DENNIS PRAGER on History of the Papacy

The history of the Popes of Rome and Christianity reaches into nearly every aspect of history. In the History of the Papacy podcast, we step over the rope. We dive in to discover more about the people, events, and background that define the influence of the Popes of Rome and Church, not only on the West but the world. To start listening now, go to parthenonpodcast.com or search for History of the Papacy on your favorite podcast platform. Today, I am extremely excited and honored to be joined by national radio host, bestselling author, and founder of Prager University, none other than Dennis Prager. We're going to talk about the book in the Bible that doesn't often get the coverage of other books, but is really critical in importance to understand the whole Bible. And that is the book of Deuteronomy. Dennis Prager is the author of the book series The Rational Bible. And today we're going to talk about The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy, which is a part of The Rational Bible series. Now, can you tell us and give us a little bit of background of where Deuteronomy fits into the Bible?

So first, let me tell you, it's a joy to be with you. Thank you for having me.

It's my honor.

Absolutely. Well, that's very kind. Thank you. So let me explain to your listeners and viewers, the crisis of the West is the crisis of the Bible. People, even religious people, often don't know what I'm about to say. It's not their fault. They just haven't thought this through. Goodness is not possible without wisdom. Good intentions are nothing. They're virtually, they're, are often useless and they're very often harmful. The amount of murder and mayhem in the 20th century from good intentions, communism, many, many people with good intentions supported the greatest mass murder machine in human history. So what is the problem? The problem is wisdom. And wisdom is what the Bible offers. So the next problem is that a lot of religious people, Not their fault. Nobody taught them. A lot of religious people don't know how to use biblical texts and make them meaningful to the times in which we live. I'll give you plenty of examples in a moment. So I am in love with the first 5 books more than any other part of the Bible. The first 5 books are what they would say in Latin, primus inter pares. They're first among equals. They certainly are. And I am a committed Jew. I'm a religious Jew. Certainly in Judaism, the Torah, as the first 5 books are known, have their own special status. I personally believe that the first 5 books emanate from God and the others are inspired, but this is directly, if you will, God's word. Everything is in these first 5 books. Love your neighbor, the Garden of Eden, creation, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, everything. The rest of the Bible is based on the first 5 books. People don't know the books beyond Genesis and Exodus, for which I've already written my commentaries. I might add that I know biblical Hebrew like I know English, and it's very, very helpful. Uh, it's, it's instrumental in my explaining a lot of this. Deuteronomy is the 5th of the 5 books. I did not go in order. I did Exodus, then Genesis, then Deuteronomy, then Numbers, then Leviticus. So Deuteronomy is just about to come out, and this is something that shocked me even. Apparently scholars have done a word search and found that the founders of the United States cited Deuteronomy in writing and speeches more than any other biblical book and more than any other secular book. That is how powerful this book is, the fifth of the five books. So anyway, that's my, that's my promotion of the importance of Deuteronomy and the Rational Bible. I try to explain the whole thing.

I started reading Deuteronomy. It was kind of always on my list of Bible books to read, and I really dug in. And you can kind of tell when you're reading what some, some things are strictly laws and then some are read allegorically. How did you approach this? This book and approach Deuteronomy as a scholar and somebody who is fluent in biblical Hebrew?

So I, I don't think any of it is allegorical. I believe that this book, which by the way has more laws than any other book of the Bible as well, 240 I believe it is. I try to explain every single one and I do it rationally. It's why it's called The Rational Bible. I'll give you an example. There is a law in Deuteronomy that I could totally understand why most moderns would go either it's allegorical or they— it was an ancient ritual, has no bearing on us, or their eyes glaze over. Those are the three options generally. So here's the law in a nutshell. If a, if a, a dead body is found near your community, there's a whole ritual that you have to undergo in order to sort of cleanse yourself of the blood that was shed. What is the point? The point is there is something not right if a community allows one of its members to die, let alone be killed anonymously. We're responsible. The, the Torah does not want human life ever taken. Except in self-defense, obviously. Example, uh, which I, I explain in Exodus: if an ox gores a person, the ox is put to death. Why? Oxen don't have free will. Taking a human life, whether it's by animal or by human, is a very, very bad thing. It cannot go unnoted and on with no consequences. That's why if you kill a person by accident, you go to a city of refuge. You are not put to death, but you have to go to a city of refuge. You can't lead a perfectly normal life after accidentally killing people. When I see, you know, some— somebody, drunk driver accidentally kills somebody and they get a year in prison, that's not biblical. There's something wrong there. Yes, you didn't intend to kill, but it was your negligence by drinking and driving that you did it. So I explained that ritual and the whole philosophy behind it. Something happened that's bad, human blood was shed, something's got to be done about it.

