Speaker A
What tends to be the main themes of their arguments using rabbinic lines of argument in regards to Christ not fulfilling it or the Orthodox Church not fulfilling its role as the new Israel?
Jay Dyer and OrbProductions analyze TikTok deconstruction of Christianity, focusing on rabbinic arguments, prophecy interpretations, and modern religious trends.
Key Takeaways
- TikTok is a significant platform influencing modern religious discourse and deconstruction.
- Rabbinic and Christian exegetical traditions are more complex and nuanced than some TikTok creators acknowledge.
- Isaiah 7:14 prophecy is interpreted both as a sign for King Ahaz and as a messianic prophecy, reflecting layered biblical symbolism.
- Progressive Mormon voices are increasingly prominent in online Christian discussions, sometimes misrepresenting orthodox views.
- Proper understanding of scripture requires recognizing multiple interpretive layers beyond just the grammatical-historical sense.
Summary
- Discussion of rabbinic arguments against Christ fulfilling messianic prophecies and the Orthodox Church's role as the new Israel.
- Examination of popular TikTok creators like No Nonsense Spirituality and Dan McClellan, highlighting their influence and backgrounds.
- Critique of progressive Mormon representation as Christian scholarship on TikTok.
- Analysis of TikTok's role in spreading Mormonism and other religious ideas.
- Detailed discussion on the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 and its interpretation in both Jewish and Christian traditions.
- Explanation of biblical typology and symbology, emphasizing the both/and approach rather than either/or.
- Overview of Jewish exegetical methods, especially Pardes, and their relation to Christian fourfold senses of scripture.
- Criticism of TikTok deconstructionists’ inconsistent use of rabbinic exegesis and biblical interpretation.
- Comments on the emotional versus intellectual approaches of different TikTok personalities.
- Reflection on how heresy and misinterpretation can lead to atheism and confusion.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Rabbinic Arguments Against Christ
- 00:59Popular TikTok Creators and Their Influence
- 01:58Progressive Mormon Representation Critique
- 02:58TikTok's Role in Religious Trends
- 03:55Isaiah 7:14 Prophecy and Its Interpretation
- 05:13Biblical Typology and Symbology Explained
- 06:09Jewish Pardes Exegesis and Christian Fourfold Sense
- 07:31Criticism of TikTok Deconstruction Methods
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
A theodicy that Big Sky Daddy is so mean and look at all these injustices in the Old Testament.
Speaker A
Questioning the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Christ. And then, obviously from there, questioning Christ's status as the Messiah. So, we basically, we're now an hour and 15, 16 in. We've covered basically the arguments that we're going to see. And
Speaker A
if there's anything else you want to say before we kind of pull up some of this nonsense and have some laughs.
Speaker A
I think that's what everybody's waiting for. No, I'm ready. You can go on. So, here is, this is one lady that's really prominent on TikTok. Her name's No Nonsense Spirituality. And as you can see here, I just pulled up her most
Speaker A
popular TikToks. We're talking about 3.5 million, 1.6 million, 2.8 million, 1.8 million, 6.7 million.
Speaker A
She gets massive views and engagement. 2.3 million down here on these TikToks where she believes that she... So, she's a spiritual director and nihilism coach specializing in tools of the void.
Speaker A
[laughter] What the heck is that? [snorts] And Dan McClellan, he's the other one that he will make sure to tell you he's a biblical scholar. And he's actually a progressive Mormon. We talked a little bit about him over on Jay's
Speaker A
stream. And you pull up his Instagram, as Jay highlighted last time, every single... This was just posted 5 hours ago. He lifts up his super or his action figure superhero t-shirts. And he has Funko Pops. There's videos on his
Speaker A
YouTube where you can see he has a whole thing of Funko Pops behind him.
