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I'm Lon Milo Duquette and if you are here for the time travel lecture, they left ten
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minutes from now and they'll return on the previous night. Actually I've spent about the
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last 15 years writing about esoteric subjects, mostly concerning the Western mystery tradition,
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including ceremonial magic, hermetic Kabbalah, Kabbalah with a Q, and that includes things like
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tarot. I've written several books on the tarot and created my own tarot deck which my wife painted
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for me, bless her heart. I've got a brand new, this book came out that I'm going to talk about
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tonight, came out in April and it's called The Key to Solomon's Key, Secrets of Magic and Masonry,
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and that's sort of the source text of my talk tonight. But I've written a novel which is really
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new for me, novels are something new, but it's called Accidental Christ and the story of Jesus
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is told by his uncle. The name of the talk here is Solomon's Key, Templars, Freemasonry and Magic,
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but the book is the key to Solomon's Key, Secrets of Magic and Masonry. Now I don't want to confuse
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you, but the book is somewhat controversial and for a number of reasons that'll become clear as
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I talk. Freemasonry, the Knights Templar and magic are themselves among the most controversial
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themes in Western civilization, so please try not to be too uncomfortable if I hit a nerve now and
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again, especially when I talk about the Bible. I would guess that most of us here in this room
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have no problem at all recognizing our birthrights as free spiritual beings, but how many of us can
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say that about our parents or our four grandparents or our eight great-grandparents? Most of us need
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only go back a generation or two to encounter ancestors whose spiritual self-identity and
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worldview we would now consider at best sadly unenlightened. For the better part of 2,000 years,
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Western civilization has not only been spiritually asleep, we've been trapped in a nightmare. We
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didn't fall naturally into this terrifying slumber. We were pushed. We were pushed by
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individuals and institutions who for various motives needed to create and sustain a culture
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of spiritual zombies. To do this, they used or rather they abused a weapon. You can find the
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weapon in the end table of nearly every hotel in the United States. Ironically, this object,
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when used properly, is a wellspring of inspiration and enlightenment. It has for centuries been
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wielded in the hands of saintly men and women to advance civilization and bring comfort and healing
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to those in need. But in unworthy hands, it's become a terrible weapon of supernatural terror,
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brandished to make zombies who have been assembled into armies. Armies that for 2,000 years have
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washed the world in a sea of blood and brought unthinkable suffering to countless men, women,
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and children. It is the father of genocide, the Holocaust, and the slave trade, and it's the mother
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of global warming. It has become deadlier than arrows and swords and catapults and guns and
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cannons and tanks and battleships and A-bombs. I'm talking about the Bible. Please don't
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misunderstand me. I'm a Freemason, and the Bible, together with the square and compass, is one of
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the three great lights of Masonry. Masons call the Bible the volume of the sacred law and teach
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that it is an erring standard of truth and justice. As a Mason, I'm counseled to regulate
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my conduct by the divine precepts it contains. Even though I'm not Jewish or Christian, I have
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no problem with that, because Masonry is wise enough not to define what the words unerring
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standard and divine precepts mean. Furthermore, nowhere does Masonry demand that anyone believe
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that the Bible is a historically accurate document. Masonic meetings have an overtly religious
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feel to them. They're opened and closed with prayer, but the prayers are addressed generically to the
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great architect of the universe or to the supreme Grandmaster. This custom creates a unique spiritual
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atmosphere in which the supreme deity is elevated above sectarian divisions. When you think about it,
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this simple custom is, in and of itself, a radical and revolutionary statement of spiritual
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liberation. It transforms each member into a religion of one answerable only to God. And that
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is precisely what a magician is. And as many of you know, I'm a magician. It's imminently appropriate
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that the person of King Solomon rises as a central figure in the traditions of both magic and
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masonry. For it is written that Solomon was not only a great and wise man of God, he was also the most
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powerful magician the world had ever known. Everything we know about Solomon comes to us from the pages
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of the Bible and other Jewish, Islamic, Coptic, and Ethiopian religious literature. The Bible tells us
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that Solomon was the throne of Israel after the death of his father, Israel's great warrior, King David.
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The Bible tells us that Solomon inherited a huge and enormously wealthy nation with a massive,
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well-equipped army. Solomon's Israel was said to be so rich, so mighty, that none of its powerful
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neighbors, including its arch enemy, Egypt, dared remain hostile. Scripture recounts that the rulers of the world
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did Solomon's favor and lavished opulent tribute to the Hebrew king, filling his granaries and treasure houses
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with the riches the like of which the world had never witnessed before. In a submissive act unprecedented in
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biblical history, Egypt's pharaoh sent his own daughter to become one of the many wives of Solomon.
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It was within this glorious atmosphere of peace and prosperity that the Bible tells us Solomon fulfilled his father's
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dream of building a temple worthy to house the tangible presence of the true and living God most high.
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This great temple would be the exclusive center of worship and sacrifice for the children of Israel,
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and would replace the portable tabernacle that had served to house the sacred ark of the covenant since the
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wilderness wandering days of Moses. In order to complete this undertaking, Solomon would have pressed into
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service 183,000 workers and overseers. Bible scholars estimate the temple was completed in 959 BC.
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The biblical account is rich with details about the dimensions and the ornamentation of the Phoenician-style
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temple, so many in fact that modern architects have been able to develop satisfactory drawings and models.
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Solomon died after reigning over Israel for 40 years. Bible scholars estimate 930 BC. I'm stressing these dates
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for a reason. I'm not expecting you to memorize them all, but keep these dates in mind.
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After his death, a string of mostly despicable kings immediately set to work to make a mess of things.
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The nation split up into Judea in the south, where Jerusalem and the temple were located, and Israel in the north.
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The Temple of Solomon stood in its pristine condition for only 33 years. Bible scholars reckon, however, that it
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remained intact for an additional 374 years before being completely destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar of
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Babylon in 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar also ordered that the fittest members of the Hebrew nobility be taken captive
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back to Babylon to serve in his palace and receive Babylonian educations. This was a common practice of conquering
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nations in those days. You conquer a nation, then you take their nobility, their noble families, back to your hometown
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and you hometown them. It was easier than keeping an occupational army in the place you conquered.
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So this is a very common thing to do. Do you ever see I, Claudius? That wonderful show, I, Claudius?
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Well, King Herod, the future King Herod was living with Augustus Caesar. Another example of this.
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Seventy years later, after the death of Nebuchadnezzar and the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus of Persia, the descendants of the
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Hebrew captives were allowed to return to Jerusalem to build a second temple. Now the moral lessons of masonry draw
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heavily from these tales. The Master Mason degree focuses particularly on a story of the murder of King Solomon's
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master builder and several degrees of the Scottish and York rites illustrate tales of the Babylonian captivity and the
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! The story of the story of the story of the story of the story of the story of the story of the story of the story of the
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The ceremony didn't focus too clearly about what precisely the charges against the Templars were, but we learned that
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D. Malay was accused of being the head of an order that, quote, practiced many abominations.
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Even as a young boy, abominations sounded real cool, okay?
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After the initiation, we listened to a short talk delivered by our adult Masonic supervisor. They call them dads.
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This was Dad Cooley who did this, who told us that some Masonic historians believe that Masonry was started by
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former Knights Templar who fled Scotland when the order was outlawed. Excuse me, fled to Scotland when the order was
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outlawed. He also hinted that the secrets of the Templars are still hidden in the symbols and rituals of Masonry.
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He then went on to tell us a story that sounded like it came right out of a hammer film.
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It seems that as the coals and flames were roasting him alive, the doomed D. Malay uttered a prophetic curse for all to
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hear. He vowed that within one year, from beyond the grave, he would summon the souls of King Philip and Pope Clement
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to stand with him before the bar of heaven. There he would ask God to judge who was guilty in this matter.
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And it came to pass that less than a year after the awful utterance, the King and the Pope did indeed join D. Malay in the
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afterlife. I was very impressed.
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For the better part of two centuries, Masonic scholars have debated what, if anything, the Knights Templars have to do with
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Freemasonry. There are no documents we can refer to that inform us in so many words that on such and such a date, the Knights
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Templar went underground and set up a secret benevolent society that employs building tools as esoteric symbols and Bible
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stories as moral lessons. However, many influential Masons of the past, especially those in 18th century France,
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enthusiastically embraced the Templars as their own predecessors.