Steve here. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network featuring great shows like James Early's Key Battles of American History podcast, and many other great shows. Go over to parthenonpodcast.com to learn more. And here is a quick word from our sponsors. Do you think you could give a couple— another example maybe of a law that's in Deuteronomy in a way that we can apply it directly today?

Oh God, can I? Here's one.

Give us a couple at the top.

Yes. Oh man, this is a biggie. You shall not show favor in justice in a courtroom. You cannot favor a poor person in a courtroom. The Torah is 100% opposed to social justice because it's for justice. Justice and social justice are not related. That is the reason people don't say justice. They say social justice. If you want social justice, you favor the poor man in the courtroom. That, that's social justice. Justice is you do what's just. If the rich man was right, he's vindicated. If the poor man is wrong, he's not vindicated. It doesn't matter that he's poor. So the, that's a, an unbelievably important law. You cannot favor the poor in a courtroom. That, as I said, that's the, in a nutshell, the Torah's opposition to social justice. And that is why it says, it's the only time I know of in the Torah where a noun is, they have verbs that are duplicated, but I don't know of another noun. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof. Justice, justice shall you pursue. So why? What does that mean? Justice, justice. First, it shows how important justice is. Everything is based on justice. Number 2, there is justice for both parties. That's the only way there's justice. You can't have justice just for the poor guy. That's social justice, but it ain't justice. So there's a, I'll give you another one here. Let me, let me dig it up for you since you're asking. It's on my computer. I have actually on Fox News, I have an article of 7, uh, 7 lessons that I have learned. Or that I— not, not I've learned 50 lessons, but I, I want the, the reader to, uh, let's see here. Here we go. It's coming up right now. Here we go. So here's another one, which is unbelievably irrelevant. You will find God if you will find him, if you can, if you seek him. People think that they will believe in God when God appears to them. That's the general belief. Everything good in life takes effort. If you want to take God seriously, you've gotta make an effort to do so. I decided in high school, and certainly by college, that I, I was going to, I decided to believe in God. God never appeared to me. I wasn't the possessor of any specific miracle or any, any, any hidden knowledge, but I realized God is the most important thing in life. and I was going to pursue believing in this God. And so you have to seek him. You have to work at it. You have to work at everything. You have to work at raising children. You have to work at a marriage. Everything good in life has to be worked at. I'll give you another one here. Do not be afraid of anyone. Deuteronomy 1:17. Every human has fears. So here's the Torah's view. If you fear God, you won't fear people. And that's correct, by the way. And that not all religious people fear God. A lot of religious people fear people. I was very sad that how many churches and synagogues obeyed secular irrational authority and closed down for nearly 2 years. I think it spoke poorly of most churches and synagogues. Again, they meant well, but I don't give 2 cents for how, oh, your intentions. They mean nothing. I salute the synagogues and churches who stayed open. They didn't force anybody to come. And, and there was not zero, zero science behind it. I don't, I don't want religious people to, to, you know, to jump off cliffs because they don't believe in gravity. Of course they, religious people believe in gravity. I don't believe in the CDC. I do believe in gravity. I do believe in science. Anyway, it is unbelievably liberating. I try to live this. I fear God. I don't fear people. So I don't give a damn what the New York Times says about me. It means nothing. I, it makes me laugh half the time. So I don't fear people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer feared God more than the Nazi regime, and he was one of the few Christian pastors to die. In opposition to the Nazis. It's a very tough thing to fear God and not man. Not easy, but it's in one of the, one of the Deuteronomy laws as well. Anyway, I can go on. It's up to you if you want me to.

