Listen; The author of "The Passover Plot", Hugh J. Schonfield

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been there's speed feldman and with me today in studio is dr yu jay scofield the author of an exciting new book which is doing quite well i understand it's just come out

in paperback on back to books the title of the book is the passover plot doug scofield ever have to have you here and one we start by asking you why did you write that i don't know where we're most people learn to write serious books but certainly as regards myself this particular subject is one that has fascinated me all my life so much so that in fact i've been devoted the best part of my life i had to research is in relation to the life of jesus because i wanted to try and find out exactly what he did represent what he really stood for and they're one couldn't get that kind of information from barriers scholarly works in all popular works and segment working entirely alone in a way and this i've done for over forty years now and this is a big conclusions which i reached after intensive study which has been the main activity of my life it's important for for people to date to remember the eighties was you i think it's a vital importance because i don't think

it is possible to understand what he meant what he was driving and why he was the kind of man he was and as you are fully understand his jewishness and this of course is very difficult for anyone not to do that because they don't feel many people don't really got really exeter have access to a joint the jewish mind and didn't know quite how art works exactly what they're often these are funny people he's just got a mess on big ideas which is a curious sort of thing they have a sort of belief in the kingdom of god that coming out in the world and that they had achieved by various means and they think of themselves as a kind of chosen people on a list the senate business is mixed up with that we just don't understand it to talk back and we think this is oh very funny because we have a kind of thing we do understand is power politics and somebody hit somebody over the head we don't understand why this new way or there's different way which jesus represented let's talk about jesus god what'd he decided you

know what well this is something of course that we can only discovered by trying carefully to analyze and the material that we have about him and i've tried to do this in the passover plot as carefully as i possibly could and awful i have tried to live with this man's thinking for all these years to try to get that to comprehend him and we mustn't forget that his public life lasted only about eighteen months and that he was then about thirty years of age at what had he been doing in all the years which of which we know nothing and beforehand and in which this idea of being the messiah had obviously crystallized out in his own thinking something must have happened in his experience at to make him feel that a lot of the qualifications for being the site of course was dissent from the royal house of king david and this was something that they're actually an was the case

that with jesus that he was descended from the family of david navarro that one's an individual who qualified at least in that respect but if we want to go further and say well now how did jesus i come to this kind of conviction that one would obviously feel that a great deal that was going on around him there must've been working very much in his mind this particular time very curious age when most curious ages and jewish history when there was a widespread expectation that the end of the times had arrived at a prophetic period had come and that the kingdom of god was just round the corner in fact jesus himself were listened to a prophetic preacher called john the baptist who was announcing that the kingdom of god was it had on earth so a great deal that was going on in the current thinking of the time must have made their impact on the mind of jesus to such an extent that they grew up in him increasingly this conviction that he might b the man his people are expecting now

you and your book indicate that you believe that that jesus was really was inside its army and you don't feel in any way that he did this for some ulterior motives of some kind no you see if we are and try to understand is we do a ride very quickly at the realization and that for him and the masonic role that did not mean any granny or initially meant suffering and mentor difficulties of all kinds all most insufferable difficult issue with which to contain a life to a very large extent of a millionaire's back and suddenly a knot of approval by great many people of different persuasions and therefore it just was not the kind of life that anyone there who was aiming at that being an important figure a powerful person would possibly embrace and so it was ruled out altogether and that jesus good for

you at that i and he was doing this apple watch it was b he was going to get out of it and sports a good and you're talking about a mortal jesus not a divine of gaza of course i am back and the fact that later on and jesus but it came to be thought of as divine and this is something that wasn't in the original picture that all i'm in no way in the mind of jesus and we have to remember that that the message there which christianity brought about the messiah that went into two different areas it went first initially among jewish people because jesus himself was a jew as a meat it follows were true at where jews and consequently the whole environment of christian thinking was jewish and of course any such idea as a man being divided and dally country to jewish teaching and jesus himself repudiated any idea that he was even good he

said there is only one who is good and then he's got that when they message of they about that jesus was christ went out to the nations into a pagan world into a pagan environment who knew nothing about the idea of messiah then if they were going to pay a tribute to his greatness which they felt in the person of jesus they would have to translate that into terms of their own tradition in their own background and their own background was such that anybody who's a great man mammy did they said that he was aware of some of the guards all that he was in a divine and they're so much so that even the roman rule or that was regarded as divine and about it themselves or divide us and so and jesus as they won't savior i could not bear less a personality than the roman emperor it was the most natural tribute that could be paid by a non jewish world to jesus to make him divine right so we have a

