I Will Have Mercy, Not Dogma

This week we're taking two topics that we've skimmed the surface of, and we're diving deep! First, we're going to figure out what the heck a Maccabee is. That is, we're covering both history and a couple of books in the apocrypha. That's right: we're discussing the Maccabean revolt. What do we know about the actual historical event? Who were the main players, and how did it all shake out? Is the story presented in the books of Maccabees true to the history? What's a Seleucid? Then, we're breaking down the Prophetic Critique, but we're doing it with a twist! Has Dan McClellan been missing something in his discussions of this concept? He was called out by a listener--will he accept the criticism, or clap back? Find Simone's critique of Dan's critique of the Prophetic Critique here: https://simonereadstexts.substack.com/p/remembering-the-prophetic-critique ---- For early access to an ad-free version of every episode of Data Over Dogma, exclusive content, and the opportunity to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly patron at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on the various social media places: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/data_over_dogma⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have you ordered Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Bible Says So⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ yet??? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 1:41Speaker 00

  I have been called out by a member of my own Patreon community. And when this individual pointed me to this, I was like, "Ah, okay, you got me."

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  And I'm Dan Beecher.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  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?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Things are good. It's a rainy day today here in Salt Lake City.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  It was snowing a minute ago.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, look, all of that is good stuff. We need-

• 2:23Speaker 00

  It is still snowing down here, a little bit.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  There you go. We, we need the moisture, so I'm, I'm happy. There's a, there's a sort of an LDS-

• 2:34Speaker 00

  That's a very Mormon turn of phrase there.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's almost a, it's a meme at this point in Mormonism, and we pray for moisture.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Yes. Precipitation is always moisture.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  That's, that's what, that's what happens when a, when a culture slash religion comes of age in a desert, I suppose.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  They kind, they, they get their own language around.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  We've got a Mormon-coded way to refer to precipitation.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Anywho, uh, things are good. So with today's show is gonna be interesting. We've got a histories mysteries. Both of the, the topics of today's show, I brought to you as things that we have mentioned several times, sort of on the journey of this podcast. And I realized that I kinda knew what they were, but we had never really like worked through them and talked about them as their own segments. So I wanted to actually know what they were. So the histories mysteries, we're gonna be talking about the Maccabean revolt. Cause if there's something, if there's one thing to be said about Maccabees, they're

• 3:44Speaker 01

  revolting. And, uh, and then we're gonna do a what's that? And we're gonna talk about the prophetic critique. And that, uh, sounds very fancy, but it's actually, it's really cool and, and interesting. And also, you're gonna bring some objections up that I haven't heard.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yes. I'm gonna, I'm gonna share criticisms from somebody who has got me dead to rights.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, this is-

• 4:10Speaker 00

  On how I have talked about the prophetic critique in the past. So this is a, this is a, maybe, maybe this will have to be a, hopefully rare, but regular feature of the Data Over Dogma podcast, where I say- You got me.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Oh, man, we could, maybe we should call the segment mea culpa.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Anyway, all right, let's, let's dive in first, though, to histories, mysteries.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  All right, so it's the, it's, I said it, it's the Maccabean Revolt.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  This, this is something that, you know, the Maccabees were never in my Bible growing up.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  First and Second Maccabees, right? Those two of them?

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Well, there, there are, I think there are seven books of Maccabees, seven or eight, as well as the Ethiopic Maccabean, which are named after the Maccabees, but are completely different texts. But the, the two, there are two that are in the Apocrypha. And then there are two more that are in like an expanded Apocrypha. And then there are like four others that are usually either in some Syriac or Arabic or Greek traditions, but are not usually recognized by most Christians or Jewish groups. But, but most folks know First and Second Maccabees, yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, most Catholic folks.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  And that was my first exposure to the books of the Maccabees, because when I was serving an LDS proselytizing mission in Uruguay, I was gifted by somebody a, a Spanish translation of the Bible, a Catholic translation, so it had the Apocrypha, and then a Spanish Bible dictionary. And I just, I devoured both. And I particularly, I was fascinated by the Apocrypha, because these were texts that just were not in the Bible that I had not grown up with, but at least become churched. That was difficult for me to say, "churched into."

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Uh, but first and second Maccabees were fascinating because it was, it was a history that I'd never heard before. Although it, I could tell that it overlapped with traditions I knew about, such as Hanukkah, which is based on a story from Maccabees.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  I just found it fascinating, but, um, but yeah, to, to understand what's going on though, we've got to go before the Maccabees, we've got to, um, cast your mind back, if you will, to, uh, the Deidoci. And, um, uh, you know that old tale from the, the sea. Uh, so when, when Alexander the Great dies, he has, uh, managed to conquer, uh, most of the known world up to the Indus River, and has this huge kingdom and drinks himself to death in Babylon or something. Uh, and then-

• 7:15Speaker 01

  He lived the dream, is what you're saying.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, he lived the dream. And then, uh, that leaves a gigantic kingdom without a clear, um, or at least without a respected, uh, line of succession. And so basically what happens is all of the generals that are leading the different parts of his army, basically plant a flag and say, "This is mine, I make this."

