Sid: My guest is sure red hot for the Messiah another Jewish man that is on fire for the Lord. His name is Dr. Bob Fischer I’m speaking to him at his home in Tiberias, Israel. And Bob has just come out on DVD with something that it has never been available before. The title is “The Jewish Origins of Christianity.” It’s 16 units; it’s actually now for the first time being offered in colleges where you can get a credit for it. But it’s done in such a beautiful simplistic fashion that even young people would understand it. And the artwork from Israel and the pictures the original pictures he’s taken and all of the historical things of antiquity that he’s worked in. And on yesterday’s broadcast and the day before and we could just barely just touch the surface of this course because it’s a wealth of information. And why should you want this wealth of information? Because haven’t you felt that there is something missing from what we call 21st century American Christianity? Haven’t you felt there is a difference between what you see on Sunday morning and what you read about in the book of Acts? Just maybe if we could go back to the foundations we can go back to the power and the intimacy with God we had in the first church when it was so vibrant. Now we’ve been talking this week Dr. Fischer about how something that started so Jewish has become today the opposite of Judaism. And you mentioned a man by the name of Constantine and tell us a bit about what Constantine did and why?
Bob: Yeah Sid, Constantine was really in a pickle because there were many new conversions in his empire to this new Christian understanding that were brought about by Paul and his ministry. And Constantine was a sun worshiper, he was a Mithras and he was having real…
Sid: Excuse me what is a Mithras?
Bob: Mithra was the sun god and Mithraism was the worship of the sun god. It was a formal system of the Middle East and the Far East.
Sid: I have heard that Constantine legalized, legislated, the Sunday worship that started a little earlier because it was tied in with the Sun god or was that just a fairytale?
Bob: Oh, no, no, no that’s a fact; during the Council of Nicaea 325 it was overseen by Constantine himself. Up to that point Gentile Christian’s right along with the Jewish believers were keeping Shabbat, the Saturday worship according to the Torah. But Constantine who was a sun worshiper changed that around and picked a Sunday which was bilaterally was Sun-day. Sunday was the day of the birth of the sun god Mithra. So this was what happened.
Sid: What was his intent behind denuding the church or anything Jewish?
Bob: Probably because he was trying to focus on the pagan aspects on the new combine belief in the core understanding of Yeshua in the Torah. Or Yeshua the basic understanding of Yeshua; he was emphasizing the paganistic side of things which had Mithra and all of the other pagan aspects of…
Sid: Yes but if he was a Christian why would he be emphasizing in the Old Covenant as I said previously, there was such a distinction between the clean and the unclean he was trying to put the two together. Could he have been one of the first great politicians of his day? (Laughing) Trying to merge the two cultures for political gain?
Bob: That was precisely what he was trying to do because he was faced with a rebellion. And when he declared the “Christian religion” as a state religion in 313 he was trying to do exactly that; he was trying to quell an uprising that was about to take place and overthrow his empire. And when he did that he succeeded it was purely a political move.
Sid: Okay, what happened to the Jewish believer’s; these Essenes of Nazarenes that were actually the whole church started with them, and there were so many as you’ve told us. What happened to them?
Bob: They basically got put down, after the second revolt against Rome in 135 they refused to join up with a Rabbi named Akiva and come against Rome. Because Akiva had embraced a false Messiah name Bar Kochba. So when they refused to join with Rabbi Akiva against Rome the Body of Jews other than themselves turned against them. So they had these people against them, they had Rome against them, but the whole world had turn against them. Just like we have today it would seem everybody seems to be coming against Messianic Jews; particularly in Israel. The Messianic Jews of Israel of that day had everybody turned against them. And they were gradually just beaten down, now there were remnants of them still around in the 5th century but they really reached their peak at the end of the first century.
Sid: Now I want to jump a little bit because this is your Unit 10. There’s some fascinating things here about what Constantine’s church was like and where some of these things came from.