mortal man who has decided for certain reasons that he's the messiah how does he go about finding out what he has to do in order to live his role to its completion there we find that a lot of other people besides jews are trying to do that very same thing that's decide to discover what with the different events and circumstances and that would be represented in the mess and again to no cause we come up with a dead sea scrolls because after they are around a hundred and fifty ad we find this extraordinary development taking place among the jewish of a new approach to the bible to try and extract from that evidence of exactly what was going to take place in the future peach getting these books not in this sense that we would want to treat them but rather as if they were a sacred articles which if you knew how to unravel the secrets could predict what was going to happen and how often they work of the scribes and many of them belonging to the sector this scene is who produced the dead sea scrolls

sold blueprints of the future had been worked out and now we have a number of their actual her explanation of these predictions in existence in that in the books that have been recovered since nineteen forty seven and this was an enormous amount of light on the way jesus himself would've worked because we find that exactly the same kind of fulfillment of predictions that that occur at in the senate dead sea scrolls taken from the same time as jesus was living at a cairo also in the new testament writings in an in the gospels so here it means that certain methods would've been applied to the bible to the books of the profits at to the book club books of the songs and so on in order to discover from them what was going to take place how honest i would behave what he would do and certain key passages there were very clear that one of them was this that the messiah would be an individual and gifted in particular with pasok or insight and understanding of human nature all

circumstances and events this was what was said by side of the spirit of god would rest upon the messiah and acquit him with wisdom and understanding and knowledge and so on so on so that he would be a model in fact and he would exemplify exactly how men under god should try to live and set the example and that certain that this course of action would inevitably being bring repudiation and suffering and about before the message could have to go home and the star himself at a must suffer and that he would be rejected and this is a letter is they're explicitly in the intent of interpretations that were given in those days and so jesus hadn't thought to look because this was going on all around him it was the ap history which he was living and he must've met many of the people who bought these things and he could learn from them there for the kind of cost that he would have to fulfill and importantly the truly the course of his life a step by step

should we did a drawing any different types of lessons or morally if you wish from the ministry of jesus other than that which was drawn from that by the catholic church what the catholic church's drawn from it i will not in and then in a position to say that but i think it goes away from the idea of adoration and worship this is not what users possible effect he told people don't worship me and that he explained that he had come as a servant and not as a master and that that he was not to be treated in that gun away and this was not his position now what we have to learn i think is exacted their lessons the jesus tried to teachers and which we have discarded and neglected for nearly two thousand years and that is to say that we have to introduce into our society this principle of service to others and to make that

predominant it won't be present at the rulers of the nation's urgent they dominate them and that would have more trip over them he said a jalopy selma knew he had who were the greatest among you let him be your servant and this principle of service to one another and serve it's the community and service to humanity there which today i think we're beginning to feel a bit more than we used to in the past a sense of responsibility for others even others were far away from us and not just data reached around the corner and therefore that we're now beginning to realize a little more of what jesus in fact stood for is the only way in which we're going to put our world to rights let's turn now to the nub of the book on the part of the book that has raised a lot of controversy i guess you indicate that jesus feeling as he did and living in the times that he did planned his entire

ministry up to and including the crucifixion yes you and get in the book that he had planned to be taken down from the cross live and revive be revived sometime later years and this is because if people would only understand that this was part of the predictions because the predictions and that as jesus understood them are quite clearly indicate that while the messiah would have to suffer all across it did not indicate that he would have to die on that in fact there was a promise of life beyond the suffering now the laws and assad could not carry out his future activities and therefore as jesus planned every stage of his public life down to some very very curious details which i mentioned in my book details are for instance like having these donkey actor bethany so he could ride into jerusalem and fulfillment of a prophecy that they king would come in and a lonely man riding upon a mess and oh how he had arranged where he would keep the passover injuries them with a series of work of signs and passwords