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Still, we can only point to the most generic elements within the rituals and liturgies of Freemasonry that demonstrate at most a
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harmony of anti-clerical goals and attitudes shared by the two organizations. However, in the philosophical era, where
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traditional history is more important than history history, this in and of itself can have a profound significance.
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The charges leveled at the Templars were many, but the one that caught my attention the most were those that alleged that new
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initiates were required to spit upon and trample a crucifix underfoot, that they were forbidden to worship the crucifix.
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The new Knights were told that Jesus was a man who died like all men die, that in the higher degrees the Templars
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worshipped a bearded human head or ass headed statue called Baphomet, and that they practiced black magic.
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It was getting real cool now.
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What a curious assortment of accusations that would be leveled at a group of Christian Knights. Yet there was a certain
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consistency in many of the confessions voiced by the tortured members of the order that might lead us to believe that there was
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perhaps an iota of truth in these accusations. But before we open up that can of words, I'm going to look very briefly at what we
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know about this colorful band of brothers. On Christmas Day 1118, a group of nine French Knights, including, and I'm going to
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say this a couple times, pardon my French, Hugh de Paine, the cousin of the Comte de Champagne, and the husband of Catherine Saint Claire of
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Roslyn, stood before the Patriarch of Jerusalem and King Baldwin II of Palestine and vowed themselves to chastity, poverty, and
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They said they wished to form a holy order of warriors and requested they be given as their headquarters the area adjacent to the eastern
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sector of the King's own palace, a place we know today as the Temple Mount.
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Now in 1118, the first crusades were over. The Christians occupied various places in the Holy Land, including Jerusalem. There was an
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actual Christian King of Jerusalem and a mini-Pope. I don't want to sound disrespectful, but a mini-Pope they called the Patriarch of
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Jerusalem. Nine Knights coming from France, all dusty, they've come a long way. Nine little Knights immediately gain entry to the King's
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palace and ask for part of his palace as their headquarters, and the King goes, oh, okay. It's kind of strange.
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For reasons that no historian can properly explain, the Patriarch immediately accepted their vows and the King summarily surrendered the area
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to these Nine Knights. This area of Mount Moriah had a rich legendary pass. It was said that an exposed boulder at the summit of the Mount
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first issued from the mouth of a mystical serpent, Tahum, to serve as the gateway connecting the upper worlds and the Infernal Regions.
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It is also where tradition informs us Abraham built an altar of stones upon which he prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. From that altar,
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Jacob, the son of Isaac, took a stone to be his pillow and dreamed his famous dream of angels ascending and descending that ladder that reached to
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heaven. Upon waking from this vision, Jacob anointed the stone with oil, and it supposedly sank into the ground to form the foundation of what would be
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the three great Jewish temples. I'll talk about those temples in a second, but I have to mention that this was the same mountain
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that Mohammed visited in his famous night visit to Jerusalem. This is sacred real estate. But the three temples that that stone supposedly made the
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foundation for was King Solomon's temple, 959 BC, a larger but less ornate second temple, 535 BC, built by the children of Israel upon their return from
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Babylon. The magnificent third temple, around 20 BC, built by Herod the Great and destroyed by the Romans in around 70 AD. It was this temple that
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was the largest and most ornate of them all, and this temple stood during the lifetime of Jesus. The knights called themselves, excuse my French,
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pauvres cheveliers du temple, poor knights of the temple, the knights templar. And it appears they traveled to Jerusalem for the singular purpose of
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establishing the order and securing the temple mount as their headquarters. Their expressed official raison d'etre was to protect the increasing number of
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Christian pilgrims who traveled the dangerous roads to the newly captured Holy Land. But you know, that was a job that was already being done by the knights of St. John.
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It's highly unlikely that this was their true intention. In fact, it's doubtful the nine knights did any soldiering at all for the first nine years, during which
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time it appears they remained secluded at the temple mount site. Now modern templar buffs speculate this tiny group of men were engaged in an
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aggressive excavation of the ruins of the temple mount, searching for the Ark of the Covenant or King Solomon's gold or other relics. There is no solid archeological
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evidence to support these speculations. But it's hard to imagine that nine guys billeted on the most bizarre and mystical spot on Earth for nine years didn't want to
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have a little look around. If anything, in particular, they would have been looking for. Well, we can only guess. But conspiracy enthusiasts certainly think they found or learned
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something, something very important, something that in a few short years drew to them the goodwill and deference of the Church of Rome and the princes of Europe. For nine years after their
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formation, the Knights Templar initiated no new members and remained doing something at the temple site. Then in 1126, two of them, Hugh de Paine and André de Montbard, returned to France to
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confer with Montbard's nephew, the abbot of Clairvaux. The abbot was the senior advisor to Pope Honoris II and the most brilliant and charismatic figure in 12th century Christendom. We know him today as Saint Bernard, Barnard of Clairvaux.
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He had a big casque of brandy around. No. Whatever he learned from his nephew, Bernard immediately threw his energies and influence behind the Templars. He convinced the Pope to give the Templars full church
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recognition and volunteered to create the order's constitution. Now, oddly enough, this rule of order that he drew up didn't have one word concerning protecting pilgrims. What it did do was unite the two most powerful forces in the Western
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world, the Church of Rome and the ruthless brutality of the feudal warrior. The Knights Templar would have become the first truly disciplined army since the Roman legionnaires. Fighting men that lived like monks, Christian soldiers who
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the occupation did not jeopardize their prospects of going to heaven because they had a license to kill evil. Unlike other Knights who owed allegiance to a specific king, Duke, Baron, or nobleman, the Templars were to be holy warriors
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answerable only to the Pope. But for the next 200 years, Popes treated the Knights Templar as if they were too hot to handle. They had freedoms and privileges enjoyed by no other body in Christendom. They had their own priests, their own
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confessors. They were allowed to build their own uniquely styled churches. They were freed from countless other papal restrictions and supervisions. Europe's noble families soon became soon came to lavish gifts of land and money upon the new order and their
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privileged sons raced to join the Knights of the Temple. Almost overnight, a new class of citizen was introduced into the feudal system of the world. A new kind of man, a free man, unencumbered by the restrictions of church and state. A free man who needed no pass from bishop or king or
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Baron or Lord or magistrate to move as he will on the face of the earth from town to town, province to province, country to country. After the Crusades, the Templars' international structure and organizational skills turned them into a super economic entity.
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A world army, a country without borders. Because they could skirt church laws that forbade the borrowing and lending of money with interest, they set the work to become the first multi-national mega bank. Oh, is that for me? You'll excuse me for a second while I grab a bite.
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The Templars invented checking. If they had ATMs, they would have invented that too. They became immensely wealthy. They maintained an army of fierce and highly trained soldiers and a fleet of sailing ships. Kings borrowed money from them. And even though they were technically answerable to papal authority, for 200 years, they were still the most powerful and powerful of the world.
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And it was, popes let them do whatever they wanted. It was if the Templars, as the gangsters say, had something on the church. You know, it also appeared they had something on the monarchs of Europe.
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If you dig just a little bit, it appears they had something on the Saracens. Were the Templars blackmailing the world, or were they simply a dynamic idea whose time had come? If they did have something, what could it possibly have been?
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What could they have unearthed at the legendary spot where heaven and hell are said to touch the earth? What secret Hugh dePayene and Andre deMontbard shared with the future St. Bernard and the St. Clair family that would have been so earth shaking as to reward the Templars with a blank check from the masters of their world?
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Was this object, this piece of information destroyed with them?
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These questions have been the subject of speculation for 700 years. In the last few years, a few bestselling books have theorized the treasure might be lost gospels, or something relating to Jesus and the history of the early church.
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Perhaps documents or artifacts proving that Jesus had a twin brother, or that he was married and had children. Some believe the Templars found the Holy Grail, or the Ark of the Covenant, or the mummified head of John the Baptist, or the demonstrably unresurrected body of Jesus Christ himself.
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A popular motion picture even suggests that it was a good old fashioned treasure of silver and gold and stuff like that.