• 7:38Speaker 01

  They, they sort of subdivide the, the kingdom and-

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, and-

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Everybody takes a piece.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Yes, and for folks who are living in the Holy Land, they are right at the contested zone between two of the biggest of these territories.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Uh, and this is, uh, the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic kingdoms. And so these are rulers who, um, are, are fighting over this territory and it kind of goes back and forth a little bit, and we recently talked about, uh, the, um, the letter of Aristaeus and the origins of the Septuagint.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  And that was, uh, based on, uh, Alexandria, where for a time the Seleucids, uh, held sway. But, uh, one of the things that happens is the Seleucids come in and, and they're governing in, in and around Judea for a while, and-

• 8:38Speaker 00

  You have Hellenistic cultures kind of taking over. They come in and they're like, this is how we dress now. This is the food that we eat. This is the clothes that we wear. You know, this is how we leave the skin on our genitals and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, and the locals are kind of like, ew. But you do have a lot of folks who are in the, the upper echelons of society who can see the writing on the wall and they understand that, hey, we need to kind of integrate if we want to, if we want to, you know, have livable lives. And so.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Because my, sorry, my understanding is that while they were sort of under the Seleucid Empire's purview, they, they were still allowed quite a bit of autonomy. They were still, like, it was still, their rulers were still allowed to rule the area and stuff. But like, that's always, that's always a tenuous position.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Exactly. It's always the whim of the overlords could, you know, the, the winds of change might be blowing in another direction at any moment. And so you, you've got a lot of folks who want to take advantage of the opportunities provided by this vast network economically and all this kind of stuff. And so there's, there's a little, a little bit of waning of some of the Torah observance and some of the practices. You get people like, hey, we should have a gymnasium. That's kind of like, you know, that's like getting an NFL football team. You're on nap now. But, you know, you've got a, if you go participate in, in the gymnasium, you got to do so in the nude.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  And, you know, you've got kind of a conspicuous handicap.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  I was kicked out of my gymnasium for doing that.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, things, things have changed. And.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  And you basically get this internal conflict between the Hellenizers, the ones who are like, we should integrate, we should reform our culture to be in agreement with theirs, and the more traditionalists who are like, no, we've got to observe our laws and rules and we cannot integrate. And so there, it's a bit of a, you know, there's some insularity there. They're not quite separatists, but they're, they're definitely not letting their kids go and play with, with the Hellenizers. So we've got some internal conflict and then the winds of change, change, as is their, their wont. Although I've been, I've been ridiculed that, that it's, should be pronounced as is their wont. So.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Well, then how do you separate the two? Ones with an O and ones with an A. Come on.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  And we get Antiochus the fourth Epiphanes, who exceeds to Seleucid rule around 175 BCE.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Is he named Antiochus just because the, the head, the, the seat of the Seleucid power was in Antioch? I read that it was in Antioch and I just thought Antiochus, that just, is he named after the place?

• 11:51Speaker 00

  I mean, it certainly sounds like it's related. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which direction that relationship flows.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Well, some listener is going either yes, obviously, or no.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Some, some listener knows. Anyway, go on.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  And, and we have accounts of, of what happened because of Antiochus's ostensible desire to kind of mitigate the influence of, of Jewish conventions and traditions. Was, was tired of these people being their own, doing their own thing. And so accord, and, and our, our sources, our main sources for this are like first and second Maccabees. Cause they are, they are considered.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  First Maccabees more so than Second Maccabees, but to some degree Second Maccabees as well. They are considered to be pretty historical. And even Josephus is relying on, at least First Maccabees and in parts of his retelling of of that history, which is more recent than the biblical history that he's retelling. But basically, it seems that Antiochus IV banned circumcision, banned Sabbath observance, banned things like Torah study, and then apparently tried to repurpose the Jerusalem temple so that there could be Greek cults doing their thing in the temple.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  And then we also have, in this time period, you have the high priesthood is kind of, that's the main thing, that's the big leagues. And you have competing high priests, and they're starting to use, they're starting to forge political alliances. And the high priesthood is something that is going to be an installation of the Seleucid rule, rather than something that's hereditary, something that is internal. And so there begins to be a lot more friction. And the Hellenizers find themselves in kind of an unfortunate position, and the traditionalists

• 13:53Speaker 00

  are now finding themselves more directly under the boot of the Seleucid Empire, but now ready to fight back.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Do you get the sense that Antiochus was, was Antiochus trying to do something to sort of calm the tension between the Hellenizers and the traditionalists? Or was he just being a jerk? Was he just like, we're just going full Hellenizing and you guys, you guys need to just do what I say?

• 14:32Speaker 00

  I think both of the books of Maccabees present him as kind of just being a jerk, but certainly, and

• 14:39Speaker 01

  I mean, they would, wouldn't they? Like, considering the perspective from which they're being written?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  They have, they have a very distinct perspective. Do we have any Seleucid, like, documentation of this?

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  From their side?

