: If you had to make a declaration. On Afrotc's view of pre existence, what would you say would? Sam Tideman: I think there are a couple options I can find like 3 or 4 passages that sound kind of pre existence. Easy, but I can also find a bunch of passages that don't sound preexistent me like when he talks about Jesus ascending to heaven, he seems to mention that as like a new thing and a couple things like that. So one option is that he kind of believes in the pre existence. But he has some conflicting. Ideas about it? And we've all met people who have some mutually contradictory ideas, and sometimes he'll talk as if he believes and pre exist, and sometimes he'll talk as if he doesn't. That's an option, although I try to interpret people as having a coherent theology instead of a contradictory theology. But sometimes we'll do a contradictory theologies. One option that I think is interesting. Is that he believes in the pre existence. Of everybody. And that this is an idea that you can find in some forms of Judaism and some forms of Islam and might be somewhat more common in the east than it is in the West like origin, the belief in the pre existence of All Souls. So when he's talking about the pre existence of Jesus, it's like, yeah, Jesus pre existed. But so did every soul like. Here's an interesting quote from afar. Hot out of all who are born, who have put on the body, there is only one who is victorious, namely our Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself testifies of himself when he says I have overcome the world. So out of all of who are born, who have put on the body, like putting on the body, to me that sounds like there's a soul that then comes into a body, something like that. But he's saying that everybody's like that everybody who gets born is puts on a body. And so he is saying that. Jesus, preexisted maybe, but not in any sort of unique sense. So one one way to understand that is that maybe our for our believes in the pre existence of souls and that every soul is existing in some spiritual realm. I'm not quite sure where that would be. And then we all come into our body at so. Point and so when he talks about Jesus pre existence, it's just an ordinary pre existence for him. Another option is that he believes in the pre existence of the Holy Spirit and so when he talks about things that are seemingly about the pre existence of Jesus, he's actually talking about the pre existence of the Holy Spirit. And that will later come into Jesus at his baptism. But like I said, a couple of things that are also relevant for the subject of pre existence. He never puts Jesus in an Old Testament theory. You know, like Justin Martyr and a lot of those early church fathers, when they're talking about God and the burning Bush or Jacob wrestling with God or those sorts of things, they'll say that was the pre existent Jesus, who was in those encounters and that all those theophanies when God gets seen it in some level in the Old Testament, that's preexist in Jesus. Alfred never does that, and in fact, there are times where he's explaining those passages and it's an Angel representing God the father, so he doesn't believe in these sort of theophanies of the pre-existing Jesus like the way some of his contemporaries in Greek theology. And he never attributes creation to Jesus. It was very common from Justin Margaret onwards to be like God created through his logos and the pre-existing Jesus is like the active creator and God the father is like the supervisor, creator or something like that. Our thought never does anything like that. Whenever he talks about creation. He just talked about God the Father, so those sorts of ways in which the Greco Roman theological tradition will see the praises and Jesus in the Old Testament opera never does that. And so maybe he believes in pre existence, but it's certainly not central to his theology. Like I said, there are like 3 or 4 passages in the 250 page book that I can like scratch my head and be like, OK, maybe that's evidence of his belief in pre existence, but sometimes it's like, well, I can kind of interpret around that too, if I really. Need to and there are other passages where he just talks about Jesus as a human unqualified and talks about Jesus's ascent into heaven as a a place where he hasn't been before. And be like I I don't know. It it's it's. A little bit hard for me to nail down, but those are some of the options that I can see available for thinking about offer huge views on. Pre existence but. Overall, it's just not very important to him. It's not like reading Athanasius, where he's talking about the importance of the incarnation. Paragraph after paragraph after paragraph and. Sean Finnegan: Athanasius was a contemporary. Right. Sam Tideman: Yes, Athanasius and Alpha Huber, I think Alpha might have been 10 or 20 years older than Athanasius, and they overlapped considerably. Sean Finnegan: But they're they're living in totally different worlds. You know, Athanasius is at the heart of the controversies and the struggle to influence the emperors to defeat his enemies and offer. How does disenfranchise? He's dealing with a sort of unfriendly regime. Sam Tideman: Right, like. And these Jews who are poking at him. Yeah, like the. Literally the year he wrote the first half of the book is the year that Constantine dies in. Athanasius comes