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Whatever the nature of the secret, speculation that it was not lost with the destruction of the Templars is fueled to a white heat when we learn that as the tide turned on Wednesday, October 11th, 1307, just two days before the universal arrest of the Templars,
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a fleet of Templar ships quietly slipped from the harbor at La Rochelle and were never seen again. It's so romantic.
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But that's a story for another time. I've got to get back to King Solomon and the Bible, because Solomon is the vital key to Masonry's legendary connection with the Knights of the Tower and the secret treasure they allegedly possess.
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So I'm just warming up. If you can hang on and stay awake, I promise you there's a payoff here.
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When was the library at Alexander's?
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I don't know. It was burned on several occasions, but the last one was even in Christian times. I think around 400 something. Does anybody else know?
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When are you going to be able to get to the
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Well, it was a sad day.
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As a matter of fact, Carl Sagan said, had the Library of Alexander not been destroyed, we would have been on the moon in the 1500s.
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Wow.
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And we've gone back again in 19...
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What exactly do we know about the historical King Solomon and what exactly do we know about the Bible?
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For the greater part of the last two millennia, Western civilization has relied upon the Bible as its primary source of historical information.
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From its venerable pages unfold the human story from the creation of the heaven and earth to the political intrigues of the Roman Empire.
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It was the first book printed in the 14th century by the new process of movable type.
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And for the next few centuries, the vast majority of Europeans who learned to read and write did so for no other purpose than to read the Bible.
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It was more than a book. It was the book.
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It occurred to very few of our literate or semi literate ancestors to question the accuracy of the Bible or God forbid, challenge its authority.
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It was a universally accepted fact that everything written in the Bible was literally true, the unerring word of God.
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The Bible successfully established itself as its own unquestioned internal authority.
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The word of God, because the book tells us it's the word of God.
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A book that is true because the book tells us it is true.
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A book that must be believed because the book tells us it must be believed.
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For the better part of what we consider the modern era, the Bible said it, we believed it, that settled it.
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Remember those bumper stickers?
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Well, I'm old enough to remember those.
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That may be a perfectly admirable position for a religious devotee to take toward a spiritual document.
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It is not, however, a realistic attitude for a serious student of history.
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Other than what is written in the Bible, what exactly do we know about the political and military conquests and glories of King David and the fabulous reign of King Solomon?
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What records have been discovered and preserved of an empire that stretched from the Eucharist to Egypt?
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What ruins and archaeological digs can we visit to see the remnants of Solomon's magnificent temple or the luxurious palaces he built for his wives, structures which were many times larger than his temple?
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What great museums exhibit the helmets, the armor, the swords and chariots of a massive army that conquered the Philistines, the Assyrians and the Egyptians?
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Where can we examine the artistry of the sacred vessels of the temple?
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What archaeologist has uncovered the tomb of David or Solomon or a tablet or an inscription bearing either of their names or the names of any of their kin or colleagues mentioned explicitly in the Bible?
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As difficult as it may be for many people to believe, there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever to offer even the slightest suggestion that David or Solomon or ancient Israel or Israel's golden kingdoms ever existed.
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No mention of the name David or Solomon has ever been found in the mountains of surviving records kept by the Egyptians or the Assyrians or those of any other neighboring nations who allegedly were defeated in battle and for years paid massive tribute to Solomon.
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No artifacts, large or small, from a mighty Israelite army. No object of art. No inscriptions. No letters to or from either David or Solomon. No mention of either of them in the surviving correspondences of neighboring kingdoms.
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Most conspicuously absent are any records whatsoever of seven years of taxes and labor levies for what the Bible suggests should exist for 183,000 workmen conscripted locally and from foreign countries.
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Documents which most certainly should be found in abundance among existing and temporary records.
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Considering the fact that the Holy Land is an area of the world where digging has taken place for centuries and thousands of artifacts have been unearthed attesting to the existence and chronicling the events of early, even prehistoric, cultures in the area.
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Is it not almost inconceivable that such celebrated and powerful world rulers such as David and Solomon could remain so completely invisible to the archaeological record?
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I realize that for Christians, Jews, and Muslims this may sound uncomfortably like heresy.
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But please don't misunderstand me. I believe it is possible that evidence may someday be found that supports these biblical accounts.
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I believe that the fact that any objective person willing to do a little honest research will discover for himself or herself.
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That is, after centuries of excavation and impartial research, there is presently no tangible evidence to suggest ancient Israel, King David, King Solomon, or his temple in Jerusalem ever existed.
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I want you to consider the possibility that in the 12th century, in Jerusalem, the first Knights Templar, intelligent and motivated men who had the exclusive opportunity to excavate the alleged site of King Solomon's temple also discovered no tangible evidence to suggest that David or King Solomon or his temple ever existed.
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Any number of discoveries could have led them to conclude that biblical history was at the very best unreliable.
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Perhaps their excavations demonstrated that a foundation for an edifice such as King Solomon's temple couldn't have possibly existed at that spot.
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Perhaps they found tablets, inscriptions, or other records that prove the real history of the region.
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It could have been a thousand different items, documents, or bits of information, no matter what exactly it was, if it proved as impartial, modern experts are almost universally asserting that there was no King David, no King Solomon, no King Solomon's temple ever existed.
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If there was no King Solomon's temple, then the entire literary foundation for the history of the Holy Land in ancient Israel prior to the 6th century BC, and I'm going to touch on that, prior to the 6th century BC, all of that would evaporate into a fantasy.
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It's like a literary keystone placed squarely in the middle of the chronology of the Judeo-Christian biblical narrative.
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The story of David and Solomon links and supports the narratives of both the Old and New Testaments.
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If this key is removed, not only does the historic integrity of much of the Old Testament collapse, but a major facet of the credentials of New Testament Jesus is also radically altered.
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After all, in order to prove Jesus' birth was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, that he was Messiah and heir to the Davidic throne of Israel, the Gospels go to great lengths to demonstrate that Jesus was a direct descendant of David and Solomon.
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Removing this keystone would also be unsettling for pious Muslims, who despite their differences, consider themselves to be, along with Christians and Jews, people of the book.
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What would happen to Islamic traditions that also presume to reach that far back into biblical history?
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In the 12th century, such faith-crushing revelations would have threatened to vaporize the authority of Rome and reduce to ashes the concept of the Divine Right of Kings.
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Now is it starting to get scary.
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The Divine Right of Kings, which had been the foundation of the social order in Europe for a thousand years, it would have turned the world upside down.
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It would have been the most dangerous secret in the world.
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Now am I suggesting that the Templar's secret, the most dangerous secret in the world, was that the Bible is historically untrue?
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Well, yeah.
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But it's not as simple as that.
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First of all, in the 12th century, there were very few actual Bibles.
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Well, at least as we think of them today.
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There were very few people able to read a Bible, and even fewer who could appreciate what the Bible was or understand what it was not.
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To most Europeans, it was the Church, not the Bible, that dictated the tenets of their faith.
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If the early Templars believed they possessed such potentially earth-shaking information, it would have put them in a very sticky predicament.
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After all, to whom could they threaten to reveal the secret?
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Who besides a handful of Churchmen and nobles were even capable of appreciating the information that carried such titanic implications?
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In the 12th century, there was no way for the Templars to go public.
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No Fox TV, you know.
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No books, no radio, television.
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No investigative reporters.
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The Church enjoyed a monopoly on European education, literacy, and thought.
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The Church controlled history.
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While it appears obvious the Church was intimidated by whatever the Templars had, it really would have been futile to confront this omnipotent establishment directly.
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It would have put the Templars in a position of perpetual danger.
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Their secret would have isolated them from the whole world, at least the world represented by the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
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Religions that revered certain books of the Bible.
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Religions that owed their very existence to their adherence belief that they were descendants of certain Bible characters.
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And that the Bible narratives were historically true.
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The most dangerous secret in the world would also be the world's most blasphemous heresy.
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The early Templars would have had little choice but to play their cards very close to the vest.
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Very little choice but to bide their time, build their strength, seek out others in the Holy Land who also knew the truth.
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Others whose beliefs made them also outcasts of orthodoxy.
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Others who knew how to survive. Others like the Ishmaelite order of assassins.
