Don't be a jerk...off?

This week it's a "What's That?" double feature! First, we take on the Great Commission. Does Matthew 28 really command every believer to accost strangers on airplanes and by the baggage carousel, or is "make disciples" a whole lot narrower (and quieter) than the modern evangelists think? Then it's time for Data After Dark, where we ask whether the Bible has anything at all to say about masturbation. Spoiler: Onan isn't your guy, ritual impurity isn't the same as sin, and that "wasting seed" argument really doesn't hold up. Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/ Shop our classic collection before our old store closes: https://datadoverdogma.printful.me Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:27Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  And I'm Dan Beecher.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Things are good. We got a corker coming up. We got a fireball coming at you with this one today. I think today's show is going to be fun. The first part is what's that? And what we're going to be talking about is the Great Commission. Or is it?

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Is it all that great?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  How great is it? I don't know. We're going to get to it. We're going to figure out if you should actually be annoying people on planes about Jesus. And then, oh, we're going to get steamy, baby. It's data after dark because we're going to talk about masturbation.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Yes. Not the house and...

• 2:30Speaker 01

  This will not be instructional in nature.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yes, but we are going to talk about what's going on. Does the Bible have anything to say about this? Does the Bible care?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I am assured, or at least younger Dan was very much assured that the Bible had stuff to say about this. So we'll have to get into that in the second half of the show. But first, what's that?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  All right, so the Great Commission is what we're talking about. We'll expand on it, but I guess we're starting in Matthew 28. Is that right?

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Here we have, "The Great Commission" is the title that is generally given for it. It's an okay commission, really. I think the, you know, their earlier work was better. But anyway, this is the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. This is where they tie it all off with a neat little bow. And this happens after the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection. Verse 16 of Matthew 28, "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him they worshipped him, but they doubted." Interesting little tidbit there because some translations say, "But some doubted."

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  And others say, "But they doubted."

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's maybe we'll do a segment where we talk about that at some point.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  There are some people who are like, "No, they saw the resurrected Jesus. They can't all have doubted."

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Doubt it.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yes, that wouldn't be right. But anyway, "Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" So we're riffing on Daniel, Chapter 7. We've got this enthronement scene, basically. And Jesus in 19 and 20 says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age." And that is the end of the Gospel of Matthew. Thus passeth the Gospel of Matthew.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  So we get a nice little sign off there with Jesus's command to disciple or to make disciples of all nations.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And therein lies the grand, from the Great Commission to the grand annoyance because, oh my gosh, I can't like, I can't open TikTok anymore or, you know, or threads without seeing somebody in public at the gym or on a park bench or on an airplane, standing up and just yelling at passersby about Jesus and, you know, how important he is to their lives and whatever.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we live in a world where most people aren't aware of this.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Right, right. You're in the United States of America.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  We've heard. We got it.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I have not had that happen in an airplane. I have had it happen in an airport. I was, oh gosh, it was last year. I think it was coming back from one of our book events. But I was standing by the luggage thing, waiting for my bags and, you know, it was pretty significantly delayed. Everybody was just standing there waiting. And then some guy took the opportunity to start just evangelizing as loud as he could by luggage carousel nine in the Salt Lake International Airport. And I happened to be standing right next to the dude when he started doing this.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  And what's really funny is that somebody was so amused by this sudden public evangelizing. They took a picture and only when they posted the picture online were they like, "That's Dan McClellan right next to him." And so, and then started sharing this picture far and wide. And you see me, arms crossed, just like boring a hole into the luggage carousel with my eyes.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  So I have that memory preserved for time and all eternity.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  There you go. Okay, so is that, I guess one of my questions is, just to start this off, I read that Great Commission. I, you know, I read that moment and Jesus is talking to 11 disciples. And in a time when no one had heard, you know what I mean? Where that message had been not spread far and wide.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  So one wonders if this was a, like, it's never spoken as a commission for all good Christians to go and do. It's spoken to these guys.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, at least in the Gospel of Matthew it is. It is their commission. But usually this is understood as a commission that is generalizable to all Christians, everyone who takes up the cross of following Jesus. And it's been understood in different ways throughout the history of Christianity. And there are a couple of things to note about it. The idea of making disciples, it's usually represented as, you know, converting people, doing missionary work. But to make one a disciple doesn't really...