Oh, yeah, sure. Let's go. We're on a roll. Let's hear another law and how it can be applied today, because this is, this is fascinating.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's why— look, you know what I tell pastors? I tell pastors and rabbis, you get any one of my Rational Bible volumes If it doesn't give you 50 sermons, I'll buy the book back from you. And I mean it. Look, it's verse by verse. This is lifelong teaching of this to the people of every faith. So needless to say, I mean, my favorite thing in the Torah is the Ten Commandments. I have a great new saying. You want to defund the police? I have the method. Have everybody obey the Ten Commandments. Then you could defund the police. The, the Ten Commandments are the greatest set of laws ever written, and they are given by God. This is, this is interesting. A lot of religious people even don't know this. God is the one who gives the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus. Moses restates the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy. He changes, this is just of interest, this is not, not more than that, but it is of great interest to me. God gives us the reason for the Sabbath in Exodus, because I created the world in 6 days and on the 7th day I rested. You rest on the 7th day. You are announcing to the world that God created the world. I take that very seriously and I don't work, as it were, on my, I don't broadcast, I don't go on broadcast, for example, on the Sabbath. and I am announcing God created the world by doing so. But Moses changes the reason for the Sabbath in Deuteronomy. He doesn't say because God created the world in 7 days and rested on the 6 days and rested on the 7th. He says because God took you out of Egypt, you are no longer slaves. Slaves work 7 days a week, not free people, which by the way is a very, very good lesson poor moderns. The rich man who works 7 days a week is a slave.

Now, um, there's certain laws that really get into the nitty-gritty of life, such as you can't eat a hare, or are those— how do those laws— can we interpret them and use them today?

So I deal with the, the— that's really the laws of kosher. Uh, so I'll explain it in one, in a nutshell, what they are. But I deal with those where they're really listed most. That's in Leviticus. I don't deal with that much. I deal with it somewhat in Deuteronomy. But here it is, which again will be, I think, of interest and perhaps even news to many of your listeners and viewers. So the Jews are told, the Israelites are told, you cannot eat all animals. Land animals must have split hooves and chew their cud. Fish must have fins and scales, and birds must not be birds of prey. People have wondered all through history why that way, why fins and scale fish are kosher, why, and shellfish are not kosher. Why not the other way around? Or why aren't all animals okay? We don't have a definitive answer, but I have some answers. One is the Torah God wants us to understand that we can't have everything we want. You want to eat all animals? I'm sorry, I'm allowing you to eat some animals. This, this was a provision after the flood, or after, after, and, and not even after the flood, it was a provision as well after the Garden of Eden. 'Cause in the Garden of Eden they were obviously vegetarian. So I, I am, I am circumscribing how much you can eat. You can't eat all land animals, you can't eat all fish, you can't eat all. I want you to recognize that these are still creatures whose lives you're taking. Number 2, all the animals, all the land animals, for example, that are kosher, that are permitted, are vegetarian, and all the non-permitted are carnivorous. There, there is a very major emphasis in the Torah on the distinction between life and death. Death-dealing animals animals you cannot eat. Maybe there was a belief that you ingest some of its tendency, either scientifically or in some spiritual way. I don't, I don't know. But clearly there was the sense that we don't want you to eat the animals that are predators. So I personally observe that. I, I, I don't eat the shellfish, for example, and I find it very meaningful that when I go into a restaurant, I know God has told me I can't have everything on the menu. I find that very meaningful.

I wonder, I can see how definitely religious people, whether you're Jewish or Christian or a Muslim who revere these books, why they would want to read this book and you could get a lot out of it. What's maybe your case for somebody who's not religious or maybe even anti-religious might want to read a book about Deuteronomy, or really any of these Old Testament books in conjunction with your study of them?

I think most authors— I can't speak for all, but I certainly can speak for myself— while I write— this is my 10th book— and while I write, I'm thinking of the reader. The reader I think about when I write this knows nothing about the Bible. I think actually about a peasant in China for whom Deuteronomy means zero. Can I persuade this person to take this seriously using reason alone? 'Cause reason is universal. That's my argument for the agnostic or the non-religious or even the anti-religious. Most anti-religious will not read this 'cause they don't think they have anything to learn from religion, which is incredibly arrogant. Since this country and Western civilization was founded on the book called the Bible, I should think that unless they have contempt for the West, which is increasing, by the way, contempt for the Bible and contempt for the West go hand in hand. It's very interesting. I believe that these people, look, I'll tell you, these people are, their reactions are on Amazon. There are 4,000 reviews just on Genesis and Exodus. Many of these people say, you know, I, I, I never took God seriously till I read these books. And that's, that's, that's my aim.

For the younger reader, what do you think a younger reader can get out of these, out of these books in this series? Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors.

Well, I, I never speak to young people differently than I do to adults. I, I The, I think it's, it's, it's almost condescending to do so. If you can understand, you, the, you, the 13-year-old can understand what I'm saying right now. You can understand what I have to say about the Bible. And the earlier in life you grapple with these great issues of life, the earlier you get wisdom, the better a life you will have. They don't know that because their parents probably never used the word wisdom once in their upbringing. They use love 50,000 times, but they use wisdom zero. Frankly, I like both love and wisdom, but if I had to choose parents giving one or the other, the kid will do better in life with wisdom. That's, that's the irony.

