Ep 32: The End is Near?

00:00If you hear people talking about these prophecies in Revelation, in Daniel, in Ezekiel, Gog

00:08and Magog or Russia and Iran, no they're not.

00:10If you hear people talking about this to try to predict the future, they do not have the

00:17first clue what they're talking about and none of what they're saying is accurate.

00:23Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:28And I'm Dan Beacher.

00:29And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we seek to increase public access

00:34to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:39the same.

00:40How are things, Dan?

00:41Man, I'm ready to combat.

00:42I'm going into combat here.

00:44Let's do it.

00:45Let's, we're going to minimize the, the militants, the military metaphors.

00:49Okay.

00:50Some degree.

00:51But I guess I do use combat.

00:52So yeah.

00:53Fight.

00:54Confront.

00:55I could use that.

00:56Confront.

00:57Okay.

00:58We got nothing.

00:59Hard to avoid that.

01:00Yeah.

01:01All right.

01:02Yeah.

01:03It's tricky.

01:04Yeah.

01:05We're going to try not to lean too much into it then.

01:06But today's going to be a fun one.

01:07Today we're, we're, we're, we're, it's, it's end times, you know, I don't know if people

01:12are aware of this.

01:13But there are certain in the end times there are certain events occurring right now that

01:19are leading a lot of people to be talking end times talk and imagine that.

01:26Unlike, which happens like years of history, right?

01:29Exactly.

01:30Every time there's any world event, somebody's going to come up with a way to make that

01:34the end times.

01:35But we're going to be talking second coming.

01:39We're going to be talking rapture.

01:41It's going to be exciting.

01:42I'm excited about it.

01:44All right.

01:45I think we should just dive in with our new segment, X event two, X event two, which as

01:53everybody knows means after the fact this is, I feel, I feel like it's a Harry Potter

01:59spell.

02:00I'm pretty sure it's a way to not X event two, but yes.

02:09What we're talking about right now to, to launch into this is some prophecies because

02:15I wanted to get into with you, Dan, the idea of the second coming of Jesus, the thing that

02:22is talked about much, it is a very important event in Christianity and in the, the sort

02:31of, I don't want to say the lore in anyway, in the, in, in what's happening in Christianity.

02:41It's right.

02:42It's everything.

02:43It's, it's the Messiah, but, but this time in the person of Jesus or something.

02:49So let's talk about where the idea comes from, what, what it means, because there are a couple

02:58things that I find confusing about it, to be perfectly honest.

03:02And I'll, maybe I'll just point those out as we go along.

03:06Okay.

03:07So why don't you launch in and sort of give us, give us a quick primer on, on Jesus coming

03:14back.

03:15I will do my best.

03:19It's going to get complicated though, because there are the positions that Christians have

03:24had historically on this, and particularly now in the 21st century, the 19th and 20th

03:28century saw the innovation of very new approaches to this question.

03:34And so we have different categories and subcategories within subcategories of ways of thinking about

03:42this.

03:43To go back to the primary text, the, the foundation of this is what is called the Olivet Discourse

03:52from the Synoptic Gospels.

03:55This is found in Matthew 24, in Mark 13 and in Luke 21, and scholars are in pretty widespread

04:02agreement that Mark is the earliest gospel.

04:04So our earliest version of this discourse is found in Mark 13.

04:09And this is where we get the wars and rumors of wars and things like that, that are very

04:17commonly repeated every time something goes on in the Holy Land.

04:23So can you answer something for me?

04:25What is a rumor of a war?

04:26I don't know.

04:28What does that even mean?

04:29Yeah.

04:30That's, that's the King James versions rendering the word there means report, report or rumor.

04:36So you will hear wars and you will hear reports about wars.

04:41Oh, okay.

04:42Yeah.

04:43It just sounds like, it just sounds like people are like on the, on the sly.

04:47Hey, yeah.

04:48I don't know about this new war.

04:50There's a war happening.

04:51It just seems like such a weird, a weird phrasing.

04:55Okay.

04:56So, so you'll see some wars and you'll hear about other wars.

05:00Is that basically just?

05:01Yeah.

05:02Yeah.

05:03It's just kind of rhetorically.

05:04It's sort of rhetorical flourish.

05:07Okay.

05:08And the idea, and let's see, Mark 13, it starts in, in verse five, this is from the NRSV.

05:13Then Jesus began to say them, beware that no one leads you astray.

05:16Many will come in my name and say, I am he and they will lead many astray.

05:20When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

05:22This must take place, but the end is still to come.

05:25And so what we're talking about is the escaton, which is a fancy word for the end times.

05:32And so from that word, we get this idea of eschatology, which is discourse about or the

05:37study of the end times.

05:40And Christian eschatology is in many ways baffling, very complex, but it is always an

05:48attempt to try to look at the text, look at the history between the texts and now, and

05:56then try to situate ourselves within what's going on there.

06:00And there are, like I said, just different categories that people talk about.