Speaker A
And he is a progressive. He is pretty soft on, you know, sexual immorality and stuff like that. And what he doesn't tell you, and he doesn't show anywhere, but if you dig deep enough, you'll find he is a Mormon Christian or
Speaker A
not even Christian, a Mormon, and presents himself as an expert on Christianity because of his academic scholastic abilities in deconstructing the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Speaker A
So, he presents himself as some type of ultimate Christian scholar when he himself is some progressive Mormon.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's really weird. I mean, and I've been, I've seen a lot more Mormon stuff popping up everywhere lately and I've been seeing more and more interactions with Mormons. I had last few open debates. I've had multiple
Speaker A
Mormons calling in. So, you know, it's just weird to see, you know, the push via the Tate, Sneako sphere, Islam suddenly everywhere. Now, Mormonism's everywhere through TikTok. So, I think TikTok's playing a key role in this.
Speaker A
No, I definitely agree with that. And over on TikTok, there's another guy and he has a YouTube channel. It's not very big. It's not even 4,000 subs.
Speaker A
It's called the Deconstruction Zone. And if you go to his TikTok, he, I mean, he gets pretty good videos in regards to views. I'm not saying they're quality videos, but I mean, thousands of views here.
Speaker A
225,000, 708,000, and so AC mentioned that he's kind of a prominent voice in here.
Speaker A
So, we may watch a few of his. And he has put together this playlist that I guess is pretty popular on TikTok in regards to people referencing prophecy fails. And so, like this one is Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy fulfilled by
Speaker A
Jesus? So, we can check that one out if we want to start with just some of these.
Speaker A
Come on. Is the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 about the young woman conceiving and bearing a child about Jesus or about the time of Ahaz? It says, "Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, ask the Lord your God for a sign
Speaker A
whether in the deepest depths or the highest heights." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask. I will not put the Lord to the test." Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David, is it not enough to try
Speaker A
the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of God also? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel." Okay, this is clearly a sign for Ahaz. There
Speaker A
is a woman who's going to conceive whether she's a virgin or a young woman, the translation of that particular word is irrelevant in this particular argument. This has nothing to do with a future Messiah and everything to do with
Speaker A
a sign specifically given to King Ahaz. This is not about Jesus. Well, this is just fundamental ignorance of the way biblical typology and symbology works.
Speaker A
It's not an either-or. The whole idea is that the sign in the day of Isaiah would also be a sign of the Messiah. This is why in the New Testament, for example, you'll read the passage, I think it's early on
Speaker A
in Matthew where it says, "Out of Egypt, right? My son came up out of Egypt." Well, there's not actually a passage specifically that says that exactly, but it's referring to Israel as God's son coming up out of Egypt, right? And it's
Speaker A
making a parallel to the Holy Family coming out of Egypt when they fled the first execution.
Speaker A
So, it's just ignorance of the way that biblical symbology works where it can be a both-and and it doesn't have to be an either-or.
Speaker A
All right. I love his lisp, too, right? We talked [laughter] "Wait a minute." But you'll note, like for example in Matthew 2, it says, "When he arose, he... This is Joseph.
Speaker A
When he arose, he took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt." "And he was there until the death of Herod that might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my son.'"
Speaker A
Right? So, if you read Hosea 11:1, it's talking about Israel being brought out of captivity of the Egyptians.
Speaker A
So, this is telling us the New Testament apostolic hermeneutic does not restrict these types of references to what's called the grammatical-historical interpretation.
Speaker A
The irony is that these people pull from Jews, but Jews don't even restrict all readings to grammatical-historical. Do you know what I mean by grammatical-historical?
Speaker A
Right. That's the immediate sense of the text and the immediate reference and context and audience. So, who is Isaiah talking to? Who's his immediate audience? What's the immediate context?
Speaker A
But even Jews believe in what's called Pardes, P-A-R-D-E-S. That's their four senses of the text. So, it's not even the Jewish Judaic position to think that there's only the grammatical-historical sense of the text.
Speaker A
And it seems like here he then is talking about Matthew 2:15 as not a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1.
Speaker A
Yeah, but that's my point is like it's not if you have his assumption of only grammatical-historical.
Speaker A
That's what I was getting ready to say is that you just nailed it because he already has a video right here discussing what you just brought up.
Speaker A
Now, look at this. Yeah, this is again the irony. I'm going to give you a little link you can look at here.
