Emperor Julian and the Third Temple explores Tucker Carlson's biblical analysis, linking Cyrus of Persia to Donald Trump as a potential Messiah figure who financed the Second Temple. The discussion details Julian the Apostate's failed attempt to rebuild the Third Temple at the Dome of the Rock site, abandoned by earthquakes, contrasting his confinement of Yahweh with Christianity's global expansion. Ultimately, the episode suggests that while many Christians reject rebuilding the temple, Julian's pagan effort ironically highlighted the deity's transcendence beyond specific locations. [Automatically generated summary]
I have been railing against Tucker Carlson for some time, and I will in the future, but I would say that his last monologue was, in my mind, a little more coherent and interesting, in fact, and even compelling in a way.
So it was maybe Tucker at his best.
And he was actually talking about the temples.
And so you have the first temple to Yahweh that was, again, apparently built right where the Dome of the Rock is.
And this is destroyed by Babylon.
And these stories are told in a few books.
Daniel tells a story of the captivity, of basically the Jewish community surviving among a few people in a way who are living in exile and what they can do there.
They can interpret dreams.
They can demoralize Nebuchadnezzar with visions of a collapsing colossus that is sort of him that's going to be smashed by the rock, which is Yahweh, all that kind of stuff.
A lot of interesting things.
But Babylon is taken over by Cyrus and Persia.
And then Cyrus effectively frees the Jews, allows them to return to Jerusalem and finances the construction of the second temple, which is very interesting.
Very interesting.
Might Trump be a sort of Cyrus?
Is maybe that his best biblical analogue?
And as you pointed out, I remember when we talked a year ago or so, that Cyrus himself is an anointed one.
Cyrus is a Messiah type, which is important.
And there's expansions of the temple with Herod and so on.
Jesus is in the time of the second temple.
He predicts in the Gospel of Mark, maybe the first gospel, that this whole thing is coming down.
And at least in the way that it was interpreted by Tucker Carlson, that I am the third temple in a way.
And I am going to rise from the dead in three days and so on.
That's how it's traditionally understood.
I think it might, well, you might not like this, so I think it might very well suggest that the Gospel of Mark was written much later.
We thought it was written after 70 AD, unless we think that there's a prediction going on there.
But anyway, I'll leave that aside.
But so he, Tucker then goes on to a story of this question of the third temple.
And for a lot of time, the old temple was a dung heap.
It was not maintained.
There was a man, Julian the Apostate, who's coming post Constantine, post-Christianization, who genuinely wanted to return to paganism.
And again, who, at least at first glance, would be the least likely to build the third temple?
Julian's Vision of a Third Temple00:03:43
Maybe Julian.
Because you would say, this guy, he hates the Jews.
He hates the Christians.
You know, he would never do it.
But he actually did attempt it at great cost, but also, for Audest, a little bit half-heartedly, he was involved in Persian campaigns.
There were also all of these natural. phenomenon that occurred like earthquakes and so on.
Now, divine or not, that's up to you, of course, but it is interesting.
And so the project was abandoned.
But I think what's so powerful about Julian, and this is where Tucker really lost me, was when he said, oh, Julie, you know, he's a pagan.
And if you want to rebuild the third temple, that means you're a pagan too.
Okay.
I don't think so.
I don't think Pete Hegseth is a pagan.
I don't think Chabad are pagans.
I think that's wrong.
But there is something to this notion of a third temple.
And from my perspective, I've almost come around to this third temple stuff.
So hear me out.
You know, if Julian did it, maybe it's good enough for me.
Because what Julian was saying, in effect, is that you will have a temple to Yahweh in the way that we have a temple to Apollo, in the way that you can have beautiful statues to Venus that you can adore.
This is your thing.
And you Jews, you didn't like the idea of Yahweh in the pantheon, but okay, we'll compromise.
We're going to center your religion.
And in a way, he's enclosing Yahweh in that temple.
He's saying that Yahweh can't escape because he's there.
And there is something, you know, the thing that is most powerful about Judaism, as opposed to, I don't know, some religion in the Congo or whatever, is precisely because Yahweh's cup overfloweth.
He's not confined to Jerusalem.
He's not confined to his temple.
He has expanded throughout the world to become the most dominant God of them all.
He's, you know, in so many ways through Christianity, most obviously, and Jesus ism, let's say.
He's expanded to Islam, the Islamic world.
They are worshiping.
They call him by a different name.
They don't call him by Yahweh.
It's Allah.
Jesus might have called him Abba.
I mean, if he spoke Arabic, you know, it expands into Islam.
It even expands into philosophy.
And so all of these rationalist philosophers are saying things, you know, like, there's no such thing as an uncaused cause.
So there must be one unmoved mover and his name is God or whatever.
That's just another place where Yahweh travels.
He's gotten into the heads of philosophy departments.
He's gotten in the heads of Arabs.
He's gotten in the heads of Christians, whites, et cetera.
And I think what Julian was trying to do genuinely, it was sort of anti-Semitic on some level, ironically, by building a temple to Yahweh, by saying, we're going to confine you here.
And so Tucker is saying, oh, to Christians, this is anathema.
To real Christians, you know, which is like whatever.
flavor he's become last week or something.
I take people at their word.
If you say that you worship Christ, this is the most meaningful thing in your life.
I take you at your word.
I'm not going to call you a heretic or something like that.
Real Christians do want to re many real Christians do want to rebuild the third temple.
Many find it anathema.
I think Julian was a fascinating man who was coming at it from his own perspective of confinement.