• 8:47Speaker 02

  I mean, it means to cause one to be a pupil, which means to

• 8:54Speaker 02

  teach, like to make someone a pupil is just to create this relationship where I'm teaching someone. And so that doesn't necessarily mean conversion per se. I mean, you could, you could make the argument that it means like a formation of someone, you're, you're turning them into a follower of Jesus, but that has more to do with, with their actions after conversion than it has to do with the actual act of conversion. But, but it's a short command.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  And it's definitely not saying, uh, you must take every opportunity to irritate passersby and people in public. It is, and, and it is on the national level. You know, make disciples of, of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. But it, it is taken up. You know, when you get into like the medieval period and, and even before the medieval period, this is understood in, in some contexts as, as a martial command. Like we're going to go into your country, we're going to convert your king.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  And then your king is then going to coerce everyone in his kingdom to convert. Like that was, that was a more direct fulfillment of, of that commission. According to medieval Christians, I think.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's a pretty effective way of doing it.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. You don't want to be one at a timing it. You just get that one guy and then he just, he just makes everybody do it.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the golden goose there. You want the, you want the ruler who then, uh, you know, forcibly converts everybody else.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  And, uh, but yeah, this, this has become an identity marker in a lot of ways. And it has been an identity marker for a long time, but it's fulfillment, I think, has taken different shapes. And so in the, like 18th and 19th centuries, when we've had, we've had these great awakenings in 1700s and then in the early 1800s. And there's been this push to, to evangelize and you've got revivals and, and all this kind of stuff. And, and now in the 20th and then 21st century, I think a lot of Christians feel like this is how their merit is tested. And it's not just, are, are you willing to toe the line?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  But fundamentally it is, are you truly converted? Because if you're, if you're truly converted and you understand the stakes and you are committed to them, then you would ostensibly be willing to just wear out your life, making sure that everyone else

• 11:52Speaker 02

  knows what's at stake and is making good decisions in relation to what's at stake.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that makes sense like that, like I, you know, one of the things that I see a lot online, again, is when someone posts their, you know, themselves hollering at strangers. And then someone else says, hey, don't do that, please.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  The frequent rejoinder is accept that I have to, because I genuinely care. And you know, for some, for some of them, I don't believe I, I like for most of it. I think it's about costly signaling, those kinds of things that we've talked about. But I, but for some, I doubt, I honestly believe that some of them, it's, uh, to them a, a sense of, uh, I'm trying to save people who, from an eternity in hell or from an, you know, from whatever imagined eternity there is, I'm just trying to get them on the right side of things as they see it. And there's some nobility in that. I can honor that.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  But it just doesn't seem like the, the way, the ways that I know that a lot of it is just the costly signaling is that they don't concern themselves with how effective their message is.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  They don't concern themselves with whether they're actually getting through to anyone.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Whether that tactic of hollering at folks is actually helpful.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's off their plate.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  It's not on me anymore.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Which, which demonstrates that, at least for those folks, it really isn't about saving souls as much as it is about checking the box.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  As much as it is about performing the, the concern. And when it comes to the folks who are so convicted of the importance of this, I think that's kind of a situational thing. I think that's a state of mind that is pretty rare. And when it happens, I, I think it's the product of some kind of,

• 14:04Speaker 02

  I, I think people try to gin up that they, they try to force that, uh, that mindset. Because, but at the same time, that's not a healthy mindset. If you, and, and I don't think people are genuinely in that state of mind for long periods of time. I think it is acute, small bursts of, ah, gotta get everybody saved. Because that's not a sustainable state of mind.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  No, it will drive you literally insane.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Even for a single day, you cannot sustain that state of mind, which I think means that people are intentionally putting themselves in that state of mind. I think as a part of the costly signaling process, because they want to feel like this is sincere.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  And so they, they kind of steel themselves and they, they try to get in, get that, um, you know, get that feeling flowing. And, uh, and, and so I think it is something that they're doing intentionally. Or if it's just a mood that hits them from time to time, I think it's probably as a result of, of putting themselves in situations, uh, where, where it's more likely to happen. But, uh, but yeah, that's, that's something you can't sustain. You, you would drive yourself despondent just by how little it actually works.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  If you are just dedicating your waking hours and all your efforts and, and time talents and energies to saving people, because you just cannot stand to think of people suffering the damnation of eternal hellfire. That, that will drive you out of your mind.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  And it does, and people get really injured by this. I mean, we have, we literally had, uh, one of our patrons, we, in our patron, patrons only content available for all patrons now on patreon.com. But we had somebody literally write into us and just say, hey, I use, I, I'm still struggling with some of these ideas because it was implanted into me from a very young age that if I, not only do I, is it my job to go out and convert people? But it, but if I fail at that, then it's my fault that that person's going to hell.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  And that's a mind bender. That, that is awful.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  That is straight up abuse.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  To, to try to, and, and it's all, it's all in an effort to try to convince people to take it seriously. But you, when it's kids, you are, you're building the foundation of their worldview and doing so in a way that they can never