back from exile and enters Alexandria as the Bishop. So all of that's happening contemporaneously and it's interesting offer that seems completely unaware of the area country. Traversy and so I don't know if he just, like, didn't read his newspaper or. If if people. Weren't that aware in the Persian Empire of what's going on in the, you know, Roman Empire? Or if he is just like. He doesn't care. But he he shows. No concern for any of the topics that we would think of as stereotypical. Sharing controversy, he's never explaining his views on whether or not there was a time when the sun was not or essences, or he just never talks. That way it's very interesting his when he's explained his Christology, he just uses completely different vocabulary and a completely different theological framework from the Greek tradition. And I think that's one reason why it's. Very, very interesting. Sean Finnegan: Now something else that you have talked about in the past and that afraha talks about in his demonstration on the son of God, is the subject of worship, and if you check recent scholarship last ten years or. So on Christology from especially Larry Hurtado and his his intellectual descendants, this is kind of like a major case that people are making, especially evangelicals that. Because Jesus has worshipped, he must be God and this sort of fascination with early high Christology and ascribing to Jesus religious worship. As if that is, you know, like a smoking gun. And I I've had talks about this and you know what? What what do you what is your what does he. Say, what do you think about that? Sam Tideman: Yeah, seemingly answering some Jewish accusations against Christians who are accusing the Christians of worshipping Jesus in a way that violates the commandment to only worship God's offer. Heart gives an explanation, basically saying that, Lou, you guys worship and honor all sorts of human beings. All the officials in the Persian Empire, you bow down to them and they're heathens and so. If you give. Worship and honor to these heathen and unclean gentiles. If they possess authority, and for us there is no blame. This honor of worship of God has given if he's given this to the sons of Adam, that they might honor one another, especially those who excel and are worthy of honor among them. For if they worship an honor with the name of worship, the heathen, those who are in their heathen, the wickedness, denying even the name of God, and yet do not worship them as their maker. As though they worshipped them alone, and so do not sin. How much more does it become us to worship and honor Jesus? So what he's saying is, is that these important heathen officials that you are bowing down to and giving honor, you're honoring them, but not as your maker. And that that's why it's OK for you to give the sort of honor to kings or judges or officials or that sort of thing, but you're not honoring them as your maker and therefore you're not doing anything wrong. It's that same sense that we're honoring and worshiping Jesus, who converted our stubborn minds from all worship of vain error and taught us to worship and serve and minister to the one God our father and maker. So again, so that it's very clear that he he's saying that we can give this sort of. Second level of honor and. Worship to Jesus, which is the same sort of honor and worship that you. Can give to human kings. But there is this extra category of recognizing our maker that we worship and serve and again serve is actually that higher level of word for worship. Right. When Jesus says you shall worship the Lord your God and him alone, shall you serve that word, serve, even though in English it doesn't sound very strong. That's actually the word that is that extra level of worship that you should only do, and it's connected with the idea of sacrifice and cultic worship. And so he's saying we serve and minister to the one God who's the one God. That's not the Trinity, the one God for Afro God is our father and our maker. And so there's this unique category of worship that's for only God the Father. And then there's this other category of honor and worship that you can do to human beings. And of course, you can do it to Jesus so that that's his response to that Jewish argument. And it's that's very similar to the point that I was making in my presentation at. The UCLA conference. Sean Finnegan: Last year? Yeah. So how did you feel when you came across this when you? First because. Sam Tideman: I was like vindication. Because I read this after you know my presentation, I read this. You know, a couple months ago, for the first time. I'm like exactly right. Because he's making the exact same distinction that I was trying to make in that presentation that that there's veneration and he calls it Earth, I wonder what the Aramaic word is. It's being translated. You're as worship. But I think it's probably the sort of bowing and respect giving sort of worship because the Persian Empire was famous that you're supposed to like, bow and prostrate yourself before the king. Sean Finnegan: So that's just typical. Eastern behavior even to this day, right? Even in like Asian countries, you know, you're still bowing, right? Sam Tideman: Right. And so, but it it's it's respect, it's not idolatrous religious treatment. And he's pointing out that the Jews do this, too, in in the same place. And so I I felt, but then he he talks about the word serve and minister and there's other places in offer heart where he talks about and. This is this. This might be interesting to Will Barlow, who's who's preparing his presentation. On a prayer. But our frat says that we no longer give sacrifices and oblations and that sort of thing to God that has been done away within the new covenant. What we lift up to God now is our pro. Years. And so he basically views prayer as, in some sense, a replacement for the Jewish sacrificial temple worship that Christians OfferUp to God. But again, when he's talking about that, it's God the father, he has a whole chapter on prayer and he never mentions prayer to Jesus or the Saints or Mary for that matter. It's always prayer to God the father, and that's sort of their act of worship. So he's making a clear distinction between the treatment of God, which is still honoring the commandment to only worship God, and the treatment of Jesus, which is in this other category that you do for important people. Sean Finnegan: It's it's, it's amazing. It's like it's like finding a fossil. You know. Sam Tideman: It's just like. Sean Finnegan: Where did this guy come from and why is he so Unitarian? And you know he's he's. In the 4th. Century. I mean, it's not like he's in the. First or second century? So I think from a testimony as a. As long and as detailed as a demonstration. You know, like you said, 250 plus pages. You know, we can conclude that this is not just alpha hop, but this is indicative of a community, perhaps even the majority of Christians in the Persian Empire. It's hard to say, but certainly some, some level of community. That this was. A non controversial Christology. He's not arguing. And he doesn't seem embattled. You know, his controversy is with with the Jews who don't believe Jesus. Sam Tideman: Right. Sean Finnegan: Is the Messiah and so forth so. Sam Tideman: I I think you're absolutely right that offer HUD always gives the. And that he's been speaking on behalf of the common teachings of his church and that he's not some unique rebel theologian arguing against the consensus of his church. That this is. Just his instruction manual as a respected leader and member of his own church community of what any other respected leader of the church community would also teach. And so I think he's very representative of Persian Christianity at this time. Sean Finnegan: I wonder if we lost a. Lot once the Persian Empire became Muslim, you know, and because I think there was some persecution, some significant persecution and it's sort of like the Soviet Union where you have this like Iron Curtain go up and it's like you don't really hear much from the east once the Muslims. Sam Tideman: Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: Are in power there. I would love to know about Persian Christianity and you know there there are some possibility. Is with Paul of Samosata being out towards the east a little bit and the Syrian side of things. And you know there's some questions about early Armenian Christianity and what degree of influence Paul Sam Assad and his followers had there. And in the east. You know, I would just love to see more, more books and surviving documents to learn about this, this sort of minority report that africat represents from today's perspective, probably not. From his own time. Sam Tideman: And like a couple other interesting things about our heart is he's clearly premillennial. He goes through and interprets those same passages in Daniel that are, you know, related to end times about those four kingdoms. And like that statue that's made of the different kinds of metals he's doing that same sort of thing where he's like. Trying to fit all the prophecies together and figure out how it. Relates to his. Some time and he says this in sort of veiled language. But it's pretty clear that he thinks that the Antichrist will be a Roman political figure. He he talks. About it in code, kind of, but if you read between the lines, that's what he's saying, and he's expecting the return to happen soon. And that then Christ will return. And established A millennial Kingdom after his return. And as far as like pre trip post trip, mid trip, any of those sorts of questions I couldn't quite tell, but it seems to me like if anything, he's a post trip. Jesus just comes once and then at the end and then that's the establishment of the millennial Kingdom. So he has that. Sort of classic premillennialism that you see in other early. Her fathers like got Tertullian and Uranus and a couple other those people. So that that also gives. Support and evidence that the early Christian teaching was sort of classical. Pre millennialism to. I already mentioned his afterlife of views a little bit that he believed in. Soul sleep, he he. Also is very clear that there that Christians do not go to heaven when they die. He attributes that teaching to the nostalgics. He's aware of narcissism. Actually he spends a decent amount of time arguing against Manichaeism, which I think was prevalent in the Persian Empire. At that time, because Manicheanism arose in the two hundreds AD starting in Persia. And so I think that there are a lot of mannequins in his environment too. And so he spends some amount of time arguing against Manichaeism. So he's aware of Gnostic Christianity. He mentions