That is a great perspective of not, I have, for the lack of a better term, pulling punches with children or youths to give it to them straight and not sugarcoat anything, because then there's no explanation later of why you didn't give them the full Scoop.

So I learned this. I began lecturing. I have a very odd life. I know this. I always knew it. I began lecturing at 21 years of age. I won't explain why, because it involves a whole story, but in any event, I did. So in the beginning, I was just lecturing in Jewish life and I was at a synagogue. I was what they called scholar in residence at a synagogue in my late 20s. And there was a kid in the front row. I would say he was about, 9 years old, 10 years old. And I noticed while I was speaking, he was listening and it cracked me up. I didn't start laughing in my speech, but it cracked me up inside. And I went to the mother after my speech and I said, I just gotta say, I'm remarkable. You've got quite a son there listening to such a serious speech at his age. And she goes, I was more amazed than you. When the rabbi gets up to speak, he runs out. He's made your whole speech. And it opened my eyes. If you speak or write clearly and interestingly, kids will listen. That is what you have to be. You have to be clear and interesting. They'll listen.

Anybody who listens to this podcast definitely knows that I'm definitely— I love the Bible and I'm an aficionado. And There's always certain passages that always come back to me or that I like to go back to and think about. What's maybe a passage specifically out of Deuteronomy that you go back to that really sticks with you?

There are two. One, of course, the Ten Commandments, which I mentioned, 'cause I'm in love with them. But the other one is that Moses doesn't get into the promised land. And I've always felt that that is a metaphor for all of us. None of us gets into our promised land in this world. That's the nature of life. And I figured if Moses can't get into the promised land, and he knew God even better, a lot better than I did, then Dennis Prager's not going to get into his promised land. What you can hope for, that's the big hope, is what he got to do. He got to see the promised land. He didn't get to enter it. It's a good one. I hope I'll see a promised land. Right now with America's crises, it's tough to even see the promised land for this country. Don't, don't know if we'll get in or not. We got into it. We decided to leave it. That's the amazing thing. That's another subject, obviously, but his seeing the promised land but not getting into it has always stuck with me. If you want one other scene.

Absolutely.

Okay. The very, very, very end of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy has almost no narrative. It's all laws. But at the very, very end, Moses dies, and guess who buries him? God. That's touching.

If I had, uh, if you could indulge me with just one more question, because I think this would be one that you're particularly interested in, or that you would have something really interesting to say, is why not teach the Bible in school, even as a non-religious document? It's so full of wisdom, as you said. It's such a great piece of literature. What's the case to people out there that we should be using this as a teaching tool in school along with all the other great literature out there? Why should the Bible be cut out?

That's right. But when the unwise teach, why would they care about teaching wisdom? You got to be wise to know that wisdom is important. We have produced since World War II, 3 generations of less and less wise people. You couldn't graduate Harvard till 1800 if you didn't know Hebrew. That's how important the teaching of the, of the Bible, the Old Testament was. And now, as I often say, I think the average Harvard senior would think Leviticus was running in the Kentucky Derby. I don't think they have a clue that it's a biblical book. I, I, I don't think the average a Harvard senior could name the four Gospels, let alone the five books of the Torah. There has been an enforced ignorance of the Judeo-Christian basis of Western civilization. They sort of— they don't care about it, and they don't want you to care about it. It's the wisest books ever written, and they don't teach them. Look, they took Shakespeare's mural down at the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Because he was a white European male. So what if he's the greatest writer of English who ever lived? We're just the English department at an Ivy League university, by definition filled with unwise people. By the way, it is a very important point to note, and it bothers a lot of people when I say this, but they have no refutation of it. The least wise places in America are the universities, and they're the most secular.

Well, I want to thank you so much for your time. This has been a great conversation. And if people want to find your books, where's the best places for them to go?

Amazon is, is the most obvious. And if you, if anyone does get it and then reads it and wants to put up a review, it inspires others to read it. And I would appreciate that. I think everybody is aware no one writes Bible commentaries to get wealthy. I thank God make a good living in other arenas of life, but this is what I've worked on now for 10 years. And I, I still have to finish Numbers and Leviticus, but this is meant to be, in the best sense, life-changing. And I, you could go to Amazon, you could go to my website, you can go to your local store. Everybody will have it. It's called The Rational Bible.