Greg Hurwitz

I think it dovetails too within space and time. It's very interesting, Douglas, you said that in the word for beginning is God, right? And so this goes into, John, you know, the discussion of, well, what is a cup, right? A cup is, it's designed for a certain purpose. It is also the purpose and the end of it is also what it's intended to be.

And so there's a circularity too in God was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. that temporally this is that same fractal thing that's also being expanded across time and space, that the meaning is embedded in the object as it exists, what its use is and what its end is are all simultaneous. I think that's a connection back to some of your thinking.

Well, we see also this unconscious porting over of nature worship that nature is elevated. It's the Rousseauian ideal where nature is elevated above man, right? So it gets out of place if you don't have that separation necessarily.

And it's almost this porting over of a notion of original sin that elevates it that we have in some way that makes us inferior to the thing to be worshipped if it's not differentiated from God, then we worship nature and hold it higher than us.

Mr. Hurwitz. Well, I'm honored to be here. My name's Greg Hurwitz. I'm a novelist and screenwriter. In Exodus, I felt a lot like I was at a table with chess grandmasters, which was really cool to see everybody's engagement and finding these jewels that had different interpretations and everybody, you know, except for Pajot, who never says anything fascinating.

It's almost like the association with conscience. The conscience is what has to lead the way first to prepare the people to receive Jesus. Because if he just arrives without there being... So first of all, in a dramatic sense, every introduction for dramatic effect, and I know that we're talking about this on different levels, but for the theatrical, the introduction of a character is always key.

And I'd like to say that, you know, a shallow gaze might indicate that there's a lot of similarity among us. And one of the things that I thought was really compelling during Exodus was there's an enormous amount of differences, and that the text was really a welcome into the best of inquiry and hospitality. I thought it was incredibly productive.

I mean, you think about in... Casablanca, the number of times that Rick is mentioned before his back is turned in a chair and you see the cigarette smoke and he turns around. Dramatically, and I'm not implying this is merely dramatically, you want to set the stage for the arrival of a major character. And I think you have a culture in which the stage must be set before his arrival.

Yeah, and we do this all the time dramatically. You have an opening act for a concert. You have somebody... An overture. Yeah, you have an overture. You have, if there's a late night show, they'll have somebody warm up the crowd as a comedian, right? You have to set the stage.

And the precursor to Elijah in certain regards is Enoch right before the flood. The other thing I was thinking is that there's these different sides that we're discussing of what Jesus is, and he also is a man, because if he's not a man, then the story doesn't make sense. And so it comes along to say, Why is Jesus baptized? That's a very unusual question.

But if there's not a human being who predates him with some moral authority who represents the voice of conscience, then he can't be baptized as a man. He just comes down with the full glory and righteousness and fear of God.

Part of why I'm here is that I think that intellect alone can't grasp the speed and complexity of the change that is upon us now. And unconscious projection. And I think that we're seeing the world burn down in some ways to fundamentals. You know, is man smarter than machine with AI? We have wars breaking out at the birthplace of original sin.

We're trying to redefine what it means to be a man, male versus female. And I think when we have that level of definitional collapse, we need to go back to forms of thinking and forms of meaning that are different, whether that is sacred, symbolic, spiritual, mythological, or religious. And going back to the source means we started with Exodus.

And the movement to the desert, to the River Jordan, is a movement from the strictures of law and architecture and ritual, right? It's all a movement out to take it out.

Oh, I mean from the conventional ones in the temple. Why is he not in the temple? Why is he in the desert? Why is he committing baptism? His movement is out from the convention. Like you were asking, why isn't he in the temple given his background? So he's moving out into nature and into... Is it a radical archaism?

That's where it's fractal. That's what Jesus does for, you know, Exodus, for Genesis. I mean, what we're seeing is everything is a relation and a fulfillment of the previous rituals.

You know, a lot of us have been going back to or come from Plato and understanding of Plato. And all sources, all stories are not necessarily equal. And the Bible, this text to me, is a story, and the Gospels in particular, they're like a story with maximal truth. pressure applied. It's like, you know, carbon turned to a diamond, where it is fractal and pure.

And also to be saved is the same thing as to be forgiven from sin in a way. So they're saved.

The amount of pressure generationally, historically, and spiritually on the story has condensed it into something that is impossible. And in some ways, the Gospels are, I think, well, in many ways, in many different ways, a perfect narrative. It's a hero story. It's structurally incredibly sound. It's shaped in extraordinary fashion, and it sets the conditions in a

thriving and freedom of differences of nearly any other story. And so why I'm here in some ways is I think what we, in the spirit that we're all here, is this is an invitation of sorts to what is a sacred text, to those who might be intellectually reluctant or even have intellectual shame about engaging with a story in a book like this.

we need a human being to stand in if Jesus is standing in for sinners that he doesn't need but to show us the path. You need another human being with enough authority to baptize him, right?

And a lot of people might be familiar with this sort of light shown through Shakespeare or blasting in the Ode to Joy or in the words of MLK, these sort of safer reflections for the Enlightenment or secular mind. And this, of course, is the rock on which Western civilization is built.

And I think we're here not just to take it seriously, but to apply our serious attention, which means radical openness and also radical judgment in holding this up as a story against which other stories should be compared if we're borrowing back to what a foundational narrative should be.

Because I think so much of this is, you know, there's so much of the gospel is around doubt. You know, it's like, you know, you go back to with Exodus where Moses says, hang on one minute, Aaron, I'm just going up the mountain and just keep things under control. And then immediately out of sight, it's like...

And so it's again and again with the Gospels, all the way through Peter denying Christ three times. I mean, it's all the way through is the doubt and the disbelief even in the face of what is.

And so I think that these intimations are also a way of, like they sort of naturally build suspense from a narrative perspective, but they also are trying to move along at a pace that human comprehension can possibly keep up with.

And I think we're also looking at this tragedy, especially in comparison to, let's say, Abraham and Isaac, where his hand is stayed and he gets to keep his son. But the actual end of the Gospels is that the same thing happens with God. He gives his, you know, like in a way... No one stays his hand. Yeah, it goes all the way through, but then he has his son, and Mary also is reunited with her son.

I think in a lot of ways, and we've discussed this a little bit, the uncertainty or the lack of consistency across the stories actually makes them more believable.

And so if we were to reconstitute something from historical memory and every detail lines up, I mean, think about like a police investigation, right?

Right, a bunch of guys in a heist and they have all the details in place, you're not going to believe them. And so part of this is it's a historical reconstitution and memory works in different ways, story works in different ways, people are writing to different aims. They had access to different sources maybe, yeah.

Well, until the ministries start, and so... I think it's also carried through though inherently in the other gospels because if Jesus is Jesus, it's not like he has another father, meaning by dint of how the characters move and progress in the other gospels, this is the only conclusion of how the birth could have happened, or else it would be misaligned.

And if it's not, the other Gospels would have something to say about it. Or everything wouldn't proceed, and everybody around it wouldn't proceed as if that were the case.

It's tied in some ways, too, with him refusing to perform carnival treks when asked. Thank you. Right. I'm not going to show proof whether it's to Satan, whether it's to others. I'm not going to perform for, like these things need to progress in their own time.

It's also an answer for the undeniable. In a way, it's the reversal of the cone, right? If a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? If the Son of God is born in a manger and there's only shepherds around, is he still the Son of God? The answer is yes.

And so it's like if you introduce it, it's almost like an enzyme. Like what's the state in which this action can be most fruitful? And so in a time when everything's filled with sin, he sends the flood. In a time when things have a level of stability and there needs to be foundations through which to... even to rise up to condemn him.

Because in utter chaos, you can't have so cleanly that the temple and the government, like every aspect of the culture fails him, so they have to be in place in order to render that judgment.