Marcian and Valentinus, so he knows at least some amount of Christian ideas that have come from the Roman Empire. But he shows no awareness of Athanasius or areas. But he argues against the idea that Christians go to heaven when they die very emphatically as agnostic infiltration into the church. Sean Finnegan: Which would go back to Justin Martyr too, because he, in dialogue with triplet, was chapter 80, just goes crazy on the Gnostics and he and he says to trifle like, don't imagine this. Crazy Atheist, impious fools are Christians you know. Just because they claim the name of Christian, if anybody. Says that when they die. Their soul goes to heaven. Don't imagine that they're Christians, and so I. I think there. Might be a line here between of influence between Justin Martyr and I. If I'm not mistaken. This disciple was Tation was imitation and notation, of course, did the famous harmony of the Gospels, called the Diatessaron. And if I'm not mistaken, Alphabet is familiar with the Diatessaron. So there there might have been some influence there. Sam Tideman: I think that's right. Sean Finnegan: In the direction of anti agnostic, you know resurrection is key, but like he doesn't have any of the logo stuff that you would think if Justin was an influencer. So I yeah, I don't know. Sam Tideman: Right. Yeah, that that's interesting. He takes baptism super seriously. Offer, huh? Really loves baptism because it's very connected to the Holy Spirit for him. And as far as I can tell it, it seems pretty adult focused in terms of what baptism is, that only an adult would get baptized. And that if anything. People should wait to get baptized until they're at a state in their life where they can really. To commit because there's this extra standard of judgment on you. Once the holy spirits in you and you don't want to subject yourself to that extra level of judgment until you're ready. So this idea that one should wait to get baptized until the right time in your life is actually you can see that in Greco-roman Christianity too, but certainly no. Instants or hints of infant baptism, I think you would have. Thought that was a very weird idea. He's very into the Eucharist, too. Very real presidency in terms of it, he, he, there's even this kind of weird this passage that really caught in my memory where he's talking about how dogs are a very loyal and admirable animal, because they'll stick with their owners and they'll defend their owners to the death. He says something like just as a dog, will affectionately lick its master. So we lick our master Jesus when we partake of his body and blood. Sean Finnegan: Right. So. That that's like that's that's an illustration that nobody else picked up in popular. Right, yes. Sam Tideman: But but there are a couple of other instances where he and it's almost as if you're ingesting Jesus's divinity in a couple passages that just says Jesus has been divinized in his post resurrection state when we're partaking the Eucharist. Now, we're like, getting more of his divinity or getting our regular dosage of divinity from him. In us in some sort. Sense. And like we already mentioned, he's super into asceticism and monasticism, but most of the most of the book is honestly just him extolling regular Christian virtues like love and repentance and forgiveness and humility and those sorts of things. And his his letters are honestly pretty moving. And he's a very sort of pastoral he, it sounds more like a poetic sermon than it sounds like a cult theological treatise. His writing style is really pretty engaging, and he's one of those people that I like. The more you read him, the more you. Like him like. He seems like a genuinely good, kind, gentle person that would seemingly be nice to interact with in real life. Sean Finnegan: You would go to lunch with him. I would love. Yeah, he would be a. Sam Tideman: Great. I don't think he would get a beer. Sean Finnegan: But you'd probably. Only eat salad or something without it. And no salad dressing, just bread, just bread. Sam Tideman: Yeah, or. And and vegetables or something, yeah. Sam Tideman: Like he. Sam Tideman: He even says that Christians shouldn't have too comfortable of mattresses, so that we shouldn't be tempted away from our prayer time at night to get into bed too. Exactly. So like, you know like that, that level of his cynicism. But I mean overall he it's a fascinating version of Christianity. I should also say one other topic. He's very supersessionist in the way that he viewed the relationship between Judaism and Christianity basically that Judaism. Got cursed because it didn't recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and that the evidence of that is that they got scattered abroad and removed from the Holy Land, and that Christianity and the church is now basically the spiritual people of God. God, and that the promises of God are now on the Christians and not on the Jews. He even has a a whole book on why the Jews won't be gathered together. So I know that some Christians, especially dispensationalists, still like the idea that the idea of Jews being gathered. Together and that possibly related to the modern state of Israel. Sam Tideman: He would be. Sam Tideman: Completely against that idea of any of the promises still being relevant to Jews, like Christians have completely taken over basically the attention