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Who had already created their own degree structured secret society to protect themselves and their interests.
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The Templars would stay in Palestine and learn from the natives.
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The remnants of the Jewish esoteric cults.
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Early Christians, the mystic heretics of Islam.
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They would stay and drink in a thousand wonders and new ideas that passed like caravans through the crossroads of the world that was 12th century Jerusalem.
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They would dine on delicacies they'd never tasted, hear music they'd never heard, and stories and histories and philosophies they never knew existed.
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In short order they would become the most easternized westerners in the world.
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Men who saw a bigger picture of life and culture.
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Men who dreamed greater dreams than those of their fellow Europeans.
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Men who tasted the forbidden fruit of knowledge.
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Their eyes were opened and they became as gods.
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You want to hear more?
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Okay.
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Mark Twain, brother Mark Twain.
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A good Freemason.
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Said, it ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me. It's the parts that I do understand.
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The suggestion that the Bible may not be all it's advertised to be is for many people an unthinkable idea.
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It accords very few of the faithful to question either the Bible's holiness or its authenticity.
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In a world that's gone hellishly mad, men and women of faith have always taken comfort in the fact that the faith of their fathers is the one thing that remains solid and unchanging.
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For most of them it would be unthinkable to suggest that perhaps for the last 2500 years the faith of their fathers has been one very big reason why our world has gone hellishly mad.
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But Masons love the Bible.
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Obviously there appears to be a conflict of traditions here.
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It would seem at first glance at such reverence for the Holy Bible would put Masons at odds with this hypothetical Templar secret that threatens to shoot a very big hole in the Bible's credibility.
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But Masonry does a very curious thing with the Bible.
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It goes to great lengths to draw the candidates attention to Bible stories, especially the story of David and Solomon.
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And almost immediately diverts his attention to a dramatic non-biblical version of the story.
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Almost to say, you know those Bible stories of David and Solomon and King Solomon's temple?
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There's something underneath those stories.
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You might want to dig into it.
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Masons are told to consider the Bible the great light in their profession.
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The question very few of us ask, however, is when do professional stonemasons most need light?
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The answer is obvious, at least to me.
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Masons need light when they dig, when they excavate, when they explore, when they seek out and bring to light those things hidden just beneath the surface.
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A moment ago we learned what we find when we dig beneath the surface of the story of King Solomon and the building of his temple.
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There's another Bible story that Masonry goes out of its way to draw attention to.
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A story surrounding the events that followed the destruction of King Solomon's temple.
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It's the tale of the capture and relocation of the children of Israel to Babylon.
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And then their return to Jerusalem after 70 years to rebuild Jerusalem and the so-called temple.
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Let's see what we find when we turn the Bible's light and excavate below the surface of this story.
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First, we need to try to determine exactly where the Bible narrative actually starts to intersect with objective verifiable history.
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What are the historic roots, the historic roots of Judaism and subsequently Christianity and Islam?
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Modern researchers have some startling answers to these questions, and if the Knights Templar had reasons to draw the same conclusion, then they really did have the most dangerous secret in the world.
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Let's start at a time and place everybody seems to agree upon.
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There is little debate between secular historians and Bible scholars concerning the existence and vitality of Judaism as practiced in Palestine during the first century BC.
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No credible historian dares presume to deny the existence of King Herod, King Herod the Great around 70, 73 BC.
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Or his magnificent temple in Jerusalem, or the priesthood that administered the sacrifices, or the existence and influence of cults and sects such as Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes.
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All of whom revered a number of scriptural texts that defined their view of Judaism and dictated in exacting detail, divine laws and codes of for this magnificent religion.
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Foremost among these texts are the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
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I said it. Deuteronomy. How many times I said it. Deuteronomy.
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These five books are called the Pentateuch. Books that through their narrative relate to the history of the universe, mankind, and the children of Israel.
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Tradition holds that the Pentateuch was written by Moses himself around 1280 or 1250 BCE.
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When many Bible scholars estimate the dates of the Exodus would have taken place.
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And that his five books were part of the mysterious contents of the mysterious and powerful and dangerous Ark of the Covenant.
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Now I'm going to look briefly at these five books. I'm going to power through it.
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Most of us probably know all about it, but I need to make a point. So be patient. I promise there's a punch line.
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Genesis begins with the story of creation of the world and mankind and plots our family tree and the great events that link God and his people.
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From Adam and Eve and the fall of man, through Noah and the great flood, through Abraham and his sons Ishmael, the father of the Arabs.
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Ding. Sorry about that. And Isaac, father of the Jews. Ding.
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Through Isaac's twin sons, Esau, who the Bible tells us God hated before he was born.
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And Jacob, who God loved and who was renamed Israel.
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Then comes Joseph, son of Jacob Israel, who after being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, really showed them all by making it very big in Egypt.
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Joseph then brings his father Israel and his entire family, the children of Israel, to the land of the Pharaohs to escape a big famine.
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Now, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, okay, children of Israel means the descendants of Jacob Israel.
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And it doesn't mean the inhabitants of a geographical area.
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The book of Exodus continues the adventures of Israel's family in Egypt.
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For while things are wonderful, Nearestan, Egypt's abundance, the 70 odd children of Israel multiply exuberantly and in a few generations become a ponderous population.
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After a few lean years of famine, they actually become a serious economic burden upon Egypt's dwindling resources.
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In a ruthless program of population control, a new Pharaoh who never knew Joseph orders the firstborn Hebrew males to be slain.
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The mother of baby Moses places him in a basket and sets it afloat on the Nile where Pharaoh's daughter is bathing.
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She finds the baby and raises it as her own.
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So Moses, like Joseph, becomes a prince of Egypt.
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Moses' story is one of high drama and excitement.
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He discovers his true identity, kills an Egyptian, is banished to the wilderness, has a close encounter with God, and is given magical powers that bring plagues and curses upon Egypt, including the deaths of all Egyptian firstborn males.
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Moses is eventually allowed to take the children of Israel out of Egypt.
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In the next three books, Moses leads the children of Israel for 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
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Do you realize how small that area is?
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They must have been just, there were so many of them that the people wandering this way were meeting the people who were at the end of the line.
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The next, okay, wandering in the wilderness, raiding towns and villages.
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During this, he leaves the Ten Commandments, builds the Ark of the Covenant and a portable tabernacle to put it in, puts to death a number of wrong-thinking members of the congregation,
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writes his memoirs, the Pentateuch, codifies laws and ordinances, and institutes the forms and customs of sacrificial worship that must be observed by the people in order to please God.
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Finally, after a generation of nomadic existence, Moses shows the children of Israel where God wants them to slaughter the Canaanite natives and settle down.
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More or less, the area generically known as Palestine.
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The Book of Joshua follows the Pentateuch and continues the adventures of the children of Israel, now identified as a loose confederation of 12 tribes.
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They conquer and settle the promised land.
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It's in the five books of Moses that first define Jewish identity, people, a culture, and a religious entity.
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Other books of the Old Testament, revered by Christians and Jews, continue the story of life in the promised land.
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How the children of Israel were ruled for a time by judges, and how a great king, Saul, eventually arose from among them to unite them politically.
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Saul was succeeded by David, then Solomon, then a string of largely despicable minor kings who would disunite the nation and help pray to a series of conquests.
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The worst of his conquests and dispersals was delivered by Nebuchadnezzar, whose armies destroyed the Temple of Solomon and took the residents of Judea into bondage in Babylon.
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Okay, thanks for sitting through that.
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These books go on to tell a story so familiar to York and Scottish right masons.
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A story that has an uncanny parallels to the tale of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.
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Only in this case, the Exodus is from Babylon.
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Here we learn that after 70 years of captivity, the children of Israel were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple of their God and dwell once again in their own land.
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Unfortunately, after only two generations, the residents of Palestine had no idea who these returnees were.
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They resented them as invaders and foreign occupiers.
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Does this sound familiar?
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The prophet Nehemiah and the highly influential scribe Ezra appear to have been instrumental in arranging the return of the children of Israel to Palestine.
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They insisted that it was vitally important Temple be rebuilt so to reestablish their cultural identity in the region.