Bob: Well Constantine his church blended his church with Mithra the sun god with a core of salvation on Nazarene Jewish faith. And it was this blending that really was the theological underpinning of the Roman Catholic Church. And you know the sad part of this is a lot of this stuff spilled over into the Protestant Reformation. That is to say that the post-reformation Protestantism, stuff that basically began to be accepted as doctrine and really pagan parity that began in 325 with the Council of Nicaea and then subsequent Councils. But there are a whole bunch of stuff that they brought in at that point of time time but we’re purely out of a Mithratic, or pagan background. For example, Mithra was thought to have been born by a virgin mother whose name was Anahita. Mithra was born on Sun-day late December and Mithra was part of the divine trinity. There is a Mithratic baptism for example that deals with baptism in blood; which is really kind of a gory ceremony which later evolved by the way (this is fascinating). You know when Constantine decided that everybody was to convert to this new “Christian faith” or be killed; this was really “You will become a believer.” The baptismal thing became…
Sid: Constantine was the first Islam; the first Islamic person (Laughing) with the sword.
Bob: It’s fascinating and people wonder “Where did baptism with sprinkling come from?” Well…
Sid: Hey people are going to get confused Constantine was not a Muslim, but the point I’m making is Constantine had Christianity by the sword which was the last thing that Jesus wanted and Islam is with the sword, same spirit.
Bob: Absolutely, it was really fascinating to me was that these people went to the Tigress River to be baptized because they were to do it or to die. So the Mithratic “Bishops” who were under Constantine’s control they were part of this new system of a blend of paganism and Christianity. So they didn’t know how to cope with baptizing people so they ended up doing were taking branches off of trees and soaking them in the water, and then waving them over the crowds of the people and the water fell on them and they were sprinkled, and this is the genesis of baptism by sprinkling. Which is a rather fascinating thing I think.
Sid: You know one of the things you mentioned about in your course is there are more than 50 of these Mithram (How do you pronounce it?)
Bob: Mithraism the plural or Mithram in the singular.
Sid: Okay many of them are directly underneath Roman Catholic Churches, why do you think that’s true?
Bob: Well it’s true because a…
Sid: Now why would they have done that?
Bob: Well it was just convenient, you know you find churches built on top of churches in generations. They simply… a real good example of this is Sam Clemente which is a very large Roman Catholic Church as I recall 12th Century. The 12th Century church which stands today. And used today is built on top of a 4th Century Church which is in turn is built on top of a Mithraham.
Sid: Hm.
Bob: And Mithraham was a functioning underground cave wherein the very first believers in the time of Constantine worshiped the sun god.
Sid: Now even in Christianity today this Mithratic worship or the worship of sun gods is some remnants; tell us a few quickly.
Bob: Oh, my goodness yes. For example the halo, if you will. The halo we find throughout the church.
Sid: In Christian art where you see that halo over someone’s head.
Bob: How many Sunday School kids or how many of our children have worn halo’s quite innocently. It’s a symbol of Mithra. If you look at any of the major Roman Catholic Churches for example at their domes there sunburst, a burst of the sun. If you look at St. Peter’s Square itself and look down from above you’ll see a sunburst in St. Peter’s Square. In fact you’ll see a sunburst within a sunburst. You know the worship of the sun is permeated; go take a look at the Washington Monument if you will and you’ll see an obelisk which is at the center of this sun worship system. There are obelisk all over the place; some have even subscribed that church steeples have a root in this same paganistic sort of thing. The inculcation of thanks to Mr. Constantine the inculcation of these pagan ideas and pagan understandings have really permeated the whole church. You know you’ve got Easter for example that’s got this beautiful most important day in our faith; the resurrection of our Lord is celebrated now on the holiday of the birth of Ostra who was a pagan goddess; a goddess of fertility; the goddess of love.
Sid: I’ll tell you what we’re out of time right here Mishpochah….
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth