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Video Description
Jewish identity, Professor Jiang contends, is an imperial invention — forged by Persia to hold the Levant. He reads Ezra and Nehemiah not as holy history but as imperial scripts, written by the same divide-and-conquer logic the British Empire later dusted off for the Balfour Declaration. From Cyrus to the modern state of Israel, he traces a single geopolitical thread. It is a bold, controversial thesis that ends with predictions about a coming ‘Pax Judaica.’
Full Video Transcript
So we have 10 more classes left in the lecture series and in these 10 classes what I’m going to do
is I’m going to show you how the American empire will fall and I will show you that what will
replace the American empire is Israel, what we call Pax Judaica. So for these next 10 classes
we will do an overview of history and show you why history will lead ultimately to the
the Pax Judaica, okay?
All right, so let’s do some questions from YouTube
that my wife has picked out.
She reads all the comments, she loves reading the comments,
and she sends comments to me to reply to, okay?
So the first comment is,
how do we restore our right hemisphere,
or how do we become more creative?
And the answer is that you have to reject materialism.
That’s the only way, okay?
You have to reject money, you have to reject power,
You have to redirect materialism in order to embrace your creativity and your right
hemisphere.
As a society, what will have to happen is a major crisis that threatens our existence
for us to come together and for us to be more altruistic and more creative.
A possibility is that if you really want to activate your right hemisphere, then you fall
in love and you have children.
Or you could also choose to volunteer, help other people, be kind and generous to other
people.
So that’s how you activate your right hemisphere.
Second question is, do you only give lessons to one class?
How’s your journey to find some LSD?
So I’m only teaching one lecture series, but do three different sections.
LSD, psychedelics, I’m very interested in psychedelics.
I myself do not want to partake in psychedelics
because I don’t really understand why I need to.
I read a lot of books.
I practice a very altruistic lifestyle.
And therefore, I don’t feel as though I need psychedelics
to break out of this materialistic world, okay?
I’m already connected to the divine.
So, yeah.
Okay, let’s move on.
All right, some more questions.
Could you make a video on how to understand history about bias?
and a response is first of all it’s impossible to be unbiased okay and that’s and that is correct
we’re all subjective um so um he suggests that you have to look at documents and try to be really
critical when you analyze documents and that’s correct as well okay the problem is that often
we don’t have documentation or we have documentation from only one source so it’s very hard to do
so what i’m trying to do um with this class is try to propose a new theory of how to understand
history and if you adopt this model i guarantee you that your understanding of history will improve
and also your understanding of how the world works will improve as well so there are three components
to this new history model which i call predictive history okay the first is to understand historical
patterns and so when you try to look at history and the event there you ask yourself does this
fit into a larger pattern or model of history if it does it’s probably correct if it doesn’t then
there’s something wrong here okay second uh tool is idea of game theory and they give game theories
is to understand that all historical actors are motivated by their interests or worldview and so
are you looking at all different historical actors and are you trying to figure out what
their best strategy is okay and the third uh facet is the idea of religious eschatological
what this means is that all cultures all individuals have a certain religious outlook
religious worldview you can often find this worldview within their sacred text
for example the Bible or the Koran okay and these texts will give you insight as
to how they perceive history but also how they want history to eventually
develop so you want you can understand the strategies moving forward okay all
right and we will look at these three strategies and we will adopt we will
without them for our historical understanding, okay?
Another question is, this is really interesting.
What, the question is,
most of the greats across history were not Jewish.
The domination by Jews of various industries
is a relatively new phenomenon.
Is it possible that their creativity and power
is a result of political shifts and education in the Bible?
Okay, this is a really good criticism
of my previous lecture.
And yeah, I mean the idea is that maybe there’s certain aspects of the Jewish culture that makes them dominant in an industrial, capitalistic, globalized world.
And there is some truth to that, but I often think about Chinese people because Chinese people are extremely materialistic, like Chinese love money, but we’re not as creative as Jewish people.
So I think that being materialistic, being capitalistic, it’s not enough.
You also need to have an element of creativity within your culture.
And that’s why I think that the Bible helps us better understand the success of Jews better, okay?
So this is a really good point.
And also, it’s really important to understand is that this is a class on intellectual speculation, okay?
We’re trying to figure out theories.
We’re trying to play with ideas.
There’s no truth there, okay?
Okay, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, doubt whatever I say.
This class is really meant to be a platform or a jumping board for you to undertake your own intellectual journey.
Okay, all right, so please keep that in mind.
But we’re going to look more closely at this question today.
Okay, why is it that Jews are so dominant?
So we will look at the beginning of the Jewish people.
and I’m gonna make the argument to you that Israel and the Jewish identity are
constructs of imperial imagination okay and this is hard to understand so I’m
explaining too slowly but the idea is that because of its geographic location
Israel has always been historically important and as a result different
empires have tried to manipulate the identity of Israel to best promote their own agenda
or policies.
Okay?
So I know this is a hard concept to understand, but we’ll go for it slowly.
And again, we’re spending the rest of the semester on this major thesis of ours.
Okay, so let’s talk about history, okay?
So what we did last week is look at the cultures that have emerged after the Bronze Age Collapse
which are now going to dominate history.
They are the Greeks, the Persians, and the Israelites.
Now we’re going to look at how these ideas play out in history.
But for us to do that, we first need to understand how history works.
Now I’ve identified three different patterns of geopolitics.
want you guys to remember these patterns the first pattern is this this is really important
i didn’t understand competition within nation states are what matter okay competition between
nation stones don’t really matter or they’re not as significant as competition within nation states
and the idea we have here is elite overproduction so it drives a lot of conflict is the fact that
domestically you have these different competing factions and they’re all competing for uh power
okay so you have too many elites too few status uh positions and so they’re competing against each
other and this drives a lot of conflict okay so that’s the first idea second idea is that the
elite have shifting loyalties okay think of game of thrones um i’m not sure if you guys have seen
the tv series or read the books in my thrones but everyone’s be king right and they’re gonna kill
their brother they’re gonna kill the father they’re gonna kill their mother to be king
okay and so the elite don’t really have loyalties except to themselves the world is just a game of
thrones okay now third thing is that war can be a mechanism to protect the status quo all right
the idea of equilibrium in that sometimes the conflict is really bad so what you do you start
a war so you can start off people to get killed okay and that way you can maintain equilibrium
within your system we’ll see this in we’ll see this pattern throughout human history okay so
these are the three ideas i want you guys to remember as we move on and discuss world history
All right, so let me give us an example for us to understand.