• 14:52Speaker 00

  I'm trying to think, nothing, nothing springs to mind.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  But I do, let me think, and

• 15:03Speaker 00

  I'm, you know, there's some archaeological data from, from some of the sites and cities and things like that, but textual stuff, apart from maybe some brief inscriptions, just letting us know who was where, I don't, I don't think we have anything that represents the so lucid side of the story.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  But the Book of First Maccabees and the Book of Second Maccabees are also quite different in their kind of ideological bent, because Maccabees is more like, let's, it's trying to tell the story is in as historical a way as the author is able to, which is, you know, it's still not Herodotus, but it is, it's not Second Maccabees, because Second Maccabees is more dramatical, it's, it's more rhetorical, you've got martyrdoms, and you've got speeches, and you've got miracles and things like this, so, and, and there's

• 15:59Speaker 00

  a degree to which, First Maccabees is also more about political alliances, it's not talking about God as much, and it's, I, it is ending with trying to prop up the legitimacy of the Hasmonian dynasty, which is where this is all headed. This is going to end up with the establishment of the Hasmonian, or the Hasmenean, you know, you will hear it pronounced two different ways, dynasty, which would be when Judaism kind of is autonomous

• 16:39Speaker 00

  and free once again, and that would last for, for a handful of decades. Whereas Second Maccabees is not so much about, it's not so much a political, national manifesto as it is talking about a religious and a moral struggle, where we get these, these famous stories of the mother and her seven sons, and, and representing Antiochus as basically Satan. So, so they're, they're also not on the same page in that regard. And, and First Maccabees was probably written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. We only have it in Greek. I don't think there's anything from the Dead Sea Scrolls that preserved

• 17:21Speaker 00

  like a, like a Hebrew fragment or anything like that. I'm pretty sure of that.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  But uh

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Well, we should, we should finish the story because

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, we can finish the story.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  We, we haven't actually gotten to the revolt yet.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  So, um, anyway, we do, we have this priest who shows up, Matt Atias. And he manages to, um, in, in the story, he's supposed to perform a, a pagan sacrifice. And he refuses and then kills the guy who's trying to force him to do it. The, the official from the Seleucid Empire. And he and his sons flee into the hills and call, you know, all the, the faithful rebels to him. And his son Judah takes, uh, becomes the main general. Uh, Judah Maccabee, Judas Maccabees.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  And they lead this kind of guerrilla warfare campaign against the Seleucids. And I want to say this is 167 BCE. And, uh, and you know, the, the battles go back and forth. And, and around 164, that's when the rebels managed to capture Jerusalem. And then we have the rededication of the temple. Because meanwhile, the Seleucids have been desecrating the temple. They've got a rededicated, and we have the famous story about how the oil that was only supposed to last for one day, lasted for eight days, which allowed them to, uh, do the rededication of the temple. And thus, the, we have the celebration of Hanukkah.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Um, the, the fighting continues. Uh, what, taking the temple back doesn't end the battle. In fact, I, I want to say it continues on until, um, like the 140s. Cause it goes back and forth. The Seleucids managed to take back over some territory. Uh, you have a bit of autonomy within Judea from late 150s to like 141 BCE. And then you have, uh, a high priest appointed in 141 BCE, who, uh, institutes the Hasmonean Kingdom. And, and basically this is where they declare independence from the Seleucids.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  And so at this point, you have, you basically have a, an independent Judean kingdom all over again. Now, and everybody knows, we've been waiting for hundreds of years

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  For an independent Judean kingdom to be reestablished. And so

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Because we haven't, we haven't had that since the, uh, the, what's it called? Since

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Since the Babylonian exile.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  The exile. Thank you. Man. Don't, don't turn 50 suddenly you can't think of words anymore.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Um, and at this point, and, and something that's interesting, and one of the reasons that a lot of scholars think that the books of first and second Maccabees were probably written fairly close to what's going on, is because they treat the Romans as allies. And the Romans were allies, uh, for a while until 63 BCE, when a general named Pompey annexes Judea and basically comes in and says, this is ours now. And so the, the, the Hasmenean Dynasty kingdom lasts from 141, I think BCE, down to 63 BCE. So you got almost 80 good years of an independent Judean kingdom, which was also characterized by a lot of infighting

• 20:56Speaker 00

  and a lot of fractured, um, alliances and things like that. And, and this is also the context for, uh, the retreat of the Ascien population to Qumran.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  The real separatists. And, and there's an argument there. I think the majority of scholars would probably say that one of their main beefs was that they don't believe the Hasmenean, um, priestly line has a legitimate claim to the priesthood.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  That they, they are not, uh, because the, the, the palace and the temple were supposed to be separate. And so this kingdom was established based on the conflation of the two. This, this one family is going to take over rule of both.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Okay. So, so the, so the, the high priests at the temple are now the rulers of the people as well?

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, um, and so this is considered a no-no by, uh, by these traditionalists who run off to, to Khmeran.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  And to be clear, for those who didn't catch on to this, the Asins in Khmeran were the ones who had, who tucked away the Dead Sea Scrolls that we found.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Correct, mostly, yeah. It's, it's a lot more complicated than that, but yeah, there's, there, there, these texts are probably being brought in from, from a variety of places for a variety of reasons. And it's probably different groups over the centuries who are, are, um, stuffing them in these caves, but, but yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I think it's just one guy who collected them all and just put them in his attic and then they, they found them.

