The Skull of Titus

Journey with us to the island of Crete as we wrap up our reflections from our Greece trip! 🇬🇷 In this episode, we explore the fascinating story of the skull of St. Titus and dive into the significance of relics, sacred spaces, and ancient traditions. 💀 How do different Christian traditions—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—view these practices, and what can we learn from them? ✨ Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on history, spirituality, and how connecting with the past can deepen our faith today. Don't miss this final chapter of our Greece adventure on Navigating An Ancient Faith! 🏛️

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring the Church of Titus
• 9:21 A Brief Review of Church History
• 16:48 Tradition and Skepticism
• 22:33 The Protestant Challenge
• 31:24 Sacred Spaces
• 55:04 The Power of Meaning

Transcript

The Skull of Titus

David: [00:00:00] And so I remember walking up to the barista and said, where can I get those shirts because I didn't see him on the wall. I was expecting a little merch section, and the barista just looks at and says, Well, you have to work here. And said, well yeah, but I would like to buy one.

JR: Right. Yeah. Just a completely foreign idea to them.

David: Oh, yeah. He looked at me again. He said, you have to work here. And I said, I can't buy one? And they no, unless you want a job here. I thought, okay.

JR: You could put it on and just completely pass off as a Coffeedocia worker, and then all hell breaks loose. How are we gonna recover from that, right?

David: Just chaos.  

Alright, so we're going to wrap up our conversation about our Greece trip. So this whole series, we've been talking about the conversations that we have during our trips that we're like, we got to talk about this more, or we got to discuss this more, look into it more.

And so these are the kinds of conversations we have on our trips. And so today we're going to talk about an interesting one because, we were just talking before you hit record that this one didn't really jump out [00:01:00] at us. It was almost just, we stumbled upon it, but it's happened before. And so we were on the island of Crete and in the capital city I believe is the capital of Heraklion and I knew that there was a church of Titus there in the city. But you and I on the first night or the second night we found the church. And then we walked into it the next day and there was a big sign that said the skull of Titus.

JR: Right, it was the church of Titus.

David: Yeah.

JR: The only reason we were really interested in it is because on the island of Crete, there's not really any, I guess what you would call Christian biblical sites. There's history. There's lots going on, you know, that can tie together Christian history, but there is no Philippi, there is no

David: Yeah.

JR: Thessaloniki, right? You know, so there weren't even typical Christian biblical sites. So anyway, we saw this church of Titus and we're like, yeah, let's check this out, cause we obviously knew that Titus was left on Crete to kind of establish a church there. And so we're like, okay, well, here's his namesake. Let's go check it out.

David: Yeah, [00:02:00] and so we walk into the side room and in this elaborate case, it almost looks like a crown. if I can remember it correctly, there's a lot of decorative, like gold, silver on this skull that doesn't look immediately like a skull, except when you walk into it, there's a hole in the top and you can look down in there and yeah, there's a skull in there. There's a human skull.

JR: Yeah, middle schooler in both of us were a little bit disappointed because I was hoping to just see you know, the full skeleton face, like, Oh man. You know, but all that was covered and you're right. It was very ornate with just a window in the top,

David: Yeah.

JR: It was definitely a skull in the top. That's right.

David: And according to tradition, it is the skull of St. Titus. And so that got us talking about, actually, you know, I didn't, I had kind of forgotten the connection of Titus with the island of Crete. But I think after seeing that skull, we looked it up, and sure enough, in Paul's letter to Titus, and I'll just read this real quick, it says very clearly, verse 1, starts out, "Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus [00:03:00] Christ to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness."

So this is how Paul typically talks to Timothy or some of the churches, in this case Titus, and then in verse 4 it says, "To Titus, my true son in our common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior." And then he says, "The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town as I directed you."

And I thought, huh? There it is right there, black and white right in the Bible Paul says Titus the reason I left you in Crete is to put things in order there. Get the church going, get things going. And so it stands to reason then that sure that's why history says that Titus is considered the first bishop of the church there in Crete.

And so it makes total sense from that standpoint.

JR: And it's funny in the letter, he says, "the reason I left you in Crete," right, it's almost as if, look, I know you're upset about this. We kind of argued about it. When you saw the boat sailing away and you thought you were supposed to be on it. has that feel of like look, I know we [00:04:00] didn't see eye to eye about this. I have no idea if this is true or not, but you know, it has that feel when I read it today.

David: That's true. Has a little bit of that sense of, you I look, I know you're upset about this, but I left you there for a reason.

JR: Right. it's no Patmos, the water isn't as clear, the weather isn't as nice, but.

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: We have to establish a church anyway, you know, so we stuck you there.  

David: On the upside, there are no snakes there on Crete, so.

JR: There are no snakes. That's right. We've established that.

David: So you should be good there. 

JR: Right.

David: And I don't know if he knew about that beautiful hike on the other side of Crete from the monastery that we, we did that hike, you know, all the way down through that big ravine down to the ocean. It was one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on, but. So maybe Titus got to do something like that. Who knows?

JR: He should have put that in the letter. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: reason I left you in Crete, but FYI, go check out the Southern border. I mean, it's really nice down there.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I think there is another instance where Paul lands on Crete, he goes, I think it's like the Harbor, it's like Fair Havens or something like that, that I had looked up before we [00:05:00]went there. But then I read some people who said, yeah, you can go to that place, but there's literally nothing there.

Like it's a beach. And there's like the smallest little marker that said, you know, Paul docked here overnight and we, we skipped that one. But yeah, so I guess seeing the skull, let's put it this way, seeing the skull really drove home that yes, this is a place where Titus set up the church there. He probably started many churches over the island of Crete because it had several cities at that time. The history of Crete, we know, goes way, way, way back. So, time Titus is there, it's already been civilizations there for a couple thousand years, right?

JR: Yeah. And although there's not a ton of known history about Titus specifically in Crete, it opened this whole conversation about relics in general, because this is not the first time we came across this.

David: Right.

JR: I actually was Googling this, trying to figure out if it was the hand of John or who knows Luke or Paul or whoever, we saw the withered hand of somebody.

Do you remember [00:06:00] that?

David: Yeah, I do remember. We went into a church I think it was one of the first times that you and I had actually seen something like this, but there was a hand. There was a box there, a glass case, and there was a hand. There was human hand in there.

JR: I just kind of mummified dried up hand. The only thing I could find on the internet was the hand of Stephen. St. Stephen, obviously they got stoned and that's in Hungary or something like that. So I never could find this relic that you and I, we saw the hand, but in any case, it's not uncommon in Greece or in the East to see kind of these types of relics in these churches, right?

David: Relics of the Saints. Of course, things like a lot of churches claim that they had a piece of the true cross, right? And that comes, that comes from this idea, you were actually saying this to me earlier, so we'll just dive in. that comes from Constantine's mother, Helena. One of the things that she does is she goes around and starts to identify, and of course this is like 300, A. D. 330, 340. She starts to go around and [00:07:00] identify all of these sites. Of course, she's much closer to where they actually might have been than we are today. So, she goes around and she says, this is where the Garden of Gethsemane was, this is where Christ was crucified. And of course, they would build chapels there.

One of the things that I think happens is, they started digging in this pit and they found the cross. And they presumed that it was the cross of Christ. And so then what happens is, they start breaking up these pieces of the cross so different churches could have pieces of the cross.  

JR: Yeah, I even read that Helena had actually even identified the three nails that went in Jesus's hands at the cross. Of course,

David: Okay.

JR: this is the fourth century. And so the Western mind, the modern Western mind has trouble with this because they're like, Oh, come on, what are the chances that she found the nails? Right. If you found a reasonable place that, hey, this is probably the garden of Gethsemane. Okay, fine. But how in the world could you possibly know that these are the nails that went in Christ? hands and feet.

David: Right.

JR: And your [00:08:00] point, you know, they built the church of the Holy Sepulchre around the foot of the cross and, you know, me and you walked in and there's, you can put your hand in and touch the base of the cross, right. Very kind of a profound experience, but they built this entire church around it. And so whether it is or isn't the actual site, which bothers us in the modern West, that doesn't matter. I mean, it's certainly established as tradition now.

David: Right, yeah. And so it raised the questions our mind, and think we should probably say up front that you and I both come from the Protestant tradition, Protestant evangelical, and it raises the question, are these things real? What are we supposed to do as, you know, as Protestants? And I think both of us seeing the skull of Titus, this is what really sparked in us, you know, we said, is this thing real?

You know, I think if both of us were honest, we'd say, I don't know, how can you prove it? Has someone DNA tested? Of course, you couldn't DNA test it anyway and see if it,

JR: Right.

David: if it matches Titus' DNA. You know, it raised all these questions in us and got us talking about what are we supposed to [00:09:00] do with this?

If you're from a more Eastern tradition or more liturgical, you might be used to things like icons and relics. And I'll probably just apologize up front and say, we may get some of this wrong because, you know, this is just from what we've been trying to learn and process. So if we say something that someone's like, no, that's not right, you know, forgive us.

JR: Okay. So, before we start, do me a favor and kind of give the 30-second overview The history of the church, one of our first trips, you kind of laid this out for me and it was super helpful. And I just don't think the average American churchgoer can kind of connect the dots from the first Baptist church that they go to on Sunday,

David: Sure.

JR: back to Peter and Pentecost and the early church.

Right. And I think it'd be a helpful framework when we talk about, cause we're going to be talking about things, Orthodox tradition, Catholic tradition, Protestant church. Right. So

David: Yeah.

JR: you give that overview real quick?

David: Okay, I'll try and keep it to 30 seconds, but the, the 30 second overview is basically for the first thousand years [00:10:00] there was one church, okay? When Rome split, you had more of the eastern church and the western church. They were led by different bishops. Basically through the first thousand years, it was all one in the same. And the Great Schism occurs, I believe, in 1054, and that's when the East and West split.

Now, depending on where you're coming from, the West becomes the Catholic Church, and the East becomes the Orthodox Church. Right? And I say it depends on where you're coming from, because if you're Catholic, you're like, well, it was always the Catholic Church. And if you're Orthodox, you're saying, no, it was the Orthodox Church, right?

JR: Oh, is that, an argument between the two? I guess that makes sense.

David: Well, yeah, yeah. 

JR: It divided Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.

David: Yes. So, that's the split in 1054. Okay? And there's a lot, it's a fascinating period to read about and study. Fast forward, then, to the Catholic church becomes the dominant church in Western Europe, right? And fast forward then to Martin Luther and the Reformation. Martin Luther in [00:11:00] 1517, puts his 95 theses on the, what is it?

The wall of Wittenberg Gate and says, this is the changes that have to happen. You know, it's one of those things where Luther didn't intend to break from the church, but that's when it ended up happening. He causes this big rift. There's all this debate about what the proper church looks like. And then eventually the Protestant church is what emerges out of that rift.

Okay. So you have that happening in the West, but in the East, the Orthodox Church is still kicking along, right?

JR: I think my question to you was, how come Luther didn't just say, okay, we're going back with the Orthodox.

David: Yeah, well, if you talk to the Orthodox, they would say that's what Luther should have done, but it's not clear how much, exposure, let's say, that Luther had to the Orthodox Church in East. And so, his standpoint, And I'm painting very broad strokes here, but from like, the only option was to reform the church, or what ended up happening is separating from the Catholic church, right?

So you have that split going on. Well, in the [00:12:00] East, the Orthodox Church, especially with the spread of the Ottoman Empire and Islam, the Orthodox Church is basically driven underground.

JR: Mm.

David: Okay? So, confined to churches, confined to Mount Athos. And so while the Protestant and Catholic Church are growing rapidly in different directions, the Orthodox Church almost gets forgotten.

JR: Right. So, even if Luther wanted to, quote unquote, rejoin with the Orthodox tradition,

David: yeah,

JR: there was just too much time and and distance between them and there was really no way of doing that.

David: Yeah, yeah. The Orthodox Church was just almost struggling for survival in the East against the Ottoman Empire, the growth of Islam. So all these places that were traditionally Orthodox are suddenly being overtaken by, you know, places like Turkey, all the Middle East, they've all become Muslim. And so, for a long time, the Orthodox Church almost kind of disappears, a better way to say it is underground, but it's only been in the last couple of hundred years, I would say, that the Orthodox Church is almost [00:13:00] making this revival. I think you've read some, I've read a lot about Orthodox teaching. It's really fascenating. I've learned a lot from it, but it's only been in the last 50 years, I think, that you would say Protestants in the West actually even understood what an Orthodox church was.

JR: Right. And that's why I wanted you to kind of get the, you know, apologies for the broad overview, but that's why I wanted you to kind of lay that out because a lot of us from the Protestant tradition can't make that connection all the way back because of the two schisms or separations that the church went through, there's a tendency for the Protestants to sort of say, well, it basically started with Martin Luther and anything before that was. well, it was either the Catholic or the Orthodox church, and we don't really relate to either one of those.

So there's this big gap in our, in our church history knowledge.

Nobody ever talks about this in modern churches. There's this big gap for the first thousand years, essentially.

David: Right. You even hear people say, well, we don't really know what was happening. Well, we do.

JR: Right.

David: It's all there, you [00:14:00] know, it's just like we haven't really paid attention to it. But it's also why then, you know, a couple of guys like us who were raised Protestant go over to someplace like Greece and we see things like a human hand that is being revered or the skull of Titus and it's really a very weird thing. We're like, this is kind of nuts.

But the reality is they would say, this is the way we've done things for 2000 years. Like they would look at us and say, you're the ones who need to get with it. This is the way it's been. Right?

JR: Exactly. Okay, so something that's helpful to understand, or at least it helps me understand is that, through the centuries, information is passed along in different ways, right? And so ancient history passed along information about the world orally through stories and through myth, right?

And then the enlightenment came along in the 17th or 18th century, and we sort of pivoted to philosophy through reason and logic, and we sort of became skeptical of superstition and myth. And then here we are in the modern age and information is primarily [00:15:00] legitimized through science or data, we might say.

And once you have that framework laid out, then you can see the Protestant Reformation, uh, you said what was the date on that? 15th, 16th century. Is that right?

David: 1517 is yeah.

JR: And so you can see that the Protestant Reformation aligns closer to the philosophical, logical way of passing along information that happened in the enlightenment. So you can understand this aversion to the mythic way of thinking, legitimizing beliefs in the early Protestant church, and certainly in the evangelical movement and the American church. Right?

David: Yeah.

JR: You can tell it's just historically speaking, the Protestant church is a relatively new or at least it's in the more modern way of thinking. And so it's harder for us to go back and accept the mythic oral tradition that was going on in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th century. Right?

David: Right, I think that's a good point, that Protestantism aligns with the Enlightenment, and so a lot of what happens is Protestantism comes to trust what they can prove, right? [00:16:00] What can be, what can be validated? What aligns with science? I mean, we've had that whole debate, like, you know, science or the Bible.

And so when we hear things like, well, this skull belongs to Titus, our first question is, well, how do you know? the answer you would be given is because, well, that's the tradition.

JR: Right.  

And to 

David: us, that sounds really sus, right?

JR: Exactly. But the orthodox tradition goes back so far that that was the way they communicated information. That was my point about kind of the understanding the way information is passed along. When you go back twenty-five hundred years, that was the only way, I mean, they didn't do DNA testing, right?

They didn't have scientific tests, blood tests, carbon dating, all those things that we take for granted today. And so, yeah, we kind of look at it and think, ah, I don't know. That's a little bit skeptical.

David: Yes.

It's worth saying, each one of those ways of viewing the world has advantages and disadvantages.

JR: It's easy to say, well, that's just the way the ancients thought and they were mystical and that was clearly wrong, right? But it's better to view it as there were advantages and disadvantages to that way of thinking. You and I have been saying [00:17:00] that, I think we're starting to see the limits of the materialist, scientific way of thinking, right? It does a great job of explaining and predicting how planets orbit, things like that. But it does a terrible job at giving us meaning in life. And you could probably go back to the first, second century in the mythic tradition and the oral tradition and probably find a lot more meaning in life than we do today.

David: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And we tend to be distrustful of something like oral tradition or just tradition in general. That's a tradition that's been handed down. And what a lot of research has actually shown is that oral tradition, in other words, like telling a story, you know, this story circulated for 500 years.

What they've actually determined is that oral tradition is actually very reliable because when that's what you relied upon, you had to get the story, right? So you and I were just before we always chat what's been going on and we've been reading about these fairy tales and you saying how I sent you a fairy tale this week and I said, you got to read this.

So we were talking about it, [00:18:00] but you said you, well, I'll let you tell the story.

JR: Well, I read, I read the story and it was fascinating. And then I kind of contemplated a little bit. And then I walked in the other room and my daughter and wife were in that room. And, and I said, man, listen, this fairy; tell me what you think about this, right? And without the book in hand, I basically retold the entire story.

It probably, it was what a 15 minute story, several twists and turns. And about three quarters of the way through, my daughter said, I can't believe you're remembering all these details. And it was funny because it hit me. It's like, yeah, I remember the details because I know what they mean. It's like, I don't want to miss those details because if I miss the detail, then later on when we go back and say, what do you think this story means? Well, the details aren't there, right? 

And so it kind of a firsthand experience of it really was an easier way to convey deep information through the story. Because when you're telling the story, especially when you have both of those viewpoints in mind of what it actually means and what the story was. Then you get all the details right. [00:19:00] Kind of naturally because you're actually going through and saying it as a worldview while you're telling the story.

So it's actually a lot easier than you think, as opposed to, to your point. It's like, man, everybody's telling this story and passing along from town to town. Who knows what the original story is because you and I played the game. Was it called telephone?

David: Yeah.

JR: Where you went around the circle and had the, you know, by the time he gets to the end, it's something completely different, but that's sort of a, it's a gimmick. It's a little bit of a game.

That's not really how the ancient world worked, and it's not how telling stories worked. But we kind of tell ourselves that, that there's something inherently unreliable about the spoken word, and that's not really true at all.

David: Right. When a story is compelling, when all the details have meaning, it's actually very easy to recite. And I've found that myself. I'll read one of these fairy tales, and I'll go on a run, and I can remember every detail. I only read it once. it's just an example of how there's something to oral tradition being passed down from generation to generation.

They would have been very careful to [00:20:00] include all the details that gave it meaning originally. And if they didn't get it right, the story would have died out, right? Because have had any meaning anymore. And so, just one example I would say about how we in the West don't understand the value of saying, You know, well, this is part of our tradition, which means that it's been repeated over and over again with great care in order to get it right.

And someone eventually wrote it down. And even when they're transmitting that story elsewhere, writing it down, they've been very careful to get the details right. And so in that sense, it's almost like understanding that we can trust tradition more than I think we realize we can in the West.

JR: Yeah, I think you're right. And I also think that because the American church is so relatively new, historically speaking, we don't have really any deep traditions.

David: Right. What does tradition even mean? Yeah.

JR: You know what I mean? And tradition is something that obviously it anchors us to the past. You know, you talk about personal traditions.

Maybe you have a christmas tradition or a summer [00:21:00] tradition. Tradition is something that anchors us to the past and we don't have any tradition in the American church really right? And that's why you can convert a movie theater or a strip mall into a new church and nobody thinks anything of it.

I'm not saying that's completely bad but I am saying that the church in america lacks what it lacks a cohesion that tradition provides.

And we went from what we went from dozens of denominations, you know, really meticulous denominations, probably hundreds of denomination in the early Protestant church. And what's interesting is that we've kind of moved to Non denominational churches leading the new church category from what I read something not too long ago, right?

David: And in some of those, the idea of tradition can actually be seen as baggage, right, that you to get rid of.

JR: And so a lot of this is the fact that we kind of went through our own transition, maybe in the 80s 90s something like that sort of the seeker friendly Mega church movement where we were trying to be everything for everybody. And we were skeptical of tradition, you know, we didn't want to make [00:22:00] it where, well, we don't want to make it where people don't know when to stand or when to sit, or people are afraid that they're not going to wear the right clothes.

Right? And there is value in that. I'm not saying that it's all bad. But I'm saying that when we did that we unwittingly lost probably what little tradition the American church had. And again, to go back to the Orthodox or even the Catholic traditions, man, they have old thousand year old traditions that anchor them to the past and anchor them to previous generations that really we just don't have. And I just think since we don't have it, we don't recognize when it's not there, I guess, right?

David: Right, yeah. Another aspect of this orthodox view of tradition that I've learned a lot about and come to respect is that orthodox holds the Bible, of course, as the, the Bible, the sacred book, But orthodox believe in the Bible and tradition, right? So, certain traditions that have kind of passed the test of time, been approved by the church, they would actually hold those up just beneath the Bible.

And we've talked about this before, that there are other books out [00:23:00] there, we've talked about the book of Enoch, we've talked about ...

JR: extra-Biblical books.

David: extra biblical books, yes, that it's like one notch below the Bible. So they would say, you know, yes, you have the Bible. But then you have all these other writings that have value in personal worship and edification. And then you have the traditions of the church that are also very important. And so all of that forms the life of the church. And why that's important is because something like the tradition of the skull of Titus, well, that's like one notch below the Bible.

Now I contrast that with the Protestant, and it's funny, I was just looking at a video that said the top 50 books you should read or something like that. And so some of them I've read some of them, you know, I was just reading down the list, but then I opened the comments section and there were a lot of, okay, well meaning people, but a lot of comments that said the only book you need to read is the Bible. 

JR: Right, right, and it's well, meaning it's, bless their heart. You know what I mean?

David: Yeah. But yeah.. 

JR: Yeah, we're so binary in the West that it's either biblical or [00:24:00] not biblical at all.

David: Right.

JR: One thing that's actually refreshing about other traditions is, Oh, there's kind of this whole, extra biblical stuff where they don't elevate it to the word of God, but it's very valuable books. And we would instantly view that as well, it's not biblical, you know, almost like it's heresy. 

Yeah. Exactly. If it's not biblical, it's not biblical and therefore you shouldn't read it. We've talked about that before. But it's why something like that is part of church tradition in the East. And that in itself makes it what you would say valid, legitimate, part of worship, part of their tradition that is up there, I won't say with the Bible, but just underneath the Bible, right? That that's an element to our faith in the West that we just don't have. Right? 

All right, so hopefully that has given some perspective of, say, why a more liturgical tradition holds the views that they hold, that maybe coming from a Protestant background that we have a hard time understanding, right? So, [00:25:00] go back to this idea of the skull of Titus then.

JR: And this is some of the things that we talked about. What's the value in it? Like, what does it even mean? Who cares if there's a skull there, right? Well, so let's bring in some of these other things that I've been thinking about that may help people understand why the meaning is there. 

Okay, so first, We have to acknowledge that we regularly attach meaning to objects, and that's not a weird thing. And we do it all the time. In fact, it's so common that we don't even think about it. But, we can list a hundred examples here, right? So I like t shirts and I tend to collect t shirts from, I just started this.

I didn't realize I was trying to do it, but from local coffee shops, if I like the coffee shop and they have a cool t shirt, I'll buy it.

You do have. You do have several. That's right.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I probably have five or six now. 

JR: I think last time we went to the coffee shop in Tallahassee, you bought a t shirt and I remember thinking who buys a t shirt at a coffee shop? Well, there you go. You do.

David: Yeah. Me. Yeah, That's right But okay. So you say, well, why do you do that? Well, because. I don't know. I attach meaning to [00:26:00] it, right? Because I can look at that t shirt and go, yeah, I know where that came from. I remember I like their coffee or I like the place, right? I like the vibe in that coffee house. So I bought a shirt. 

And so when I wear the shirt, it has meaning. And we all have things like that. I was thinking about this. So you remember when we went to Cappadocia several years ago, yeah. And we were in, I think the city we stayed in was Goreme. It was a beautiful little town. It almost looks like a little ski village with a river running through it.

But there's all these fairy chimney. It's amazing if you don't know what Cappadocia region looks like.

JR: Yeah, Google it.

David: Yeah, Google it. Fairy chimneys. We had fantastic days hiking like a couple of kids just running through all these caves.

JR: Playground. Yeah, it was great.

David: Yeah, but you remember they had a coffee shop there?

JR: Oh, yeah. Coffeedocia. 

David: Coffeedocia. Exactly.

JR: Coffeedocia, that popped right in my head. Yeah. Coffeedocia.

David: So we would end each day at Coffeedocia and there was the little kitten. There was the cat that would hop on your lap and just go to sleep. And you know, what kind of animal do you have to be to kick it off? Like it would go [00:27:00] to sleep, you know. So I really like this and the baristas were wearing these t shirts that said Coffeedocia and it had some of the fairy chimney outlines in the background and I'm like, man, that's a really cool shirt.

And so I remember walking up to the barista and said, where can I get those shirts because I didn't see him on the wall. I was expecting a little merch section, and the barista just looks at and says, Well, you have to work here. And said, well yeah, but I would like to buy one.

JR: Right. Yeah. Just a completely foreign idea to them.

David: Oh, yeah. He looked at me again. He said, you have to work here. And I said, I can't buy one? And they no, unless you want a job here. I thought, okay.

JR: You could put it on and just completely pass off as a Coffeedocia worker, and then all hell breaks loose. How are we gonna recover from that, right?

David: Just chaos. 

JR: Yeah. Serve

David: can't just wear , you can't just wear shirts from places you don't work,

JR: Yeah. Serve your pirated coffee in our coffee house. My gosh.

David: So this whole idea of merchandising was just foreign to them. But I still think back and I'm like, man, I really wanted a Coffeedocia shirt.

JR: Yeah, that's right. But you're right about the attaching meaning. [00:28:00] A similar thing is like a baseball caught at a ball game, right? you catch a baseball and it really means something. And you could say that you, you know, part of it is attaching the story to the game. You know, you can say,

David: Yeah.

JR: I, you know, this is the actual ball that maybe won the big game. But the real value is attaching the story to the item, that I was there. I'm the one who caught it. And I know that certainly like huge games, balls that won the world series or something like that, there's a monetary price attached to it, but just a foul ball, right? Nobody really cares about that. You're not going to sell that. It's not really anything special other than the fact that, hey, I was there. I caught it, here it was, you know? And so it's story, that you attach to it that gives it meaning.

David: Yeah. That's true. You see baseballs go for $10,000 or $20,000 or something like, or hundreds of thousand. And you could sit there and say, well, a baseball costs $2 down at the sporting goods store. But you're missing the whole idea of how meaning gets attached to an object, because it means something that, no, this is the ball that Shohei Otani [00:29:00] hit for his 50th home run, right, or something like that. 

We do that in all kinds of different, you can think of, you know, getting autographs on a picture. Who cares? It's just a signature, right? No, but there's something that attaches meaning to whatever object was signed. And so, I bring that up just to say that that's really not a lot of difference, from relics, right?

Great meaning gets attached to this object. And we do it all the time, we just don't think about it in terms of reverence or awe or veneration or worship in the church.

JR: Yeah. That makes sense. So I'm glad you said this because I talked to my daughter in law's father. We ate dinner with them in Nashville, not too long. He's a pastor in Nashville, but he's originally from Syria, right? He grew up in the Orthodox tradition in Syria and came to America in college. And is again, like I said now a pastor in Nashville, but I asked him about relics cause we were about to have this discussion and what he said, I thought was interesting is he said, when you talk about detaching meaning to an [00:30:00] object, he said that relics were a way of legitimizing a local church or a monastery or a congregation, right?

David: Yeah.

JR: A cynic might listen to that and say, well, that just sounds like some ancient marketing technique, right? I think what he was trying to say is that early movements could solidify around a tangible relic or a story, right? A tradition could be anchored to the foundation of a new church, right?

And that's what I think of when I think about meaning attached to something. And so it's kind of a tangible way of saying, here is this new church that we're starting in this town or city, whatever. And, here is a relic that we have maybe borrowed or a part of something.

Like you said, the cross was divided up, you know, amongst multiple churches. Here's a relic that sort of legitimizes the fact that we're starting this church. And so you start off with meeting and then you can have a tradition coalesce around that.

David: Yeah, that makes sense. I've actually heard that, so it's interesting that he actually explained that in that way [00:31:00] because I've actually heard that, but yeah, so it would be a way of establishing legitimacy, right? Authority. Like, hey, if you're starting a church on the other side of Crete, I think -this is going to be a dad joke here, but it's like, hey, can you give us a hand?

And they're like, yeah, sure, we'll send people over. It's like, no, the hand of Titus. We would like the hand.

JR: There you go.

David: There you go. Okay, so bad joke of the day, right?

JR: We need the little drum.

David: We'll put that in.

JR: Yeah, there you

David: No, but so, all jokes aside, it would be a way to say, hey, no, we are an official church. As the same thing as the other side of the aisle, you know, the church of Titus and Heraklion, you know, like we're affiliated with them and as proof we have the hand of Titus, say. Just throwing it out as an example.

JR: Yeah, and it's an attempt to attach to, well, we'll just say the miraculous, but certainly the ancient, the tradition, right?

And again, the Orthodox tradition goes all the way back to Pentecost. So it should be no big surprise that the early Christian church wanted to be attached to the miraculous, right?

Whether that be, what is it a body part that doesn't decay or, you [00:32:00] know, the wax painting that survives the fire. We saw one of those, that a wax painting that somehow survived fire and that solidified it as a sort of a miraculous element, a miraculous relic. And then a monastery was literally built around that one idea.

David: Yeah, it was kind of the ancient way of authenticating something that if you said this was part of the cross of Christ, you know, or the hand of St. John or something, whatever, and miracles started to happen around that object. Well, I mean, that's all the proof you need in the ancient mindset. Because if it were fraudulent, then you wouldn't see these miraculous things start to happen.

JR: Right. And again, that sounds a little far fetched for us in the modern day, but churches today want to be attached to the miraculous. Like how many times have you heard that some congregations infancy, they were about to have to close the doors if they couldn't come up with, you know, 1,254 dollars and 85 cents. And then as the story goes, some anonymous donor or some tax rebate or something comes in the mail and wow, look, lo and behold, here's 1, 254 and [00:33:00] 84 cents, right? It's always to the penny, right?

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: You hear these stories, right? And I'm not knocking these stories. I'm saying that they're much more powerful than we realize. Precisely because it attaches our story to the miraculous, and that's why we love to tell those stories. So it's not such a big stretch when it's coming from the modern perspective to want to attach yourself to the miraculous, because we still do it today.

David: Yeah, that's right. And the other idea that we talked about in previous episodes is this idea of sacred space. And again, we sound like we're picking on the Protestants, but the Protestant mindset,

JR: We're coming from the perspective, just to clarify that statement, we're coming from this perspective of this is what we struggle with. Right. And so. Yeah, it's not really picking on and saying, this is why we struggle with it. And this is why me and you have these conversations.

And so we can work these things out and have a little bit more nuanced view as opposed to just saying, Oh, those crazy Eastern Orthodox, they think they've got the hand of Paul or something like that, right?   

So let's have a little bit more charitable view than to have a cynical take [00:34:00] on everything we come across. So, sorry about that. Go ahead.

David: No, that's true. We're talking through our own mental hurdles. Let's put it that way. That's what we're doing. But the idea of sacred space, so, you know, and again, it's common in Protestant circles to say, well, isn't God everywhere? And you know, there's nothing special about being in this building. You know, especially if it's a rented movie theater or something like that, like God is everywhere.

It's another thing that when you think about it, there's still something about certain spaces that feel sacred. And I think it's true that God is a special, okay, so one of the things you see throughout the Bible is God is especially present, you know, yes, God is everywhere. He's especially present in an area that is pure and holy.

So I think we've used the example, you know, If there was a church that was, full of prayer and authentic worship, like, God's presence would be especially felt there as opposed to, you know, the strip club down the street, right, to use an example. And so I was thinking about this, you know, you and I, on our [00:35:00] last trip, we went to Thessaloniki, and we went to the church, I think it was St. Demetrius. I think I got right. Remember that church on the main square and we walked in there.

JR: Oh, was this the air raid church?

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: It's the one that the air raids went off. Yeah.

David: Oh, and, and helicopters, military helicopters were flying overhead and we were a little bit worried.

JR: trail. Yeah. Well, I mean, we did, we came out and there's all this military stuff going overhead and we're like, and of course we're in a foreign country.

David: Yeah.

JR: I don't know what's going on. And we were thinking, man, what if something's going, you know, finally, somebody said, no, it's something akin to a July 4th or Memorial Day celebration.

David: Yeah.

JR: These helicopters and planes everywhere, but it terrified us for awhile. 

David: We didn't realize it was a national holiday when we were in Thessaloniki. And so they were doing these military flyovers. Of course, we just thought Greece was being invaded, you know.

JR: Right.

David: That was the end of it. Yeah. 

JR: So that's what I remember about that church. You probably remembered something more profound.

David: Well, no, so we went into the church and that was another one where they had a relic there and they had a holy water and you could [00:36:00] go underneath where you could see the foundations that, you know, went back to like third or fourth century. Because St. Demetrius , he's a very early saint in that church and there's a whole story attached to him. But you and I went to a coffee shop after that and we sat there and I remember having this conversation. I don't know if you remember this, but we sat there and we both said, I felt something in that church. Something very spiritual, something very moving about that space.

JR: Right.

David: Right?

JR: I remember it in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that I mentioned earlier in Jerusalem, where we put our hand on the petrified base of Jesus cross, right? Even though now we look back and, you know, maybe the legitimacy is a little doubtful, there's no denying that my experience with that was very profound.

I had the same experience at the Western wall.

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: This feeling to it. Really all of the old city of Jerusalem specifically, yeah, those two places. But you're right. I think again, that Protestants, we kind of grew up with the church tradition that God is everywhere.

And I mean, how many times have you heard, that you don't have to be in church to [00:37:00]worship God.

And while that's certainly true at the same time, nobody talks on the phone in church. Nobody you know, you turn your phone off. You don't just have conversations with somebody while the pastor is talking. There's certain cultural things we recognize it as a sacred space. Nobody would dare do that.

But at the same time, I think we kind of, I don't know, maybe we kind of, created a little bit of a meme around the idea of, well, you don't have to be in church to worship God. And it's usually, that's usually a defense mechanism. We've thrown that out and maybe we took that a little bit to heart and got away from the idea of sacred spaces.

David: Yeah. I think that's right. You hear people say, well, you know, my church is nature and I can experience God out in a park somewhere. And, you know, you hear that and you go, okay, there's some truth in it. But one of the things I think that it's easy for us to say, especially in America, is that, you know, our oldest thing is what, you know, a hundred years old, or 150

JR: Right.

David: years old. 

And so I think it's almost a little difficult. There might be some really old churches in America, but not in every town to actually go somewhere and [00:38:00] feel overwhelmed by the sacred. Like the church has church stood here for 1500 years and have relics and icons and paintings. And here's the graves of the saints that have gone before us.

Like in certain traditions, you might run into that in the United States. But I've never been overwhelmed by going into a place like that in the United States, like I have experienced a couple of times, some of the monasteries in Meteora, I think of that as well. You know, you almost just get overwhelmed by the sense the sacred being in that space.

JR: Yeah. The place has a weight to it. It's like the air is heavy and I don't know. Yeah, I just think of old Jerusalem, that something in those walls, just, I guess, knowing just all the people, obviously Jesus and the disciples and everybody coming along after that, that that was such a heavy place. And I mean, you think about the transformation of it, but it's all still there. It's something in the air. I remember going to, man, where was this? We were on a trip. I think it was in Orlando, but I remember a taxi [00:39:00] driver. This was before you and I were going to go to Jerusalem. We had a taxi driver and I was telling him about our trip. He was from the Middle East. I think he was from Jordan and he had said, Oh my God, Jerusalem, you're going to go to Jerusalem. He said, you're never going to want to leave. Of course, my wife is sitting there and she's says, well, he better come back, right? Yeah, she was like, what do you mean by that? Right. But he did, he sort of said, man, that place is so sacred. You're just not going to want to leave. And I think that was the best way he said it, but I remember going there and thinking, man, he's exactly right. There's something about it that says, this is where I'm supposed to be. You know, again, obviously not move there and set up shop there, but I'm just saying there's something about it. There's a magnetism to it, and I think all these things I'm trying to say sort of paints this picture of what a sacred space feels like, and I think most people have experienced something like that, even in the States.

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: You go to an ancient place, you'll really experience it.

David: Yeah. So we talk about this idea of meaning attached to objects, sacred space, [00:40:00] to maybe help people understand a little bit more about why something like a relic or an icon can have a tremendous amount of meaning in certain traditions.

JR: Right.

David: And, it's maybe the process that I've gone through to help me understand, okay, here's why relics are important in certain traditions.

Here's why icons are meaningful in certain traditions. And once I kind of go through that in my head, it's like, yeah, I place a lot of importance on objects around my house, right? And I've been to spaces that I feel overwhelmed just being in those spaces. So that makes the leap a little less daunting to me, I guess is the way to say it.

JR: Yeah. A little less problematic. You're right.

 And when you combine that with the idea that the Protestant church is sort of, the more I do the research on it, the more I see that we're kind of on a little bit of an island that's not connected back to Acts, that's not connected back to the early church because of these breaks in the early church tradition, that we just don't connect back to the [00:41:00] ancient way of thinking. And that's most of what we're trying to do on this podcast is trying to get that ancient mindset hammered into our head because it opens up a whole new way to see and way to read the Bible and way to understand something is when you have that ancient understanding and again, that's just the way they communicated back then. And so it's easy for the modern person to say, well, that's silly.

We'd have no idea if that's the skull of Titus, or there's no way of proving that those were the three nails that pierced Jesus's hands and feet. You know, it's just an unfair mindset. It's taking the 21st century mindset and projecting it back and saying they should have known better, but that's the only way they communicated back then.

That's the way that they established tradition. That's the way they, what coalesced as a congregation. That's the way they united people is through tradition is through miracle is through meaning and, you know, we just take that for granted, I think. And I think it's a little unfair to take our technical mindset, you know, of DNA testing and [00:42:00] carbon dating and project it back and say they should have known better. Right?

David: Yeah. Because if you really rely too much on that, then really you're distrustful of anything that happened, previous to 1500 AD. And that's really what, I mean, that's what fall into, you know, well, we don't know. And so it's like, well, are you going to throw out, you know, all the history of Rome?

Are you going to throw out figures like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great? Because we know a lot more about the Bible than we knew about those people. And like, if you're going to go down that path of, well, if we can't prove it somehow, then we distrust it. There's man, most of history, you're just going to have to distrust.

Yeah. So there is a little bit of overcoming our modern mindset to accept that, you know, a lot of history you can trust.

JR: Sure.

David: Through the the routes of tradition, oral tradition, you know firsthand accounts, things like that.

JR: Yeah, and I think the better way to look at it is to not be skeptical of myth and oral tradition, but to actually embrace it and to use that with our modern understanding, with the [00:43:00] technological advances that we've had. If you can bring those together, you have a more complete picture. But if you insist on the way we think now is the right way, then all you're going to do is have a cynical view of the past.

And to your point, I mean, you might as well do that with Caesar and Alexander the Great, because we don't know much about them either scientifically, or,

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: tradition, right. You know, writings of the people who won the wars, right. And how trustworthy is that? It's just not really a helpful way to look at the past, certainly not the ancient past.

David: Yeah. And at the same time, I would say you do have to acknowledge that there was a period in the, I think particularly the middle ages throughout Western Europe where this idea of relics, it was abused. And so,

JR: Oh, sure.

David: And I think that's caused a little bit of cynicism if you're not used to it, too, to go, well, are any of these things real?

Because I heard this quote once that said, if you gather together all the pieces of the true cross of Christ, you could build an entire fortress, right?

JR: Yeah, that may be true.

David: So, I mean, there was abuses taking place there were some churches, a lot of, I've seen in [00:44:00] TV shows and different books I've read, you know, that churches would claim to have different relics that they couldn't have possibly had, but again, back to that idea of legitimacy, it was kind of abusing that idea of a relic gave your church legitimacy. So let's just make up something and dig a body up, right?

 No one's no going to prove otherwise. So there is that aspect of it, but you can get overly cynical of the tradition that it originated from. And so we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater as well.   

JR: yeah, I think that's a good point. And if, I think you and I have talked about the more modern understanding of Calvary, that there's basically been, and we don't have to get into it, but there's basically been a new location that, what, archaeologists think might - is probably a better location for the possibility of where the crucifixion took place. It's a little bit outside of town, and so if, let's say we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this new location is the correct location for Calvary. Does that mean we just [00:45:00] disregard the church of the Holy Sepulchre and all the tradition that was attached to that for all these centuries? I think the answer is no. But there are some people that would say, well, then the first place doesn't matter, you know?

And we're to kind of move past that. We're trying to have a little bit more of a nuanced understanding of relics and church tradition in general.

David: Yeah, that's a good point, and we've talked about this in terms of, in Philippi, the prison of Paul, we talked about this idea that, does that negate everything that happened at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? And the answer's no, that's still a holy place.

JR: Right.

David: You know, even if they said, well, no, definitively, the crucifixion didn't take place here, that church is still full of so much what you would say, worship blessing, all of these words, veneration, that again, there's so much meaning attached to that place now.

In some ways it, well, it would be neat if they could actually prove, hey, this is the place. But I don't think it would negate it if they found another place and said, no, this is the actual place where the crucifixion took place.

JR: Right. And to go back to the original [00:46:00] question of, is this the actual skull of Titus? That's not really the question to ask. I think the better question is, was this meaningful to a congregation at one time? Did it create a sacred space that helped people connect with their past? Did it establish a meaningful tradition. And if those answers are yes, then, you know, I'm okay with the idea of saying maybe, maybe not. I think you can live in that middle space and we don't like to do that. We like absolutes.

David: Yeah.

JR: Back to Protestant, binary, it's either biblical or heresy, right?

We like that on or off switch. I think there is a space in the middle where you can say meaning was made because of these relics. And again, you know, I, I know it has a checkered past perhaps, but at the same time, I looked at the church of Titus and said, this is clearly a sacred space.

 This is meaningful to the people of Heraklion. It established tradition. It established a congregation. And so therefore, I'm completely fine with it. I thought it was interesting and neat, but I thought the best part of it [00:47:00] was just the whole conversation we had.

David: Yeah, that's right. I'll speak more from a personal perspective is that I've been on this journey, oh, probably, I don't know, maybe 10 years that I'm trying to embrace more that there is a heavenly realm, right? There's a realm other than just the naturalistic world. There's a spiritual realm, right? There are miracles that happen. There are times where God intervenes and speaks to you. On a personal level, I'd say I'm trying to be more open to that because I want that to be true.

And that way I've heard it is, you know, there's a natural world and then there's more of this enchantment worldview, which is almost going back to the ancient worldview. And, like, I personally just want to understand more and embrace more of that enchanting worldview. That there is a realm beyond that we can't understand and see with our five senses, but we can experience in certain ways.

And so, I could look at something like the skull of Titus and be cynical, which is probably my base reaction, or I could choose to [00:48:00] embrace that that's something an amazing we saw, right? And so that's personally how I would approach something like this. That's kind of my own journey that I'd want to be less cynical.

I want to be more open to the fact that look if Titus did - let's look at it this way if Titus died on Crete they would have preserved his body. He would have been buried somewhere. And as they established churches, they would have been careful to say, no, this is the body right of Titus. And so it may be perfectly legitimate that that really is the skull of Titus.

JR: Yeah, right., No, I think you're right. And my journey is very similar to yours. I'm trying to kind of shed a little bit of this, I don't know, maybe you could call it a simplistic understanding of Christianity and the Bible. And I know I've made the comment before that a lot of our modern Southern evangelical churches sort of take you to about maybe a college level education when it comes to the Bible, when it comes [00:49:00] to our theology. And then it kind of just stops. And you and I have had these conversations that you see the 50 year old guys, the 60 year old guys in church, and they're kind of just sitting there and you wonder what they're getting out of it. And, what we've discovered is man, there's all these different layers and yeah, they don't fit into a nice, neat, ideology that clicks like a nice little lego brick in. You know, it's a little bit squishy kind of like the relics. It has a little bit of a weird past; There are people who have abused it, so. 

But I'm trying not to be so cynical with everything. And what I'm finding, at least for me personally, is that I've grown in the past 7, 8, 10 years, kind of with our trips, because we have a little broader understanding of what somebody outside of the American Protestant Church, how they view things. We don't know really how to say, here's first Baptist church here. How do we connect it all the way back to the book of Acts. And if that's not an easy process to [00:50:00] describe, we just typically don't describe it. We move on. And what we end up doing is creating this culture where a monoculture where we're kind of stuck in the past 200 years. And that's about it. That's all that matters.

That's obviously sort of a kind of extreme, but there is a touch to that, that it feels like, maybe the American church has held onto. That unless it's in my English Holy Bible, then really, I don't really need to be messing with it to your previous point about the comments about extra biblical books.