Think of the warring states period of China before the emergence of the first empire, the Qing Empire, okay?
And as you can see from this map, China is divided into different warring states that are all powerful.
And at this time in history, the Qing Empire, sorry, the Qing state is the poorest, it’s the most isolated, and it is the least advanced, okay?
And you can see that Chu, Zhao, they are more powerful.
And you can argue that eventually one of them would emerge to unite all of China, but they did not.
It was the Qing, the isolated, marginalized, backward state that came to conquer.
And so the question is, why did this happen?
And so if we use our three principles, right, we can understand why.
These three states, these different states are not competing against each other.
It’s the elites within these states that are competing against each other.
lead over production so the way they manage this is for them to use warfare in order to
maintain the status quo to create equilibrium okay and how we know is from this time emerges
the idea of Chinese chess right what is Chinese chess Chinese chess is the idea of warfare that
is regulated that is ritualized okay so we go to war we battle each other we have to respect each
other’s um uh the rules of the warfare that’s stupid war should be about killing the other guy
it shouldn’t be about following the rules okay also another piece of evidence is at this time
in history shunzi wrote the book the art of war this is one of the stupidest books ever written
okay i guarantee you if you follow this book you’re going to lose the war badly because this
is this is really about how to cheat in a heavily regulated game okay so uh things like using spies
oh uh making a high guard okay you have to have all these rules and guess what in actual war none
of these things actually work okay so if you look at history i’m going to tell you exactly how to
win a war okay and the way you win a war is first of all you have to be completely committed to
winning this war okay total warfare second is that if you want to win this war you have to
make sure that talent arises so you have to be open and meritocratic okay if a if an officer
of a general is winning this war you promote him that sounds easy right but not if you’re
your status quo power because what’s important to you is to maintain that your family is always
on top. So if a general arises who is very innovative, who’s really talented, you kill him
because he’s a threat to you, okay? So the third principle is make sure your soldiers are happy.
I know this sounds really simple, but again, if you’re a status quo power, you don’t really care,
okay? Destroy enemy centers, siege warfare, okay? Go and destroy the city because that’s
how they produce their uh uh war capacity right the food the um soldiers right kill civilians
the supply lines overstretch your enemy divide and conquer strike fear in your enemy kill their gods
okay if you really want a war if you really want to win a war this is what you have to do and we
know because this is what the romans did this is what the prussians did this is what um the
the Aztecs did.
This is what the Conquestors did.
This is what the Mongols did.
Every single power that has conquered everyone else
has done all these things, okay?
So when they don’t do these things,
it’s because these different warring states
aren’t actually at war with each other.
They’re actually friends, okay?
They’re all intermarried with each other.
They’re all trying to maintain a status quo.
They use war as a game in order to maintain the status quo
to create equilibrium.
So this is true for Mesopotamia, okay?
Mesopotamia is important because remember,
this is the cradle of civilization.
This is where the first empires will emerge.
This is where most technological innovation happens.
This was, for the longest time,
the wealthiest part of the world, okay?
So remember, the idea of Mesopotamia
is that the first city-state is Uruk,
and then they will develop colonies
throughout the Tigris and Euphrates,
and then these colonies will come into war with each other.
And they’re all friends of each other,
they’re all intermarried,
and the elite create these highly ritualized warfare, okay?
And one really important rule is that
you don’t kill each other’s god, okay?
Because in their religion, the god lives in their temple.
So you don’t attack their temple.
But guess what?
All their money, all their gold is in the temple, okay?
So you’re not allowed to steal each other’s gold.
That’s stupid, okay?
Because now, you don’t really accomplish
that much with warfare.
So for the longest time, this was the status quo.
And then what happened is a man named Luca Zaghesi, okay?
And you can think of him as lower nobility.
So what we’ll see in history is that within a city-state,
there’s always been conflict between the upper nobility
and the lower nobility, okay?
The upper nobility is in charge.
They want to maintain the status quo.
The lower nobility want to steal that power, okay?
This will happen in Rome, where Julius Caesar
is of the lower nobility, and he will steal the power
from the upper nobility, okay?
The people call the Ottomans.
And so, Ligeti is from Uma, and he’s like,
you know what, screw this, these rules are stupid,
I wanna conquer everyone, I wanna be the top dog, okay?
So, what he’s doing that’s very different
from previous times is he’s now going
and ransacking each city’s temple.
So now, he has the capacity to build an empire, okay?
But by doing that, what happens is that the other city-states recognize him as a threat,
and so they invite mercenaries from a place called Akkad to come and help them, okay?
And this leads us to the first world empire called the Akkadian Empire, named by Sargon of Akkad.
Now, his name is interesting. His name means legitimate ruler, which probably tells us he’s not a legitimate ruler.
He’s probably a mercenary, like David, who stole the throne, okay?
He saw an opportunity, and he stole the throne.
But this is a pattern in history where if there’s competition among different city-states,
the competition is not resolved amongst themselves because they have an equilibrium.
So what happens is that an outsider, a mercenary, usually comes in who doesn’t respect the rules
and he’s able to unite everyone through innovations.