• 22:35Speaker 00

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

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I've heard the construction.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, you've heard the construction too. Uh, we're, we're finishing our basement. We're actually adding on to the house. We're, we're, um, 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, our old car and that took actual planning, which you know I hate. Um, 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 there were some bumps

• 23:27Speaker 00

  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.

• 23:51Speaker 01

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• 25:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so we've gotten rid of the sort of the Greeks, the Hellenists, the whatever, and now Rome's encroaching, coming from the other side, I guess.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and initially Rome is friendly toward the Hasmenean dynasty. So there's kind of a little brother, big brother thing going on there where they're friendly. And this is why the scholars think that First and Second Maccabees were written before 63 BCE, because Rome is treated as more of an ally than an enemy. If these were written after then, it would be hard for the authors to represent Rome as friendly and not as ultimately the enemies to this new kingdom that was being set up.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Sorry, I'm just gonna process one thing really quickly. The Seleucid Empire still exists, it just doesn't extend through Judah, is that right?

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Correct, although I'm not sure when the Seleucids are not gonna last for too much longer. I think they're, unless, do they, I think that 63 BCE might have been the end of the Seleucid Empire as well.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, because I think the whole Seleucid Empire is part of that annexation.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  In fact, let me take a look real quick.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, the Seleucid dynasty ends, it's dissolved around 64 BCE. They're a rump state, they're occupying a small part of Syria, and then the Roman Republic annexes them in 64 BCE under Pompey the Great. So it sounds like Rome was like, take care of the Seleucids, okay, now they're out of the way, let's take care of the Hasmeneans. So one by one, the dominos fall. So, yeah, the Seleucid were still around between 141 and 64 BCE, but they can't outlast Rome.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Those Romans.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, and this is, the Maccabean revolt is also likely the context for...

• 28:15Speaker 00

  The main apocalyptic eschatological layers of the book of Daniel, which is also primarily about the Salucid Empire, Antiochus, the Fourth Epiphanies. And only it's probably written long before First and Second Maccabees because they're still in the thick of it. And the book of Daniel is, imagines that God is going to intervene and overthrow Antiochus, the Fourth Epiphanies, which would suggest that Antiochus, the Fourth Epiphanies, has not yet been defeated or is not gone, is still in charge of the Salucid Empire

• 28:58Speaker 00

  when these, when these prophecies are being written. And this is the funny thing about these prophecies. People are like, oh, they're just so accurate that scholars just said, there's no way on earth they're, they're real because, you know, prophecy is not real. And the reality is that, no, they're inaccurate. They start to get more and more accurate to the point where it's very clear that this is an eyewitness. And then they go back to being entirely inaccurate. Once the account says, and then God showed up. Right. Which, you know, the best way to account for how that can be is that they're being written by someone who's in this specific time period right before they say God showed up. And they're, you know, the, the stuff that just happened, they can represent very accurately.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  The stuff that happened two centuries ago, they're a little fuzzy on.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  Um, but then, you know, the stuff from their own day, yeah, remarkably accurate. And then the stuff that's in their future, remarkably inaccurate, which is, which is precisely what we see. So, um, so the, uh, the abomination that makes desolation that is, you know, is going to stand in the temple and all that kind of stuff. That is supposed to be representative of Antiochus, the Fourth Epiphanies, taking over the temple and desecrating it. Using pagan offerings on the altar to desecrate the temple. So.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  So when, when people talk about Daniel and, you know, the, the 70 weeks and all that kind of stuff, uh, that all culminates in, in the Maccabean revolt. That's when, what that is looking forward to. So it is, it is not about Jesus. It's certainly not about the 21st century. So.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  That's another source that people use for trying to understand what was going on. Only it's such a difficult source to use because we're taking these eschatological prophecies and we're, and we're trying to tease out what actual historical events might be going on behind them and might be inspiring these, these prophecies that are so loosely connected to what's going on, where they're using coded language to try to refer to, to these events. So, and then you also have, there is an argument to make that part of First Enoch, particularly the animal apocalypse, might be ending with Antiochus the Fourth Epiphanies as well.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Which would put it around the same time period. So we, there seems to be a lot of apocalyptic eschatological Greco-Roman period Jewish literature that was generated in reaction to the Maccabean revolt. So it was a very literarily generative event.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  And also something that cost thousands and thousands of people their livelihoods and their very lives. So, but it's, it's such a central event to so much of what, the transition between Greco-Roman period Judaism and, you know, what would come after that.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's funny because we say Greco-Roman period Judaism. We say that, you know, you say that all the time, but it does seem like it's Greco period Judaism.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, before.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  And then Roman Judaism, and it, it seems like, it seems almost weird to combine them considering how, I mean, it, yeah, it feels like.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  It's a pretty straight pivot. Yeah, there's a clear line between the two.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  And there's, and yeah, man, and there's this group of people in the middle just getting buffeted by the waves.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  And this is also the period that's probably responsible for the rise of ideologies about resurrection and ideologies about heaven and hell. Because a lot of scholars think it's in this time period that they're contemplating, why is all this bad stuff happening to God's people? And why are we not seeing God's enemies being punished? Right. And this is when, you know, a lot of the literature that's being generated is starting to contemplate the possibility that this is being offloaded to the afterlife, where you wait until the afterlife to get your just desserts, whether for good or for bad.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  And that's why First Enoch has stuff about, you know, postmortem divine punishment, as well as postmortem divine reward. So, a very, very formulative period in the history of Judaism. And there are scholars who argue that the Hasmenean Kingdom, the rise of the Hasmenean Kingdom, might have been the catalyst for the actual formalization of the Pentateuch and its formal kind of publication, publicization, maybe even enforcement. This might be what actually results in the rise of what we can refer to as Judaism as