of God. And of course Jews can become Christian. And that's the way that they could get right with God again. But Judaism on its own right now is basically a dead faith in terms of his view of it. And that also relates he has a very sort of allegorical and typological way of interpreting the Old Testament. Basically all of his letters, he picks a topic. He goes through that. Topic in the Old Testament and then he talks about how the typology of Old Testament relates to Jesus and then he talks about that topic in the New Testament and then he gives some of his own thoughts and then he moves on to a new topic. But he spends most of the book executing the Old Testament, so as much as he thinks Judaism is a dead religion now, he loves the Old Testament scriptures and and shows an extremely extensive knowledge and ability to quote from all sorts of even obscure passages for whatever topic that he's talking about at the time. He just loves typology. And that's another reason why I don't think he really believes in pre existence is that for him, the way that you see Jesus in the Old Testament is in typology and allegory, not Jesus. Actually being a character in the Old Testament, but that, I mean, overall, it's just a very peculiar package of doctrines that I can't think of anyone else. Who is an example of? It's a it's a, but he also never talks about speaking in tongues or prophecy. For all of his emphasis on the Holy Spirit, he doesn't talk about the charismatic gifts at all, doesn't mention it once. But there's also no prayers to the Saints, and he doesn't say anything about Mary that would make a Protestant uncomfortable. He talks about her. And, you know, beloved and chosen among women. And, you know, having the high owner of giving birth to Jesus and stuff like that. But no perpetual virginity, no assumption into having a Mary or anything like that. So it it's very different from, you know, Catholic or Orthodox Christianity. But it has some similarities to it. That would make. A modern person uncomfortable the emphasis on virginity and asceticism, and fasting and all of that sort of thing looks kind of Catholic ish and the. Really high view. Of the Eucharist is also kind of Catholic ish, but there's plenty of things about him that would make any Catholic or Orthodox person extremely uncomfortable, so he doesn't really fit in any category. That we really have. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, back to what you're saying about the Old Testament. I came across this quote just yesterday. My Hebrew teacher mentioned it to me. He's it's from Bebe Warfield, I believe. Who says the Old Testament? May be likened to a chamber richly furnished but dimly lit after hot is shining the light of the New Testament into the Chamber of the Old Testament. Saying, hey, look, look at all this. This all points to Jesus. I I think. It was a fairly common. Move to make especially for those. Engaging with Jewish people that you know, there's they're able to say, oh, well, there seems to be like a lot of what Justin Martyr does in dialogue with trifle. Right. He's like, hey, this is really Jesus. This is really Jesus and offer. It's not doing it in the same way, but he's certainly doing something very similar, just not injecting pre existence. Yeah, christophanies, if we could put it that way. Yeah. Everywhere. So you're saying nobody can really claim offer hot? He's unique, but at the same time, what a valuable witness. What a valuable witness to a form of Christianity to which we have. Almost no access. Before it either disappears. Into what Eastern orthodoxy? Or gets locked behind the Muslim wall either way. Sam Tideman: Like, yeah, to close the the story a little bit after he dies, there will be later Persian emperors who sort of in an attempt to make peace with the Christian Roman Empire, basically set up trying to integrate the Persian churches. Church hierarchy with the Roman church hierarchy. And they had. There's a council, I think it was in Babylon or some other Persian city in, I think, like the late three hundreds. So after Alphabet is dead, where a bunch of bishops and stuff from the Roman Empire come and sort of set up a Bishop structure for the Persian church. And you know, assign all the jurisdictions, you're the Bishop of this area. You're the Bishop of this area. OK. And then this Bishop reports, I think, to the Bishop of Antioch was sort of the Super Bishop in the Roman Empire who was over the Persian. Church. And so I think that starts a period of theological integration and influence of the Greco Roman Christology and theology over into the Persian Empire. And then what happens at the Council of Ephesus in 435 AD, Nestorius and all of his friends get. Excommunicated for their theology and what mysterious and a lot of his friends do is they leave the Roman Empire. They move to Persia, and then the Persian church gets excommunicated from the Greco Roman Church at the Council of Ephesus. And so I think that there's this really strong infusion of that theology into the Persian church in the middle 4 hundreds. And that becomes the Assyrian Church of the east and the Assyrian. Church of the. East still exists to this day. They still have their own church hierarchy. They're based in Iraq, and there's actually a couple million. Syrian Christians in the United States that have come here through