So this is why the Qing Dynasty and not the Jiao or the Qu or the Wei were able to unite
all of China because the Qing Dynasty was committed to total warfare, they didn’t care
about your rules.
wanted to win. So as you can see the Canadian Empire stretches throughout the
Fertile Crescent, conquers Mesopotamia, modern Iraq, extends over to
Anatolia and captures a lot of the Levant. But this area, the Levant, is
historically the most strategic location in the world. Why? Because it gives you
access to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. Historically the three wealthiest parts of the
world. So whoever controls the Levant is able to always threaten Egypt, okay? And for most of
history, this part, the Levant, was an Egyptian colony. But remember that after the Bronze Age
collapsed, Egypt was not able to project power in the Levant, and so the different empires fought
for the levant in order to threaten egypt okay so jerusalem is literally the center of the world
we’ll see that throughout history people have considered jerusalem the center of the world
both for religious reasons but also mainly for geopolitical and trade reasons okay uh now the
other thing to remember about this area is that it’s highly competitive because it’s hard to
protect mesopotamia okay it’s very very wealthy but as you can see um there are these mountain
tribes over here that can always threaten mesopotamia okay so this is a pattern in history
where whoever established an empire in mesopotamia is always being threatened by the mountains the
regions oh sorry the borderlands okay this is a this is a pattern throughout um uh mesopotamian
history and that’s why these empires change all the time okay so this is the babylonian empire
this this gives us Hammurabi okay then you have the Assyrian Empire the Assyrian
Empire is famous for their brutality they’ll come if you rebel against them
they will kill everyone okay they’re notorious for their brutality now remember at
this time in history an empire is not the empire of today where you can exert
authority everywhere an empire at this time is you’re mainly controlling certain
choke points of trade and everyone else just sort of like goes along because it benefits them okay
so an empire is more like a loose confederation as opposed to a nation state okay so this is the
assyrian empire um and this is the uh neo-babylonian empire okay so you have these
empires that constantly change over time history changes when a man emerges called cyrus the great
okay um cyrus the great is the founder of something called the persian academic empire
so last class we discussed zoroastrianism and zoroastrianism is really the first great
world religion uh because it provides a simple but powerful model of how the world works and um
So, Zoroastrianism is powerful because it encourages everyone to be their best, right?
To seek Asha.
Now, for most people, what Asha means is don’t ever lie, okay?
And it’s actually a really useful thing if you’re trying to run an empire.
Because when you run an empire, you need soldiers, you need generals, you need administrators, right?
And if you don’t lie, if people are honest and moral, well, you can expand really quickly.
And so that’s what Cyrus the Great did.
Cyrus the Great is also known for his mercy and his generosity.
So when he conquers a place, what he will do is he will identify the best people, maybe
even the king himself, and make them advisors to his regime.
He’s known for his tolerance, he’s known for his openness.
So what happens is that the Babylon Empire
basically surrendered to everyone to fight.
Why? Because of elite overproduction, right?
You have this war going on between the upper nobility
and the lower nobility, and they’re like,
you know what, let’s just invite Cyrus the Great,
and then we don’t have to fight each other anymore, okay?
And that’s how Cyrus the Great was able to build
the first world empire, okay?
This is Babylon, the fall of Babylon,
and Cyrus the Great, there are different stories,
but one story is that the elite basically invited him in
in order to resolve their inner conflicts with each other, okay?
This is the tomb of Cyrus the Great.
It’s still in Iran today.
There’s a story that when actually the great,
you know, who is Macedonian,
when he went to conquer the Persian Empire,
he discovered that the Cyrus the Great,
his tomb was in bad repair.
They didn’t really maintain or upkeep it,
so he ordered for it to be properly maintained, okay?
that’s probably the story is by the way probably false but it shows you that at this time in
history about the year 300 400 um everyone uh uh 300 400 bce everyone was respectful of cyrus
regret okay cyrus great is considered the world’s greatest king or emperor okay so as you can see
the Acme Persian Empire is huge okay it encompasses most of West Asia okay so it
goes from Iran all the way to Mesopotamia to Anatolia to parts of
Greece and all basically all Egypt and Libya it’s a huge area and they were
able to do this because of their innovations in religion as well as
administration okay all right so let me explain how do you rule empires usually okay well the
traditional way is you control trade routes and access okay so people have to pay you a tax to
go for your trade routes that’s a traditional way you can also use fear and conquest then that’s
what the assyrians were known for they would come and kill everyone if you disobeyed them uh you
took hostages hostages that’s a very common thing where you conquer people you take the children of
king as hostages okay uh intermarriage religion but what the persians did really well that allowed
for the persian empire to be so huge as well as to be really well managed are four things okay
effective administration again whenever religion is your rationalism where people can’t lie
that’s really good because these bureaucrats will now report real facts to the emperor and that
allows him to make better decisions okay elite competition meritocracy and the idea here is
that if you have a very effective administration that allows for local elites to focus their
energies on trying to join this administration as opposed to rebelling against you uh communication
uh networks okay so things like roads things like uh uh postal networks okay so the persians create
the first uh global postage system and it was really effective where uh you want to send mail
from egypt over to mesopotamia what would happen is you would have these royal roads where uh
people would ride on horses and they could stop at a basically a hostile rest and then keep on
going okay and that way you can you can um very quickly move information from one core of empire
to the other and the last is to divide and rule divided rule is really important so what they did
was they basically had different power centers within a within a region okay so you have the
satraps which were local governors but then you also have the local you also have the bureaucrats
okay you also had uh the world representatives so these are different factions within a region okay
so dividing rule is probably the most effective way to control an empire okay so now let’s move on
to israel okay we know we don’t know about the persian empire how they manage their system and
why they are so effective okay now let’s talk about israel so remember that we read the bible
um and the bible um came about because david needed to justify legitimize his rule and after
the project collapsed david created a davidic kingdom um in the levant because egypt anatolia
mesopotamia were preoccupied right but because a lot is so important this davidic kingdom doesn’t
It doesn’t really last that long.
It lasts for like 80, 20 years, okay?
After Solomon, David’s son, dies,
Israel is divided into two parts.
The Norman Kingdom, which gets conquered by Assyria,
as well as Judah, okay, Jerusalem,
which tries to maintain the Davidic Kingdom,
but it doesn’t last very long.
After Solomon’s history,
the Israelites are being pulled in different directions,
okay, the Anatolians, the Assyrians,
the Babylonians, the Egyptians,
because they are strategically very important.
And so, what’s really hard for these empires is,
how do we maintain control over Jerusalem?
Okay, and they try different techniques.
They try burning down their city centers, okay,
so the northern kingdom was destroyed.
You might have heard of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.
They tried taking hostages, okay?
But because this region is so volatile,
nothing really works.
And so, Jerusalem, the Israelites keep on rebelling.
So, this is the kingdom of Judah,
and what happens is, for the longest time,
the Babylonians are trying to deal with the Israelites.
Okay, so they take hostages, okay?
They take hostages, like thousands of them,
and move them to Babylon, where they become scribes,
where they become farmers, where they become merchants, okay?
But again, the region is so strategically important
that Jerusalem, the Israelites,
they switched loyalties all the time.
Eventually, the Babylonians are so pissed off
that they decide to burn down their temple, okay?
And so, at this point in history,
the Israelites are now gone, okay?
Does that make sense?
The Israelites are gone now.
587 to six, we don’t know when,
but Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem
because they cannot, they tried many techniques
to try to control Jerusalem.
can’t do it. The Israelites are too rebellious, but it’s too strictly important, so they destroy,
so they decide, you know what, screw this, we’ll just destroy the city, okay? So when this happens,
okay, this is really important for us to understand, the Israelites are gone, okay? The people are still
around, but the identity of the Israelites are now gone. 539, Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon,
okay? And he says, I want the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. It’s called the Edict of Cyrus,
all right and this is celebrated in the Bible what is controversial is why would
he do such a thing okay because again these are not gone this was who got who
went to Babylonia they may still keep their religion a bit but they don’t
have their land they don’t were there they have changes of people okay so it’s
an Israelite you pray in a temple believe that the temples are destroyed
so now you pray in a synagogue okay so the people have changed a great deal so
The question now is, why would Cyrus the Great
go to Babylon and say, you know what,
I want you Israelites to return to Jerusalem.
I want you to reconstitute the nation of Israel.
Why would he do that?
Okay, so this is going to be a debate
that will never, ever end, okay?
So the Bible tells us that Cyrus the Great did this
because God told him to do that.
Very, really simple.
God says, I love my people, the Israelites, send them home.
Okay, and Cyrus the Great says, yes, of course,
you’re the great God, I’ll do so, okay?
Guys, that’s not what happened, okay?
All right, so there are different explanations.
Maybe the idea is that Cyrus wants to show
all the Persian Empire, I’m religiously tolerant.
You can practice your religion,
you can set up your religion,
that’s what the Persian Empire is,
an open, tolerant, generous empire, okay?
That’s true.
What’s also true is that Cyrus
found himself as a righteous and merciful king
who wanted to be generous to everyone, okay?
So he saw the Israelites were at home,
says, well, go home. It’s also possible that there’s a faction within the Israelites who
supported his Babylon takeover. I don’t know if this is true. It’s probably not true, but we can
consider that as a possibility that the Israelites in Babylon supported his takeover. And so to thank
them, Cyrus said, fine, I’ll give you back Jerusalem. Another possibility is that when
When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, he discovered that, you know what, these Israelites
are really good administrators.
And this is true throughout history, because remember, the Israelites have their Bible,
and the religion requires them to study the Bible, and as we discussed, the Bible is one
of debate, openness, asking questions.
And so these are very literate intellectuals, and they rise up very high in the Babylon
administration.
to throughout history where where jewish people will rise very high in all empires including
including the islamic empire including um the american empire okay um i think the best reason
for what happened is divided rule okay so the idea is that you need to control the levant because a
lot levi gives you access to egypt which is historically the wealthiest part of the world
okay every controls egypt controls the world so what you do is you set up a group of people
in the lovat that are only loyal to you okay does that make sense okay you set up a people
in a lot that only exists because you the empire allow them to exist if you were the empire did
not support them then the locals the everyone in that region would would get rid of them right away
okay and that’s why we have the jews so the jews were invented by the persians to control the
levant the jews is actually a persian term okay so before the jews were of course the israelites
now we have the jews all right so um this is jerusalem and as you can see what’s really
important to understand is that this is actually only a really small part of the levant but this
part is specifically for the Jews and it’s part of this Persian province called
beyond the river and they call it the province of Yahu that’s what that’s why
we have the term Jews okay because they are part of the province of Yahu and
what’s really important to understand is they’re surrounded by enemies the
Sumerians are Israelites who have stayed in the Levant did you understand so most
people around them are in fact Israelites who adapted to local
circumstances and that means that they practice different religions that also
means that they married foreign women as well but they still consider
themselves as Israelites okay right does that make sense guys so what but what
happens is that these exiles from Babylon they come back and they say no
we’re the true Israelites, you guys are the false Israelites.
The reason why we’re true is we’ve stayed loyal
to our religion, okay?
So what’s gonna happen over the next few decades
is almost a civil war between Israelites who’ve stayed
and Israelites who left but come back, all right?
And this is what the Persian Empire want
in order to maintain stability in the Levant, right?
Because you have this small minority of exiles
from Babylon who’ve come back
and they’re in conflict with everyone else, all right?
This is dividing rule.
Okay, so could you, sorry, let me, okay, okay, okay.
So could you help me read the Bible, okay?
Okay.
All right, so we’re gonna read two books of the Bible.
They’re called Ezra and Nehemiah, okay?
And these two books are really important,
and they’re not really discussed that often by scholars,
but Ezra and Nehemiah shows us how Persia
helped the Jews to reconstitute their nation, the process.
And by studying these two books,
it will give us insight into how current people
in the nation of Israel think.
And then we can analyze how they will behave
moving forward, okay?
All right, so can you read?
This is the beginning of the book of Ezra, okay?
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia,
in order that the world of the Lord
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished,
the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia
so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom
and also in a written edict declared.
Okay, so this is really important for us to understand, okay?
According to the Bible, Cyrus is doing this
because God told him to do this, okay?
Not because of imperial ambitions or imperial strategy,
it’s just God told him to do this, okay?
Keep on going.
Thus says King Cyrus of Persia,
the Lord, the God of heaven,
has given me all the kingdoms of the earth
and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.
Any of those among you who are of his people, may their God be with them,
are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah
and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.
He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
And let all survivors, in whatever place they reside,
be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold,
with goods and with animals.
besides free will offsprings for the house of God in Jerusalem.
Okay, so Cyrus the Great is considered the Messiah by the Jews.
The Jews are extremely thankful for Cyrus
because not only does he allow them to go back to Jerusalem,
but he also finances the rebuilding of the temple, okay?
But when this happens, when they go back and try to rebuild the temple,
the locals get pissed off, okay?
because like who are you people you’re stealing our religion like like like what’s going on here
okay and this creates a lot of conflict that’s good for the persian empire because
they want this conflict right as part of the divine and rule strategy okay all right uh when
the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the lord the priests in their vestments were
stationed to praise the lord with trumpets and the levites the son of the levites are important
the Levites are actually the priest class of the Israelites, okay? Keep on going.
The sons of Asaph, with symbols according to the direction of King David of Israel,
and they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord. For he is good, for his
steadfast love endures forever towards Israel. And all the people responded with a great shout
when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of
priests and levites and heads of families old people who had seen the first house on his
foundations wept with a loud voice when they saw this house though many shouted allow for joy so
that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people
sweeping for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away this is the happiest
moment in jewish history when they rebuild the temple okay what they call a second temple
and this is important because the second temple was destroyed and what they want to do now in
israel is build a third temple and this is important because the third temple
sits on the alexic mosque which is the third holiest site in the islamic world
so well this bible is telling us that eventually the israelis will destroy the alexic mosque so
so that they can build the third temple,
or what they call the Temple of Solomon, okay?
All right, can you continue?
From one?
Yeah, when the adversaries.
When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard
that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord,
the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel
and the heads of families and said to them,
“‘Let us build with you,
“‘for we worship your gods as you do.'”
Okay, so they’re saying,
we’re Israelites just as you guys, okay?
We stayed, but you guys left.
So, actually, we’re better than you are, okay?
Because we stayed as well as you left.
Okay, keep on going.
And we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esarhaddon of Assyria,
who brought us here.
But Zerubbabel, Jerusha, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them,
You shall have no part with us in building a house to our God,
but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel,
as King Cyrus of Persia had commanded us.
This is really weird, right?
You’re all Israelites.
Why is it that, no, we are the true Israelites,
you guys are the false Israelites,
and so you can’t help us, okay?
Why is there this conflict going on, right?
That’s strange.
And so the only way to understand this
is the conflict is part of the imperial strategy, okay?
Divide and rule, keep on going.
Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah
and made them afraid to build,
and they bribed officials to frustrate the plan throughout the reign of King Cyrus of Persia
and until the reign of King Darius of Persia.
Okay, so they try to build the temple, but it doesn’t really work out
because there’s so much opposition, right?
The Jews who come back from Babylon are like,
we’re the real Israelites, so only we can touch the temple.
No one else can participate.
And the others are like, this is wrong.
We should all participate in the building of the temple.
This is one religion, okay?
So it seems as though these Jews from Babylon,
they’re actually imperial agents
who are trying to sow discontent within the region, okay?
Sorry, this is a bit long, okay?
But can you try to read?
Okay.
This is a copy of the letter that King and,
can you help me?
Artaxerxes, okay?
Artaxerxes.
Artaxerxes is this great warrior in Persia, okay?
Great warrior, keep on going.
Gave to the priest Ezra the scribe,
a scholar of the text of the commandments of the Lord
and his status for Israel.
Okay, so Ezra is one of these Israelites
who comes from a family that was exiled to Babylon.
But he’s a priest and he’s an intellectual.
So he is considered actually the creator of the Bible
that we have today.
Okay, keep on going.
Artaxerxes, king of kings.
To the priest Zerah,
The scribe of the law of the God of heaven, peace and now,
I decree that any of the people of Israel, of their priests or Levites in my kingdom
who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you.
For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem
according to the law of your God, which is in your hand,
And also to convey the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel,
whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia,
and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests given willingly to the house of their God in Jerusalem.
With this money, then, you shall, with all diligence, buy bulls, rams, and lambs,
and their grain offering and their drink offerings,
and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God in Jerusalem.
Okay, stop.
This is really important.
This is a letter by King Artaxerxes authorizing Ezra to build the second temple.
Why is this important?
Because this is called the Balfour Declaration, 1917.
What’s going to happen is that the British government,
Lord Balfour, he writes
to Lord Rothschild
who is a Jewish financier and he says
we
actually just read this okay
I have much pleasure in conveying to you
on behalf of his majesty’s government
the following declaration of
sympathy with
Jewish Zionist aspirations
which has been submitted to
and approved by the cabinet
his majesty’s government view
with favor the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people
and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement
of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status
enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be grateful if you
would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Okay, this is almost like the Artaxerxes equation, right?
You see how in the Bible, Artaxerxes writes a letter to Ezra and says,
hey, I authorize you to go back to Jerusalem and build the second temple, right?
So what’s happening is that they’re using the Bible as a script
in order to facilitate their geopolitical ambitions.
This is why reading the Bible is important.
Because once you read the Bible, you understand the Bible,
you compare it to historical development,
you’re able to see the connections.
And if you’re able to see connections, you can also see, predict how they will develop over time, okay?
So this Battle of the Declaration creates the current nation of Israel, which was founded in 1948.
So like before, the nation of Israel was created by the British as part of their geopolitical strategy of defining and conquering the Middle East.
And we’ll discuss this later on, okay?