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According to both Bible and Masonic traditions, excavators and workmen had to work with a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other to fight off the disgruntled locals whose neighborly requests to be a part of the building project had been rudely rejected by the returnees.
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Yes, they volunteered.
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Well, we don't know who you are, but welcome to our land here.
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Can we help you build the temple?
01:00:28.360 --> 01:00:35.360
No.
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Excuse my dramatics.
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During the excavation of the ruins of King Solomon's temple, workmen discovered in a subterranean vault a scroll containing the five books of Moses, something no living person had ever seen before.
01:00:58.360 --> 01:01:08.360
This biblical event is the central theme to Royal Arch, Royal Arch degree of York Masonry.
01:01:08.360 --> 01:01:19.360
Grasping the importance of the discovery, Ezra the scribe has a high platform erected from which he could stand and speak to the multitudes.
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Is anybody aware of this in the Bible?
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This story?
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Have you ever heard this story before?
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Okay.
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It's in there.
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He caused all those who had returned from Babylon to be assembled before him and announced that the lost book of the law had been rediscovered.
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He then proceeded to read aloud for all to hear all five books of Moses.
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In one of the most dramatic and poignant scenes of the Old Testament, the assembled children of Israel hear for the first time in their lives the actual words of God's, of God from God's own book.
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They hear for the first time who they are and where they came from.
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They hear why they are God's chosen people.
01:02:16.360 --> 01:02:21.360
They learn they are the descendants of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Israel.
01:02:21.360 --> 01:02:34.360
They hear for the first time the story of Joseph and their bondage in Egypt, of Moses and their exodus, a story each and every one of them can identify with because they've just gone through a similar thing themselves.
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A long time.
01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:44.360
We're talking from 1200 BC to 500 BC.
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They learn of their wanderings in the wilderness, how Moses gave them God's law and the forms of sacrificial worship.
01:02:54.360 --> 01:03:01.360
They hear why God loved them and how they were loved by the people of Egypt.
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They hear why they were loved by the people of Egypt for their sacrificial worship.
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They hear why God loves them and has given them this land because they are the descendants of Isaac and Jacob Israel.
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They are the descendants, the unhappy and resentful locals because they are the descendants of Ishmael and Esau, a gross and hairy man who traded his birthright and any future claim to the land to Jacob Israel for a bowl of lentil soup.
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Is that all right?
01:03:46.360 --> 01:03:52.360
After Ezra's reading of the Pentateuch, the people became united in spirit and purpose.
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The new temple was built.
01:03:54.360 --> 01:04:00.360
A particular tribe, Levi, was chosen from among them to be the priest class.
01:04:00.360 --> 01:04:03.360
The laws of Moses were instituted and enforced.
01:04:03.360 --> 01:04:15.360
The sacrifices, practices, traditions of the old religion were resumed and the people regained their spiritual identity.
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Ironically, this most dramatic and poignant biblical scene is rarely the subject of sermons and to my knowledge, ever the subject of motion pictures.
01:04:26.360 --> 01:04:35.360
Masonry, on the other hand, makes her members think about it a lot.
01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:54.360
Critical and scholarly evidence confirms that Cyrus the Great of Persia did indeed conquer Babylon and began to deport and resettle thousands of the descendants of Nebuchadnezzar's foreign captives in approximately 539 BC.
01:04:54.360 --> 01:05:09.360
Coincidentally, this is the same moment in time when empirical history begins to hint of the presence of a Jewish people whose center of worship is a temple in Jerusalem.
01:05:09.360 --> 01:05:20.360
Prior to this, however, there is silence concerning the existence of ancient Israel or a people known as the Children of Israel.
01:05:20.360 --> 01:05:42.360
Our only evidence of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Israel, Esau, Joseph in the Egyptian captivity, of Moses in the Exodus and the wandering, of Joshua in the conquest of Palestine, and the kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon.
01:05:42.360 --> 01:05:48.360
Our only evidence is the Bible.
01:05:48.360 --> 01:05:56.360
Thomas L. Thompson, professor of the University of Copenhagen writes,
01:05:56.360 --> 01:06:16.360
In writing about the historical developments of Palestine between 1250 and 586 BC, all of the traditional answers given for the origins and development of Israel have had to be discarded.
01:06:16.360 --> 01:06:21.360
The patriarchs of Genesis were not historical.
01:06:21.360 --> 01:06:33.360
The assertion that Israel was already a people before entering Palestine, whether in these stories or in those of Joshua, has no historic foundation.
01:06:33.360 --> 01:06:42.360
No massive military campaign of nomadic Israelites ever conquered Palestine.
01:06:42.360 --> 01:06:51.360
There was never an ethnically distinct Canaanite population who the Israelites displaced.
01:06:51.360 --> 01:06:58.360
There was no period of the judges in history. No empire ever ruled a united monarchy from Jerusalem.
01:06:58.360 --> 01:07:03.360
No ethnically coherent Israelite nation ever existed at all.
01:07:03.360 --> 01:07:20.360
In history, neither Jerusalem nor Judah ever shared an identity with Israel before the rule of the Hesmonians in the Hellenistic period, approximately 200 BC.
01:07:20.360 --> 01:07:25.360
When I read this, I tracked down Thomas L. Thompson.
01:07:25.360 --> 01:07:29.360
This blew my mind.
01:07:29.360 --> 01:07:35.360
And he's at the University of Copenhagen and the email and stuff and I had to go through all sorts of different people.
01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:45.360
But I just wrote him a simple simple letter and I said, Look, am I safe in saying
01:07:45.360 --> 01:07:53.360
that there wasn't a Cecil B. DeMille kind of children of Israel thing going on
01:07:53.360 --> 01:07:58.360
prior to 600 BC? Okay, that's the return from Babylon time.
01:07:58.360 --> 01:08:04.360
Okay. I said, Am I safe? Am I safe in saying that?
01:08:04.360 --> 01:08:10.360
And he said, he wrote back and he wrote back just like his books, the little tiny print.
01:08:10.360 --> 01:08:14.360
Oh, it is hideously tiny print and there's more footnotes than there's.
01:08:14.360 --> 01:08:20.360
And I had to just thumb through for hours to get something as sexy as this quote here.
01:08:20.360 --> 01:08:24.360
Okay. Males are just like his book.
01:08:24.360 --> 01:08:29.360
Okay. Long, long scroll, scroll, scroll.
01:08:29.360 --> 01:08:38.360
And at the very bottom, he said, But I guess that wasn't a very direct answer.
01:08:38.360 --> 01:08:47.360
He says, As to your question directly, oh, yes, you are very safe in saying that.
01:08:47.360 --> 01:08:53.360
As a matter of fact, you could probably push it ahead 200 BC.
01:08:53.360 --> 01:09:00.360
And then he refers to some research that his wife is doing with the Samaritans,
01:09:00.360 --> 01:09:04.360
archaeological things with the Samaritans.
01:09:04.360 --> 01:09:07.360
And that was the Hasmonean period. Okay.
01:09:07.360 --> 01:09:10.360
Hasmoneans were the Maccabees. Okay.
01:09:10.360 --> 01:09:15.360
So don't worry, Hanukkah is safe. Okay.
01:09:15.360 --> 01:09:18.360
Hanukkah probably really happened. Okay.
01:09:18.360 --> 01:09:20.360
It's just the Moses thing that we get.
01:09:20.360 --> 01:09:23.360
Okay.
01:09:23.360 --> 01:09:29.360
The next obvious question becomes, Who wrote the books of the Bible where these stories originate?
01:09:29.360 --> 01:09:33.360
And the answer is simple. We don't know.
01:09:33.360 --> 01:09:39.360
Many traditionalists believe that the prophet Jeremiah wrote at least part of these texts.
01:09:39.360 --> 01:09:46.360
But Jewish tradition, St. Jermaine, I was going to say, St. Jerome,
01:09:46.360 --> 01:09:55.360
and many Bible scholars think Ezra, the scribe, or the person or persons writing as Ezra,
01:09:55.360 --> 01:09:59.360
edited and formatted the Pentateuch and several other Old Testament books,
01:09:59.360 --> 01:10:04.360
including Joshua Judges and the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.