• 17:01Speaker 02

  meet. They can never rise to that standard.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  And which means they are going to see themselves as, as failures. And, and that's a, I think we talked about this as well in the, uh, in the after party that we always record beforehand now, um, that, um, you know, when you build up a worldview that has hell right at your door, constantly right there as a perpetual threat, just to try to make people feel like there are real stakes.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  That is so phenomenally unhealthy. And then, and that's why you have so many people who are in such dire straits these days when it comes to, um, you know, their, their status before God, uh, their standing. And particularly when with all that's going on right now, like, uh, we're not living in a very stable country at the moment. And so this, this kind of increased, um, stress is, is, can definitely not be helpful. So, so it sounds like the, uh, the modern evangelical witnessing, evangelism, conversion stuff.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  It, it sounds like we're both pretty dedicated to the conclusion that, uh, that the, the data indicate this is something that is used as an identity marker, as a way to perform your belonging, as a way to perform your conviction, as a way to perform your commitment to the group and, and its standards. But yeah, as, as you said, if you, if it meant so much to you that you were willing to give up all your time and your, your energies and dedicate so much of your life to it, it doesn't make sense that, uh, you just accept and move on, uh, accept failure and move on so nonchalantly.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Well, or that you do, that you use tactics that very clearly no one around you is responding well to.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Like that just seems, that just seems absurd.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  So Dan, you've heard me talk ad nauseam about the fact that we've got construction going on at the house. We are-

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I've heard the construction.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you heard the construction too. We're finishing our basement. We're actually adding on to the house. We're doing some stuff in the backyard. And I was thinking the other day about how nice it was to be able to do this because we, I wanted to get a new car and I wanted to do these, these improvements to the house, but we had to pay off our old car and that took actual planning, which you know I hate. And so I really had to shift my thinking quite a bit when it came to my finances and we had to set dates and we had to create a budget and it was so satisfying to actually make a plan. And then even though it took some discipline and

• 20:10Speaker 02

  there were some bumps in the road, we actually succeeded and were able to pay off a car, got a brand new car. And it feels so relieving to know that if we actually set these goals and plan for them and stick to them, it goes from, oh, this will never end, actually feeling like you have control over stuff. And that has made a huge difference to me and to my family.

• 20:35Speaker 01

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• 23:05Speaker 01

  You did say a word that I wanted to touch on though.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  And that is the word witness, because Matthew doesn't say that word, but Acts does. And I think that that is an interesting thing, because in it, Acts, what am I in? I'm in Acts 1. Okay, very first chapter of Acts. And it says, but when you receive the power of the Holy Spirit, come, when, but you will receive the power, receive power, I can't, I'll learn to read someday, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And I thought to myself, you know, I hear evangelicals especially, talk about witnessing to people. And I don't think that

• 23:55Speaker 01

  the concept of witnessing, or being a witness in, at least as it's spelled out here, it doesn't feel to me like it's evangelizing, or it's, you know, the same as the commission. It's just,

• 24:10Speaker 01

  when someone asks, you know what I mean? Like a witness is more, is far more passive than that. When you think about someone who is a witness in a, in a, you know, in a lawsuit or whatever.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  You, you know, if someone says, hey, is Jesus cool? You say, yes, that's the job of the witness.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Always be ready to give an answer to those who, who ask.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like-

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. Do you know what, do you know what the Greek word for witness is?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Martyr.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Martus or Marty's is, Martyros, the, is the

• 24:52Speaker 02

  genitive. But yeah, that's, that's where the, the idea of a martyr comes from. This is somebody who is, who has given their witness through the sacrifice of, of their life.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  But yeah, but you're exactly right. It's one who testifies.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  In legal matters, or just generally, one who attests, testifies, witnesses.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, I mean, I feel like that, that is a much more doable commission, right there. You know, if called upon, don't deny it. You know what I mean?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, there's, there's a, there's a saying, and I don't remember if it, I have heard it attributed to Ben Franklin. I'm, I'm pretty sure that's not accurate, but maybe it was Ben Franklin. I don't know. I said, a good example is the best sermon. Like, there are a variety of ways to witness. If giving up your life is, is like the quintessential way to witness, you don't have to open your mouth to do that. You certainly don't have to play a guitar on an airplane.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  And so, being a good example, why, why can't that just be the way that you, you witness to people? Live your life in a way that people go, wow, there, they, they've got something.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  There's something special about that person.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. I want to know what that something special is. That, I think is more effective than irritating people, so that you can show off, so you can record yourself and put it on social media, or so that you can do it in front of your, your little mission group that you're, that you're traveling with, or something like that. What, we had April A. Joy talking about, they used to go to restaurants and they would try to get the server to pray with them.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  And that was how they-

• 26:46Speaker 01

  The sinner's prayer, or whatever. And then, once they said that, whether it was sincere or not, that's another soul for Jesus, they win.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  The end, or something.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  And that's, that should, that should be an adequate tip for, for your server.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Right?

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Don't get me started on that. But-

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Don't do that. Yeah, that's true. You were a server for a long time.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  You know the sting of someone stiffing you.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  No, that was the worst. There's, I remember a couple of times, we would, they had like little missionary tracts, like little pamphlets, but they were on a single piece of paper, and half of one side looked like a $20 bill.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  And so you folded it up, and you stuck it like under the glass. So it looked like there was a $20 bill sticking out from under the glass. And you open it up, the server would grab it and immediately be like, oh, it's one of those. And it would be like, you know what's worth more than $20? Your eternal soul. And, you know, and sometimes it would have a-

• 27:55Speaker 01

  By the way, anyone out there who has ever done that, you owe someone something.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Don't do that anymore. You, because if there's something that will send you to hell, stiffing a server, and then by, by lying to them and pretending that there was a $20 bill there, that's, that's, that's worthy. That'll get you to hell. I, I, I think it's interesting that there are, in, you know, when I was sort of prepping for this, one of the things that I looked at was a series of scriptures that basically said, listen, it's not the people, or at least my interpretation, and I'd like to hear your thing, but it feels like it's not

• 28:35Speaker 01

  the people that are doing the converting. You know, Paul in Corinthians says, I planted, Apollo swaddered, I don't know what that is, but God gave the growth. Or, or in Acts-

• 28:54Speaker 01

  The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. So like, it's the Lord that's doing the work.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  And it feels like that's, that takes a lot of the pressure off.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does take a lot of the pressure off. The idea being that the Spirit is what actually convicts. The Spirit is what converts. You're just, you know, the facilitator. By getting up and playing your guitar in the middle of the flight, you're bringing the Spirit in and then the people will be convicted. What baffles me, like I've increasingly, I'm seeing those kinds of videos on social media. It's like, look, the only people who are not supremely irritated by you are the people who are already followers of Jesus.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  And so who are you performing for?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Nobody's like, you know what? I've never thought about this, but she's got a point.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  My goodness, you know, I was just, I was sitting next to someone and she started yelling at everybody and it just really convinced me.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Now I feel bad about watching the boys on this flight. So I guess I should, I guess I should just go get tickets to see Young Washington. Because now, now I'm a, I'm a, yeah, red-blooded patriot who suddenly doesn't know how history works. But that's beside the point. That's the Christian nationalist part, which so frequently attends a lot of what's going on here, is not, is not central to the Great Commission, but.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  So I guess, I guess part of the thing for me is, if looking at the world as it is, especially the United States or, you know, predominantly Christian societies. Is the Great Commission even relevant to life here? Is one of my questions.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  I think that it is, it is relevant because it is an important and essential identity marker.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  It is, I don't think it is particularly, if we're just looking at

• 31:05Speaker 02

  conversion rates and things like that, I don't think there's, I don't think there's a relationship, there's, I don't think there's a correlation between that kind of witnessing and what's going on. Cause the, the most effective means of, I mean, talking about the, a good example being the best sermon. I mean, the people who are converting lots of people these days are just famous people who begin to endorse Christian ideas. You get Joe Rogan, you get Jordan Peterson, you get some of these people to just be like, the Christian's got a point. And you get the, and you know, there's, there's definitely a political element to,

• 31:51Speaker 02

  to how that's working.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  But, you know, that's doing a lot more to convert

• 31:58Speaker 02

  all the cis hetero white men who, who feel like they're not that special anymore than, than any amount of singing songs on airplanes and, and by baggage carousel number 10 at the Salt Lake International Airport.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  So, um, so as a, a tool of boundary maintenance, as a tool of, of, as a credibility enhancing display, I think it's going to continue to be central. I don't think it really plays a role in, in the spread of the gospel, at least as, as evangelicals understand it. And I don't think it changes an awful lot of hearts so much as it changes

• 32:41Speaker 02

  commitment to social identities.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Well, and let's be honest, uh, it gets clicks. You know what I mean?

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  It's a, like, it's like, half of it is just, you know, angry, angry people who want you to stop and other people who are, it gets engagement.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  And on, on the internet and that's sort of, that, that may be the greater commission than Matthews is just, you know, get likes and, and comments.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  I, I've, I've been wondering if, if I were to just entirely abdicate my commitment to scholarly standards and my goals on social media. I have had people many times reach out to me and be like, you would be such an effective preacher if you just honored God on your channel and all this. And I've, I've been tickled by the thought of, like, how influential could I be if suddenly I turned into one of these folks who was, who was just out there preaching the word and, and using my, my channel to, to, you know, push Christ on, on everybody.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  I, I just have to laugh at, at the notion, but yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  The question is who, between the two of us, who could, who could get their, their, their online ministry for money better? Cause, cause the story of a former prominent atheist who then turns around and shills for Jesus.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  That plays in the pews, I'll tell you right now.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And, and, but, but also a prominent skeptic slash academic. Yeah. I, I imagine there'd be, there'd be.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Look for us to start a church sometime soon, y'all.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, if the inflation gets too bad, um, and, uh, you know, be on the lookout, cause, cause we might just have to turn heel and, uh, yeah, and go chase the, the Benjamins.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Don't tell them about this episode though.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Don't, don't, don't screw our thing over by letting, letting them know.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  What's funny is every, every time I, there are like a handful of content creators where that like all, their whole shtick is like, did we just prove God and we proved the Bible? And, and all this kind of stuff. And, uh, and every now and then I'll respond to one of these videos and there will be a comment here and there from somebody who's like, you know, I followed this person for years and they used to do another kind of content. And then at some point they just pivoted.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  And it's like, I know what point it was. It was the point at which the dollar signs started going ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching in their eyeballs. So, um.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Well, there you go. You know, this whole conversation started because I was annoyed by a meme that I saw that was, you know, the, the, the coexist thing where it's, it's, you know, all of the different religious symbols form the word coexist. And that was crossed out. And instead the word convert, uh, was, was highlighted.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  And I just thought, no, that's not the thing.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  That, yeah, it's, that's so, ah, yeah, I'm, I'm really annoyed by that. But, you know, this is going back to a kind of crusade style Christianity where, oh, it looks like the, the Turks have the Holy Land. It's time to go, uh, time to go crusading again.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Like it's a position, there's, there's been a lot of criticism of monotheism and monotheistic faiths on the ground that they don't allow for pleuroformity. Like if you truly are committed to a monotheistic faith, then everybody has to, to get on your side. Uh, and you can't allow people to not be on your side. That's been a criticism that has been leveled by some folks. I don't think it's, it's, um, that accurate, but, uh, you know, there is a logic to it. And when Christians do that kind of stuff,

• 36:57Speaker 02

  it kind of makes me sympathize with the people who get the ick from, from the idea of monotheism. So.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Well, uh, no, the answer is do coexist, everyone.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  And, uh, don't yell at anyone on airplanes, please.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  All right. Well, let's move on to Data After Dark.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  All right, Dan.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  The first thing that I thought of when we, when we, you know, when you suggested that we would do masturbation on the show, not do masturbation on the show, but rather discuss the concept of masturbation.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Look for the data, the data over Dogma OnlyFans coming soon, but it's not up yet. So, uh, so we'll, we'll, we'll just talk about the concept. And of course my brain went immediately to Onan and Genesis 38.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  And I don't, and, and I went and revisited that story. And, you know, we've talked about Onan before on the show. It's not about masturbation.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  No, no, it's not.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  That's not the problem.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Although it is, I think there, somebody said there are some languages where, um, Onan has become a euphemism or the, the term to refer to masturbation.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, Onanism is masturbation in sort of the parlance of our time.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Um, he fixes the cable. Uh, anyway, uh, no, the, and yeah, the story is just not about that. The, and it has been used as a, as a, uh, a passage that is, is thought to prohibit coitus interruptus, to prohibit, uh, any kind of birth control and to prohibit masturbation. It's just not what the discussion is about.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's nothing, it's none of those things. We talked about levirate marriage and his duty and the fact that he was not fulfilling his duty as a, as a levirate, uh, husband to his brother's wife.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  When, when God was like, I'm going to go peek in on Onan, making sure everything's going okay there and going, oh, I saw that. The whole problem was that he refused to give his new wife, his late brother's widow, a child.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  That's the problem.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Cut and dry. And also it's not masturbation to have sex with your wife.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, I don't, I'm, I'm, somebody has to have looked into this or discussed the, the, the categories here, but I'm sure that, um, completion outside of the spouse is, uh, I'm not sure that even qualifies.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  The pullout method, no, it's generally not considered masturbatory.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Right. So, so yeah, it's irrelevant. When it comes to what the Bible thinks about masturbation, that is irrelevant. And in my opinion, the Bible never addresses it. I don't see any where in the Bible that, that can plausibly be argued to be talking about self-pleasure. And, and I think there are reasons for that, but one passage that comes up, I, I think in the, in the past, I've made a video or two where I've talked a bit about this. One passage that comes up is Matthew 5:30. And, uh, it says, "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that came right after the, uh,

• 40:51Speaker 02

  After Onan?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  If, if your eye,

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it, that is the, the part where it's talking about, uh, you know, if you have, if you lusted after a woman,