• 34:04Speaker 00

  an identity. Because it would be, you know, you've got a new Hasmenean Kingdom, we've restored what we have not had since the end of the 7th century BCE, the beginning of the 6th century BCE. We've got all these texts from that time period. Let's now use this as our charter myth, as our, kind of, this is the tradition that establishes our identity as a new, actual kingdom. We've done, we've restored things. And we're looking, we're reading the literature that was written hundreds of years ago, saying, oh, it's going to be so great when we restore things. And maybe the Hasmenean priests and rulers were like, that's now. So let's, let's get this literature out there and that will-

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Help shore up the identity of our people as an independent autonomous kingdom. There's an argument to make that that's when finally, everybody becomes aware of the Pentateuch and all the laws and all of these writings. Because it's in that time period, it's in the second century BCE that suddenly you start to see evidence of widespread concern for purity. And you start to see awareness of, oh, we're not supposed to eat pork. And you begin to see literature where they're suddenly debating, well, how do we reconcile? You know, parts of Deuteronomy with parts of Exodus where they they don't fit well together.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  And and so I think there's, I'm interested in seeing where the the discussion goes. But I think there's probably a good case to make that this is when the the scriptures actually become a public document and a public force within the life of Judeans. So so yeah, this is a pivotable pivotable pivotal. This is a pivotal period in the history of Judaism and would give rise to a lot of the messianic stuff that that gives rise to Christianity as well. So

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, don't can't you can't be sleeping on the Maccabean revolt.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's it now it seems very we've run out of time for this segment, but it just seems like we should be talking about why, you know, Martin Luther decided that these books shouldn't be in the Bible anymore because it just seems like that's if nothing else, at least it's got a historical grounding, you know? That's something that's something that's worth something right there.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  There's just one quick story before we before we end the in the segment. There's a part in Second Maccabees, Second Maccabees, Chapter 12. Pretty sure it's verse 42. But Judah Maccabee and his troops, they come upon some of their their other soldiers and they're dead.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  And they find that they have contraband on them. Then, under the tunic of each one of the dead, they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this was the reason these men had fallen. So, they have pagan contraband on them. And then it says, "So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge who reveals the things that are hidden, and they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  He took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of 2,000 drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a purification offering. In doing this, he acted very well and honorably taking account of the resurrection, for if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead." So, this is basically an endorsement of, or at least an acknowledgement, that the people who were in charge of the Maccabean revolt, believed that they could offer posthumous sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple

• 38:30Speaker 00

  that would result in forgiveness of the sins of dead people. So, proxy ordinances for the dead, forgiveness of sins after you've died.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Well, and the resurrection of those people.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Yes, and so, they've already died, they're gonna be resurrected. Or, at this point, maybe the resurrection is only if you're righteous. And so, they're making the offering on the behalf of already-dead people in the hopes that they can turn their fate around, even after death. And that is one of the things that I know Martin Luther didn't like about at least Second Maccabees. Whether that's the reason for the rejection of the whole apocrypha, I don't know that we can go that far. But definitely, that text was something that rubbed Martin Luther the wrong way.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  Sounded too much like purgatory.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  And also, like, you know, give us the money and you can, you can get free. Give us the money and you can even get your, your deceased ancestors out of spirit prison. So.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Fascinating. All right. Well, I think that's very handy. I can finally say that I know what we're talking about when you say things like solucids and Maccabees. That's very useful. But it's time to move on. Now we've got the, what's that?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  So the what's that that we're talking about is the prophetic critique, which sounds like something that a single prophet didn't like his food and decided to say, I, you know, if you had added a little more salt and maybe some MSG.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  No. I do not care much for the amenities. Yes, no, it's, it is not, it is not a one star review of, of the, the housing. This is a, this is a reference to something that begins with the eighth century prophets. Most, most scholars agree that there are parts of, large parts of some of the prophetic books that were actually written in the eighth century BCE by people who, who presented themselves as prophets. And a lot of the criticism in the eighth century BCE arises because of the accumulation of a lot of wealth, because the eighth century BCE is a period where we have

• 41:01Speaker 00

  unusually long reigns for kings in both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. They're reigning for like 40 years.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  And so there's a lot of stability that is achieved and this facilitates a lot of growth. There's, there's.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  The stability, meaning the reason these reigns are long is because nobody's challenging them. There's no wars. There's nothing. It's just, everybody's just chill.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and they're allowed to, to initiate a lot of economic growth. There's a lot of trade going on. Now, the northern kingdom of Israel is much larger than the southern kingdom of Judah. And there are multiple major cities. Whereas the southern kingdom of Judah, the capital city of Jerusalem, is the city. And it's just, you know, smaller villages around it where the northern kingdom of Israel has a number of, of large cities. But they're, you know, they're exporting all kinds of stuff, likely up through Phoenicia, where, and it's probably olive oil, wine, things like that, that are, that are, they're primary exports. So everybody's, not everybody, a lot of people, not a lot of people, some people are getting quite wealthy.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  The elites are getting quite wealthy. We're seeing a lot more social inequality, where you're getting more and more poor people and more and more rich people, and they're exploiting the poor. Yeah. There's land consolidation going on. You have, where everything used to be, everybody was basically, it was all subsistence living. You just grew what you needed to grow to survive. And then if you had a little bit left over to take to the market, you know, bully for you. And, but now we're having people who are loaning money. And in an economy where you have, where a lot of the resources for farming is based