immigration and stuff like. And so that church still exists, and it's still not in communion with Rome or in communion with Eastern Orthodoxy, or in communion with Egyptian orthodoxy or Armenian, or they're their own thing. And they've been their own thing since 435. And I think that's the process where their theology and practices start to look more similar to. What you see in the Roman Empire? And so that's sort of the sunset, I guess you could say on Oprah hot style of Persian Christianity. Sean Finnegan: I wonder how the Syrian Church of the East today feels about Afriad and his demonstration. Would they say this guy was a heretic? Or would they try to like recover him and and, you know, people do this with like 2nd century Christians and 3rd century Christians all the time. But they're like, oh, they were hinting at the Trinity. They just didn't yet have the language you. Know they really wanted to believe in the Trinity. They probably did. They just didn't. Describe it well. Is there? They just didn't have the philosophical training. Like would they do that with alcohol or would they just be? Like, yeah, you know, he he held. Sam Tideman: I I suspect something like. Sean Finnegan: A different room. Sam Tideman: I wonder, I mean. Sam Tideman: Because other than the pre existence questions, I mean the modern Catholic and Orthodox Church has all the same problems with say. Annaeus, Irenaeus believed in pre millennialism and that the dead aren't in heaven and that you shouldn't venerate icons and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And yet he's a doctor of the Catholic Church. They they have ways of smoothing things over on these subjects, and I suspect that the Assyrian Church of the East can do something similar. Sean Finnegan: So before we finish up here, give us a little teaser. You submitted a paper. Order to the Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference Review committee you got accepted. Congratulations. Give us a little teaser of what people can expect to hear if they attend the conference in October. Sam Tideman: Sure. So my presentation is on the prologue of John and I'm basically trying to offer a new way of interpreting the prologue of John for Unitarians. There's sort of have been two main camps of Biblical Unitarian intern. Quotation they're sort of Dale Tuggy style, where it's a personified attribute in the Old Testament that then slowly becomes identified with Jesus in the New Testament over the course of the prologue. And then there's sort of like the bill Schlegel camp, which is like, actually, the prologue is about Jesus the whole time. And in the beginning is a new beginning and. Even from the first words of. The prologue we're actually talking about the. Human Jesus in the New Testament. And those are the two kind of competing forms of interpretation of the prologue among biblical Unitarians, and I'm trying to say that they're both half right, that there's basically 2 layers of the prologue happening at the same time, and it's actually it's, I think it's. I'm influenced by reading these. Early church fathers who like typology and allegory so much, I think the point is, is that the Old Testament is a typological foreshadow of what Jesus does in the New Testament. And that it's basically telling the story of the logos at 2 levels simultaneously with the purpose of showing that Jesus in some sense is the archetypal filament of those typological, foreshadows, and that just as all things were created through the logos and Genesis. All things are created anew through Jesus. Just as the word came to its own and its own did not receive it in the Old Testament, like when when God is speaking through the prophets and the Jewish people aren't listening in the same way Jesus was speaking with the logos inside him and the Jewish people didn't listen to him, right? It's a typological echo. And so I. My my point is that that Dale Tuggy and Bill Schlegel each have fright and that we should all be friends and and. Sean Finnegan: It's not really just Dale Tuggy and Bill Schlegel because this bill Schlegel idea is there in the Polish. Right. Sam Tideman: Yeah, it's actually a very old Unitarian interpretation, more or less. I mean, Bill might. Quibble with a couple verses here. There are a couple of phrases here there, but the overall framework is 500 years old at this point, yeah. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, it might seem like the new kid on the block to some, but it it's it's been around. I was talking to somebody from Florida yesterday and he was. Like kind of. New to this. This whole movements of 1 God and stuff and he's just like, so I'm trying to find some. He's kind of like in your situation, kind of. Find trying to find a local. He was saying is this is this just like a new movement or or what's going on here and I and I was I was saying to him. Well it's it's interesting because like a lot of what we've done and what a lot of what we've accomplished with, like, the UCA, for example, it's only. Like what, three years old? 4-4 years old. And you know, there were landing places. Before that, and conferences of different kinds before that, Ken Westby had a number of conferences. Anthony Buzzard had a number of conferences and others. But you know this, this coalescing is really just happening in our time, which is exciting, you