and everything else that nobody else but those he chose would know where he was going to be that we can see him at work in the way the gospels were written but when it comes to this point which was very vital to him that we won't allow this but jesus come out of it and consequently he made his disposition is just as he'd done in other instances so that the circumstances arise in which he could defeat his enemies and survived the crucifixion there and the very day that this took place which was a friday was important as parties joyce was concerned because apparently there was a custom at that time at that of the bodies of condemned person should not at hand if they were and persons of crucifixion was a form of hanging at over the sabbath for their bodies had to be taken down or not this was a crucifixion was a barber from a daughter which it was inflicted upon people and a daughter which normally lasted for four days now by madrid very choice

that jesus made and he could arrange that he would not be on the cross alone for four hours with no monthly a four day and that he had friends there who are ready to receive his body as if he was apparently did an order that he could be revived now supposing does have made no disposition at all about the as surviving the cross what would've happened he would've been taken down and that he would have they've killed off at which we hear in the case of the two others who were crucified with him and then the bodies of all three would have been thrown into a grave for common criminals hugo typically and earth bundled over that nobody could survive such an ordeal under any circumstances whatever but here we find that a friend of jesus who was a counselor who has access to the governor has had to nearby and has made arrangements for jesus to be taken there to that two alone in conditions where he could be treated and where he could recover and therefore to isolate him from the fate of the two others who were crucified with him and a great many

circumstances here which are enormous interest now because if jesus was going to survive death he must appear to be dead otherwise his body would never be released to anybody so how is this to be brought about well they're conveniently was a means at hand because it was the custom one person's were crucified but that aside the crosses that there were no jobs are filled with a mixture of wine and spices and vinegar which were given set administered to these sufferers in order to and help of a cowbell that pain and that fashion them fall and this ordeal and wheat and saffron they were undergoing be said though that by administering this wine vinegar with the spices this also prolong their tortured well it would oppose because they would've still remained active and vigorous under the circumstances they could be did keep them going at systems or sustaining thing but then in the case of

jesus we find an extraordinary thing happening so much so that they govern according to the roman governor couldn't understand its toll here instantly i said three or four days ago after three or four hours one of these crucified persons and i had some apparently succumbed and that this was quite a natural and they would normally happen the deficit gap in the case of the two others who were crucified this happened and unique in the case of jesus and really that the goblin novelty which would be dead already well the answer to that has seemed to the point to the treatment over this mixture that was at the foot of the cross which good therefore be very easily got that and bred in order that jesus would have the parents are or being dead in the state but you've got let's say and in the gospels we get a clue to this because we're told them and that jesus at one point on the cross called out on thursday and immediately a man

came forward and dipped a sponge into the mixture and listen to him now if that had been the normal drink that was the whole purpose of sustaining and reviving they made tormented person's one would have expected to have that to have happened in the case of jesus but only a few minutes afterwards he's head suddenly fell on his chest he was it had expired now this i think does give us at least some kind of pointed to what probably took place and then that i mean to do this happened we find and they this offended jews is going to lead you to the governor to ask you about it so the getaway get it off as quick as possible to providing the conditions there for which recovery could be made and indeed having prepared already linen and spices that fall for the body so that the condition should be the most favorable in this quiet peaceful cool too where everybody could be left over the sabbath and then at the end a few hours later taken out by her to interesting things about this

particular part of the story the first is that the other two criminals for their with these i believe who work was filed at the same time were not given the sport that's true says no there is there is there evidence that they weren't good you don't know whether you can build a long put a negative but the point is that it is specifically mentioned that it was given to jesus and it is and not mention that it was given to either of the others now there's another interesting point i would only the custom was that after some hours on the course in the case of the friday crucifixion as the prisoners were taken down and a little broken in order to and expedite killing people for the this was not done in the case of jesus and one a well because he was already a candidate and their only goal is that in order in one of the gospels is that in order to make sure a soldier just a spirit to the side of jesus we don't know whether that was a mortal blow all whether it was not a mortal blow for dinner at a concert and they haven't had a very serious effect on the possibilities of his recovery but

quite evidently and he was not dead when he was taken down from the cross at what time he may have died later and that is another question and that there is nothing that can enable us to answer that they say and all the indications do seem to point to the fact that you didn't cover or if he did that he recovered only very briefly weekly consciousness and then succumbed and that would mean of course that the body would've had to been buried elsewhere off because it couldn't be taken back again to the tomb from which it had been removed but what we find was left that was the great clothes which of the wreckage that they were left in the tomb of jesus had been taken away and they're this extraordinary consequence of an entity to being found out the next day with symphony players lying in it and nothing else and they stand in front of the door and i rolled a way that provided an enigma at which finally was and is solved by