• 42:52Speaker 00

  on loans, you go from a subsistence living to a command economy, where you grow what the, what your, you know, your duino, what your patron is telling you to grow.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  And one of the things that this does is it creates a more vulnerable system, because normally you would spread out what you're growing, so that if a certain crop didn't do well, it didn't do too much to you. You could, you know, you had other crops.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  You can lean on the rest of what you're doing, yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, you diversified your crops. But in a command economy, they say, no, we need more this, you're growing this and nothing but this. And then if that crop happens to fail, you're, you're in a deep. And then you've got a lot of.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  You know, usually if you were in a bad way, you could get a survival loan from your community. And these are people who who know that they could be next. And so, you know, their interest is is illegal in this time period. So there wasn't a lot of that going on in a command economy. You got to pay back the loan at the harvest time when, you know, it's worth the least and you're going to they're probably charging interest and stuff like that. So in short, the rich are getting phenomenally wealthy and the poor are getting hosed. And this is when the eighth century-

• 44:15Speaker 01

  I feel like you're trying to, I know I'm not supposed to be sitting here just drawing parallels to like now, but anyway, please continue.

• 44:31Speaker 03

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• 45:00Speaker 04

  There's all this tech shit going on right now. We have facial recognition. We have our Ring cameras giving data to police. We have the Flock safety cameras. We have Amazon Echo and all these devices that are constantly listening to us and using our data for one purpose or another. Hey, we have a national security problem. When a company like Flock turns it into this organized system that law enforcement can access.

• 45:22Speaker 05

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• 45:30Speaker 00

  So this is where the eighth century prophets step in and they start excoriating the wealthy. And it's because, but but the the interesting thing is the target of their excoriation, what they're excoriating them for. Is there offering of sacrifices and there are celebrations of the festivals and the Sabbaths and the new moons and all this kind of stuff? And so, the critique takes on an odd flavor. So, for instance, here is Amos 5, 21 through 24. "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  And the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals, I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." So, you have this contrast between, you know, all the kind of public displays of piety,

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  which are required by the law, and the righteousness and justice. And then, here we have Isaiah, the very first chapter of the book of Isaiah. Verse 11 is where this starts. "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?" And we talked in a recent episode about why it's actually "when you come to see my face."

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  "Who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more. Bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation, I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil; learn to do good. Seek justice. Rescue the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow."

• 48:07Speaker 00

  So we, again, we're condemning

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, Peter Thiel.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  We're condemning these folks who no doubt are the superstars of their society.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Well, and they're very clearly doing the religion. They're like, they're not being condemned for not doing the religion, for not, for not being participants and for there, it's quite the opposite. They're, they're, they're doing their job. I mean, I, the way that I interpret what you, the, the, what you just read, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, is just that it isn't as a condemnation of the sacrifices as much as it is a condemnation of doing the sacrifices, but not doing the, the, but not doing the righteousness that should be attendant to those sacrifices.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Right, right. And, and that's, I think, exactly what the issue is, is that according to the eighth century prophets, and this is where it starts, you do see it in like Jeremiah, you do see it in, in some of the exilic and post-exilic literature, not just Deuteronomy, Isaiah, but third Isaiah, you see it a little bit in there as well. But the idea seems to be, you are, and, and where is the passage where it says this? There's, um, there's a reference to, I think it's in Isaiah, there's a reference to grinding the faces of the poor, but the poor, the oppressed, the orphan, the widow, these always come up as kind of the canary in the coal mine of social justice.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  These are the people whose well-being is how you can tell if your society is doing well or not. And I think the condemnation of, of the, the public displays of piety is precisely because for the eighth century prophets, the purpose of the law is to generate a just and righteous society where not everybody necessarily has to be on the same footing, but everybody has to have what they need to get by. They, they need to be able to survive. They need to be able to have the things that they need and not be oppressed. And so when the wealthy are exploiting the justice system, exploiting the economy,

• 50:27Speaker 00

  exploiting the system of cult and things like that, they are basically undermining the intent of the law. They're skirting around it. They're destroying it. But at the same time, they're going out to participate in the public facing demands of the law, the demands of the law that allow them to engage in costly signaling and show everybody else out there, "Look how righteous I am. I was at the sacrifice." Like, we just had, somebody was just talking about, what's the spokesperson for the White House's name? Levitt?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, Caroline Levitt.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, came up to the podium and was like, "Did you just hear that very loud amen? Because we were just doing a prayer back then."

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  And it's like, "Why would you come out and be like, 'Could you tell we were praying? We wanted to make it very loud.'"