01:10:04.360 --> 01:10:10.360
And the date they estimate that happened was 6th century BC.
01:10:10.360 --> 01:10:13.360
500 something.
01:10:13.360 --> 01:10:18.360
The same time as the so-called return of the children of Israel to Jerusalem.
01:10:18.360 --> 01:10:23.360
Now secular scholars agree generally upon the 6th century date,
01:10:23.360 --> 01:10:29.360
but also suggest that Ezra or Ezra Nehemiah actually authored the Pentateuch,
01:10:29.360 --> 01:10:33.360
and at the very least had a hand in compiling and editing the books of Chronicles, Kings,
01:10:33.360 --> 01:10:36.360
and several other books of the Old Testament.
01:10:36.360 --> 01:10:43.360
There are literally hundreds of complex and convoluted theories of exactly who put pen to paper
01:10:43.360 --> 01:10:49.360
to create the books of the Old Testament, but most seem to dovetail to a greater or lesser degree
01:10:49.360 --> 01:10:55.360
to the person or persons writing as Ezra.
01:10:55.360 --> 01:11:02.360
Furthermore, there is almost universal agreement that the works cannot be traced any further back in time
01:11:02.360 --> 01:11:06.360
than the 6th century BC.
01:11:06.360 --> 01:11:10.360
It appears Ezra didn't find the Old Testament.
01:11:10.360 --> 01:11:13.360
It appears Ezra wrote it.
01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:21.360
Prior to this, the historical and archaeological fingerprint of a Hebrew people united by a single religion,
01:11:21.360 --> 01:11:28.360
occupying a nation with its headquarters in Jerusalem, is non-existent.
01:11:28.360 --> 01:11:34.360
Indeed, according to Norman F. Cantor, Fulbright Professor at Tel Aviv University,
01:11:34.360 --> 01:11:45.360
quote, the first millennium of Jewish history as presented in the Bible has no empirical foundation whatsoever.
01:11:45.360 --> 01:11:47.360
Now that's quite a statement.
01:11:47.360 --> 01:11:51.360
I venture to say that most men and women of faith around the world would not believe
01:11:51.360 --> 01:11:57.360
even if they were presented with uncontroversial proof.
01:11:57.360 --> 01:12:07.360
It would be a psychological blow of biblical proportions.
01:12:07.360 --> 01:12:08.360
Okay.
01:12:08.360 --> 01:12:14.360
To anyone whose religious convictions are based on the historicity of the Bible,
01:12:14.360 --> 01:12:23.360
it would be an even bigger blow to the self-image and the geopolitical interests of contentious political forces
01:12:23.360 --> 01:12:27.360
embroiled in today's Middle Eastern conflicts.
01:12:27.360 --> 01:12:35.360
Combatants who appear to be treating the pages of the Old Testament as if they were land grants,
01:12:35.360 --> 01:12:42.360
whose deeds of ownership were signed by God himself.
01:12:42.360 --> 01:12:46.360
Nevertheless, the unthinkable appears to be true.
01:12:46.360 --> 01:12:51.360
The kingdoms of David and Solomon are fable, not history.
01:12:51.360 --> 01:12:59.360
The idea of 12 distinct tribes of the children of Israel with a past reaching back to the 13th century B.C.
01:12:59.360 --> 01:13:06.360
was likely an ingenious concept fabricated in the 6th century B.C. or later
01:13:06.360 --> 01:13:16.360
to provide a single cultural and religious identity to descendants of a diverse assortment of people
01:13:16.360 --> 01:13:23.360
with no cultural memory whatsoever.
01:13:23.360 --> 01:13:29.360
People whose ancestors came from a dozen or more regions conquered by Nebuchadnezzar.
01:13:29.360 --> 01:13:35.360
People whose real ancestors were thrown together by the fortunes of world events
01:13:35.360 --> 01:13:43.360
and who eventually had to be relocated when Babylon fell to the Persians.
01:13:43.360 --> 01:13:52.360
Because Palestine was an area undefended by a unified political or military presence,
01:13:52.360 --> 01:14:00.360
it was an ideal homeland for such a mass relocation.
01:14:00.360 --> 01:14:11.360
If considered in this light, both the Bible and Masonic tradition point the rational investigator to at least consider this scenario.
01:14:11.360 --> 01:14:16.360
If all of this seems like something that could never happen,
01:14:16.360 --> 01:14:24.360
I need only point to the events of a little over a hundred years ago involving the American prophet Joseph Smith,
01:14:24.360 --> 01:14:32.360
his successor Brigham Young, and the exodus of the Latter-day Saints to Utah.
01:14:32.360 --> 01:14:39.360
This revelation is indeed earth-shaking and not everyone is capable of absorbing such a blow.
01:14:39.360 --> 01:14:47.360
It would, after all, lead one to speculate upon the unthinkable possibility that a good percentage of the wars,
01:14:48.360 --> 01:15:04.360
the genocides, the hatreds and the hatreds that have cursed Western civilization for 3,000 years have been and continue to be tragic arguments that began over nothing.
01:15:04.360 --> 01:15:16.360
It takes the mature pragmatism of a true spiritual grown-up to even speculate on the implications of such matters.
01:15:16.360 --> 01:15:22.360
However, needn't spell the end to one's faith in the holiness of scripture.
01:15:22.360 --> 01:15:35.360
Yes, it's probably true that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and David didn't write the Psalms and Solomon didn't write Ecclesiastes in the Song of Solomon, but somebody did.
01:15:35.360 --> 01:15:45.360
The holiness, the spiritual integrity of these documents is not diminished in any way by their lack of historical credibility.
01:15:45.360 --> 01:15:53.360
Ask any Kabbalist, whoever wrote Genesis not only gathered and synthesized the creation of a handful of Semitic traditions,
01:15:53.360 --> 01:16:01.360
he or she did so with the skill of an illuminated mathematician and the insight of a poetic genius.
01:16:01.360 --> 01:16:08.360
Whoever wrote Psalms, Ecclesiastes in the Song of Solomon was a passionately devoted saint.
01:16:08.360 --> 01:16:14.360
These works will forever offer real spiritual treasures to the sincere devotee.
01:16:14.360 --> 01:16:23.360
But to insist that they are also history is to invite their misuse by social and political entities
01:16:23.360 --> 01:16:32.360
who are always ready to engender and perpetuate fear and hatred between peoples and cultures for their own interests.
01:16:33.360 --> 01:16:47.360
For me, it's clear that Masonry, either by design, accident, or synchronicity, quietly affords her sons the opportunity to become, as it were, spiritual grownups.
01:16:47.360 --> 01:16:57.360
Excuse me, are you implying here, am I understanding that you're implying that the Masons believed that the way, or is it the kind of belief you have?
01:16:57.360 --> 01:17:05.360
Oh, nobody speaks for Masonry, including me. Okay, I'm just a simple country metaphysician.
01:17:12.360 --> 01:17:16.360
But it's clear to me, because it offered me this opportunity.
01:17:19.360 --> 01:17:25.360
Opportunity to become good men becoming better men.
01:17:25.360 --> 01:17:30.360
Men whose concept of God is big enough to take a hit or two.
01:17:30.360 --> 01:17:36.360
Admittedly, this new view of the Old Testament is a pretty big hit, okay.
01:17:38.360 --> 01:17:53.360
But unless we're blinded by superstition or bigotry, the readjustment of a few dates and the ability to distinguish between sacred mythology and viable history needn't destroy Scripture's place in our hearts.
01:17:53.360 --> 01:17:57.360
As the unerring standard of truth and justice.
01:17:59.360 --> 01:18:13.360
Now, my time said that I was supposed to speak for 90 minutes, but I have a little bit more that I could do to talk about the Templars and the...can I go ahead on? Are we okay with that?
01:18:14.360 --> 01:18:18.360
Because the...I think I can do that.
01:18:18.360 --> 01:18:28.360
The next guy doesn't come on till 8 o'clock, and I have little tearing down to do except to hand-sell these books.
01:18:35.360 --> 01:18:38.360
But the majority of the Masons are Christians.
01:18:39.360 --> 01:18:45.360
We might now ask, how do Masonic ideals square with the New Testament?