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Look after a woman, yeah, yeah.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Then, then you've committed adultery in your heart, which I think is a problematic theology anyway.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, somebody, if they really want to parse that, they, they might be able to be like, look, I mean, you're usually thinking about something. When, when you've, when, when you're trying to get that engine revving, uh, you, you're looking at something or you're thinking about something. But either way, you're doing what is, uh, being referenced there. Maybe it's not your right hand. Maybe you're left-handed. Maybe, maybe you have some kind of supplementation that, um, that you're using. Uh, our, our good vice president is known to, uh, patronize, uh, furniture, uh, from what I've, from what I have heard, but,

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Allegedly, allegedly.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it, it still counts, I think, if, uh, if we want to read it that way. I don't think the author was trying to say that. Yes. This is, this is, uh, buried in a context of, um, sex, but it is primarily with a woman. And, and this brings up, uh, a point about all this. When we look at what kinds of sexual activities are prohibited throughout the Bible, overwhelmingly, they have to do with prohibited unions. What types of people are not allowed to get together? And I think the reason that masturbation

• 42:35Speaker 02

  didn't even qualify and is not even brought up is because we tend to think of, of sex as, as anything that, um, you know, has the goal of trying to achieve orgasm or arousal or something like that. I didn't think about it that way in the ancient world. Like sex was, uh, it, I think, I think one of the, the things that was always understood to be involved was a penis. Have to have a penis.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Okay, right. Which, which we now know that doesn't have to be.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't need to be in the room. But, um, the, you know, when we look at Leviticus 1820 and 20 verse 13, where we have the prohibition on a man taking the insertive role in an act of male same-sex intercourse, the very next thing that is addressed is bestiality. And the authors say, women are also prohibited from this.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  But that doesn't say anything about women when it comes to the same-sex stuff.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Um, and so I think, I think the reason, there, there are a lot of scholars who had talked about this, is that if there's no penis involved, then it doesn't even count as sex. And so lesbian, uh, female same-sex intercourse doesn't even count, so isn't even a concern, at least for the Hebrew Bible worldview. And so if it's, you know, I think if it's one person taking care of themselves, you don't have any kind of penetration of, of any part of anyone else's body. So probably similarly was just not considered sex. And

• 44:17Speaker 02

  so didn't even qualify for concern. Uh, I, I think that's probably what's going on there.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  There, there is an argument that has been made that the concern with same-sex intercourse was that it was wasting seed.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was going to get to that because there's a lot. I was shocked when I dove into this, how much I found about like purity of like, like how you, how you are made impure by an ejaculation, like how much impurity and how, how many rules there are surrounding this, you know, the, the discharge of seed.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Yes. And that, the, the only thing that we get in Leviticus is, is a nocturnal emission, which is, uh, at least in terms of, uh, yeah, there's, there's, uh, impurity associated with discharge, just like there's impurity associated with, um, with, uh, a woman's menstrual cycle.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Um, but you do have the, the references to a nocturnal emission, which is something where you're not even cognizant of, of what's going on. That's not something going on intentionally. Unless you have, unless you have an admirable grip on your, uh, you know, lucid dreaming.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  In which case, congratulations. But, um,

• 45:51Speaker 01

  That sounds amazing.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  But yeah, and then it talks about, um, impurities associated with that, but that's not a prohibition on the act.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  And so you can't really read masturbation into that and say therefore masturbation would be considered unclean or prohibited.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Uh, when, when that's clearly not what's going on.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Well, and when, you know, I'm looking at Leviticus 15, and it's saying, uh, when any man has a discharge from his member, his discharge makes him unclean. But that includes in the marriage bed. You know what I mean? Like that includes any kind of thing.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  And so, and obviously sex, it, within a marital context is not going to be prohibited or, or sinful. So it, so yeah, I mean, the fact that there is ritual impurity or uncleanness doesn't denote sin.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Right. And, and that's a very important point to make about impurity. The ritual impurity is, um, does not impute wrongdoing. It's, it's just, this is a state that, uh, that requires specific ritual act to, um, to resolve. Uh, and so yeah, there's no prohibition involved there. And, and people, scholars have pointed out, when it went, getting back to the, the same-sex intercourse thing, if the issue was the wasting of, of seed and potential progeny, we would expect masturbation to be quite explicitly prohibited.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Because that it could ostensibly be one of, you know, the most wasteful, uh, activities that an, an Israelite man could engage in when it comes to potential progeny. Uh, so you would expect that to be prohibited. And there's, it is not even addressed, which is why I think the waste, wasting seed argument doesn't really, uh, doesn't really obtain when it comes to the prohibitions on same-sex intercourse.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  That's interesting because I have read like what Aristotle said about semen and what a bunch of, you know, the ancient world, there were lots of different theories about what semen was and, you know, what, what, what it purported, you know, a lot of times it was, it was vitality, it was life force or whatever.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  That's, oh gosh. That's a deeply problematic view on, I mean, get over yourself, dude.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Oh, it still goes on today.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  If you've seen, uh, what's, uh,