But it’s really important for you guys to keep in mind as we move forward.
All right, can you read the highlighted part, okay?
Oh my God, I’m too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God,
for our inequities have risen higher than our heads.
Okay, so this is a speech by Ezra, okay?
He returns to Jerusalem, and now he has to reflect on what God wants, okay?
So he’s going to discuss why God exiled him from Babylon,
on why God has allowed them to return
and what God wants them to do, okay?
Keep on going.
And our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.
From the days of our ancestors to this day,
we have been deep in guilt.
And for iniquities, we, our kings and our priests,
have been handed over to the kings of the lands,
to the sword, to captivity, to plundering,
and to utter shame, as is now the case.
Okay, so why did the Israelites get exiled to Babylon?
because they refused to obey and worship Yahweh.
Yahweh sent prophets, Yahweh warned them,
but they kept on worshiping false gods,
they kept on sinning.
And so Yahweh’s like, you know what,
I really need to teach these guys a lesson,
and that’s why they exiled him,
they exiled them to Babylon,
so they can reflect and learn and grow as a people, okay?
Keep on going.
But now for a brief moment,
Favor has been shown by the Lord our God, who has left us a remnant and given us a stake in his holy place,
in order that he may brighten our eyes and grant us a little sustenance in our slavery.
For we are slaves, yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery,
but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia,
to give us new life to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins,
and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
Okay, so Ezra’s saying, okay, yeah, we screwed up, but God is forgiving,
and now we have a second chance to prove ourselves to God.
How do we prove ourselves to God?
By making sure that we only worship him, okay?
So this beginning of Jewish monotheism, okay, which was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism.
So in other words, the religion that the Jews will practice from now on is not the religion of the Israelites, which is polytheistic.
They will now practice a new religion that’s heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, which is the Persian religion.
Keep on going.
And now, our God, what shall we say after this?
For we have forsaken your commandments, which you are commanded by your servants, the prophets, saying,
the land that you are entering to possess is a land unclean with the
pollutions of the people of the lands with their abominations they have they
have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness okay so this is a
really important idea to understand what what Ezra is saying is this these
Israelites who’ve stayed are traitors they are now unclean why because now
they worship foreign gods. They’re polytheistic. And as a result, we have to clean the land, okay?
This is a fanatical understanding of Judaism, okay? Keep on going.
Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters from your sons,
and never seek their peace or propriety, so that you may be strong and eat the good of the land,
and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. Okay, keep on going.
After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt,
seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our inequities deserved
and have given us such a remnant at this,
shall we break your commandment again
and intermarry with the people who practice these abominations?
Would you not be angry with us until you destroy us without remnant or survivor?
O Lord, God of Israel, you are just, but we have escaped as a remnant, as is now the case.
Here we are before you in our guilt, though no one can face you because of this.
Okay, so now God’s forgiven us, we’ve returned to Jerusalem.
We can’t screw this up again, okay?
And how do we prove our loyalty to God?
By making sure that we are peer, okay?
We’re not going to marry other religions.
We’re not going to marry other people.
we’re just gonna marry within ourselves so herodotus in his histories when he talks about
the jewish people okay he says his jewish people are known for two things the first thing they’re
known for is giving us a bath on saturday so they don’t work they don’t work on saturday because
that’s their law the second thing that they’re known for really known for is he’ll marry outside
their religion jewish women will not will refuse to marry foreign men okay and so now we have a
concept of blood purity that is new so remember it’s really important for us to understand
but the Jews and the Israelites are not the same people, okay?
In fact, what Ezra is doing is rejecting the Israelite heritage
and accepting a new heritage based on blood purity
and a monophistic devotion to Yahweh.
And this is new, okay?
That’s why I keep on saying this.
The Jews of Persia are not the same as the Israelites of David.
All right, so as you can see from this map,
the Jews are in this area and it’s a very small part of the Levant but it’s a part of the Levant
that’s completely loyal to Persia okay because they see everyone else as unclean as the enemy
and if you’re an empire having the Jews around are really good for you right all right and so
So the Jews are an invention of the Persians, but guess what?
The nation of Israel is also an invention of the British Empire, and we’ll discuss this later on.
All right, so we move on to the second book called Nehemiah.
So Ezra is the priest who will create the Bible.
Nehemiah is the governor sent by the Persians to reestablish the Jewish nation, okay?
So can you read the highlighted part?
At the time, I was cupbearer to the king.
Okay, cupbearer to the king is like a really powerful position, right?
Because you can poison the king.
So the king loves you, the king sees you as someone who is very competent,
and you could possibly one day be prime minister or the first minister, okay?
Keep on going.
In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes,
when wine was served him, I carried the wine and gave it to the king.
Now I had never been sad in this presence before.
So the king said to me,
Why is your face sad since you are not sick?
This can only be sadness of the heart.
Then I was very much afraid.
i said to the king may the king live forever why should my face not be sad when the city the place
of my ancestors graves lies waste and its gate have been destroyed by fire then the king said
to me what do you request so i prayed to the god of heaven then i said to the king if it pleases
the king and your your servant has found favor with you i ask that you send me to judah to the
city of my ancestors’ graves so that I may rebuild it. The king said to me, the queen also was sitting
beside him, how long will you be gone and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me
and I set him a date. Then I said to the king, if I pleases the king, let letters be given to
given me to the governors of the province beyond the river that they may grant me passage until I
arrived in Judah and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, directing him to give me
timber to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress and for the wall of the city and for the
house that I shall occupy. And the king granted me what I asked for the gracious hand of my God
was upon me. Okay, so the Bible says that Nehemiah one day feels tremendous regret that the city of
ancestors is not has not been rebuilt okay he begs the king for permission to go back guys this is
not how empires work okay this is not how empires work you do not ask the king or the emperor for
anything because he will just cut your head off okay how empires work is that you have to read
the king’s intentions right you have to figure out what does he really want and then you have to say
please please i want to do this not because you asked me to do this but because i want to do this
myself okay and i will work hard to achieve this ambition that’s how empires work all right the
king does not tell you what he wants you have to guess what he wants if you can guess what he wants
then you get promoted if you can’t guess what he wants then you get then you get your head
cut off right that’s how empires work this is important because um when we move on to the nation
of israel most people believe that the nation of israel started with the zionist movement which
which came with the writing of a book called
Judenland, Fatherland, written by this German-Jewish
journalist called Theodor Herzl.