And there's much more out there that can broaden our understanding and deepen our knowledge. But since we're a little bit averse to it, I think we miss out on some of those things and that's what I think we're doing with this episode and what I think we're doing with this podcast in general.

David: Yeah, and I think it is reflective, maybe more so than we'd like to admit, that especially in the Western Protestant church, you know, we go, well, we trace our roots back to Luther, and before that, nothing really important went down, or we don't really know what happened. And man, that's 1,500 years of church history that we tend to just disregard.

JR: Yeah. 

David: It's there for the reading, it's there for [00:51:00] the studying, you know, it's fascinating about reading all of these things and we get glimpses of what was happening in the 5th century, in the 6th century, in the 7th century. The other thing, this may be a rabbit trail by the way, but the other that's interesting is, you know, I hear people say, we want to go back to the original church in Acts.

Well, the problem with that is that what was the Apostle Paul doing? The Apostle Paul was actually taking the Jewish synagogue and trying to figure out how to apply it to these cities. Right? So the Apostle Paul is already advancing the church beyond what you see in early Acts. And he's trying to figure Ok, how does this work?

And so there is this aspect that as the church spreads to different cultures, the church takes on little bit different flavor. And so sometimes I think we can do the opposite extreme, which is say, no, we're going to go back to the book of Acts, Acts chapter two, right? That's the true church right there.

And it's like, well, there again, you're dismissing everything that just happened for the last 2000 years.

JR: Right. It's an honorable venture, but to [00:52:00] do that, you have to wind back the past 2000, you have to go back. You can't just turn back the hands of time and act like it didn't happen and say, now let's just start out with the Acts church again.

You know, the way to do that is to journey back through the history of the Catholic church and the Orthodox church and wind it all the way back to the first century. And that's what I think is. It's complicated, so we don't like to do it, you know.

David: Yeah,

JR: and,

David: that's true.

JR: you've been to seminary, you know, you went to seminary. And so I know that seminarians are listening to this thinking, well, they talk all about the church history in my seminary classes. But I'm just telling you as the average church goer that has been going to church my whole life, I didn't know this. I just didn't know this intricate past. I didn't know how

David: Yeah, 

JR: connected together, which to go back to the, why I wanted you to give the 30-second overview that ended up probably being five minutes.

David: Yeah.

JR: I wanted to give that overview and even five minutes doesn't give it any justice, the kind of the intricacy of it.

And just saying that, I think we're missing a little something and we would do ourselves well to equate ourselves to our [00:53:00] ancient roots and to actually go back there and not be averse to it.

David: Yeah, Yeah, that's true. And I think you're right. I think, yeah, I think it's a good observation. A lot of people don't understand the entire tradition and why things ended up the way they did, you know, and so, yeah, I think, again, if you're going to embrace tradition, we talked about that aspect, then.

Yeah, it's going to take some reading, and it's going to take some studying, and it's going to understand why things developed the way they did, and it's going to choose to embrace tradition. And part of that tradition, at least in, well, certain traditions, is the valuing relics, valuing icons, valuing the word of the saints, and not being distrustful of all that.

When you read about something that happened in the fourth century and go, well, that's extra biblical. So we can't trust that. It's like, no, these things are preserved and they're all part of the tradition, you know?

JR: Right. Right. And if you tuned into this podcast hoping to get our take on whether we thought the skull of Titus was real or a fraud, I apologize because [00:54:00] we didn't really come down with an answer. But the point of this conversation was that it was just emblematic of a broader conversation that I think is valuable to have. And that is how to work in the ancient church to our modern understanding, especially in our Western mindset.

David: Yeah, I think that's actually a good point that we want, I think you've said this, you know, we want the binary answer. Is it true or not? Is it legit or not? And it's like, part of me wants to embrace that side that says, no, we're not supposed to know that. We're supposed to just experience it and get out of it what we get out of it.

And you can just choose to disregard it as a silly skull that you have no idea who it is. Or you can actually sit there and embrace the idea that, wow, this is a link to St. Titus who started churches on Crete. And maybe that's the best place to leave it.

JR: Right. And at least it's a link to an ancient tradition on Crete, you know.

David: Right.

JR: If you get hung up on whether the legitimacy of it, well, then I don't know, you're just kind of going down what you're kind of jumping in a feedback loop, that's just going to feed your own cynicism and make you skeptical about, you [00:55:00] know, I don't know, all kinds of different things. And that's not really what we wanted to do with this, so.

David: And by the way, don't bother traveling because you're going to encounter this all over the places, right?

JR: Just run around and hate on everything. All the ancient temples and

David: That's right. 

JR: synagogues that you go in cause they're everywhere, man. 

David: Okay. Well, that wraps up conversations we had, certainly not all of them, on the Greece trip. Again, you're not going to get definitive answers out of us. You're just going to get these conversations that you and I go on and on about over dinner, so.

JR: Yeah, that you to sleep.

David: Yeah, so actually this wraps up the series on Greece and I'm excited because what's next is we start our series on fairy tales.

JR: Oh yeah. All right. Good. I've been reading up on him, man. I can't wait.

David: I know, I,

JR: the first one or?

David: You know, let's start out with the traditional one that everyone knows, Little Red Riding Hood.

JR: Oh, okay. All right. Good. Yeah. I can't wait. That'll be perfect.

David: And hang in there with us because if you're rolling your eyes going, what are they going to tell us about Little Red Riding Hood, a kid's story? [00:56:00] I, like, I promise you, you're going to see it differently. 

JR: Are we going to do the version where grandma gets eaten?

David: Oh, sure. These are the unedited. These are the old, original, unedited versions. These are not Disney versions that we've been reading.

JR: Exactly. This isn't Looney Tunes. So yeah, we're going back to the original.

David: That's right.

JR: Greek and Hebrew text of the fairy tales.

David: Yeah, don't know. Is there an original? It would be the German version of the Grimm fairy tales, but.

JR: Most of them are German.

David: We'll go, we'll trace it back to the Greek somehow.

JR: Yeah. No, that'll be fun, man.

David: Looking forward to that one. So, thanks for listening. We hope you listen to the next series as well. We have some links in the show notes how you can stay in touch with us.

One of the links is a newsletter sign up and we just sent a newsletter out. And it was funny because right before I sent it out, someone signed up for it. I'm like, Oh, perfect. You know, they went to the, link, signed up it. And like immediately they're going to get a newsletter. So that's in there.

Other ways to contact us. And thanks for listening. We will talk to you when we start talking about fairy tales.

JR: All right. We'll see you next [00:57:00] time.