01:18:45.360 --> 01:18:54.360
In the second degree of Masonry, the scene in his middle chamber lecture delivers what might be viewed as a hit to the fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
01:18:56.360 --> 01:19:05.360
Standing between the stately pillars of the temple, he instructs the candidate that he is to pay rational homage to the deity.
01:19:05.360 --> 01:19:14.360
And informs him of the nature and meaning of operative Masonry, that by that term we allude to a proper application of the useful rules of architecture.
01:19:15.360 --> 01:19:19.360
And that these rules not only...of human wisdom.
01:19:20.360 --> 01:19:21.360
Now, get this.
01:19:22.360 --> 01:19:33.360
They also demonstrate that a fund of science and industry is implanted in man for the best, most self-sufficient, most effective, most effective, most effective.
01:19:33.360 --> 01:19:38.360
For the best, most salutary, and most beneficent purposes.
01:19:40.360 --> 01:19:43.360
What edifying words.
01:19:44.360 --> 01:19:51.360
What positive encouraging words for a good man to hear at the beginning of his travels to be a better man.
01:19:52.360 --> 01:19:56.360
Who on earth could disagree with these words?
01:19:58.360 --> 01:19:59.360
Paul.
01:20:04.360 --> 01:20:08.360
The apostle Paul would have violently disagreed.
01:20:09.360 --> 01:20:17.360
And I believe it's highly likely the Knights Templars believed they had every reason to violently disagree with Paul.
01:20:18.360 --> 01:20:23.360
Pope Leo X, who was Pope from 1513 to 1521 said,
01:20:24.360 --> 01:20:28.360
It has served us well, this myth of Christ.
01:20:28.360 --> 01:20:33.360
My favorite guy, Umberto Eco, said,
01:20:34.360 --> 01:20:38.360
When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing.
01:20:39.360 --> 01:20:41.360
They believe in everything.
01:20:43.360 --> 01:20:51.360
Whether true or not, in legend and popular, and later Masonic imagination, the Templars became superheroes or supervillains.
01:20:51.360 --> 01:20:57.360
Masters of the magical arts, the Kabbalah, demon evocation, alchemy, even sexual magic.
01:20:58.360 --> 01:21:06.360
Several of these traditions, not sex magic though, are touched upon in the York and Scottish rites of Freemasonry,
01:21:07.360 --> 01:21:14.360
where degrees concerning the return of the children of Israel from Babylon are heavily peppered with references to the Kabbalah
01:21:14.360 --> 01:21:17.360
and juxtaposed with ceremonies concerning the Knights Templars.
01:21:18.360 --> 01:21:22.360
Can you sort of see how if you want to put two and two together, this is what you get?
01:21:23.360 --> 01:21:29.360
Obviously, Masonry does not venerate the Templars because of their supposed sorceries or because they were sodomites,
01:21:30.360 --> 01:21:32.360
or because they perhaps spat on crucifixes.
01:21:33.360 --> 01:21:40.360
It's nonetheless a well-known fact that they were accused of and confessed to doing all those things.
01:21:40.360 --> 01:21:49.360
Still, the craft reveres this disgraced and banished order, even to the point of institutionalizing the ideal to young men in the Demolay order.
01:21:50.360 --> 01:21:54.360
It's true, as the Templars grew rich and powerful, they also grew arrogant.
01:21:55.360 --> 01:22:04.360
But it is clear to me from their inception in 1118 to their destruction in 1314 that the Knights Templar remained men of faith,
01:22:04.360 --> 01:22:07.360
who considered themselves Christians and believed most fervently in God.
01:22:08.360 --> 01:22:13.360
I am, however, suggesting that their secret made it impossible for them to continue in good conscience
01:22:14.360 --> 01:22:18.360
to embrace the authority of the Bible and certain doctrines of the Church of Rome.
01:22:19.360 --> 01:22:25.360
Doctrines that demanded from Christians an unquestioning and unhealthy faith in things the Templars knew,
01:22:25.360 --> 01:22:27.360
and believed they could prove, were untrue.
01:22:28.360 --> 01:22:32.360
We can only speculate exactly what Church doctrines they rejected,
01:22:33.360 --> 01:22:37.360
but if even a scrap of truth is hidden in the testimonies extracted under torture,
01:22:38.360 --> 01:22:43.360
then we are led to conclude that they distrubed in particular the veneration of the crucifix.
01:22:43.360 --> 01:22:48.360
Recall that a number of Knights confessed that when they were received into the order,
01:22:49.360 --> 01:22:52.360
they were required to spit upon and trample under foot a crucifix.
01:22:53.360 --> 01:22:56.360
They were ordered not to worship the crucifix.
01:22:57.360 --> 01:23:01.360
This is one of the most shocking and shocking facts that we have ever seen.
01:23:02.360 --> 01:23:05.360
The Church of Rome, which was the first of its kind,
01:23:06.360 --> 01:23:10.360
was the first to accept the crucifix as a sign of the Holy Spirit.
01:23:10.360 --> 01:23:13.360
The Holy Spirit was the first to accept the crucifix.
01:23:14.360 --> 01:23:18.360
This is one of the most shocking accusations leveled at the Templars by the Inquisition,
01:23:19.360 --> 01:23:23.360
and contributed heavily to their reputation as black magicians.
01:23:24.360 --> 01:23:29.360
We must, however, remember that there is a profound difference between the symbol of a cross,
01:23:30.360 --> 01:23:34.360
which in its many forms has been a venerated symbol since prehistoric times,
01:23:34.360 --> 01:23:41.360
and the symbol of a crucifix, a cross that displays a dead and bloodied corpse.
01:23:42.360 --> 01:23:46.360
It is also significant to point out that the cross, a simple equal-armed cross,
01:23:47.360 --> 01:23:50.360
did not appear in Christian art until the middle of the 5th century,
01:23:51.360 --> 01:23:56.360
and that scenes of the crucifixion did not appear in Christian art until the 7th century.
01:23:57.360 --> 01:24:00.360
Prior to this, the symbol of Christianity was the fish,
01:24:00.360 --> 01:24:07.360
and the image most associated with Jesus was that of a shepherd carrying a lamb.
01:24:09.360 --> 01:24:14.360
Recall also that the same knights testified that they were told at their initiation
01:24:15.360 --> 01:24:17.360
that Jesus was a man who died as all men die.
01:24:18.360 --> 01:24:21.360
Yes, I am. It's just only a few minutes.
01:24:22.360 --> 01:24:25.360
You wouldn't dare want me to stop here.
01:24:26.360 --> 01:24:31.360
This opinion was also common among the 1st century Christians whose symbol was the fish,
01:24:32.360 --> 01:24:37.360
including the followers of James, the biological brother of Jesus.
01:24:38.360 --> 01:24:44.360
Okay. He taught, among other things, that the simple act of following Jesus' example
01:24:45.360 --> 01:24:48.360
and applying his teachings to one's life was the way to salvation.
01:24:49.360 --> 01:24:53.360
It was not, however, the view of the 12th century Church of Rome,
01:24:53.360 --> 01:24:59.360
which propagated the doctrines of original sin, and get this one, I love this one,
01:25:00.360 --> 01:25:02.360
the total depravity of man,
01:25:03.360 --> 01:25:08.360
and the imminent physical resurrection of all the corpses in the world.
01:25:10.360 --> 01:25:16.360
These doctrines were the inventions of Paul, a man who never met Jesus,
01:25:16.360 --> 01:25:24.360
a man whom 1st century Christians in Jerusalem led by Jesus had significant and violent disagreements.
01:25:25.360 --> 01:25:33.360
For nearly 500 years after the deaths of James and Paul, Christianity was enmeshed in a major ideological conflict.
01:25:34.360 --> 01:25:38.360
These fights over what would become the fundamental tenets of the faith.
01:25:39.360 --> 01:25:43.360
Eventually it came down to a bitter clash between two radically different factions.
01:25:43.360 --> 01:25:50.360
At the heart of the conflict was a disagreement about who exactly Jesus was and what made him important.
01:25:51.360 --> 01:25:57.360
Oddly enough, the debate didn't focus on Jesus as Messiah, or his teachings,
01:25:58.360 --> 01:26:01.360
but on the person of Adam and the doctrine of Adam's original sin.
