Nephilim Death Squad - Daniel In Exile w⧸ Brian Godawa

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00:00:30.000 is a what is brohemian grove brohemian grove is a

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00:01:23.260 In the shadows of the ancient ones

00:01:31.720 They never went away

00:01:35.440 They're still here today

00:01:40.260 When the last trumpet sounds

00:01:47.600 And the heavens crack

00:01:49.460 Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Nephilim Death Squad.

00:02:19.200 I am David Lee Corbo, a.k.a. The Raven.

00:02:21.740 That is Top Lobster, the father of disinformation.

00:02:24.040 What's up, guys?

00:02:24.700 Before we get into today's guest, a little reminder.

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00:03:11.060 there's all kinds of information so you guys don't have to ask where should i say what should i do

00:03:16.740 don't join a polygamy group that's all i have to say yeah don't really vet the church if you're

00:03:21.440 going to join one down here we have a great guest today uh i've been trying to work out getting

00:03:26.180 getting him on the show for a while but things have fell through i i'm a fan of his work i like

00:03:30.000 what he's doing this is already we we were having a little bit of a brief discussion before the show

00:03:33.780 started a lot of fascinating topics that we're going to get into today joining us today is uh

00:03:38.600 Brian Godawa, did I pronounce that right?

00:03:40.620 I should have asked you before the show started.

00:03:42.100 Dang, look at that.

00:03:42.920 One shot, one take. 0.92

00:03:44.560 Usually it's Godawa. 0.94

00:03:46.700 Godawa, well, I can see how that might happen.

00:03:48.400 Godawa, before we get into the conversation,

00:03:51.360 let's talk a little bit about where people can find your work,

00:03:54.080 and then we're going to play a brief promo for your books.

00:03:57.260 Godawa.com, that's my name, G-O-D-A-W-A.com.

00:04:01.960 And it's an interesting website.

00:04:03.380 I make it interesting, so.

00:04:05.640 Very fun.

00:04:06.300 And so a lot of what we're going to be talking about is is Daniel.

00:04:11.000 Well, I kind of I want to go through some of your older work as well.

00:04:13.800 But Izzy, Izzy Centric had referred you.

00:04:17.880 He said that he was a friend of yours.

00:04:19.460 Would have been a long time ago.

00:04:20.740 We had him on.

00:04:22.060 You were still living in Tampa.

00:04:23.640 Wow.

00:04:23.960 We were not.

00:04:24.700 Yeah.

00:04:25.160 Well, I mean, we might have just first started the show.

00:04:26.920 So you were mentioned.

00:04:28.120 And I love I love your takes on like taking some of this older biblical stuff and sort

00:04:34.700 of creating a narrative around it because there's so much missing that we're not privy to. And

00:04:40.480 you've, you've done a great job here with some of your Nephilim work, but yeah, we're going to get

00:04:44.580 into all that, but you have a new book. Can we play the trailer for it now? Yeah. Yeah. Let's

00:04:52.500 couple. Okay. Here we go. What if the gods of ancient Babylon were not myths, but fallen angels? 0.51

00:05:01.120 You know, the Bible story of Daniel, a faith empires cannot break, but you've never experienced

00:05:08.560 it like this. The Daniel trilogy by bestselling author, Brian Godawa, part of the Chronicles of

00:05:17.500 The Watchers, a series of supernatural biblical novels charting the influence of spiritual warfare on human history.

00:05:26.660 Jezebel, Moses, Judah of Maccabee, and now, the Daniel Trilogy.

00:05:35.160 The first novel, Daniel, Exile in Babylon.

00:05:39.860 Available in e-book, paperback, and audio book at Amazon.com.

00:05:43.700 Chronicles of the Watchers by Brian Godawa at Amazon.com

00:05:47.960 Very nice.

00:05:50.800 So I am a big fan of this idea of, like Top said,

00:05:53.460 expanding on these biblical concepts because so much is missing, right?

00:05:58.040 We're just sort of armed with what we need to know.

00:06:01.200 But as far as, you know, deeper context or really even humanizing these characters in the Bible,

00:06:09.140 making them relatable in the sense of it's not just an idea in an old book.

00:06:17.380 These are real people that really existed who had real experiences,

00:06:20.860 and to try to expand on those experiences is, I think, it's a great idea.

00:06:25.780 I kind of want to go with what you said, Top.

00:06:28.480 We're going to get into some of these earlier books,

00:06:30.960 and I kind of want to do that first maybe if you guys don't mind.

00:06:35.340 And Jezebel, where did you go with that?

00:06:40.600 Well, first of all, they're part of the series Chronicles of the Watchers.

00:06:44.560 And Chronicles of the Watchers is actually a spinoff series from Chronicles of the Nephilim, the first series.

00:06:52.840 And what these books are is the whole premise of all my series, they're all integrated, right?

00:06:59.100 And the whole premise is to retell biblical stories where there are Nephilim or Watchers, that supernatural component that is connected to the storyline that I call the War of the Seed, which is that seed of the serpent versus the seed of Eve.

00:07:21.020 And the idea is trying to stop the Messiah from being born, as well as these very supernatural elements that do show up in the Bible, but they're not always very clear.

00:07:35.380 And so, like you said, I wanted to retell the stories and be biblically consistent, so I do that.

00:07:42.220 But then I fill in the in-betweens with fiction, but I base it on historical research and mythological research.

00:07:51.900 So, for instance, in the Jezebel story, I retell the Jezebel story, but what I do in all these novels, I do in Jezebel as well and in the Daniel novel.

00:08:02.900 And that is, I'm not just telling the human story of what's going on, but I'm telling what might be going on behind the curtain of the spiritual world.

00:08:13.540 And so the premise of all of these is, what if the gods of the ancient world, you know, we've got down in Egypt, we have Amun-Ra, Horus, right?

00:08:25.120 in Canaan, we have Baal, Asherah, and various others. And of course, in Mesopotamia, we have

00:08:31.560 Marduk and Ishtar and other deities, right? And so we know their mythologies, but what if these

00:08:37.160 gods of the ancient world were actually the fallen angels that the Bible talks about,

00:08:43.500 and they're simply masquerading as the gods of the nation so that there's some demonic reality

00:08:48.380 behind those myths? I'm not saying the myths are real, but I'm saying that there's some demonic

00:08:54.440 reality where they get these ideas from, and they're spinning their stories, right? And so

00:09:00.200 what I do in the novel and in Jezebel is, one of the other premises of the series is,

00:09:07.680 in the Bible, it talks about the link between the heavenly realm and the earthly realm. 0.81

00:09:12.480 And so Deuteronomy 32 verses 8 through 10 talk about how the Gentile nations of the earth are 0.63

00:09:20.920 under the authority of these fallen sons of God versus Yahweh, who's the authority over Israel, 0.94

00:09:27.000 right? And that's sort of what part of the watcher paradigm that goes throughout the whole Bible as

00:09:31.640 well. And so if that's true, then there must be something going on in that spiritual realm. Again,

00:09:38.720 we get glimpses of them, like in Daniel chapter 10, of what these principalities and powers are

00:09:45.580 doing behind the scenes. But the principle is that it's connected to what's going on in the

00:09:50.600 earthly realm and these spiritual principalities are connected to the earthly principalities and

00:09:57.560 that's that's the concept of what's going on so i thought well if if i'm telling this story of

00:10:01.900 what's going on for instance in jezebel and how this you know she she was the most wicked queen

00:10:08.160 in all of of the history of i don't you could you could argue for history uh but um certainly for

00:10:14.040 Israel's history as well. She gets married to King Ahab in order to cement an alliance with

00:10:26.800 Tyre, but that represents a compromise with idolatry that she then brings into Israel, 0.98

00:10:36.320 her Baal worship. So I tell that story, what's going on as she's influencing Israel to bring 0.98

00:10:43.400 in more Baal worship. Meanwhile, what's going on behind the scenes with the fallen angels as gods, 0.97

00:10:50.600 Baal, Asherah, Anat, right? These beings. And so I create the storyline. Again, it's going to be

00:10:57.260 speculative and fictional because we don't know, right? But I try to tell the storyline in a way

00:11:01.740 that works with what's going on historically. So for example, when we have the prophets of Baal

00:11:07.620 versus Elijah on Mount Carmel, I actually have those principalities and powers and what they're

00:11:14.940 doing versus the archangels behind the scenes, right? And- Are they sleeping?

00:11:21.360 No, but by that point in the story, of course, Baal is not allowed by God to have any of that

00:11:27.540 power. Because we do see, actually, we do see these spiritual beings with some power and

00:11:34.440 influence over history. Like I said, Daniel 10, which we'll talk about more today, but

00:11:40.100 Daniel 10 talks about the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece, and they're battling,

00:11:45.020 and that battle reflects the earthly wars that were going on in history between Persia and

00:11:52.980 Greece. At least in Daniel's day, it was in the future, but it was coming, right? So there is

00:11:59.420 some kind of real connection. But when God wants to display his power and show that the power of

00:12:05.840 these fallen watchers, these gods of the nations, are nothing compared to him. So he stops their

00:12:11.960 ability. And so Baal's not able to call fire from the skies is the point. So yeah, that's what's

00:12:17.340 going on. And of course, there's child sacrifice in Jezebel. And I show the, even though this is 0.95

00:12:26.960 an ancient story you're going to see the parallels between modern world with abortion and feminism

00:12:33.760 and so that's kind of cool but i i don't i try it's not like i try not to trumpet it you know

00:12:40.140 like it's this political message you know but i make those connections real because i think they

00:12:45.880 are real you know so my advertising for the books are a little bit more contemporary like you know

00:12:50.100 uh you'll see a picture of jezebel and the ad will say smash the patriarchy you know that kind

00:12:55.080 of thing. That's a good move. Yeah. It does appear to me that Jezebel is like this archetype,

00:13:00.440 right? And that's what a lot of the characters in the Bible are. It kind of goes back to this,

00:13:04.640 one of my favorite sayings from Ecclesiastes is there's nothing new under the sun.

00:13:08.520 These things just kind of come in these cycles. And you can see a lot of that. A lot of this

00:13:14.280 character that is Ahab plays out in a lot of men in modern day. And this character that is Jezebel 0.58

00:13:21.460 does play out in this modern feminism. 1.00

00:13:23.720 You know what's crazy until right now, 1.00

00:13:25.020 it's one of these things in the Bible

00:13:26.300 where you have to read it a bunch of times

00:13:28.640 and like one time you'll read it to understand,

00:13:31.100 just to kind of understand the story.

00:13:32.700 The second time you'll read it,

00:13:34.040 it's like to understand the history.

00:13:36.300 I have to reread a lot of this stuff

00:13:37.960 to understand the lineages,

00:13:38.960 but you just said Jezebel was from Tyre.

00:13:42.300 And then that reminded me of the Ezekiel 28,

00:13:45.900 the King of Tyre,

00:13:46.620 where there's that overlap of Satan

00:13:48.140 and the King of Tyre

00:13:49.540 and they're like mimicking each other as above.

00:13:51.460 so below sort of thing. I didn't realize that. Do you know the time span between that story

00:13:58.220 and Ezekiel and when Jezebel was coming into Israel? Is there a significant gap?

00:14:04.600 Yes. Yeah. So Jezebel is around the 9th century, I think, BC. And Ezekiel is a prophet in the exile.

00:14:16.300 so that's going to be the 6th century bc so it's a couple hundred years later definitely um well

00:14:23.140 let's see i thought so i think it was like um 900 800 yeah so uh about two three hundred years later

00:14:30.040 so yeah there's a there's there there's a lot of history going on between there right

00:14:34.180 but um and i do that the interesting thing for me is those gods since they're immortal beings you

00:14:41.740 know these these angels they are the they are the through line throughout all the stories you know

00:14:46.740 so you've got these same beings showing up in all these stories and various different storylines and

00:14:51.340 such yeah but you're right about the what was i going to say about this um um the the jezebel

00:14:57.720 story oh yeah so reading it you know you get these modern connections but um i thought i forgot where

00:15:07.380 i was gonna go with that basically i was saying that you have these archetypes in in um in king

00:15:12.140 ahab you know in in men that exist today and you have the same thing uh you know an echoing sentiment

00:15:17.120 of the character that is jezebel in modern day feminism yeah i'm sorry thanks for so that's

00:15:22.380 all right where i was going with that was what's interesting too is like i don't try while i have

00:15:26.460 clear villains and and heroes uh i'm not i don't i don't like the modern day anti-hero worship you

00:15:34.280 know um so i do have clear heroes and villains but even within the classical paradigm of classical

00:15:39.340 hero stories uh you know the hero has to have uh failures and flaws that he has to overcome so

00:15:46.160 that's for sure even you know all my even my holy characters and my prophets all have

00:15:51.200 have distinct character problems but also my villains are not always not cardboard villains

00:15:57.580 so for for example jezebel i don't depict her as this wicked you know wicked queen a witch queen

00:16:03.320 you know like uh snow white or something like that you know in the snow white story um i actually

00:16:07.740 have her as she's an actual honest pagan who who believes in her canaanite gods and they actually

00:16:16.560 do believe in bringing they actually see israel as a backwards unsophisticated culture right and

00:16:24.100 they are less sophisticated technically than tyra because remember tyra was a um you know a uh a a

00:16:31.280 a nation that was involved in cosmopolitan um trade with all the world because they're on the

00:16:37.400 ocean right so they were much more sophisticated culturally right but uh so she actually thinks

00:16:43.740 she's bringing sophistication and sort of helping these religious bigots uh understand the new ways

00:16:51.920 right so uh she's she's she becomes obviously she becomes what she is in terms of her evil

00:16:59.120 But what I'm saying is she starts out as this person who has good intents within her own worldview, if that makes sense.

00:17:06.740 That actually is a much more effective – I don't want to call it a plot device.

00:17:10.360 It's really a peek into human nature because as far as your convictions go, they're not long-lasting if you don't have a sense of righteousness about you.

00:17:20.240 self-righteousness, you know, and whether or not that is real righteousness, you know, in its

00:17:26.940 accurate form, or if it's just your own delusions. It's crazy because what he's describing is playing

00:17:32.500 out again right now. So like you said, the idea of abortion or child sacrifice and feminism back

00:17:38.720 then will play out again now. But right now what we're looking at with the alien deception, and

00:17:43.220 again, I saw our friend Timothy Albarino tweeting this like, hey, Christians better catch up to

00:17:48.700 what's happening because yeah christians will be seen like israel as this backwards culture i saw 0.64

00:17:53.880 you make that tweet yeah once they uh you know they start doing disclosure and they reveal whatever 0.58

00:17:58.880 alien stuff they have going on and christians oppose it we will be yeah that backwards culture

00:18:03.920 that hasn't caught up yet and the cosmopolitans that you know yeah i mean well we have been 0.98

00:18:08.520 considered that for 2 000 years you know yes yeah that's true nothing new under the sun there we go

00:18:13.620 again yeah fundamentalists and all that yeah yeah yeah standing in the way of progress um you know

00:18:19.160 i i could see that happening yeah a hundred percent so um i i do think that you're you're

00:18:25.420 right on on the money with that there is a high likelihood what we get from jezebel is easily

00:18:31.480 mocked and i'm not saying it's not deserving of mockery but you know the way that she deals with

00:18:36.240 the um the olive vineyard owner and things like that uh on behalf of king ahab who slumps into

00:18:41.820 a depression and gets real sad and then has his girl boss wife go and uh take care of the job for

00:18:47.500 him but you know that like i said on its face is easily mockable but if you're once again humanizing

00:18:53.980 these people and you consider them real historical characters then you have to try to imagine what it

00:18:59.880 is to be in the mindset of an individual who who goes that far and yeah i righteous um kind of

00:19:06.520 indignation would would lead you down that path not just a hollow slop i was gonna say so um

00:19:13.720 that's another thing i try to do in these stories is a lot of times that when we're reading the

00:19:17.960 bible we see the highlights and we don't see a lot of the in-between and sometimes those highlights

00:19:22.300 kind of come out of nowhere and you're like where why would they do that you know what i mean and

00:19:27.280 um if i recall correctly you know because by the way we're talking about jezebel which is a few

00:19:32.380 years back for me. So I've been focused on Daniel the last year. So I'm trying to remember some of

00:19:38.040 the stuff of Jezebel. But if I recall correctly, that whole vineyard thing, just the way it works

00:19:44.460 out, you kind of read and go, that kind of sounds odd. Normal people don't seem to do things that

00:19:51.040 way. So what I try to do is I try to fill in the story that how they got there with the vineyard

00:19:56.360 and all that so that when she makes that suggestion it makes sense right so that's another

00:20:02.400 thing that the fiction when we're when novelists who are trying to remain true to the bible you

00:20:06.860 know because there's a lot of biblical fiction novelists out there and most christians get it

00:20:12.220 you know sometimes you get these christians you know i've got the bible and that's all i need or

00:20:17.480 you know you're playing with the word of god because you're making it fiction you're like no

00:20:20.900 no that's not what we're doing we're trying to we're trying to expand the in-between parts of

00:20:25.560 the story in order to make sense of the parts we do know and believe, which by the way, is not much

00:20:31.600 different than what a pastor does when he's exegeting a passage and he's filling in with

00:20:36.500 the background and trying to explain, well, here's why this passage is in the Bible, because you've

00:20:41.240 got all these ancient Near Eastern contexts that make sense of it. So that's one of the things that

00:20:47.020 I do, like selling vineyards or getting rid of vineyards or taking vineyards. And there's many

00:20:52.560 other things as well. Like in the book of Daniel, there's a lot of highlights and strange things

00:20:56.960 that occur that we don't know what's going on there. And so I try to draw from that ancient

00:21:04.840 Near Eastern culture because a lot of times, and this is another big problem with a lot of Bible

00:21:09.500 stories, and you've already pointed this out, but there's a lot of things that will occur

00:21:16.440 or be referenced in the text and we don't know what they mean because it has a different ancient

00:21:24.740 context. And I think that there's obviously been in the recent years, a greater appreciation of

00:21:30.640 this, I think, in the Christian world going into this ancient Near Eastern context. And a lot of

00:21:37.920 that has to do with the occultic worldview that is in Canaan or Babylon, wherever they are at,

00:21:45.040 these references to pagan worldviews

00:21:52.540 that we don't necessarily pick up.

00:21:53.920 There's a lot of that that happens in Daniel as well

00:21:55.980 because, like you mentioned, Ezekiel.

00:21:59.300 Ezekiel refers to a lot of occultic paradigms

00:22:04.120 as he's mocking the gods or what have you

00:22:07.440 that you would understand if you're Mesopotamian,

00:22:10.080 but not necessarily modern day.

00:22:11.780 yeah well that that's sort of i think what might be responsible for a large resurgence in people

00:22:18.800 who are interested in christianity uh or at least people who are in the know claim that the numbers

00:22:23.960 you know are seeing a significant uptick my aunt actually was talking to my wife yesterday and she

00:22:29.840 was talking about this whole uh resurgence of people to to the church and i think part of it

00:22:35.200 has to do with exactly what you touched on there you can observe some of these pagan concepts or

00:22:42.440 occult concepts in modern day conspiracies in a big way you know you have the whole epstein thing

00:22:47.660 gets a huge spotlight on it suddenly you're left to tango with like what is moloch you know and

00:22:53.640 yeah well if you go to the bible you're gonna find that so and it seems like your series is

00:22:57.860 gonna have like a an excellent through line again i haven't read the uh the nephilim series or the

00:23:03.800 Watchers series, but I assume that these characters, they don't change. From our show,

00:23:09.460 we got in a lot of trouble saying this, that we think that the aliens and certain spirits are

00:23:14.720 just rebrandings of what they were in previous times. They tell you a different name and present

00:23:19.860 a slightly different image, but they do the same thing. So in your books, if you're going by that

00:23:25.580 idea, you'll have the same characters recurring throughout your entire series of work.

00:23:31.760 Yes. Now, obviously, the Bible goes over several thousand years, right? And here's one of the things that I, when I first started all of these books, I thought to myself, okay, we tend to, I think the average evangelical, at least let me speak for myself, before I studied this stuff, my understanding of the demonic world was very minimal.

00:23:55.200 And yeah, I believe in angels and demons, but it's very alien to me, you know, and I don't experience, I haven't experienced any of that kind of stuff in my own life. But also I tended to sort of think of the evil world as this unified, you know, all these hordes of demons, right? And they're all unified in this one goal to fight God and his people and his kingdom. And of course, I still believe that.

00:24:18.960 But what I didn't think through was I thought, well, you know what, demons, including the fallen angels, they're personal beings, they're individual beings. They're not like animals even or, you know, inanimate objects. So they have individual wills is my point.

00:24:38.040 And I thought, even if they're evil, yeah, they may be united in their attempt to overthrow Yahweh or get Yahweh's people to worship or humankind to worship them, right?

00:24:49.720 But they're going to have their own individual goals as well.

00:24:52.540 It's kind of like the mafia or gangs, right?

00:24:55.160 And plus the whole paradigm of the principalities and powers, the watcher paradigm in the Bible is precisely that when there is war in the heavenlies.

00:25:06.760 and there's war not just between the angels archangels and these fallen angels but within

00:25:13.340 themselves this is where you get in daniel 10 talks about the prince of persia um is is uh is

00:25:21.200 is you know fighting with michael the prince of israel but then he says the angel says but

00:25:25.640 the prince of greece will come and fight against the prince of persia what's that all about well

00:25:30.180 the context of Daniel is the four kingdoms that the four Gentile kingdoms that will rule

00:25:37.500 over Israel until Messiah comes. That's the whole overarching theme. So you've got, and that's why 0.64

00:25:44.060 you get the statue of the four kingdoms. You get the four beasts. It's all a recapitulation of the

00:25:49.380 same concept that there will be the Babylonian kingdom over Israel. Then there will be the 0.55

00:25:54.720 Medo-Persian, then the Greek, and then finally the ancient Roman kingdom when Messiah comes and

00:25:59.960 brings those kingdoms down with his kingdom. And so now I know there's various interpretations

00:26:04.620 of Daniel prophecies, but the idea there, the basic idea is these four Gentile kingdoms. Well,

00:26:12.040 when Daniel's talking about Prince of Persian Greece, that's reflecting the fact that in the

00:26:18.480 near future from Daniel, he was under the Persian kingdom when he was writing the latter portions

00:26:24.160 of daniel the greek kingdom would come and that was alexander the great's massive you know he was

00:26:30.080 macedonian greek and that greek kingdom overthrew the persian kingdom so that's why he describes

00:26:37.200 the prince of persia versus the prince of greece these aren't earthly kings he's talking about

00:26:41.780 there these are the heavenly ones but if those are all both fallen deities and they're fighting

00:26:46.760 amongst themselves that reflects the earthly um hostile conflicts if that makes sense and so um

00:26:54.100 I wanted to make the villains have their own inner squabbles, just like you would see in any

00:27:00.600 mafia movie, you know? And so they're jockeying for power, overthrowing each other. And then

00:27:05.680 when one kingdom overthrows another kingdom, the principality of that kingdom also overthrows and

00:27:12.100 maybe in chains or puts in bonds that other principality, right? So there is a lot of that

00:27:19.000 going on. However, it's the spiritual realm as well. And I don't think there's a one-to-one

00:27:23.740 correspondence of all the gods in every pantheon with some fallen watcher you know i think there's

00:27:29.160 basically you know one principal deity over that each nation but maybe he has some minions that

00:27:35.500 help him right um but the idea there is that uh is that uh since they are spiritual entities

00:27:44.240 we know that like satan can disguise himself as an angel of light right so they can take on

00:27:49.680 different this is my this is my premise i'm thinking if we've got these watchers of the

00:27:54.660 nations sure they've got main entities of power but they're also overthrowing each other and i

00:28:01.000 don't think there's a one-to-one response so i think they can they can change identities if they

00:28:04.860 need to you know like yeah one guy's presenting to be bail and maybe he gets overthrown and he

00:28:10.660 moves to another country and he becomes marduk or something like that right so sure so look we don't

00:28:15.460 know. It's all speculation. And I'm writing fiction, so I've got that freedom. I'm not

00:28:20.380 claiming this is doctrinal truth, right? But I'm trying to make theological sense of the principle

00:28:26.760 of the watcher paradigm. So, okay. I think that's a reasonable thing to do. And throughout our

00:28:34.240 research, I find the same thing. It seems like these things will kind of rebrand. They have a

00:28:39.600 pride and an arrogance about them, they would like the worship or the fear. They will often

00:28:45.300 settle for just pulling worship away from God. We've even spoken to like just regular people

00:28:51.620 who say that they're in contact with this entity or that entity. And I'm like, probably not. You're

00:28:56.760 probably in contact with like a lower level demon that just called itself that. Yeah, they'll go,

00:29:01.460 I'm talking to Azazel. I'm like, it's probably just a dead Nephilim. So I think there's a lot

00:29:09.200 of we know date azazel is is bound in the earth so right yeah and but you get that ozymandias i

00:29:16.240 think is another one is or osmodeus or yeah asmodeus um so i'm sure there is a lot of great

00:29:23.800 reasons and i can see the through line why you would go from the watchers and chronicles to

00:29:29.200 daniel but i'd love to hear it uh from your perspective why did you choose daniel uh it's

00:29:35.060 It's the best name in the Bible.

00:29:36.260 Okay, relax, calm down.

00:29:37.640 Okay, because I can kind of see it.

00:29:39.900 I know why, but I'd love to hear it from you.

00:29:41.560 Why Daniel?

00:29:43.500 Well, in a way, I'm glad I did this later.

00:29:46.120 In a way, Daniel has, like I've already mentioned,

00:29:49.820 Daniel 10 has one of the most explicit passages

00:29:53.340 where we see the watcher paradigm in effect.

00:29:56.900 And I am equating the watchers

00:29:59.600 with the principalities over the nations.

00:30:02.400 You could make some fine nuance distinctions there.

00:30:05.920 And the word watcher is only used in the book of Daniel, chapter 4.

00:30:12.320 And that shows heavenly beings who have power to decree something over nations, right?

00:30:18.560 Or over kings, like over King Nebuchadnezzar.

00:30:21.640 And so I am using those synonymously.

00:30:24.860 And so in a way, Daniel's one of the most strongest pictures of that world.

00:30:31.020 I'm kind of I'm sorry that I had uh in my Chronicles of the Nephilim series I was just

00:30:37.620 kind of going through the Bible picking the stories and I wasn't doing every story obviously but

00:30:41.300 you know those that relate to the Watchers or the or the Giants and and I I don't know why I skipped

00:30:47.440 over Daniel I just don't know why I did so what the Chronicles of the Watchers is sort of like

00:30:51.680 picking up the stories that I should have done in Chronicles of the Nephilim so they're all

00:30:55.580 integrated in that sense so Jezebel and Moses were books in the Watcher series that you could

00:31:00.620 literally, if you read my book, starting with the first book in Chronicles of the Nephilim is Noah

00:31:06.420 Primeval. And at the end of each of my novels, I then say, here's the next novel to read in

00:31:12.920 chronological sequence if you want. And sometimes it's not always in the same series, right? But

00:31:19.860 the truth is, is every book, every novel is a story in and of itself. It has a beginning,

00:31:24.720 middle and end. And so people would be set. So if you want to just, you're just, oh, I love Abraham.

00:31:28.780 I'm going to read the Abraham Allegiant, or, you know, I love Daniel.

00:31:31.140 I'm going to start with Daniel.

00:31:31.980 That's fine.

00:31:32.520 You'll be fine.

00:31:33.660 If you like it, then you'll go back to the beginning of the series and read the rest,

00:31:36.980 right?

00:31:37.340 So they're all integrated in that sense.

00:31:39.520 But Daniel, you know, the question should be, why a trilogy?

00:31:45.280 Because normally I've written one book for each of these biblical heroes.

00:31:49.820 And, you know, there's a couple of reasons why when I sat down.

00:31:52.700 Number one, I do think Daniel is one of the center points of the Messianic storyline.

00:31:58.780 in the Bible. And, you know, he has some of the strongest messianic prophecies. I mean,

00:32:04.600 you know, the 70 weeks is arguably the most explicit, precise reference to the coming of

00:32:14.440 Messiah. Exactly when, right? And so that's pretty powerful to me. But also it has deep

00:32:23.220 links with the book of revelation now i've already written a series called my third series called

00:32:29.600 chronicles of the apocalypse and that's a four book series and that whereas most revelation

00:32:36.500 series talks about our future and how they think everything's going to be fulfilled in our future

00:32:41.340 i wrote a story of the origin story of the book of revelation when john was writing it in the

00:32:47.940 first century. Christians are being persecuted by Nero. Paul and Peter lose their lives, right?

00:32:54.300 I'm telling that story and how the ancient first century Christians may have understood the book

00:32:59.040 of Revelation related to them. And so there's a lot of connections in that series to Daniel.

00:33:05.360 And there's also a lot of connections in my last novel, the Judah Maccabee, which I won't go down

00:33:11.400 this rabbit hole, but the Maccabees is not in the Bible, but it is an important story in the

00:33:18.040 redemptive history of Israel because it does represent a fulfillment of some of Daniel's

00:33:24.880 prophecies. And so I've got a lot of references to Daniel. So now I'm finally able to go and tell

00:33:30.340 Daniel's story and I'm going to be able, since I'm not God, I can't like, I can't write a novel

00:33:34.820 and then know exactly what I'm going to write, you know, my future novel. So I actually write

00:33:38.640 the future novels and i go back and cheat and uh so yeah so daniel's got so many different you

00:33:44.420 know aspects to it but then why why three novels well as i sat down thought okay what i'm going to

00:33:48.860 tell about daniel i realized there's a couple elephants in the room that are going to require

00:33:53.340 a lot of work and one of them of course is prophecy we all know that the second half of

00:33:57.900 daniel is just you know all prophecy and it's wild stuff and like how are you going to make that

00:34:02.800 interesting and entertaining as well as something that sort of explains you know your viewpoint

00:34:08.260 that's going to be tough and that's going to require some some storytelling in order to make

00:34:14.280 it work you don't just sit there you know i'm not i'm not writing a systematic theology well

00:34:18.540 this represents that that represents this and that and so i'm trying to integrate it into

00:34:23.100 interesting uh entertaining stories and then the other elephant in the room was um you know when

00:34:29.060 you read daniel one it's kind of cool you know uh uh how how daniel be you know uh is brought to

00:34:37.220 babylon as a slave as a um as a captive and he's one of the nobles from actually one of the royal

00:34:45.420 nobles probably from jerusalem so they're teaching him in the ways of being wise men in babylon and

00:34:53.520 that was a whole school that began at the what's called the house of the tablet where they learn

00:34:58.100 to become scribes and then they learned about divination techniques astrology um you know

00:35:04.180 liver liver omens you know these kinds of things and at the end of chapter one it just says that

00:35:10.940 daniel had to had to learn the language and literature of the chaldeans which includes

00:35:15.180 all these divination things and by the end of three years it jumps to the end and says you know

00:35:20.780 the king says you're 10 times better than all my other magicians and sorcerers you know right and

00:35:26.740 i just go wait a minute we all know daniel for being a man of conviction who doesn't compromise

00:35:32.360 how can you possibly go through that that schooling and to become a wise man and get to

00:35:39.360 the top and not disobey because we know that the torah forbids a lot of those practices right

00:35:45.960 so i thought that's going to be a story in and of itself because you can't just you can't just

00:35:51.260 jump over that you know and so my first novel daniel exile in babylon only focuses on the

00:35:58.680 first three years of Daniel's schooling. But I promise it is a fascinating journey

00:36:05.120 and action adventure and such. Damn it, Brian, you're doing a thing right now where, because 0.98

00:36:10.240 as you're talking, I'm like, I'm just losing. I'm realizing what a great question that is. 0.99

00:36:14.160 But I'm also losing money because I'm just like, I got to buy that. I got to buy this one. There's

00:36:18.580 a Christian library right outside the door here. So I'm like, we have to have all those books

00:36:22.140 in the library at some point. Okay. Okay. That's a great, I love how it sprouts out of a great

00:36:27.940 question no because it is a great so i have i got a lot of questions yeah it was my own question

00:36:31.780 not as good as that question when i write these novels i'm working through the problems myself i

00:36:36.760 don't often know the answer and it's just like well how would he do that you know so it's cool

00:36:41.040 so you're saying wise man is that the same thing as a magi the same uh that visited jesus yeah so

00:36:47.740 so yeah there's a whole whole thing they're going on so the the uh the wise men in daniel

00:36:54.020 is the babylonian term that actually goes back to a babylonian word an akkadian word called

00:37:00.820 umanu or umani but by the persian period those wise men you know the persians took over but

00:37:08.680 but as kings often did they often they they conquered you know like um cyrus conquers babylon

00:37:16.940 but he doesn't like you know kick them out right so he allows them to continue to go on and he just

00:37:21.880 takes over control of whatever their system is. And then over decades then, the Persian system 0.74

00:37:30.100 sort of takes over. What do we call it? It subverts or assimilates. And the wise men,

00:37:37.940 the word for the wise men is magi. And so by the time of Jesus, the magi are coming from Parthia,

00:37:45.120 which was you know persian uh controlled territory and um or by that time they're called parthians

00:37:52.620 you know so it's the change of kingdoms is all kinds of mixtures and stuff but so the magi that

00:37:58.800 were looking for the christ were part of that school that goes 500 years back to daniel which

00:38:05.500 is one also one of the interesting things that drove my research that i wanted to find an answer

00:38:13.320 for because consider this and i have some of this in this novel um we've known about the bethlehem

00:38:19.920 star you know they follow bethlehem star there's all kinds of explanations it was a supernatural

00:38:23.020 event or whatever but some of the coolest uh theories by bible believing christians out there

00:38:27.940 are that um you know and some of them would be um let's see there's dwight hutchinson you can look

00:38:34.700 up the messiah star online he's got a lot of free material uh dad kilman the witness of the stars

00:38:40.640 is a classic one by Bollinger that's an old one you can get it free online what these guys do is

00:38:45.540 they oh and then one of my favorite is Ernest Martin and he writes a book called it's online

00:38:52.920 it's called the the Bethlehem Star I think you can get that free online as well what the theory

00:38:58.440 is is that the the magi were actually following as actual astronomical events that have to do with

00:39:05.040 um stars and alignments of constellations and particularly the king star uh the king planet

00:39:13.320 jupiter lining up with the king constellation regulus and so this is not astrology so astrology

00:39:22.120 is is the ancient belief and this isn't when people hear astrology and they hear um zodiac

00:39:28.500 constellations we think of modern day goofy horoscopes and that stuff in in the ancient

00:39:33.540 world in babylon the the personal horoscopes wasn't until like the first century bc before

00:39:39.360 that time they just believed that the stars had mostly influence over kings and powers not over

00:39:44.100 individual people and so it was it was more of a the the the stars gave influence upon kingdoms

00:39:50.460 um but even then it wasn't absolute it wasn't like this is going to happen you can't stop it

00:39:54.780 it was more like the omen they would read omens in the stars right and they would say oh you know

00:39:59.440 uh there's an eclipse in the lower corner of the or there's a obscuring in the lunar eclipse

00:40:05.320 in the lower right quadrant of the moon uh they they they kept um close track of all the

00:40:13.860 astronomical um events over all of history because they saw the regularity but then they also saw

00:40:19.700 some of the varieties and they started to interpret those as omens and so consequently um if they saw

00:40:26.660 an omen they could they say oh this this could be the the death of a king or something well then they

00:40:30.660 had um various um incantations and rituals that they could do to help displace that omen so that

00:40:40.620 wouldn't affect the king so so it's not this absolute scenario but also that god does mock

00:40:46.860 and that god condemns definitely that that aspect of it you know of this notion of astrology that

00:40:53.140 the stars exerting power of mankind. But if you read, there's actually references to

00:40:59.060 constellations in the Bible. Job is a big one. It talks about what uses a word called the

00:41:06.000 Maseroth. I think it's like Job at 38. And the Maseroth are the constellations. And there are

00:41:11.540 constellation names such as the Pleiades and Bear and Orion that we know of as constellations.

00:41:17.220 So this is the other element that when we hear zodiac or constellations, we think,

00:41:20.600 oh that's you know astrology no no it's it's basically astronomy they gave astronomical name

00:41:26.880 or they gave names to astronomical constellations because they were regular and so that was then how

00:41:34.500 they started charting the sky so when you hear you know like uh virgo and and and leo the lion

00:41:41.620 and stuff like that those weren't those weren't magical words or anything those were just names

00:41:47.020 of constellations so it's not inherently astrological to refer to constellations sure i mean

00:41:52.420 it's literally an observation right you're just exactly so there's a lot of observation

00:41:56.460 before they get into the interpretation and so anyway but nevertheless there is this these

00:42:03.120 christians make this argument that god in effect i'll jump to the end point which is in effect god

00:42:09.440 when he created the universe and placed the stars in their places he actually uh he actually

00:42:15.840 embedded the gospel message into the stars so the constellations that we know of have retained

00:42:23.040 their names mostly through history now there have been changes over and changes of interpretations

00:42:27.860 of what how many constellations and such but basically there's been enough research to show

00:42:33.240 that the um you know virgo and leo and all that stuff they they go back into very deep ancient

00:42:39.580 times even into egypt and such and so maybe even back to enoch which which then argues that the

00:42:48.000 zodiac constellation is literally a picture a pictorial representation of the gospel virgo the

00:42:54.540 virgin has has birthed a child and it goes around his dual nature which it was like you know both

00:43:00.640 god and man can be seen in the the the twins i think the sagittarius twins and and then of course

00:43:06.300 Leo the Lion, which is Judah, the king, and his kingdom. There's this whole paradigm that's really

00:43:12.860 fascinating that I discovered. But then also this whole thing about what about the Bethlehem star

00:43:17.480 and the alignment of the stars and how that led these pagan kings. And you think, why would the

00:43:23.440 pagan kings think that there's a king of the world in the armpit of the world of Israel, right? It's 0.96

00:43:32.640 like well they obviously must have gotten something from daniel and if you think about it daniel was

00:43:38.240 there 70 years he's he gets to the top he becomes a ruler amongst the he obviously had such a great

00:43:45.020 influence maybe even some of his scriptures that he wrote about um messiah but still this whole

00:43:51.160 thing about the alignment of the stars and and there's nothing in daniel about that so i thought

00:43:56.780 well i needed to tell that this is one of these fill in the fiction things where i then came up

00:44:01.880 with a speculative reason how Daniel might have understood astronomy and how they began to

00:44:10.260 incorporate it to prophesy the coming Messiah into his own scriptures, so that by the first

00:44:18.020 century, these Parthian magi are following that paradigm in order to find the king.

00:44:25.860 That's interesting. I mean, those examples, by the way, are great reasons to not throw the baby

00:44:30.860 out with the with the bathwater when it comes to astrology and things like it is something that

00:44:36.540 you know you said really determine the kind of ebb and flow of of kingdoms much less are you

00:44:46.340 going to have a boyfriend this month kind of a deal you know what i mean like that's what it's

00:44:49.340 been reduced to uh for some of these new age practitioners and i agree you know just uttering

00:44:55.440 the the names of the constellations is not some thing to be condemned it's really just an

00:44:59.800 observation of a thing that is there we have a recurring guest on the show uh ed mabry who's

00:45:04.960 fantastic and he talks about the mazeroth and how this is the story of god and you know or it's or

00:45:12.380 it's god's yeah god's story and so what that does is when people push back against christianity and

00:45:19.520 they go well these pagan religions or belief systems predate christianity by hundreds or

00:45:25.700 thousands of years and you know the bible wasn't written until this and that ed mavery will go

00:45:31.620 actually no it was written it was written in the stars it is the mazeroth it is the first

00:45:36.140 story told um and so i and i always kind of keep that in my back pocket that's how you get like

00:45:41.700 nimrod semiramis yeah hermes and they mimic the the story of christ but not quite because the

00:45:47.800 stars are like they're telling the big picture but they're not telling the minutia of what's

00:45:51.900 actually happening there so yeah everyone's telling the same story but there's only one

00:45:56.020 that's legitimate yeah and you know what one of the things that i that i've appreciated this links

00:46:00.280 back to what we're talking about earlier too is i i try to look i this whole system of stuff you

00:46:07.040 know babylonian divination and astrology is just way too much but you know i try to i try to

00:46:13.660 understand some of it and and be as accurate as possible you know but but in a way that's

00:46:18.480 entertaining again and you don't have to go you don't have to become a scholar to appreciate it

00:46:22.800 that's that's the that's the um the talent i think of a good writer is it i'm not claiming i'm a good

00:46:29.440 writer i'm just saying my goal to be on the back right yeah my goal to be a writer is to take all

00:46:35.040 this you know accurate scholarly academic stuff and about the occult and make it work within a

00:46:43.540 story and be and be relatively accurate so earlier when we talked about jezebel i've i've since had

00:46:50.480 had two actual modern witches um contact me and tell me that they got saved reading through jezebel

00:46:57.760 and also a modern druid a guy who'd been a christian became a druid for many years

00:47:03.160 he also uh these novels have has drawn him back to the lord so that that gives you the sense of

00:47:10.340 to accurately depict because this touches on another issue that christians are concerned

00:47:15.900 about you know are you gonna going into all this occult stuff and demonic stuff you know isn't this

00:47:21.280 just sort of elevating evil you know and and uh making an evil entertaining or whatever and no

00:47:27.500 no it's to accurately depict the evil against which god and his kingdom and his goodness is

00:47:34.800 fighting yeah that shows you the power of his redemption if you don't accurately depict that

00:47:39.900 evil and that occult world behind it the demonic world he's fighting then your redemption is going

00:47:45.380 to be weak and placid which is why you know you see a lot of christian stories whether movies or

00:47:50.860 novels these days are weak and you know wimpy and they're not they don't really touch the soul of

00:47:57.380 people because they're not depicting evil in in in its evilness well that's what i so i'm not saying

00:48:04.940 that anybody should participate or engage with any of these things these occult practices but

00:48:09.760 a lot of the way that modern day Christians pull away from it or, or, you know, turn away from it

00:48:15.280 is it's based in fear. And when you look at a character like Daniel, Daniel is among this 0.91

00:48:21.520 court of sorcerers, right? I mean, when they're, they're having dream interpretations and,

00:48:26.860 you know, there's however many, I think it was like hundreds of different people that came to

00:48:31.880 interpret, uh, was it Ahab's dreams? And, you know, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, my mistake.

00:48:38.580 yeah nebuchadnezzar uh daniel steps forward and he interprets it but he's he's in this um yeah i

00:48:45.340 would call it an arena it's an arena and there are all these players in it and daniel's not moving

00:48:50.600 through this world at least not from the scripture that we can you know peer into and like um sort of

00:48:57.320 in this spirit of fear about what these magicians and sorcerers are doing you know he steps up even

00:49:03.920 even the um he actually helped like it he helps them out he could have let these guys get killed

00:49:08.840 you know that's true but he steps forward he steps forward and he would have been killed too

00:49:13.520 yeah so but but here's the difference though god reveals the the the truth of the he reveals the

00:49:21.820 dream that no one else knew correct and he reveals the meaning of the dream and the difference with

00:49:26.040 the dream interpretation in ancient babylon was based on manuals so they kept track of all kinds

00:49:32.140 of dreams over, over a thousand years. And so you would just consult the man. Okay. If you dream of

00:49:37.300 a frog doing this, it means, right. So you would consult the man. In this case, God is showing

00:49:42.920 like, I, I'm, I don't have, I don't refer to human wisdom. I give you the truth directly.

00:49:48.780 And by the way, what you're mentioning is, it was a very good point. And that's, that's how I,

00:49:53.300 how I dealt with Daniel, which is how I think we as Christians should deal with this reality,

00:49:59.640 which is um you know learning language and literature of the chaldeans so daniel can learn

00:50:05.980 their language traffic within their world and even understand their systems study their systems

00:50:12.120 of the occult of divination but he doesn't have to participate in them so he can have knowledge

00:50:17.580 even so much so that you know they could we which is if you see the connection with today we can

00:50:22.680 learn and understand what's going on in the occult without participating now you have to be careful

00:50:26.600 because you can be you can be pulled in and become oppressed sure sure but the idea here is

00:50:32.780 we need to you know paul did this on mars hill right you need to understand the system of evil

00:50:37.940 that's going on and how it works and operates in order to apply the gospel to it and in this sense

00:50:42.600 i have daniel learning all the mythologies of babylon learning all the divination techniques

00:50:47.480 he doesn't engage in divination but think about it like this he could say something like you know

00:50:52.980 well you know king says you know such and such um omen occurs you know what's going to happen

00:50:59.760 and you can say well according to your omen texts it says this right and that doesn't mean you're

00:51:07.040 supporting it you're simply re re quoting to them what they believe because that's what you've been

00:51:12.700 forced to do as a captive slave that's my thing is it looks a lot like christianity today um the

00:51:20.200 fear that keeps anybody from even having conversations about these topics, right? Because

00:51:25.720 that's off the table for a lot of modern day Christians is having conversations, deep and

00:51:30.280 thoughtful conversations about these topics that these other pagans and occult practitioners

00:51:35.080 believe in. And that is not the same sort of energy that I imagine like Moses stepping forward

00:51:40.320 and turning his rod into serpent. Moses was also familiar with these techniques. He grew up in the

00:51:46.540 core well that's what i'm saying it's like yeah we're meant to not practice but engage with you

00:51:53.240 know stand in opposition to and engage with our god is is mightier and so but how could you ever

00:51:59.420 step up to that line if you don't even you won't even look at it absolutely and that by the way

00:52:04.940 that's another theme of all my novels including the daniel which is understanding that occultic

00:52:10.600 world in contrast or in conflict with yahweh and his worldview and and that's how we're supposed

00:52:17.140 to live like you say now as well right and so consequently even in the moses story you know

00:52:23.480 it's interesting because uh this gets this points to one of these ancient near eastern contexts that

00:52:30.280 give meaning to things in the text that we don't necessarily see and for example moses was trained

00:52:36.800 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

00:52:39.060 In fact, he was an Egyptian idol worshiper

00:52:41.180 until God took him, you know, brought him out.

00:52:44.520 And so Moses writes, you know, the five books,

00:52:49.220 but if you look in there, you see influence of Egypt,

00:52:54.160 not just in the language, but in some of the ideas,

00:52:56.360 so much so that it's arguable, for example,

00:53:00.780 that Genesis 1 engages in what's called a polemic.

00:53:05.980 And there's a lot of polemics in the Bible where you're writing a story, he's writing a story about, you know, the creation, but embedded within that story of Genesis 1, he's making references in conflict with the typical Egyptian understanding, right?

00:53:25.540 So, you know, the Egyptian understanding would be that, you know, a mound, the primal mound, it comes out of the chaos waters, right?

00:53:33.640 and and moses describes oh you know god's separating the waters from the land etc but

00:53:38.720 it's yahweh and it's yahweh spirit over the deep not amun right and not these other deities and

00:53:46.280 then there's a whole system where you know egypt had these uh primal eight ogdoad eight primal

00:53:53.420 deities that created the the universe and one is a spirit of wind and one is water and all this

00:53:59.520 kind of stuff and and no moses uses the same language in describing how yahweh was actually

00:54:07.560 creating the spirit and the winds and the you know and and such but it's showing that

00:54:12.940 it's demythologizing it's these aren't spiritual beings they are natural world things in control

00:54:21.220 but of the hand of yahweh not your ogdo ad right yeah there's a lot of that polemical a lot all

00:54:29.140 throughout in fact that's one of the things that shows up in a lot of my novels is precisely that

00:54:33.780 what what i find to be the case is um a lot of these pagan and occult practices are about um

00:54:41.660 engaging with fundamental building blocks of this realm that we inhabit and systems that god has

00:54:48.320 created but twisting them and misattributing them to some other entity um and so you know in that

00:54:57.020 way i'm not gonna i don't want to say they have a lot in common with us but they're not operating

00:55:02.440 outside of the realm of reality meaning the nature of the realm that we inhabit is as such um you

00:55:11.280 know occult practitioners are going to engage with um with frequency in their chance and they're

00:55:18.100 going to engage with geometry in the pentagrams and such that they create and they're going to

00:55:23.220 have um sacrifices you know and this is something that's consistent throughout the bible but they're

00:55:28.840 going to be doing this in an effort to manipulate reality yeah by by screwing with fundamental laws

00:55:37.040 that that god has created and they're doing it at the behest of or the idolization of a false god

00:55:44.260 but in that way they have done a thing that christians have pulled away from entirely and

00:55:51.200 I'm not saying we should be practicing that.

00:55:52.900 There's no need for sacrifices anymore.

00:55:54.720 There's no need for any of these things.

00:55:56.320 But to inherently call it demonic, it's like it's not inaccurate.

00:56:00.320 It is demonic what they're doing.

00:56:01.720 They are paying homage to false gods.

00:56:04.340 They are interacting with, you know, false gods.

00:56:07.000 But this is the way of the world.

00:56:10.560 We're called to be in the world, not of it.

00:56:13.220 And as a Christian, you should be able to stand here and observe this thing and go, yeah, that is the nature of the world. 1.00

00:56:19.920 Don't interact with it.

00:56:21.140 don't do those things, right, that we're no longer called to, you know, engage in sacrifices or

00:56:25.420 anything like that. The law is fulfilled, and Jesus Christ is now the way to salvation. But

00:56:31.380 we should be able to observe those things and not be so full of fear that you think that by nature

00:56:37.340 of observing it, because really what that is, is it goes back to a quote that, you know, we were

00:56:41.240 talking about a couple of episodes ago, fear is faith and evil. Don't practice this thing, but

00:56:46.740 don't have fear of it either. I mean, you know, Daniel didn't have fear of these things. Moses

00:56:51.800 didn't have fear of these things. David didn't have fear of these things because greater is our

00:56:56.800 God, right? But it doesn't feel like that is the modality that Christians of the modern day are

00:57:02.000 operating in. It feels very much like modern day Christians are gripped by fear. Yeah, I totally

00:57:08.880 agree with you. And to be fair, it's like, I feel like I've come out of some of that in many ways

00:57:15.560 in my own tradition and evangelical tradition and such and you know um it's just sort of like uh

00:57:22.660 yeah you're right it's a it's a fear and it's a fear that then negates it it just dismisses right

00:57:30.560 it's like oh none of that's relevant you know so stay away from it you know and but like you're

00:57:35.760 saying is we need to educate ourselves and understand how the how the other world the

00:57:40.680 other world thinks and to be able to understand then how the gospel applies to those people.

00:57:46.880 Otherwise, you can't reach those people. The Christians who are fearful and won't 1.00

00:57:52.480 seek to understand any of that material, they're unable to reach that pagan world because they 0.95

00:57:59.160 don't make any points of contact with them. So I'm tracking with you totally. And I think that's

00:58:05.120 one of the reasons why I write my stories is because I do see, like you're saying, I see a

00:58:09.640 fundamental sort of reality it's like you say it's a spiritual world reality and there are

00:58:16.100 real things going on god creates the world in with mathematical precision right and accuracy and

00:58:23.260 you know even even our secular theories of you know spooky connection at a distance physics and

00:58:29.000 all this kind of stuff i think a lot of intersects with the spirituality and spiritual world so you

00:58:34.180 have to understand that um and and like jesus said you know on earth as it is in heaven you

00:58:40.100 know a lot of day modern day sort of liberal uh classical liberal uh people will say you know

00:58:46.440 uh that's gnosticism right you know gnosticism is as on as above so below and you know yeah that's

00:58:53.640 true gnosticism had that belief but they don't understand that's rooted in a very very ancient

00:58:57.680 long tradition that the hebrews also believed not necessarily in the way the modern world

00:59:04.000 like you said it's not a as above so below as in i engage in these rituals and incantations and i

00:59:10.520 can then control reality no but it was this notion of these principal territorial powers

00:59:17.800 over nations that were connected yeah and so that's a that's the true reality in fact let

00:59:23.620 me give you one example you know you use the word demon and daemon so uh daemon is an ancient is

00:59:30.060 where the word demon actually comes from and the greek concept as well as the ancient concept was

00:59:35.240 that these were uh the akkadian that's mesopotamia the akkadian word was shedu and what it was was

00:59:44.140 it was simple it wasn't a good or bad being it was just simply a territorial power so in deuteronomy

00:59:50.920 32 17 moses talks about how israelites came into canaan and worship those gods of canaan and it

01:00:01.500 says they sacrificed to those gods that were demons and not god the word for demons is actually

01:00:11.300 shedu and that's the acadian notion right and what i'm getting at is that's this belief of the

01:00:18.360 territorial spirits and powers of the ancient world but through the it was through christianity

01:00:25.080 that made that well through judaism of course because those were fallen watchers right but

01:00:31.220 nonetheless when paul then starts describing the you know sacrificing food to idols and stuff and

01:00:38.320 he says these gods they're they're demons they're sacrificing not to idols but to demons

01:00:43.920 it's christianity that cemented the notion of daemon as being exclusively evil is my point

01:00:50.940 but in the ancient world they thought they could be good or evil but god's saying no no they're

01:00:56.460 evil that's exactly it so so within uh youngian psychology and and also i think this this does

01:01:02.780 come from sort of this greek idea of daemons there's this idea of integrating it that it

01:01:07.520 needs to be integrated it needs to be mastered and integrated into the individual and then turn

01:01:12.220 into like a creative driving force and i think that's actually that's the you know it's like

01:01:17.460 yeah this thing is sort of external and maybe maybe a shadow is the way you might describe

01:01:23.520 this thing but then to have the the idea that you have to integrate it when we're called as

01:01:29.460 christians to to go and sin no more right and to to not give into these things that whisper to us

01:01:35.220 and like i think that is where the the big um gotcha comes into play right is is like i said

01:01:42.000 the Jungian psychology has you doing like shadow work

01:01:44.900 and integrating this thing.

01:01:45.980 And I'm like, and people will get upset with that narrative.

01:01:48.980 They'll go, no, that's not exactly what it means.

01:01:50.700 It's like, no, all these things are connected.

01:01:53.400 This is the crux of the argument that we had with Timothy.

01:01:57.760 It's about like, are these entities,

01:01:59.720 can't some of them be neutral?

01:02:01.280 And he referred to the book of Judges,

01:02:03.340 I think it's like, I forgot exactly where in it,

01:02:06.200 some town that was neutral.

01:02:07.660 And he was like, see-

01:02:08.480 Yeah, something with an M, I forgot the name of it.

01:02:11.000 mirage mirage yeah yeah but he's he's like likening that to a spiritual entity and we're

01:02:17.160 like well god says you're either for me or against me so there is no neutral maybe there are there

01:02:21.160 are actors that kind of don't want to be so bad but there are two sides it's either you're

01:02:26.280 detracting from god or you are pointing at god and with him and it's interesting because when

01:02:31.160 you look at that the concept of a daemon it says um the idea of integrating it is recognizing and

01:02:37.960 honoring your inner guiding voice which is like if we go to we have a clinical psychologist friend

01:02:42.600 who talks about schizophrenia and the influence of demonic entities um so maybe maybe it sounds

01:02:49.880 flowery language right honoring your inner guiding voice or quote god within which is like all right

01:02:56.760 we're in a weird place and this is transforming it from neglected force into a creative driving

01:03:01.520 force and if you combine that concept with all of the instances of people being inspired by

01:03:07.820 something outside of themselves to create works of art or something like that channeling is really

01:03:12.240 what that's called yeah like the i mean the nine muses in short greek mythology yeah which is

01:03:17.420 it's where a lot of this this kind of you know idea comes from um yeah yes it's a slippery slope

01:03:25.260 What you're getting at, too, is that what you're explaining is exactly also what God is doing in the Bible, which is this polemical subversion, right?

01:03:38.520 So, for example, you're saying, you know, the young in psychology and modern-day notions, you know, it's not that, oh, those are meaningless, those are nothing, they don't exist.

01:03:48.660 It's like the Christian saying, like, other gods don't exist, you know?

01:03:52.440 Right, big mistake.

01:03:53.260 I used to believe that, but now that I follow the Bible more closely, the Bible says they do exist.

01:04:01.880 It says, take no other gods before me.

01:04:03.740 Exactly. But this isn't polytheism, right? We're not saying polytheism, but it's definitely not

01:04:08.840 the modern day Western monotheism that's rooted more in a medieval understanding of things.

01:04:15.160 And it's going back to a more ancient world, the biblical worldview that says there are Elohim,

01:04:19.500 there are gods yeah but they're not like god at all and they have you know it's not like

01:04:23.680 keno theism or polytheism but you have to understand that worldview correctly which

01:04:28.620 is what gets you to saying okay so all these systems modern day you know occultic or even

01:04:34.340 secular systems they're actually rooting into connecting into the spiritual world in some way

01:04:41.720 and they're being deceived they're being manipulated they're by demonic entities or

01:04:45.860 what have you. That's the polemic that says there's some reality to what they're saying.

01:04:51.560 It's just not the reality they think it is. And so in the Bible, again, many times, one of my

01:04:56.680 favorite examples is a writer of the clouds. You know, there's many passages, which includes

01:05:02.680 Daniel seven, the son of man rides on the clouds up to the ancient of days. But there's many times

01:05:09.080 when God is described when he comes to judge nations or cities like Egypt. He says, I ride

01:05:16.560 on the clouds in Isaiah. He comes on the clouds. He's chariots in the clouds, the day of clouds.

01:05:22.220 Well, this cloud concept, you don't read about that back in the days of Moses because they're 0.97

01:05:28.920 in Egypt, a very different world. But when they go into Canaan, they encounter the storm god,

01:05:35.820 Baal. And Baal, in the actual texts of the Baal epic, he's described as the charioteer of the

01:05:44.820 clouds, the rider of the clouds. And so within their ancient context, the storm god, clouds

01:05:51.980 represent the power of nature, and he brings the rains and such like that. Well, there wasn't rains

01:05:56.780 in Egypt, right? So you don't see water language about God when they're in Egypt, but you do in

01:06:04.780 Canaan, and he's using the language that they used of Baal, but they're using it of Yahweh. 0.55

01:06:10.080 Yahweh is the writer on the clouds. Why? Is that because, you know, modern liberals will say,

01:06:14.760 well, you know, they try to subvert it and say, well, that's because the Canaan or the

01:06:19.780 Israelite notion of Yahweh evolved out of the ancient Canaanite notion of Baal, and they made

01:06:26.380 Yahweh from Baal and all this. No, no. He's entering into this land in conflict with it and 0.85

01:06:32.600 saying, yeah, Baal is not the writer in the clouds. He's not the storm God who brings the 0.57

01:06:37.920 rains. Yahweh is the storm God. Yahweh is the one, right? And so they're using that common 0.90

01:06:43.860 understood language to say, no, your God's not the God of gods. Our God is, you know? And so that's

01:06:50.400 a common thing throughout the whole Bible, you know? We do have that. I feel like that is,

01:06:55.680 we're not called to keep the gospel to ourselves, right? We're called the great commission is to go

01:07:00.240 forth and make disciples of men. And that doesn't exclude pagans and occultists. And a lot of the

01:07:06.740 fault of modern day Christianity is that they can't speak the same language as these people

01:07:11.080 who are having real and profound experiences that are outside of the materialistic paradigm

01:07:14.800 that we have in the West. If you can speak the same language as them and say, yeah, yeah, I

01:07:19.520 acknowledge the thing that you're interacting with. You are having profound and meaningful

01:07:24.780 experiences and if you can just kind of get to that point and have some of that guard let down

01:07:32.180 because of course you imagine these people are being told by anybody who will listen to them

01:07:36.040 that they're kooks that they're out of their mind for for saying they're having spiritual experiences

01:07:41.120 or any of these things if you can have a conversation and eventually get to this point

01:07:46.000 where it goes now i gotta break it to you you're having a fundamental misunderstanding of the

01:07:50.480 nature of the things that you're interacting with mostly because the things you're interacting with

01:07:56.120 are telling you their nature so it's like it's not like all of this is bull you know you are having

01:08:02.520 really profound spiritual experiences that go back to the people of antiquity this is this is

01:08:10.620 actually something that's fundamental to the human experience this isn't outside of it um

01:08:16.120 And the Bible does have answers for these things, but most Christians don't know that.

01:08:22.580 So it's like you've received the gospel, you've received salvation, you know, by faith, through grace, and then you've kept it to yourself. 0.51

01:08:32.940 Wait, no, by grace through faith.

01:08:34.720 I'm sorry, you heard as I slowed down, I was like, which one is it?

01:08:38.140 Yeah, I know, I always do that.

01:08:40.560 But then you've kept it to yourself.

01:08:42.420 And I think it's a huge disservice because these people, I find that the testimony given by individuals who came through paganism and then were saved by Christ is really potent, really powerful.

01:09:00.300 It's some of the most meaningful testimony that I've ever heard given.

01:09:06.760 And these people, in other words, I think they're important.

01:09:10.520 I think these people who can see through that veil, who don't just believe in, you know, whatever America has given them or really just the modern day world at all has given them, you know, you go to work, you do your nine to five.

01:09:24.680 The supernatural is pseudoscience. It doesn't exist. There are people who go, no, I don't buy that.

01:09:30.420 And they they push through that and they they interact with something that is real. It's right here all the time.

01:09:38.180 This is spiritual warfare, and I'd love to get into that conversation after this, but those people that are willing to do that, those are passionate people.

01:09:49.680 Those are people that if you can help them find this narrow path, their testimony can go on to help endless amounts of people.

01:10:00.260 Actually, our second show today, the guy Seth Kicklighter does come from that field, a New Age practitioner who kind of figured out what we're talking about now.

01:10:09.580 He has a great book about it.

01:10:10.520 But I wanted to ask you a question.

01:10:12.740 At the very beginning, you were talking about when you're writing these character arcs for your characters within the story, these biblical characters, you include their flaws.

01:10:22.100 when i read the book of daniel um i don't see many flaws in the i don't see any flaws realistically

01:10:30.280 it's a yeah it's it's such a long span of time and from the beginning to the end of this story

01:10:36.400 and it's kind of like just daniel just does all this awesome stuff just seems like he crushes

01:10:41.500 super hard yeah he yeah and it but it doesn't make him as more as a relatable relatable relatable

01:10:49.620 as like a david character right we yeah we really love david because he's he's failing and he and

01:10:54.580 he's doing great things and he's he's a human being daniel is just kind of always on it unshakable

01:11:01.940 unshakable never never having doubts where do you wait i mean i'm sure if if i pick this thing apart

01:11:08.660 you'd gleam some some aspects of his character but what do you what are you seeing in this yeah

01:11:12.740 Yeah. Well, that's a very good question. A lot to say about that. So yeah, all my biblical heroes

01:11:20.180 are sinners saved by grace, right? So Daniel does not start out as a holy, perfect obedience to God

01:11:28.540 because no human does, right? And so, but it doesn't, like you said, it doesn't show that.

01:11:33.440 Well, think about this too. He's there 70 years and it shows like the first, you know, 20 years

01:11:40.440 of nebuchadnezzar it has like three or four incidents out of all those 20 years and then

01:11:46.820 a couple incidents during belshazzar belshazzar and then during cyrus well like there's so much

01:11:54.760 that's not shown it's only showing the highlights of that so that it's so it's so spread apart

01:12:00.540 exactly get chapter to chapter and and then they go wait a second there's a guy daniel that could

01:12:05.300 help you and i was like what do you mean he just did this but it's like no this is 20 years yeah

01:12:09.400 a long time you go how are you forgetting and look but the nature of literature is such that

01:12:14.400 you have to you know and the bible has its chosen themes and what it's focusing on this is why

01:12:19.120 also you don't really read about any females there might be a couple queen references in in

01:12:24.840 daniel but there's no females in there uh so i have a i have a love interest a romantic interest

01:12:30.020 in my story with daniel because i you gotta have a love story man i love love stories right

01:12:35.840 But it's feasible.

01:12:37.200 It's just, well, why doesn't Daniel talk about any of that?

01:12:40.260 You know, I think each writer has its own purposes,

01:12:42.700 its own theological reasons why they're doing things.

01:12:45.260 And so like every writer, they're focusing on their theme

01:12:48.180 and everything else has to be let,

01:12:49.780 you can't tell the story of the whole world

01:12:51.260 with everything that ever happens, right?

01:12:52.880 And so once you understand that,

01:12:54.580 then I step in and I try to,

01:12:57.680 this is where the fiction and speculation fills in.

01:13:01.300 And so I draw from what Daniel ends up,

01:13:04.780 And I know that's how he ends up. And so how does he begin? And so, you know, the story begins where Daniel's like 15 years old and he's a noble in the royal family, you know, and there's some indications of that in the text.

01:13:19.320 And I thought, well, what might be relevant to a story like this where a kid who's actually maybe an achiever because he's in the royal line, maybe he's even in the royal line, not directly, but close enough that if enough people were killed, he might become king himself.

01:13:35.760 So maybe Daniel had some aspirations of royalty himself, so he wanted to be the best of everything, right?

01:13:43.320 And of course, what does that breed?

01:13:44.840 That breeds pride.

01:13:46.220 That breeds a lack of trust in God.

01:13:48.840 So Daniel has to learn that trust through his journey so that by the end of the first

01:13:53.860 novel, he's got that character that we now know he has, right?

01:13:58.240 So I'm telling this story of him overcoming this pride in himself that is, you know, we

01:14:03.480 know that pride is the big story of kings in Daniel and also how God is in control of

01:14:12.480 all kingdoms and authority, right?

01:14:14.660 That's the glorious message of Daniel.

01:14:16.860 Even the wicked kings who think they're in control,

01:14:20.120 they're being used by God for God's purposes.

01:14:23.680 God's literally using them for his purposes.

01:14:26.760 But what about the little people? 0.70

01:14:29.100 What about the little people?

01:14:30.340 Imagine all these millions of poor people

01:14:32.980 who live and die and suffer and squalor. 1.00

01:14:35.700 Does God care about them?

01:14:36.960 That's another issue that, to me,

01:14:40.120 I want to explore in my novel

01:14:42.300 because the focus of Daniel

01:14:44.840 is on this greater kingdom but i it definitely god does care about the small person so i try to

01:14:51.860 integrate that so by the time we get to the end of the story then you know we have daniel entering

01:14:56.480 into his storyline but even then my second novel there's going to be i'm not going to telegraph

01:15:02.100 you know what it is but just because daniel's arrived and has this conviction uh could he still

01:15:09.060 have flaws in his character and yeah i think you can you can be a person who's very obedient to god

01:15:13.480 and yet slip or yet have a flaw that comes through.

01:15:18.600 And that's going to be the case in the second novel as well.

01:15:20.840 I'm not going to tell you what it is.