And so, people say Zionism started 100 years ago.
Guys, when we do the next state of Israel,
we will discover that it’s actually part
of the British imperial policy, okay?
But the British themselves cannot be seen
as the ones who are promoting
the creation of the state of Israel,
it makes them look bad okay because because everyone else would be like why
are you doing this so what they have to do is create a situation in which the
Jews themselves are trying to want to create their own nation the problem
though is this is really important we’ll discuss this later is that a hundred
years ago guess what Jews did not want to go to Jerusalem because they were
happy where they were okay there were a lot of Jews were probably happy in
Babylon but they were sent back in order to create this to create this province
Judah and to create all this conflict with with the locals okay that’s how
empires work okay all right so when Nehemiah goes back what he’s going to do
is he’s going to build the temple he’s going to build the walls this is going to piss
everyone off right because like why would you do that we’re all living
happening together we’re all big one big family um and now you’re building these walls which means
that you’re better than us or you or you’re you’re afraid of us or you want to conquer us okay so
this creates all these conflicts with the locals which is again what the Persian empire wants to
happen this is how empires work all right okay can you can you read now there was a great outcry of
the people and of their wives against their Jewish kin for there were those who said with
our sons and our daughters, we are many. We must get grain so that we may eat and stay alive.
There were also those who said, we are having to pledge our fields, our vineyards, and our houses
in order to get grain during the famine. And there were those who said, we are having to borrow money
on our fields and vineyards to pay the king’s tax. Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred.
Our children are the same as their children, and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be
slaves and some of our daughters have been ravished. We are powerless and our fields
and vineyards now belong to others. So what’s happening is that Nehemiah has gone back to
create this new province of Jews. What he’s discovering is that there’s massive corruption
and inequality among these Jews. And this is a problem because they’re a minority in a very
hostile region, right? Keep on going. I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these
complaints. After thinking it over, I brought charges against the nobles, the nobles and the
officials. I said to them, you are all taking interests from your own people, and I called a
great embassy to deal, assembly to deal with them, and said to them, as far as we were able, we have
brought back our Jewish kindred who had been sold to other nations, but now you are selling your own
who must then be brought back by us they were silent and could not find a word to
say so I said the thing you the thing that you were doing is not good should
you not should you not walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the
nation’s our enemies moreover I moreover I and my brothers and my servants are
lending them money and grain let us stop this taking of interest restore to them
this very day their fields their vineyards their olive orchards and their houses and their
interests on money grain wine and oil that you have been exact exact exacting from them then they
said we will restore everything and demand nothing more from them we will do as you say and i called
the priest and made them take an oath to do as they had promised i also shook out the folds of
my garment and said so many god shakes out everyone from house and from property who does
not perform this promise thus may they be shaken out and emptied and all the assembly said amen
and praise the lord and the people did as they had promised okay so this is a really important
aspect of the jews that people don’t really understand how unified they are okay an example
is that if you’re a jewish person you can always get an interest-free interest-free loan if you
to buy a house or start a business okay that’s pretty amazing right if we want to buy a house
or want to start a business we go to a bank they’re like um okay we’re going to charge you
10 interest and maybe you can’t afford that right but if you’re a jewish person it doesn’t matter
how poor you are there will always be jewish organizations that can offer you interest-free
loans you want to start a business or if you want to buy a house you want to do anything because
These Jews are not allowed to collect interest from each other.
That’s how unified they are as a people, okay?
So just read the top and then highlight it and that’s it, okay?
Okay.
When the seventh month came, the people of Israel being settled in their towns, all the
people gathered together into the square before the water gate.
told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel.
Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all
who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it
facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of the men
and women, and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive
to the book of the law.
Okay, so this is the last step of creating the Jewish identity, okay?
So the idea of the Jewish identity is that they follow the laws of God, they do not marry
outside their religion, they don’t charge each other interest, they don’t exploit each
other, okay?
thing is this the last thing is that the historical memory is the bible okay who are we as jewish
people what are our memories it’s whatever is written in the bible okay so ezra is taking all
these historical documents he’s combined together in what today we call the bible okay and this is
this makes the jewish people extremely resilient because no matter uh where they are no matter
um how low the publishing um um how low the publishing goes their memory their historical
identity is always stored in one bible that makes them the world’s most resilient flexible
and open people okay so this begins the uh uh bible okay uh keep on going in those days i saw
and judah people treating wine pre wine presses on the sabbath and it’s a saturday the day of rest
okay and bring in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys and also wine grapes figs and all kinds
of burdens which they brought into jerusalem on the sabbath day and i warned them at the time
against selling food tyrians tyrians also who lived in the city brought in fish and all kinds
of merchandise and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah and in
Jerusalem then I remonstrated with the nobles of Judah and said to them what is
this evil thing that you are doing profaning the Sabbath day did not your
ancestors act in this way and did not our God bring all this disaster on us
and on the city yet you bring more worth and on Israel by profaning the Sabbath
In those days also I saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod,
and they could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke the language of various people.
And I contended with them, and cursed them, and beat some of them, and pulled out their hair.
And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying,
You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters from your sons or for yourselves.
Did not King Solomon of Israel sin on account of such women?
Among the many nations, there was no king like him,
and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel.
Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.
Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil
and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?
Okay, so Nehemiah enforces two major laws.
The first law is that you shall not work on the Sabbath because that is God’s rest day, okay?
Second major law is that if you marry a foreign woman, you must divorce her.
He’s bringing up families.
Why?
Because he believes that religious purity requires blood purity.