01:26:02.360 --> 01:26:08.360
On one hand, there were those who took more or less the position of the early Church in Jerusalem,
01:26:09.360 --> 01:26:11.360
the remnants of the original followers of Jesus.
01:26:11.360 --> 01:26:18.360
They considered Jesus a holy man, a martyred master whose bloodline marked him for a kingly or priestly destiny.
01:26:19.360 --> 01:26:25.360
Their view of original sin was basically that they believed that Adam's sin hurt no one but himself,
01:26:26.360 --> 01:26:30.360
and not the entire human race, that he would have died whether he sinned or not.
01:26:31.360 --> 01:26:36.360
They believed that babies are born in the same innocent state as Adam before his big mistake,
01:26:36.360 --> 01:26:41.360
and as such, mankind does not need a sacrificial offering such as Jesus' crucifixion,
01:26:42.360 --> 01:26:46.360
or a demonstrable miracle such as his resurrection to achieve salvation.
01:26:47.360 --> 01:26:56.360
A religion based on this fundamental pre-Catholic law of Christianity is the natural evolution from the Old Testament law to the New Testament gospel.
01:26:57.360 --> 01:27:05.360
It would have been a rather simple faith that strictly observed the laws of Moses and revered the life and teachings of Jesus, the Anointed One.
01:27:06.360 --> 01:27:11.360
A religion that taught that salvation is earned by following the example of the Good Shepherd.
01:27:12.360 --> 01:27:18.360
By doing and obeying what he called the greatest commandment of both the Old and New Testament,
01:27:19.360 --> 01:27:28.360
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength and thy neighbor as thyself.
01:27:29.360 --> 01:27:42.360
Opposing this was a religion invented almost entirely by Paul that relegated to insignificance the sermons and fundamental teachings of Jesus.
01:27:43.360 --> 01:27:49.360
The teachings ultimately became irrelevant because Paul believed that due to the curse of Adam's sin,
01:27:49.360 --> 01:27:54.360
we are born with sin, condemned to die, and poised to suffer an eternity of torment.
01:27:55.360 --> 01:28:02.360
This sin of being born cannot be removed by performing good works or adhering to any law.
01:28:03.360 --> 01:28:07.360
Indeed, according to Paul, only one thing can remove the curse.
01:28:08.360 --> 01:28:13.360
Blood. The anointing blood of a crucified God made flesh.
01:28:13.360 --> 01:28:26.360
This extension of the animal sacrifice motif of the Jews was based upon Paul's metaphysical obfuscation of the events surrounding the execution and the reported resurrection of Jesus.
01:28:27.360 --> 01:28:33.360
Just as the blood of a slaughtered lamb was used in the temple worship services to absolve the devotee from certain sins,
01:28:33.360 --> 01:28:39.360
Paul posited that Jesus was the Lamb of God and that the blood of the God-man Christ can, under certain circumstances, absolve us from the sin of Adam.
01:28:40.360 --> 01:28:42.360
This is who Paul tells us Jesus was.
01:28:43.360 --> 01:28:51.360
This is what Paul tells us Jesus came primarily to do, not to preach, not to teach, not to serve as an example, but to die.
01:28:51.360 --> 01:28:53.360
This is who Paul tells us Jesus was.
01:28:54.360 --> 01:29:02.360
This is what Paul tells us Jesus came primarily to do, not to preach, not to teach, not to serve as an example, but to die.
01:29:03.360 --> 01:29:11.360
The bloodied body of Jesus nailed to a crucifix was the perfect symbol for this suicidal act of blood sacrifice.
01:29:12.360 --> 01:29:27.360
In order for our sin to be removed, Paul taught that we must first surrender our natural self-esteem by consciously and verbally confessing we believe that because we were born sinners, we are guilty and deserving of eternal damnation.
01:29:28.360 --> 01:29:42.360
After accepting this identity, we must then exhibit complete and absolute faith that Jesus was God incarnate who came to earth to take upon himself the sufferings that we deserve for the spiritual crime of being born.
01:29:43.360 --> 01:29:50.360
And that his death, his physical resurrection, and his bodily ascension into the sky were objective historical events.
01:29:51.360 --> 01:30:00.360
To this unquestioning faith, Paul added one more condition to salvation, the grace of God.
01:30:01.360 --> 01:30:09.360
Just exactly what grace is remains an ongoing debate, but according to Paul, there is nothing we can do to earn it.
01:30:10.360 --> 01:30:20.360
We either have it when we were born or we don't. Without grace, we are damned to an eternity in hell no matter how good we are in life or how strong we believe in Christ.
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For the elect who enjoy the grace of God, there is no crime too hideous, no sin too evil that can exempt us from salvation.
01:30:32.360 --> 01:30:36.360
I've only got two paragraphs left. Can I go ahead and do that?
01:30:37.360 --> 01:30:48.360
The doctrine that salvation is achieved apart from the good works and righteous behavior is totally unique to Paul and is found nowhere else in scripture.
01:30:49.360 --> 01:30:54.360
It is totally alien to the example of Jesus' life and words of his ministry.
01:30:55.360 --> 01:31:01.360
It is the complete antithesis of the position held by James, the brother of Jesus, and his church in Jerusalem.
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It would also appear to be at odds with the Masonic doctrine that tells us that a fund of science and industry is implanted in man for the best, most salutary, and most beneficent purposes.
01:31:15.360 --> 01:31:21.360
Yet Paul's doctrines would eventually win out, at least for the church at home.
01:31:22.360 --> 01:31:32.360
In the 5th century, largely due to the brilliant powers of persuasion of St. Augustine of Hippo, Christianity became, in essence, Paulianity.
01:31:33.360 --> 01:31:42.360
Paul's radical doctrines of the total depravity of man and original sin would throughout the dark ages define the nature of the human soul.
01:31:43.360 --> 01:31:46.360
And be the canon of a ruthless and powerful church.
01:31:47.360 --> 01:31:57.360
A church whose doctrines of self-loathing are symbolized by the intimidating and terrible instrument of sadistic torture and death, the crucifix.
01:31:59.360 --> 01:32:07.360
Now I appreciate very much your patience and suffering through this excursion through church history and the twists and turns of dogma and doctrine.
01:32:07.360 --> 01:32:16.360
I didn't wish to bore you or go over this late, but I did so to set the stage for what I'm going to say now about the Knights Templar.
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I believe that at his initiation, the Knights Templar candidate was indeed called upon to spit upon a crucifix and trample it underfoot.
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I believe he was required to do so not as an act of black magic or to abjure the divinity of Christ, but rather to purposely desecrate a symbol of what the order believed to be a monstrous perversion of the truth.
01:32:45.360 --> 01:32:52.360
A lie born of a chain of lies that reached back a thousand years before the death of the crucified savior.
01:32:53.360 --> 01:32:57.360
A lie that outraged natural reason and common sense.
01:32:58.360 --> 01:33:01.360
A lie that made us hate our very existence.
01:33:02.360 --> 01:33:11.360
A lie that blended the masses of western civilization to the profound spiritual beauties of the teachings and example of the holy man of Galilee.
01:33:11.360 --> 01:33:18.360
A lie that nailed humanity's spirit and self-esteem upon a cross of guilt and fear and shame.
01:33:21.360 --> 01:33:28.360
Furthermore, I hear the echo of this attitude in Masonry's traditional antagonism toward temporal tyranny.
01:33:29.360 --> 01:33:32.360
Its militants stand against ignorance and superstition.
01:33:33.360 --> 01:33:37.360
Its legendary enmity toward oppressive religion.
01:33:38.360 --> 01:33:46.360
Its exaltation of the arts and sciences in its call for a rational homage to the deity.
01:33:47.360 --> 01:33:53.360
And in its unambiguous affirmation of the inherent goodness in humankind.
01:33:54.360 --> 01:34:03.360
Yes, I believe that at his initiation the Knights Templar candidate did indeed spit upon a crucifix and trample it underfoot.
01:34:04.360 --> 01:34:13.360
And I believe that by doing so, he was taking the first step toward challenging the lie and freeing his own soul.
01:34:14.360 --> 01:34:16.360
Thank you guys very much for sitting through this.