01:15:22.700 Yeah, somebody that is overtly obedient to God,

01:15:27.040 that might slip over.

01:15:28.780 Self-righteousness.

01:15:30.640 Yeah, maybe, or maybe even some sort of gullibility,

01:15:33.760 human gullibility.

01:15:35.580 Where do you put the idea?

01:15:37.480 I'm sure this doesn't fly with you.

01:15:38.980 Where do you put the idea that Daniel was possibly a eunuch

01:15:41.720 being in the king's court?

01:15:42.800 because then the love interest goes out of the window

01:15:44.820 and there's a lot of weird stuff that happens with that.

01:15:47.860 So that was one of the things that I had to find out for myself

01:15:51.100 when I wrote the story.

01:15:52.840 And I thought, you know what?

01:15:53.980 I knew there wasn't certainty in it.

01:15:55.880 There was a pretty strong argument for it.

01:15:57.680 But I thought, you know, if I could even find, you know,

01:15:59.820 20% of the scholars think he may not have been,

01:16:02.000 then that's enough for me to tell my fictional story

01:16:04.340 because it's possible, right?

01:16:05.500 It just needs to be possible, not probable.

01:16:07.560 But I was surprised to find in my research

01:16:10.620 that now i'm more likely the opposite it's more likely there's no way he could have been a eunuch

01:16:15.160 and so the arguments that he what could have been you know are that you know it's well known and

01:16:21.680 it's a fact that you know particularly neo-babylonians you know when they would take

01:16:25.180 foreign um you know foreign captives and bring them into the palace they would make them eunuchs 0.68

01:16:31.640 because they don't want the blood of these slaves right intermingling with the royalty and certainly

01:16:37.280 not with the harem and all that stuff but um you know and that is a common thing but it's not

01:16:43.060 absolute by the way it's just not absolute you know and then they talk about the chief of the

01:16:47.280 eunuchs over dan you know choosing daniel and stuff well that phrase chief of the eunuchs i

01:16:51.820 found out it's better it's it's one of these generic terms that over time it begins as as

01:16:58.540 literally what it was a thousand years earlier but then over time it evolves to just be a reference

01:17:04.260 to the chief of the staff because in the beginning the chief of the eunuchs all were eunuchs and so

01:17:08.720 he's a chief of the staff but now it becomes chief of the staff of the palace or what have you

01:17:13.220 but it doesn't mean he's a eunuch and it doesn't mean that they're all eunuchs and that's that's

01:17:18.100 established in fact you've got an example of that in the bible when potiphar in egypt is called

01:17:24.500 chief of the eunuchs but he's got a wife so he's got a family going on there so it just is just a

01:17:30.140 term that is better translated and in in the pot of our passage they translate it as like chief of

01:17:36.000 staff so it you know depending on their context you know the the bias of the translators so there

01:17:40.880 are many translations that will actually just call it chief of staff and daniel as well so it doesn't

01:17:45.140 mean that they were eunuchs but most importantly was i found out i actually found actual documents

01:17:51.460 babylonian letters written by babylonian wise men and neo-assirians so it's around the same time

01:17:57.820 period to their kings and talk about the omens and stuff. And it's through that, that you find

01:18:03.020 out they all had like these long legacy of family lines of such and such scribe or wise man was the

01:18:08.980 son of the scribe and the wise men. And so, so there's, they have a family legacy. They have

01:18:14.800 families. Secondly, they, you know, I found out that they didn't live in the palace and didn't

01:18:19.480 work in the palace. They were separate. They lived in the city and they had their separate

01:18:23.800 house of the tablet that was like their school and their you know where they worked and they

01:18:28.500 would come and consult with the king and go with him out to the field out to battles and stuff to

01:18:33.160 help him with their omens and stuff but they weren't they didn't live in the palace but most

01:18:39.400 importantly i found an actual document where they talk about the you know the actual um restrictions

01:18:45.000 or requirements for a wise man and it includes that there should be no blemish on the body

01:18:51.700 uh including no loss of limb uh and no leprosy on the skin and no eunuchs so now i understand why

01:19:01.520 daniel said or why the king and daniel said choose from me men who are without blemish like why is he

01:19:08.900 asking for that what well that was part of the requirements of becoming a wise man well that

01:19:13.380 wouldn't make sense to make sure they're not a eunuch but then make them a eunuch right um but

01:19:18.300 also just the notion is it's you couldn't be a eunuch being a wise man and so um and there are

01:19:26.380 instances in historical documents where we have um various scribes or various slaves captives who

01:19:33.560 aren't eunuchs so that that made me realize okay more than likely he was not a eunuch and so i do

01:19:39.980 have a love story and it's one of my favorites it's kind of like sleepless in seattle because

01:19:45.400 Daniel is torn away. He falls in love. He's young, right? But he falls in love with

01:19:49.600 one of his maidservants, who's a Jewess. And he gets pulled, torn from her when he gets 0.99

01:19:55.340 brought to Babylon as a captive. So they're engaging in letters to each other. And they're

01:20:03.320 trying to escape their situations and get back to each other. But this is also a device that I use

01:20:13.280 in the story to allow me to jump back and forth between Babylon and Jerusalem. Because in Jerusalem,

01:20:18.860 we have the prophet Jeremiah at this time period. And one of the most amazing things to me about

01:20:25.060 this time period was, you know, we read these prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel,

01:20:29.240 and a lot of times I just don't think of the fact that they're going on, they're living at the same

01:20:33.460 time. They may have known each other. In fact, you probably did know Jeremiah, Daniel. And so I'm

01:20:38.960 like, this is really interesting, and I want to integrate them into this story. So I have Jeremiah

01:20:42.680 and what's going on in Jerusalem, and his love interest becomes sort of embroiled in that aspect

01:20:49.320 of it, so we see what's going on there. And yeah, so this is how fiction allows us to be able to

01:20:55.620 explore these different aspects of what could have been reality of the day.

01:21:01.220 That's a great idea too, man. I love that. And you also have this, I don't know if you'll get

01:21:05.920 to in the first story, but his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these are guys that kind

01:21:12.180 to create this supporting cast around him to really bring out his personality see how he would

01:21:17.500 interact with other people um but again not much mention about these guys in the bible except for

01:21:22.560 that they crushed they crushed thrown into the fire that's all they do they just show the crushing

01:21:26.420 they just show we won't do it king and they go into the furnace of fire and that's it hell yeah

01:21:30.440 but absolutely so you know like you know like this chosen series you know where they give the

01:21:34.800 background to each of the disciples and it's that's what i do with the the three brothers of

01:21:39.540 and they're not brothers but i mean jewish you know the brothers in captivity right right and

01:21:44.080 i give them each unique characters because they were in real life right and it's kind of like

01:21:49.480 this is why i also call it harry potter meets god because he goes into this school to learn to become

01:21:55.080 a wise man and they're all young boys right and and so you've got the the school bullies i've got

01:22:00.900 that going on i've got them you know they're they're a band of misfits right um so i have um

01:22:07.460 um one of them michelle is kind of like a jock he's built and he's kind of a fighter and he would

01:22:12.380 rather be a he would rather be a guard you know so he's kind of like got the military mindset

01:22:18.160 but he's got to please his he wants to please his father to become a scribe and he just he's

01:22:22.640 having a hard time doing that because he doesn't have the brains like they do and then i have

01:22:25.980 another one of the characters which you know this is one of my um spoilers but um i i think it's it's

01:22:32.380 It's not a big one, but it makes the story extremely interesting.

01:22:36.920 One of the characters, Hananiah, I have as an autistic.

01:22:42.760 So he's got an autism issue.

01:22:45.500 And of course, they don't have that term back in those days, right?

01:22:48.120 But it becomes, of course, it's a struggle socially when they get into difficult situations

01:22:52.960 that become endangering.

01:22:53.980 But also, he becomes a key factor in a couple major plot points where he saves the day because

01:23:00.880 of his autism he's able to see he's able to see things and have memory like imagine studying

01:23:07.300 astronomy with all these constellations and and it's all about making connections isn't it and

01:23:12.460 that's what an autistic person can often have uh the ability to do is to see these connections that

01:23:17.560 we don't see so i have him yeah chosen use this as well with uh matthew i think matthew is

01:23:23.440 described as more of like a prickly personality uh by scholars but the show he's kind of autistic

01:23:29.360 and it kind of makes sense he's a numbers guy he's writing stuff down he's right watching i

01:23:33.740 found that out after i was doing this i'm like because i've never seen the chosen but you know

01:23:37.640 i i'm like okay well that's kind of cool and so yeah it's doing something similar but it really

01:23:43.520 is relevant to their scenario because they're having to learn a lot of information and how

01:23:48.560 are they going to bring those that information together in such a way right without special

01:23:52.860 revelation necessarily that will then be rooted in the Babylonian wise men tradition so that by

01:24:00.800 the time of the first century. And so Hananiah is going to be a key to that. He ended up being

01:24:05.920 far more important to the story than I had first realized, which has really become exciting.

01:24:11.840 So we're creeping up on the latter end of the show here. And I did want to ask about this

01:24:17.520 before we started wrapping what what role does we talked kind of a lot about it in regards to

01:24:24.600 christians and their fear and um inability to interact with these concepts and and you know

01:24:29.960 and sort of give rebuttal or even evangelize because of that fear what role does spiritual

01:24:36.360 warfare play you know let's say in particular this first daniel book yeah yeah okay so one of

01:24:43.180 things i do is i mentioned earlier that i i try to so i've got the story that's in babylon well

01:24:48.880 it's in babylon andrew some but um in babylon you've got the key god marduk right he's the

01:24:54.240 king of the gods and ishtar and nergal the under lord of the underworld and nabu the scribal god

01:25:00.220 who's actually the son of marduk so i have these characters as the spiritual entities and they're

01:25:05.280 battling and such but the the fictional storyline that i come up with in the spiritual realm i try

01:25:12.340 to reflect what's going historically so uh when nebuchadnezzar um when nebuchadnezzar um defeats

01:25:21.820 carcamish the city of carcamish which was the last stronghold of the assyrian empire right

01:25:28.540 i have you'll see marduk going in and basically um beating the heck out of asher the god the the

01:25:40.200 the, you know, the, the head God of the King of the gods for Assyria and he

01:25:44.680 crucifies him. Cause that's what Assyrians, you know, did you, 0.98

01:25:47.040 I don't know if you knew this,

01:25:47.880 but Assyrians were the ones that came up with crucifixion.

01:25:50.920 Oh, I didn't know that. 0.97

01:25:51.660 And it was on X's at first, you know, but anyway, so, so he does that.

01:25:56.980 But also I draw from the Babylonian mythology and I like to incorporate

01:26:02.660 elements of the Babylonian theology into the spiritual world for their

01:26:06.560 storyline. So when you read my stories, it's not just a,

01:26:09.420 original storyline of the gods you're going to actually learn a little bit about the worldview

01:26:14.100 and their mythology for example you know i have um there's a myth about called the anzu bird and

01:26:20.560 the anzu bird uh is this hybrid monster in the spiritual realm and you know he's like a lion

01:26:28.280 and an eagle and a you know and he flies and stuff like that so he's in in the mythology he

01:26:34.600 steals the tablet of destinies, which is the talisman of power that the king of the gods

01:26:42.200 has. And Marduk has to go and kill him and get the tablet back. So I incorporate that into my 0.77

01:26:49.980 storyline, but in a way that fits in with also the story of Daniel. And so reading this, you're

01:26:55.160 going to get that taste and flavor of their mythology, but it's in the spiritual realm.