If you marry a foreign woman, she’s going to make you believe in their foreign god.
Remember, it is by worshiping false idols.
it’s because of this that Yahweh decided to punish the Jews okay so the Jews must only worship Yahweh
all right so this is their interpretation of monotheism so as you can see there are certain
traditions about the Jews that was created during the Persian empire in order to facilitate
Persia’s control of the Levant but these traditions because they are encoded in the Bible
they stay with us even today but not only that but by reading the bible carefully and understand
how to connect the bible to historical development you can now figure out how israel will develop
over the next 10 20 years okay and these are my sorry so these are my three predictions first of
all they’re going to rebuild the temple of solomon okay they’re going to build the third temple by
destroying the isaac mosque they’re going to do that sooner or later okay that’s the first thing
going to do and you can you know why because when we when we read the bible you can see how
how happy they were okay because they felt completed they felt as though god is with us
god has forgiven us god loves us okay so building the third temple is crucial to the identity of
israel today okay so they’re going to do this and it’s going to cause a lot of problems because
again the islamic mosque is the third holiest site in the islamic world and it’s gonna create a lot
of conflict between israel and the islamic world okay do they care not really okay number two
you can see how uh when the jews returned they were convinced that they were forced out to
lose them because they offended god okay so in other words if jews want to maintain control over
israel they need to obey the laws of god which means that they become a theocracy okay now now
i’m not sure if you’ve been to israel i’ve been to israel and if you go to a place like tel aviv
it’s a very open liberal cosmopolitan for looking place okay i think that um tel aviv has um one of
the world’s highest concentrations of gays in the world okay guess what that’s gonna that’s gone
As Israel develops over time, it’s going to become more and more of a theocracy, where the Bible is the law.
And the third thing is that we can expect that as the Pax Judaica expands, more and more Jews will return to Israel.
Look, the reality is this.
If you look at the Middle East, Israel is the greatest power in the Middle East.
There’s no force in the Middle East that can prevent Israel from expanding and expanding,
including the Pact of Judaica, which is their ambition, okay?
So this is just an introduction.
But the thing I want you guys to remember is that, first of all, the Jewish identity,
it is fluid, it’s flexible, it’s open.
It was created by empire for the purpose of maintaining empire, okay?
And we’re going to see this throughout history as well, all right?
so um is was this clear to you guys are there any questions about today okay yeah so how does the
the persian state country like persian control of uh of jerusalem transfer to modern day society
like how does it still work because i think we’re seeing like a trend that is israel’s going
kind of more back to like depending on the Bible and everything, so how does it
like transfer to modern-day society and all the conflicts that’s happening?
Okay, so Persia wanted to divide and conquer the Levant, okay? They’re afraid that if
the Levant becomes too stable, the Levant might settle with Egypt or another
power, and they lose control of the Levant, which directly impacts their
capacity to trade and control um the world okay so the way you control the levant is you create
this entity um that’s conflict with everyone else and now what happens is that both this entity um
um jerusalem and the its enemies rely on you persia to manage the conflict okay and this
what’s happening today in Israel because who’s the empire? America’s the empire, right? Israel
has all these conflicts with nations in the Middle East, right? They have conflicts with Turkey,
they have conflicts with Egypt, they have conflicts with the Gulf nations, they have conflicts with
basically everyone, okay? So who does everyone require, need to manage this conflict? America,
right? Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, they all require the United States to come in and say,
hey guys let’s just get along we’re just one big family okay this is all intentional in order for
america to maintain dominance over the middle east who’s very unhappy about this which nation
is very unhappy about this israel okay right israel’s gonna piss about this so we can expect
that over time it’s gonna happen is a major major conflict between america and israel there’s gonna
a divorce basically and my argument to you is that um israel will win this conflict and as a result
israel will become the dominant power in the middle east because the jews know their own history the
jews read the bible every day they know what the persians did they know the british did they know
the americans are doing today they don’t like they don’t they don’t want this they don’t want to
become a servant a slave to empire they are serving and slave to their god but they don’t become a
a servant slave to the empire so they need to get rid of the empire and establish their sovereignty
okay and that’s why there’s so much conflict in the middle east today because israel needs to
figure out how to get rid of the american empire so that it can be independent and um fully achieve
their sovereignty okay does that make sense yeah i think one question i have is about like i think
Do you think currently the Jews stop attacking Palestinians?
Okay, guys, guys, okay.
This is really important, okay?
Don’t say the Jews, okay?
There are different groups.
There’s the Israelites.
The Israelites are the time of King David.
They’re gone, okay?
Let’s forget about the Israelites.
There are the Jews,
and the Jews are people who practice Judaism, okay?
And there are the Israelis.
Israelis are citizens of the nation of Israel.
It’s the Israelis that are doing this,
not the Jews.
There’s a difference, okay?
because the Jews are spread out throughout the world,
what we call the Jewish diaspora.
And there are a lot of Jews in the world
who oppose the nation of Israel
because, well, what the nation of Israel is doing,
they believe goes against the will of God, okay?
So Israelis, not Jews, okay?
Okay, so the Israelis is,
I think the news just disappears
about how Israelis attacks Palestine.
It’s just because previously it was all on the hot searches, but recently it’s just gone, the news.
Okay, look, the reality is that if you read the Bible, it’s clear what’s going to happen.
Israel is going to clear the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinians to establish their theocratic state.
They can’t have Palestinians and Arabs around.
It has to be completely Jewish.
and these
Palestinians can be moved elsewhere
to Jordan, to Egypt, they don’t really care
okay, but this process
will take time, okay
alright, any more questions guys?
okay, great, so
was this
clear, the ideas in this class were
clear, okay, so next class what we’ll
do is we’ll do
the Greek Empire, okay
and after that we’ll do the Roman Empire
and after that we’ll do Christianity
okay so we’re going through history further quickly but I want I need you to
keep these ideas in mind because it will build on top of each other okay all
right okay thank you
Source: Predictive History