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Doctor Strangelove?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Doctor Strangelove, yeah. You know that there's still people.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  I deny them my essence.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I saw a video, I saw a video today, just this morning. Somebody, somebody sent it to me and it was this guy who was talking about, here's his thing. His idea was do not cast pearls before swine. He was like, in ancient Aramaic, the word pearl was used as a metaphor for semen. So that, and, and he was like, so, and, and it was so funny. His video starts off, I, I can't remember exactly what it says. I've got to do a response to this video, but his video starts off with something about how your dick matters.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  That's how the video started off. And I was like, I'm in. I'm hooked. I'm locked in. Tell me why. And, um, but he's, the, he went on to argue that do not cast your pearls before swine is do not cast your seed before unworthy, uh, partners or things. And, and he was really-

• 49:50Speaker 01

  I was really hoping it was don't masturbate on pigs, but okay, fine.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh. Now you're making me, what's the show Black Mirror?

• 49:59Speaker 02

  I saw exactly one episode of that and it was that episode.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  And I was like, pass.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I'm done. This is over.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  But, uh, no, he was like, don't cast your pearls before digital swine.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Was where he was going with it. But, um, but yeah, that's, that's, uh, and, and it's, and the word is, uh, uh, Margalie, Margaene. Like there are a bunch of different ways it's, it's, uh, spelled in, in Aramaic. And I was looking at everything I could find on how this was used metaphorically in the ancient world. And the closest anyone ever got to what he was saying was that as a pearl is something precious, and therefore it was used metaphorically to refer to precious things, which usually meant good ideas, precious thoughts, the gospel, virginity was the closest anyone ever got to, um, something related to this guy's semen.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Um, but, but yeah, I, obviously the, and, and he, he went through the whole, this is your vitality. This is your power. This is your manliness. This is, uh, your essence and, and you know, don't waste it and they can rob you of it and all this kind of stuff. And it's just laughably, laughably bad. I've got to do a response to that video.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's so funny how, I mean, I get it in the sense that it, it feels good to lionize and make yourself seem cool and big.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  And make, and so important.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  And for the, and for millennia, women were considered vessels. And this emission from men was considered the life force. And so the man was the one who responds, who was responsible for this other human being placed into this vessel.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  And I think it was a real blow to a lot of people when we finally, shockingly recently figured out, oh, she contributes half, he contributes half. It's a 50 50 split.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Well, and, and the overwhelming majority of it goes on in her body.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  All of it goes on in her, yeah, exactly. Like all of the important moments go on in her body. And actually, you know, her stuff, yeah. It's, but it's so funny how the ancient world especially, you know, if you ever want to have some fun, look up what a homunculus was in the ancient world. But, but yeah, it's, it's just such a, it's so, it's such an, an aggrandizement of, of the male thing when the female thing is ju, when A, the male thing is just, it's just goo. It's not, it's like, it's not magic.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Your, your body's gonna, um, expel it into your sheets if, if you're not doing it anyway. So it's not, it's not, uh, anything all that special. And so if you, if you really want there to be a verse about masturbation in the Bible, just sign off on that guy's asinine theory about what pearls are, are representing.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  But yeah, other than that, I think, I don't think there's anything in there. Now, I, I will say this though, um, in the New Testament, in Paul, in Matthew, you do get the sense that sexual desire is something that is, uh, you know, you're better off without it. You, your exercise discipline, overcome the, these urges because they're the, you know, they're the artifacts of, they're the baser urges of, of living in a fleshly body. And we're trying to transcend the, the flesh. Uh, it's a, a very kind of middle platonic view of the function of sex. Um, and so I think someone like a Paul or an author of Matthew would be like, yeah,

• 54:00Speaker 02

  maybe put the stroke books away. Maybe that's not a good idea because all it's doing is, is satisfying those baser urges. So I think there's a mate, there's a, there's a mace to cake. No, there's a case to make. The dyslexia bubbles to the surface every now and then, if that, if that counts as dyslexia. But, um, there's a case to make that those authors, if you asked them about masturbation, would have been like, ew, no. But, um, at the same time, there's a case to make that when it came to what you were doing with your own self in your own shower, uh, that it was nobody else's business but your own.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  So and for every bit of sort of Pauline prudishness, you also have to contend with the fact that Song of Songs made it into the, made the final cut. You know what I mean?