that her faith that aside indeed escaped death and had escaped in the way that god had raised him from the dead that was the purpose of this whole entire plot anyway so that the resurrection no watches no no no we must look at that way at all i think jesus believed that he had he would survive and about this or his revival with us right here on stage and i think between revival and resurrection the protections concern aside never used such an idea as resurrection but there was a prophecy to say that the one that ends in the plural affecting the jewish people that that would bind up our wounds and after three days that will provide us and we will stand up on our feet revival vs resurrection is as something quite different now at the plot was not buy plots to see that any body that a resurrection had taken place and it had not taken place that was not the plot

the plot was how the massage could escape from his enemies by feigning death in order that he would not die on the cross the map and i think the intentions of the romans and those who had condemned this was the plot and the plot of a stretch to that point to have any idea what jesus would have done had he lived you're asking a question which is so very speculative that i think it goes outside the province of someone or whatever it was used to cover the role nurse eye after this revival only vaguely the inauguration of the kingdom of god itself and there there are no details in any of the predictions regarding the actual pop of them a solid plan that this is rather significant all we're told is that there would be then some sudden climax but the signs and the skies and back and so on that day terrible walls and somehow in the midst

of this and god we would intervene and the messiah would appear and down and that way he would denounce the wicked and the sinful and he would dunn slay the wicked as it's said with a sort of his mouth now this meant that the messiah would fix was expected afterwards to rebuke and equipped a tribute those in high places to denounce evil and that the climax and they have a natural manifestation of that came to confirm his words at that time i would have the effect of defeating at those who were in opposition and they would fade away and they knew where i would begin in that kind of fashion but they there is no agreement of the total in any of the predictions exactly what would happen often that and i

don't think jesus new himself he and his soul back that he would be called upon to act in this position of judge and he said and we had one terrible of his in which we're all the nations on proper for his throne and he divides the one from another of the sheep from the goats those who have done good would need to go one way and those who had done evil and the other way and death in this way he would hold inaugurate an air over i just there's and justice in the world such as that never been in human history before all finished the story off all so the disciples clinton seen jesus after the crucifixion and after his death along if he was dead wounded they see well this is not to hit anything and the very difficult and we have another case very notable case in the very same century the famous greek sage called apple in its time a very famous man who died in that rain of preemptive

commissioner some fifty years up as little more than fifty years often times as himself and because he was only men at his disciples also claimed had seen him after he had died and the search this kind of experience is not something that you're told difficult oracle impossible if you have great faith in a person if you believe they're still in existence to have a division of them i don't think there's a poll a difficult in the first instances of that recorded there are some problems and these are i have pointed out in my book and that is to say that and some of the instances we have well such a vision of jesus or pairs of jesus was recorded that in every case they didn't recognize me today recognize the person that's all and this is a very curious citizens which it needs to explain now you'd say that

a great many people in our time and let alone other centuries of had visions of jesus but significantly he always appears they're very much like they upped and pictures of him in the paintings and they see this that kind of man who holds in his hands and add them that and they seem exactly as they are painters of depicted jesus but and so he's immediately recognizable as being jesus but the first people who saw think of seeing jesus laughter and he was in the two didn't recognize and some of them very much doubted it would was afterwards looking back as the person they saw that it must've been jesus all the time we did not notice him and this is comes up in several instances that we had recorded and i think this is a great proof all the veracity of some of the tradition that you didn't say oh yes jesus was immediately that we we we saw a monthly he was exactly like we always knew him this didn't happen and learn this is a very interesting set of judge when later on invention

began to come in then they did record an appearance of jesus at exactly as we would expect tj's a sudden appears in a room and he shows his disciples his hands and his feet and shows them the wounds each food in front of them to demonstrate that he really has come alive again and there you get a very different type of picture and then the genuine tradition which underlies some of the other appearances not your book seems to attack many of the basic tenets of christianity is that what you're trying to do so i would say that my book incidentally must attack because i'm trying to get at that historical truth and it would necessarily be attacking law has purported to be the truth that for a great many centuries and thought in fact is not as you describe that basic christianity atoll basic christianity is that is what i'm trying to get back and i walked and has massed grated and family uses

expressions that as christianity and regional basic it'll be something that never simply disappears the way no way of dealing with matters of history instead of theology fb