know. But at the same time, I'm like Thomas Jefferson. Thought the whole of the United States was going to become Unitarian in his lifetime because it was just. Like sweeping the nation. And you know before that in the in the 1500s, like Unitarianism was just growing like wildfire until it got severely persecuted. So it's it's like it's new and it's old at the same time. Of course, our argument is that this stuff goes all the way back to after hot to Syrian and even beforehand to a number of people in the 2nd century, you know theotis and artiman and. Photinus in the 4th century and pulsar wasada. You've done a lot of. Work on that. So it's it's new and. It's old at the. Same time. Sam Tideman: And it's even both new and old. Within Protestantism, like Bill Schlegel, I think came to his interpretation of the prologue independently through his own study. But then all of a sudden, he sounds very similar to Polish. Unitarians from about 500 years ago. So it's sort of like this weird thing and that a lot of people independently converge upon it and that I think is evidence to there being a there there that so many people seem to independently come to the same place and then realize, ohh I'm not the first. Person here. Sean Finnegan: So where can people find out more about you and and follow you and see more of your work? Sam Tideman: Sure, my YouTube and podcast is called transfigured. You can find it on whatever podcast platform you probably use. And now that you know my name, you can find me on LinkedIn. Or Twitter if you want to, although I. Don't really do anything on those platforms. I'll be at the UCA conference in October. And so I would love to meet anyone who is coming to that for the first time too. Sean Finnegan: As we're concluding here, you could you could mention a bit about transfigured it. It's not like one thing you know kind of. Like Restitute, you know I'm. Sam Tideman: Right. Sean Finnegan: I'm I'm I'm never as myself so. I I I kind. Of don't fit into one mold. But like what is, well, like, what are you trying to do there? Because it's. A lot more than just Christology. Sam Tideman: Right. It's I have my similar to you. I have my church fathers series, which is sort of similar to your early Christianity series and that's in some sense like a regular backbone of my channel. But it's certainly not all of my videos. I also will interview scholars a fair amount of dudes and chunk of my video or interviews. With scholars or clergy people or something like that, where I'm often talking about a book or something, or an article and interviewing them about what they believe often about the Trinity or Christology. But then I have kind of like some friends of the channel who are sort of regular guests who all have on and talk about other. Topics and then I also have like maybe one other topic is like science and faith stuff where I've had some evolution, creationism discussions or other related subjects. And then sometimes I'll interview Muslims that and sort of like. Sean Finnegan: And you're into psychology. Stuff too, like with the whole Jordan Peterson vivaki people. Sam Tideman: Yeah, sure, a lot. Of a lot of my audience and some of my guests have been kind of very into, like sort of the Jordan Peterson, John Vervaeke and related people. And so I've had a lot of that kind of going on and I think that that's a an interesting thing, an interesting phenomenon where Jordan Peterson and other people related to him are getting people interest in the Bible and faith again in sort of a a new, unique way. And so I have some kind of exposure and interaction to those people too. And like for example, I'll be talking with John. For Vicki, who's a psychology professor, not a Christian, about artificial intelligence and what it means for us and theology and stuff like that in a. Couple months so. I'm not even quite sure what category. That fits into so. And you do that too, like you'll. Talk with Keegan Chandler about UFOs, right? Sean Finnegan: Did aliens man so? Yeah. I guess we're kind of similar in that regard. Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Sam, and I wish you the best in your in your work. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about John 1 and at the UCA conference. Sam Tideman: Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you on October, Sean. Thank you very much for having me. Sean Finnegan: Well, that brings this interview to a close. What do you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 514. Offer hot and early Persian Christianity and leave your questions and feedback there. Speaking of feedback, my good friend Tom Hosti wrote. And on last week's interview with Craig Blomberg, the specialist in historical Jesus studies, among other topics, he writes Sean again. You expand our minds in the direction of groundbreaking scholarship. May God continue to provide for you new adventures to challenge and encourage your audience. And that certainly was an interesting conversation to have with Professor Bloomberg. He's such a a legend in the field of New Testament scholarship, especially among conservative evangelicals, and I'm not sure if you heard this in the interview with him last week, but I did press him to answer the question why. Should we care about what? Liberal so-called Liberal Scholarship is doing on the historical Jesus and I I. Hope I