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Were you all able, should we go back and do our costly signaling again? Or did you catch it on mic?

• 51:26Speaker 00

  Yes. And this is a way to put on display, "Look how righteous and pious we are." When she's then going to talk about how, "No, screw all the LGBTQIA, screw the poor, screw the immigrants, screw the minorities. It's wartime, baby." That's, you know, I used to be baffled by that Buffalo Springfield song. And I forget the title. Something happened here, what it is.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  You know the old children's tale from the sea. Anyway, there's a part of the song where it goes...

• 52:08Speaker 00

  People waving signs, most of them say, "Hooray for our side."

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  And I'm like, "Wait a minute." From what I have, the way I'm reconstructing like the Vietnam War in my own memory, based on what I've heard, everybody hated the Vietnam War. And why is the song saying that most of the people are cheering it on? And now I'm realizing, well, I'm looking at so many people cheering on, and obviously asinine, unnecessary, stupid war that somebody who cannot think a half a move ahead, is started. And so, yeah, I can see it now. I get it. Thank you, Buffalo Springfield. I get it. But that's an example of this very thing,

• 52:58Speaker 00

  of performing for the public in order to advance your own standing within the social identities that are important to you, while behind their back, grinding the faces of the poor. So, yeah, and it goes on. You see it in Amos, you see it in 3rd Isaiah, you see some in Jeremiah. And you even have Hosea 6:6, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings." And how do you put on display steadfast love and the knowledge of God? Well, obviously, you create a just society.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  You will stand up for the poor, and the needy, and the oppressed, and the orphan, and the widow. And so, this passage is quoted twice in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus twice tells people to go figure out. Well, one time he says, "Go figure out what this means, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice,' and another time he talks about how they are. "They tithe mint and cumin and dill, and they leave the weightier matters of the law unfulfilled." And then quotes this, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." And the point is, if you're using religion to advance your own interests while ignoring what, you know, the weightier matters of the law,

• 54:22Speaker 00

  what it's telling you about justice, you are in violation of the whole law. And God is gonna, as the great poet said, Cut you down.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Now, having said all that, this is, this is like, this is as preachy as I get on, on social media. I, I've made, I've made a video on, on the prophetic critique a handful of times, just because I, I, like, I don't think we've, I've lived in a time where it is, what was being criticized is so abundantly on display.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Right. You agree.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  I agree with the prophetic.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Prophetic critique, as do I.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Yes. However, I have been called out by a member of my own, my own Patreon community. Somebody who wrote a wonderful,

• 55:15Speaker 00

  I was, treatise about where I've gone wrong. And when, when this individual pointed me to this, I was like, ah, okay, you got me. Because, and, and this is not, this is not something I'm unaware of. It's just something that I have neglected because I've, I've done the very thing that I've criticized others for doing, which is isolate the part of the text or the tradition that is helpful to me and my identity politics and ignoring the parts that doesn't serve that rhetorical interest or those rhetorical goals.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Because while the prophetic critique seems to be making all these very righteous kind of distinctions between where things go right and things go wrong, is that

• 56:13Speaker 00

  the people writing it also were advocating for a lot of very bad stuff. Up to and including, there was, there was a lot of ethnocentrism going on. There was a lot of maltreatment of foreigners and things like that. It's more rhetoric. The appeal to the orphan and the widow is, is more rhetoric than it is actual concern. And, and this is something that I've talked about in, in other contexts where the, the poor and the orphan and the widow and the foreigner function kind of rhetorically as the, the canaries in the coalmine. But in actual practice, they usually still get neglected by the very people who appeal to them.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  And an example that I bring up is, How the laws of Hammurabi, the prologue to the laws of Hammurabi is basically like, "Oh, Hammurabi is such a righteous king and he has made provision for the widow and the orphan." And then you can look throughout all of the laws of Hammurabi and there is nothing that provides anything for the widow and the orphan. In fact, the only time they're mentioned is when either they're being restricted or something like that is going on. So it's rhetorical and I lost sight of that when in these videos where I've talked about the prophetic critique because,

• 57:38Speaker 00

  and I want to read some from this, Simone is the name of my friend. "Remembering the prophetic critique: A response to Dan McClellan" is the title of their Substack post on this. But

• 57:56Speaker 00

  I am accused accurately of stripping context from the texts and from not paying attention to what's important about this. And I want to try to find, "Okay, the poor treatment of the most vulnerable in society might be condemned," Simone writes, "but so are foreigners in the many oracles against the nations, such as in the first chapter of Amos and throughout the rest of the prophets. And the social order envisaged as ideal is still thoroughly hierarchical, in which women serve more of a role as symbols than people. And those symbolic women are often subjected to horrific abuse. The restoration of the proper order of the world in Deuteronomy

• 58:40Speaker 00

  Isaiah involves the humiliation of the feminine Babylon and the restoration of Israel to their proper place at the height of the order of creation redeemed to serve the cult of the Creator." And you can see sexual violence is frequently used in this rhetoric about how God is going to punish the not only members of the house of Israel, but the foreigners as well, which is something that we've talked about before where-

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Is that, is that considered- A part of the prophetic critique? Or is that sort of separate? Like a separate thing that's happening alongside?