Speaker A
All right. So, this is just well-known Jewish exegesis. So, if you take a look at that right there, it'll show you that these people aren't even really being consistent with the way Jews exegete their own text.
Speaker A
That's ironic because both Jews... Click the one that's exegesis. Their method here, and it's not just Kabbalists, other people do this, too.
Speaker A
Pardes, it's a fourfold sense, and it's a Jewish adaptation of the way that Christianity eventually came up with a fourfold sense of the text. There's a literal meaning, there's the allegorical meaning, there's the moral meaning, there's the
Speaker A
eschatological or anagogical meaning. That's all four senses in the Christian tradition. And this is not just a medieval Latin thing, it also exists. St.
Speaker A
Maximus talks about the four senses of scripture. So, there's nothing foreign to, you know, Orthodox Christianity with these ideas. But you'll just notice that, well, wait a minute. I thought you were...
Speaker A
the the rabbinic exegesis the rabbinic exegesis is not grammatical historical only, it's not just that first sense.
Speaker A
Right. So, they're they're being arbitrary when they when they are utilizing these these principles.
Speaker A
Absolutely. Here's how I think a real Christian would respond to someone like me. Hi, I'm Brett Hartley. I'm an atheist spiritual director and deconstruction coach. I have a master's degree in theology, and I produce a lot of content
Speaker A
on here about no-nonsense spirituality. I got one comment last week of the hundreds of thousands of comments that I get from Christians on this app, where I actually had to sit back and say, "Wow, here is someone who answered how I would
Speaker A
imagine a real follower of Jesus would respond to someone like me. Because most of the time I get comments about enjoy being raped in hell, which is like it was your God that set up that system, so that's more of a dig on you. I get
Speaker A
comments about you're ignorant and you'll understand something like that. I mean, that's that's why you're getting those kind of comments.
Speaker A
And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess like they just can't wait for this dictatorship. I get comments about enjoy being tortured forever, which is not something I would even wish on my worst enemy because eternal
Speaker A
torment for finite crimes is immoral. All kinds of condescending and violent comments. You can read through my comment section to see the worst of them.
Speaker A
But if I were, and again, how is this my job? But if I were a real follower of Jesus, the character that he had, this is how I think he would respond to the videos about religious deconstruction and about criticisms of Christianity.
Speaker A
I think someone would say, "I am so sorry that the Christian church has hurt you so much. I know that the Christian community can sometimes act not Christ-like." Well, you know what's interesting about her is that's different than McLelland's
Speaker A
is uh his is kind of low-tier sort of pseudo-intellectual uh approach. Hers is all emotion and feelies.
Speaker A
Right. And that's why the women are resonating with it. Right. Well, and and both are Mormons.
Speaker A
Again, like her talking about how the Christian community I mean, what Christian community were you in?
Speaker A
You're in a You're in a Mormon Crazy heterodox thing, yeah. Yeah, but you're right. Everything that she says is all emotionalism. It She doesn't actually make arguments.
Speaker A
And that's our fault. Refer to kind of beam in the eye scriptures there. I am sorry that you lost everything when you left your religious community. Jesus always mourned with those that mourn and I really wish someone would have been
Speaker A
there for you in your darkest hour rather than um you and making you go through that alone. That sounds really hard.
Speaker A
I understand that your moral compass has led you out of this faith community and I see that as very brave of you. There are prophets of old who spoke truth to power and who were exiled into the wilderness or stoned and we need your
Speaker A
voice to help curb the excesses of the institution, which is what Jesus did and I think some of your criticisms are really fair.
Speaker A
I appreciate your content. They helped me to understand the deconstruction community better and how not everyone experiences God's love and God's churches. They helped me know what I can do as someone in the church to make it better for people.
Speaker A
Okay, I'm [laughter] I'm done with this video. This is boring. But it like you said, it's all emotionalism. I mean, this is this is low-level uh Well, you're I think, you know, one of the bad parts about heresy that people
Speaker A
misunderstand, it's not just that heresy is wrong and it gets things wrong but heresy has the tendency to produce these types of people, these types of reactions. It leads to it's an atheism factory.