01:27:00.280 It's not going to be, I'm not saying the mythology really happened, but I'm just saying

01:27:03.500 um in the spiritual realm how might these beings operate so we have uh there are um

01:27:09.860 mushushu dragons you know if you've seen the ishtar gate with these dragons that have a lion

01:27:17.560 body and front claws and eagles talents at the back a dragon head and a uh a serpent tail very

01:27:25.600 very common that was the emblem of nebuchadnezzar that was the emblem of his family and so i have

01:27:33.280 those as real spiritual creatures as well you know so in the spiritual realm and that that keeps it

01:27:38.760 in in that realm of the angels fighting with the um the gods of the world very cool you've made it

01:27:45.900 so that i have to now read these books uh i would love to see an adaptation of this sort of thing

01:27:51.720 by the way you can start with daniel a lot of times people i'm gonna wait till all three books

01:27:55.960 are done you don't have to every book is a beginning middle and end and the same in the

01:27:59.960 whole series so you can start with this daniel book and if you really like it then you can say

01:28:05.040 okay i'm gonna go back and read the whole series you'll be fine um so and don't don't wait till

01:28:09.040 the whole series comes out because you won't need to it's a complete binky in the middle and like

01:28:12.940 we were talking daniel has these major key points in his life and i'm telling each of those key

01:28:17.540 point stories in the trilogy i can feel already that like maybe the first book that's already out

01:28:23.500 right now has a lighter vibe he's a younger dude and as we go into the second and third book it

01:28:28.860 probably gets pretty dark and a little bit gnarly it does let me ask you any plans for uh

01:28:36.060 bigfoot nebuchadnezzar well i can i can tell you what i'm gonna do with that nobody's gonna know

01:28:45.100 nobody's gonna catch until it happens it's gonna be so cool but i am dealing with that that that

01:28:50.600 notion what about werewolves and all that kind of stuff um so yeah in fact uh i might even have

01:28:57.780 something similar to vampires in the second novel oh interesting and something similar to zombies

01:29:06.100 what fascinating honestly i think i'm a bit i'm really um into all of the sort of the cryptids

01:29:13.700 and everything i think there's there's more than likely a biblical basis if any of these things

01:29:17.460 are actually real you can find instances instances of them uh in the bible and and you know i just

01:29:24.180 I'm a big fan of believing that the Bible has explanations for so many things that people think don't exist.

01:29:31.240 And if they find out they do exist, think that Christianity could never address it.

01:29:35.540 I find that to be overwhelmingly not the case.

01:29:38.720 I think it's going to be a great time to be an author of a biblical narrative in the way that you're doing, especially with the new the new what is it called?

01:29:48.980 The resurrection, not the resurrection.

01:29:50.340 Oh, oh, Gibson movie, Gibson movie. Right.

01:29:54.180 which by the way by the way i wrote a book called jesus triumphant it's the last novel of my

01:29:59.640 chronicles of the nuffling series and i tell the story of jesus going into the hades and what may

01:30:05.460 have happened in those three days that's very cool that's where this picks that's where his

01:30:09.940 movie picks up honestly i'm pumped about that you know i saw you have a little bit of a discussion

01:30:14.420 with somebody on twitter who said like mel gibson's sentiment of this movie will be like an acid trip

01:30:19.640 and then people pushing back and they said that's why christians shouldn't watch and i was like what

01:30:24.020 do you think the spiritual realm looks like seriously yeah what do you think it is to

01:30:27.380 experience that uh it's insane like when an angel presents itself it's got a thousand eyes because

01:30:32.000 it's in some sort of 10th dimension coming to ours and we don't know how to perceive it it's an acid

01:30:36.920 trip exactly yeah um very cool well not literally i'm i wouldn't say literally but yeah well it's

01:30:42.280 similar but yeah i think that the acid is is the tool to peel peel a little bit like many psychedelics

01:30:48.440 or drugs i think there are degrees to which uh another realm becomes perceptive or perceivable

01:30:55.240 rather you know i don't i haven't studied that extensively but i do and on the iron and miss

01:31:00.040 show us guys we've talked about this before that um i do believe that they can make a connection

01:31:05.880 with the spiritual world but it is a forbidden use and connection because the word for um drugs

01:31:13.440 is uh sorcery in in the hebrew and the greek so pharmakia and sorcery uh can have connection with

01:31:21.140 the the spiritual realm for sure and open up breaking in illegally yes yeah that's why they're

01:31:26.780 getting kicked out the dmt realm two more quick questions any number one any plan on covering

01:31:33.320 since you're doing a lot of this stuff where you're covering history of uh the bible that's

01:31:36.940 not talked talked about uh like any plan on what jesus was doing the first 30 years of his life

01:31:42.200 Oh, that's interesting.

01:31:43.160 Because that's a big question mark.

01:31:44.660 Nobody really knows.

01:31:46.620 No, not planned.

01:31:49.720 I will be doing his birth narrative, though.

01:31:53.600 Okay.

01:31:54.080 With the Magi.

01:31:55.680 Uh-huh.

01:31:56.100 Very cool.

01:31:56.980 Okay.

01:31:57.480 That's later, but yeah.

01:31:59.440 And David, do you want to take the final question?

01:32:01.560 Yeah, this is something that we like to ask all of our guests,

01:32:03.860 and surprisingly, always yields fascinating fruit.

01:32:08.380 So in all of your pursuits, how many books now, Brian?

01:32:12.200 uh 17 novels 25 books total three more at least on the horizon uh unless we're doing that

01:32:22.640 let me give this out too i forgot to mention this all this time we're talking about all

01:32:26.460 this theological stuff i know a lot of christians are interested in that and plus when they read my

01:32:30.260 books they'll go like this is fantastical where's he getting this stuff is he making this up

01:32:34.200 so what i often do is with more of my recent books i i i write an additional book of the

01:32:41.140 biblical historical theological research behind the novel so it's usually called the spiritual

01:32:46.860 world of so uh within the second novel coming out i'm gonna have the spiritual world of daniel

01:32:52.540 and babylon where you can look at look into stuff and my other novels have those as well

01:32:56.420 the chronicles and nephilim have appendix an appendix at the end just a shorter thing but

01:33:01.380 100 pages usually um like michael creighton used to do you know where he used to have an appendix

01:33:06.620 about the real science behind his fiction. Well, I do that as well because I know that

01:33:10.400 for myself as well as others, they like to know, is this rooted in something and what is it? I'd

01:33:16.180 like to go deeper. That's a great resource. That's an excellent resource. We already know

01:33:22.000 the answer, but go ahead. Yeah, I know what the answer is. In all of your pursuits and everything

01:33:25.060 that you're doing, are you having fun? Yeah, I really am having the most fun I've ever had in

01:33:34.580 my life and this is a the context of that is very heavy because i i was in hollywood writing movies

01:33:41.540 for 25 years and that was that that's my dream that was my dream you know and um over time i it

01:33:49.520 kind of switched and i i became more successful in writing my novels and so i i followed the

01:33:54.120 opportunity rather than my dream a lot of times people stick with the dream no no it's my dream

01:33:58.460 and then they lose out and god started making the novels more successful and much better living

01:34:04.400 making a much better living and so I followed it and now I'm focusing more on the novels

01:34:08.720 um and uh and and it's more of a fulfillment of who I am because a lot of this stuff that I put 0.85

01:34:16.380 in my novels is weird stuff that I've always studied and been interested in but most Christians

01:34:21.440 if you talk to them like most Christians in my life they're just their eyes glaze over and like 0.78

01:34:25.780 what you know yeah and so this is my opportunity to put it into something and people get it

01:34:31.620 and they, and they, and they learn it through the good storytelling. And that's been the most

01:34:36.600 exciting thing of all to me. And God has blessed it with a lot of success of sales and, and, and

01:34:42.480 audience. So yeah, I, I glory to him. Cause when I started this, I thought Christians are going to

01:34:47.100 think I'm a heretic and there are some who do, but most Christians get it because I'm like, you know,

01:34:51.560 I'm retelling Bible stories and I'm adding this fictional element there and it's supernatural.

01:34:55.940 They're going to think I'm playing with the word of God, you know, but you know what? I knew what

01:34:59.640 I was doing, I knew it was right. And I believed in it. So I said, I'm just going to do it anyway.

01:35:04.480 And God happened to bless it. So I'm grateful for that.

01:35:07.420 I think if you, if you do it right, like series, like, uh, the chosen specifically for me,

01:35:12.180 the chosen and, uh, the house of David, I feel like they've done it right, but it makes me

01:35:17.140 want to reread those books and study them. So I love them. It's, but I'm also keenly aware

01:35:23.840 this is a show. They take their creative liberties. That's fine. But it gets me more

01:35:28.920 interested in the Bible. Yeah. So yeah, if your books are doing that, then I think you're on the

01:35:33.280 right track. And they are. It's not that you have to believe every detail, but it helps you to root

01:35:39.340 yourself in that these are real events and these are real people. It takes it from just being this

01:35:43.500 conceptual ancient text to something that is a documentation of real events. The most encouraging

01:35:50.260 thing that I've received from a lot of my readers is precisely, well, number one, that they're

01:35:56.120 reading the series two and three times and sometimes four times over which that shocks me

01:36:01.000 but i understand why because i put a lot of depth into it i just never thought people would

01:36:05.020 get the depth i thought okay i'm gonna make it entertaining because that's my priority

01:36:09.120 but my also priorities underneath that if you want you'll you'll know that there's more to it

01:36:14.760 a lot of people are getting that and they know that they have to read it multiple times to get

01:36:18.820 it but secondly and more importantly actually is the number of people who tell me like you know

01:36:24.300 this this is so encouraging it's making me go back to the bible or like i've gotten the bible

01:36:29.300 and this is this has given me a new fresh spirit in understanding i'm going back to the bible not

01:36:34.700 getting into my novels but going back to the bible is the ultimate goal of it all that's awesome

01:36:39.680 love that uh one more time they can find you at godawa.com right yeah but all my books are

01:36:45.420 exclusively available at amazon.com.com amazon and they're all almost all in kindle paperback

01:36:54.840 hardcover large print and audiobook so you can get them in almost any format you you want and

01:37:01.960 it's really cheap on kindle so awesome excellent go buy a physical copy people yeah it's nice to

01:37:07.340 have a physical copy when it really goes down yeah brian thank you for your time this is a

01:37:12.560 incredible i can't wait to talk again especially when you have something new coming out or just uh

01:37:17.600 i'm glad we managed to get it done too after the whole yeah thank you and guys until next time

01:37:23.280 don't forget to obey submit and comply we'll see you later

01:37:42.560 As they forsake

01:37:44.560 Death Squad

01:37:45.960 Death Squad

01:37:50.140 Death Squad

01:37:54.280 Death Squad

01:37:57.320 Death Squad

01:38:01.560 Never look

01:38:06.120 Death Squad

01:38:07.640 When the last trumpet sounds

01:38:09.760 And the heavens

01:38:11.060 We'll be right back.

Nephilim Death Squad - May 09, 2026

Daniel In Exile w⧸ Brian Godawa

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