hope. You heard that because that's kind of been the approach I've taken towards this whole quest for the historical Jesus subject is to sort of. Keep an eye on it from a distance, but to. Think to myself what's. The point in taking the razor blade. To the Gospels and sifting through them for the parts that are historical versus non historical, when I already believe in the inspiration of Scripture. I'm I already believe that what is written there is. Through and I was very interested to see that Bloomberg had a good answer to that. So you have to check that out to see what he said on that. If you haven't already. That's last week's episode, the Historical Jesus and the Gospel of John. And it is interesting, too, that using his own methodology, Bloomberg was able to make some interesting discoveries. In the Gospel of John, by looking at what's in the background rather than the foreground as far as themes go, and to really show that Jesus had to purify and to reach out to those who are unclean and. Paying purification to them. So take a look at that interview if you haven't already. I've got some other exciting interviews lined up for the near future and I'm beginning to work on my winter class, which is going to be an instructional. I don't know how many. Parts maybe 15/16/17 part class on reading the Bible for yourself and providing the tips and. Methods and overviews to enable you to read the Bible and understand it on your own, and I think this is a really important skill that we as Christians need to develop because so many of us are so impressionable by celebrity pastors. And short clips that seem to really make great points on half a sentence from the Bible. But in fact, they're really taking that half a sentence totally out of context. And I know that many of you are already Bible readers who listen to this podcast, but I think there are still some extra skills that we can all benefit from becoming aware of and really holding ourselves to a higher standard. Then just reading the Bible and thinking, OK, I understand what this means when a lot of times we don't a lot of times we are reading our own assumptions in or there is some misunderstanding going on because of genre or just being unaware of the historical setting of. A particular book. One quick I'll give you one quick example. Will Barlow made this point in his scripture in science class? If you ask someone what is the historical context of the Book of Genesis, I think a lot of people, a lot of Bible people, people that are well aware of the contents of scripture and and are very familiar with. What the Book of Genesis says would say something like, well, that's the context of it is in the beginning, before anything was created. That's obviously the historical context because in the because it starts in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. But here's the thing. That's not when it was written, it wasn't written in the beginning. I mean, obviously God was. There in the beginning. But when was the Book of Genesis written? It was written during the period of Exodus and afterwards. That's when the book was written. If you agree. That Moses is the author, which is certainly what Jesus believed and where I'm where I stand on the on the subject. So understanding the historical context of when the book was written. Helps you understand its original use. As an explanation for the not just the origin of the world, but for the origin of Israel itself, which is now about to become a nation, and setting down for them sacred history that then they can have as a unifying point as a people that are now coming out of Egypt and defining their own national identity. Unity now look, I don't think there's going to. Be some huge. Change in revelation that that occurs by shifting that perspective, but it is certainly a different way of reading it. Reading it in its own historical context rather than reading it just as if it's an independent book that doesn't have a historical context. And so I think we can get some real insight into Scripture by doing it this way and really limiting ourselves from asking the question of how does this apply to me today until we first answer the question, how did this apply to them when it was written? What was the original authorial intent? What was the original understanding the audience had of this text and then asking the question, how does this apply to us today so. Stay tuned for more about that. I've been working on getting that class ready. It won't. It won't be out for a few months. But I just. Wanted to mention. It here at the end of this episode and let. You know that that I'm. Working on it. And hope it turns out well. And that it it can. Be a benefit to you and especially. Do a lot of friends of yours and others who maybe are new to Christianity or have been around in Christianity and going to church, but they just still have never been able to really make heads or tails of the Bible itself. Or maybe they read. This is and the first half of Exodus, and once we get to the log code and the number of rings on the Tabernacle, they just poop out. So hopefully this will be of use for those folks too. Thanks everyone. I've rambled on enough here at the end. I'll catch you next week if you'd like to support.us.youcandothat@restitutio.org. We'll see you next week and. Remember, the truth has nothing to fear.