• 59:20Speaker 00

  It's happening.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  In the same books?

• 59:21Speaker 00

  It's happening alongside in the same books. So it's not necessarily that it is an element of the prophetic critique, but it is definitely the prophetic critique is being abutted to these other things.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Um, this narrative of redemption is couched in cosmogonic language, which is also an ideology of cult, hierarchy, and property relations in which God is supreme monarch and Israel, both the land and the people, are his hereditary property. It is not only the mistreatment of the vulnerable, which is a sign of cosmic imbalance, but any disruption of this entire system. And when disruption occurs, punishment is collective and brutal. And, um, don't have time, obviously, to go through the whole thing. It's, it's a pretty long post, but, um, I think it's a very insightful.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  We'll try to remember to put the, uh, the.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, we'll link to it in the, in the show notes. In the show notes, yeah. Um, and so I, I think it is an insightful, uh, critique of my misrepresentation, to some degree, of the prophetic,

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  prophetic critique.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  So, um, so I, and, and I have thanked Simone for, for pointing this out, uh, through other channels. But I think, I think it's helpful to know what the prophetic critique is, because I do think that, uh, in many ways, what was being criticized is still going on today. I, I think it is very similar to Jesus's criticism of those who, uh, stand on the, the street corner and pray to be seen of men and disfigure their faces when they fast to be seen of men so that they can get that social reward. Um, and you know, the, the Carolyn Levitt thing, you know, the first thing I thought of is when you pray, go into a closet and pray in secret.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Uh, right.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, don't come out before the cameras and say, "Did you, could you hear us praying? We just want to make clear we were praying. We can go keep praying if that." Um, but at the same time. There is, the prophetic critique is kind of self-defeating in that it is surrounded by so much that points in the opposite direction, so much maltreatment of women, of the oppressed, of widows, of the foreigner, and as well as, as she points out, whereas they point out, I'm gonna be honest here, I've never checked to see what Simone's preferred pronouns are, but when disruption occurs, punishment is collective and brutal. Punishment in this

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  time period, including punishment administered by prophets, or advocated for by prophets, was violent, was retributive, was not the kind of thing we should be advocating for. So, so I think, I think a helpful corrective, and a mea culpa, and also a thank you to Simone for, for pointing all this out so publicly, so that I could not ignore it.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I mean, okay, I, I see the point, which is that these people who are, who are pointing out vast amounts of hypocrisy are themselves hypocrites, in, in, in the sense that they are, you know, they're calling for justice over performative religion, but then they're not really that into justice.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  There's a degree to which it's, it's still just structuring power.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Right. But by the same token, the critique itself is important and valid and necessary, and we should be, we should be employing that critique of the hypocrisy of today, because there, there is the same level of like, calling on scriptures, calling on gospels, calling on religion, and saying, you know, that this is what's guiding my, my support for the maltreatment of, of my countrymen, or of people who are, you know, foreigners here, or whatever. And that is, and, and I think that it's fair to say that that is

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  a, a hypocritical position.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so. I think- We can, we can take the good from it and, and reject the bad, but, and, and I think what Simone is saying is, if we're gonna do that, we need to be transparent about the fact that we're leaving the bad. And that's what I have been leaving out.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  I have been ignoring the fact that there's an awful lot of bad. So yeah, I think, I think absolutely the, the critique can and should be leveraged. But this is a, a, um, an act of negotiation.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  This is us going into texts and saying, okay, we're, we're fiddling with it. We're gonna take this, we're gonna leave that because this is, more directly supports our rhetorical goals. And this rather undermines them or doesn't, or doesn't align with our, our morals or, or things like that. So I take the, the critique. I, I do think the prophetic critique is, is something that people should be aware of. And I, I am, I am glad that it was pointed out that I've, uh, I've been a little selective in the past in my, uh, my leveraging of the prophetic critique in light of everything that is surrounding it. And there, and there are other things that I, uh, that I didn't highlight from that, uh, from that critique. So by all means, go check it out. Uh, and, and yeah.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  And in the future, I will be more transparent when I am negotiating with the text in that way. So for those of you who are wondering, uh, or suggest that I do nothing but just, uh, be an apologist for Mormonism, or, uh, or just, or just promote, uh, you know, woke leftist ideologies. I too am willing and able to be, uh, to acknowledge when I have been, uh, when I have been wrong. And, uh, this is not the first time this happened, certainly won't be the last.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Literally the worst Mormon apologist of all time.

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think, I think, uh, Mark Hoffman beats me out to, uh, to some degree, to the degree you wanna call him a, an apologist. But these days, it seems like, uh, you're an apologist if anybody doesn't like you for whatever reason. So, um, woof, yeah. But I'm not a good apologist.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  That's it for today. If you would like to become a part of making this show happen, we sure would appreciate it. You can go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and become one of our patrons where you can get access to the, to the weekly after-party, which is a lot of fun. Dan and I talking about everything from pop culture to answering our patrons' questions and diving deep sometimes. It's really fun, really interesting stuff. So go check that out over on Patreon. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks to JJ for being our producer and thanks to all y'all for tuning in. We'll see you again next time.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  Bye, everybody.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

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