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Like, like sexuality is not a decided thing, I don't think biblically.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Well, and, and a lot of the, the Paul, Pauline prudishness and, and the author of the Gospel of Matthew saying some, uh, make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, like all of that is reflecting the influence of Greco-Roman convention and philosophy. Like when, without that influence, yeah, we're, we're definitely treating sex as something natural, uh, or at least more so. Uh, you know, um, Judaism had its own, uh, before Judaism, I would say Judaism doesn't exist prior to, uh, Greco-Roman period, but, um, Judean and ancient Israelite and Judaite

• 55:40Speaker 02

  thought didn't really treat sex as, as something that was that sacrosanct. It was really relationships that were considered the most important thing. And a lot of those relationships were related to property rights, which is why women were expected to be virgins when they got married. Men, not so, not so much. It didn't really matter. Like the, the standards were different because there were kind of social contracts that were, uh, that were at play here. And the values and standards surrounding sex reflected, uh, those, those social contracts and, and values and things like that.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  So, uh, which is, yeah, I think why masturbation probably wasn't a big deal for anyone in, uh, prior to Greco-Roman period Judaism.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Well, I wish someone had told 12 year old me that because I gotta say, uh, I, that is not the messaging that I received.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Well, and that's, and that's part of the, the, the 12 year old you was not a pre-Greco-Roman Judean, um, you're a 20th century, uh, not as late 20th century as me, but a late 20th century child in America. We're, we're looking back through countless interpretive lenses that have been shellacked over the top of those ancient Judean ideologies. And that I think goes to show just how much we're negotiating with everything. When you've got the, the pre-Greek philosophical ideas and the Greek philosophical ideas in the Bible, which one takes precedence?

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Uh, you got, you got to figure out one of them's going to win out over the other.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  It's whichever, it's whichever one makes a little kid feel real, real bad. Is, is I feel like what's happening.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. The rhetorical utility, the utility of the dogma to your boundary maintenance, to your identity politics is usually going to be the deciding factor in which part of the Bible gets to be in charge and which part has to be reinterpreted.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  And so I, I think that's what's going on in, you know, high demand religions, in those religious traditions that have very, very firm boundaries and where most of what they're doing is curating those boundaries. And Mormonism in a lot of ways qualifies as one of those kinds of religions. Yeah. Every opportunity you get to try to draw up a costly signal is, is going to be exploited. And so for that reason, for a long time, masturbation has been, uh, just straight no, no. Now, when you look in early Mormonism, nobody seems to care. Nobody's talking about it. Nobody's telling their kids, hey, stop touching that.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  It's really in the 20th century, I think that it, that it, uh, becomes very acute, reaches a, a climax, so to speak. My apologies.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  God damn it.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  But I think in, in recent years, you've seen, um, a, a pulling back, a pulling out, so to speak. Again, my apologies.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  An onanism, if you will.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Related to the emphasis on this kind of stuff. And, and I, and I hope it's because people are realizing it's unhealthy, it's harmful. Uh, it's not a healthy way to think about your body and about sex. And, uh, you know, we have stories of people who've taken their own lives, children who've taken their own lives because they couldn't stop doing this thing that their church leaders and their families had convinced them, made them as bad as a murderer.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Or convinced them that they were, be better off dead.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Um, and that's so phenomenally stupid.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  It's pretty rough. It's pretty rough to, to, to put that on anybody, but a kid especially is, uh, yeah, is ill-equipped to deal with that kind, that kind, and ill-equipped to not do the, let me tell you something.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Ill-equipped to not do what they're equipped to do.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, uh, puberty, that was, uh, I was, I was not going to not do it. That's just, I mean, I tried, I tried for real, real hard, but that's a losing battle. Uh, at least for me. So there you go. All right. Well, uh, I, I'm glad to hear that our conclusion is that it's the, that the Bible is at least neutral on the, on the topic.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  Silence on it. Yeah.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Um, so it's certainly not condemnatory.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Don't, don't make, don't go out and make kids feel bad or, or, or adults. Don't make anybody feel bad about this one. All right. Well, if you would like to become a part of, uh, making this show go, you can head over to, uh, patreon.com slash data over dogma, which is where you can sign up and give us a little bit of your money. And in return you'll get access to an ad-free early version of every episode as well as,

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  you can get access to the after slash before party, which is bonus content that Dan and I do every single week. Uh, and it, we, you know, you can ask us your questions. You're likely to get an answer. So that's, uh, that's probably the only way that you're likely to get an answer from us. We're terrible in every other way. So, so that's, that's your best bet right there. Thanks so much to Roger Goudy for editing the show. Thanks for Sam, to Sam for being our right-hand man. And we will talk to you again next time.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Bye, everybody.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

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