Speaker A
Right. It's it's not just that it doesn't have the healing, you know, of the news and so on and all that because it doesn't have the sacraments and all that, but that's true, but it also has these offspring. It's like it gives
Speaker A
birth to these hydra that creates It creates monsters. It's a Medusa for sure. Yeah.
Speaker A
Uh AC just said "No-nonsense spirituality has Funko Pops. Doesn't she know there are two tool of the patriarchy?" Yeah, she also has Funko Pops in the background. Uh you can see it like right here at the at the top
Speaker A
right. So, another commonality between McLellan's all about Marvel crap, right? Well, and he and and video Well, we can look at the YouTube he in the wider angle of his videos, not the vertical camera, you can see Funko Pops in the
Speaker A
back as well. I mean, it as you as you mentioned in the first part that we did on this topic You see I can almost guarantee Yeah, the iconography plays itself out over and over and over, which is astounding.
Speaker A
Um anyways, let's move on from this chick and kind of just focus on the last one is uh Dan McClellan. Now, he has a YouTube channel and he's got 71 uh sub thousand subscribers.
Speaker A
Um we can watch one of these videos if any one of uh the topics kind of peak your interest. Um or we can check out his Instagram where he's got [laughter] 200,000 followers.
Speaker A
is all uh uh Marvel Cinematic Universe. I mean, look at it. Spider Spider-Punk. Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.
Speaker A
is this guy? It's like this guy's like 13 or is he 13 or is he a grown man?
Speaker A
Uh he looks like he's definitely in in uh the latter 40s. Do you see, by the way, a woman with him in any of these pictures cuz Never.
Speaker A
Yeah, the way he talked was a little uh a little strange. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this guy is um swinging for the other team, put it put it one way.
Speaker A
He's an X-Man an X-Man. Yeah. Well, let let This one he just posted today. Let's check it out. I have no knowledge longer a man, he's an X-Man.
Speaker A
[laughter] X-Man. Is there a contradiction in the Bible regarding how much King David paid for the threshing floor where he built an altar to Adonai? Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. I'm a scholar of the Bible and religion. Let's take a look at a
Speaker A
video. In 2 Samuel 24:10-24, David pays 50 shekels of silver for his threshing floor and the oxen. But then in 1 Chronicles 21:25, it says that David paid this same man 600 shekels of gold for the place. So, according to Samuel,
Speaker A
David paid only 50 shekels of silver, but Chronicles said he paid 600 shekels of gold, two very different sums of money. Readers have recognized this discrepancy between these two accounts for thousands of years, and there have been a few different ways that they have
Speaker A
sought to try to harmonize them. So, for instance, in Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, they alter the text a little bit in 2 Samuel 24:24 because there it says David bought the threshing floor and the oxen
Speaker A
for 50 shekels of silver. And if you go look in the Septuagint, it adds something so that says David bought the threshing floor for a price and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver to make it sound like the text does not actually
Speaker A
identify the price that was paid for the threshing floor. Uh in the medieval period, we have Pseudo-Rashi who says that the 50 shekels of silver is actually the cost for each of the 12 tribes of Israel. And 50 * 12 is 600.
Speaker A
And so, you just have to ignore the difference between the value of silver and gold, and you have the exact same prices.
Speaker A
we know that that I mean, assuming that there is a discrepancy, maybe the Septuagint translation is right.
Speaker A
Right. Because we don't know we don't have access to back when the Jews were trans what the Jews were translating the Septuagint from. And if you read the the Woodward book reviewing the Bible, he actually argues that the Masoretic text
Speaker A
was altered because of Christianity and that the Jews not wanting any text to be utilized by Christians. So, they would change really strong Christian used passages to favor a rabbinic reading.
Speaker A
Um So, I mean, this just assumes that what Masoretic the Masoretic text is the one that's correct. So, I mean, and by the way, a lot of that's like the the history of Protestantism is just defaulting to the Jewish Masoretic text.
Topics:Jay DyerTikTok deconstructionChristianityIsaiah 7:14biblical exegesisrabbinic argumentsMormonismOrthodox Churchbiblical typologyPardes