06:06The main divisions of eschatology, and this is not my area of expertise.

06:11This is something that I know on a pretty basic academic level, but you have starting

06:17with predatorism, then futurism, and then you have historicism.

06:23And those are the three main ones, idealism is another one that's not really talked about

06:28much.

06:29And terrorism is the idea that everything that Jesus is talking about here, that all

06:32culminated with the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.

06:37Okay.

06:38So predatorism is basically, they were talking about the Jewish war and everything that was

06:43going to happen right up to Rome destroying the temple.

06:46And then everything after that is immaterial.

06:50It is not a part of, it's not a focus of those texts.

06:55And then we've got historicism, which is the idea that everything between the writing of

07:01the texts and now reflects these events.

07:05So things in the medieval period and things in late antiquity and things in the 19th century.

07:13And we're basically scattering these things out across history and saying, well, we could

07:19interpret this as an example of that.

07:22And this is where we get into idealism, which is this idea that this is all symbolic.

07:27And so these things can be repeated throughout time, because this is about empire or this

07:34is about capitalism or something like that.

07:38The beast is nation states.

07:41And so idealism is kind of like, this is all symbolic.

07:47And as this is a prophecy about this event that happened 700 years ago in history.

07:53So the first two, the predatorism, is that always?

07:57Preterism, yeah.

07:58And historicism are both claim that all of the prophecies that about the end time prophecies

08:07have already occurred.

08:09Kind of for historicism, some of it is still going on.

08:12Preterism, yes, it's all, we're well past all of that.

08:17And I get tagged in some guy on TikTok has like self published books about how everything

08:26happened in 70.

08:28And so everything else after that doesn't matter at all, it's, you know, Christianity

08:33is over kind of thing.

08:36And Christianity is over everybody go home.

08:41Yeah, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay.

08:48And then we've got futurism, which is the idea that these are all prophecies about things

08:52that are going to take place in the future.

08:55And this is probably the most among the most common today.

08:59And these are not hard and fast categories.

09:01You have kind of, you know, the edges kind of bleed into each other for a lot of folks

09:05for, for some of these, but futurism is the idea that this is about things that are going

09:10to happen in the future that's all, we're still waiting on this kind of thing to happen.

09:18So it gets even more complex when you then talk about what's going to happen in the future.

09:24Yeah.

09:25Because you've got a handful of different things that are going to happen.

09:26You have a millennium that's going to happen.

09:30And we've had a couple of those since, since the book was written.

09:33So yeah.

09:34Let's see.

09:35Yeah.

09:36You have in this case does mean a thousand years is that a thousand year.

09:41Yeah.

09:42And sometimes this is understood as a thousand year reign of Jesus on the earth.

09:46You have, you have pre-millennialism, you have a millennialism and you have post-millennial.

09:52Okay.

09:53Don't keep going into all of these categories.

09:56We're going to be here all day.

09:57Yeah.

09:58But then you've got tribulation, which is understood usually it's like a seven year period of just

10:05intense suffering and persecution and things like that.

10:10And you've got pre-trib, mid-trib and post-trib idea.

10:17And basically, yeah, we're dying here.

10:19This is how people are interpreting these texts.

10:22Jesus's second coming is going to usher in the tribulation or Jesus, and this is the rapture

10:29specifically.

10:30Jesus comes, the rapture is going to happen when Jesus comes and we'll get into that a

10:35little later.

10:36Then you have this idea that the tribulation has kind of phases, it's ebbing and flowing

10:39and right before it gets really, really bad, that's when the rapture is going to happen.

10:44And then you have the post-trib idea that the rapture happens at the end of the tribulation.

10:50And there are different ideas about what precisely the tribulation is going to mean, the relationship

10:55with the tribulation to the millennium, whether there's another second coming.

11:02And so it all gets, go ahead, I'm just, I'm trying to understand why there are these different

11:10ideas about what could happen because I know that it seems like, you know, when I've been

11:15researching this for this episode, you know, I look in first Thessalonians for and it seems

11:22like there's kind of an order of operations.

11:25It seems like things happen in an order.

11:29But you're saying that there are multiple orders being proposed.

11:33So is that because that the different authors have different orders that they've put things

11:37in?

11:38Yeah.

11:39So a while ago, I did a video where I talked about how some people talk about reading

11:43the Bible is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and you have to look at the picture

11:47on the box.

11:49And this is, this is kind of the 30,000 foot view.

11:51You have to look at the Bible as a whole in order to be able to interpret the different

11:56constituent elements.

11:59And I said, I think it's better thought of as a pile of Lego blocks.

12:04And I got, I got ridiculed for saying Legos, because just in case you were not aware,

12:10I was made abundantly aware, Lego is not does not have a plural.

12:15Yes, it does.

12:17Shut up.

12:18I'm sorry.

12:19To all of you who are very, very into the semantics of a toy to shut up, we can refer

12:28to it as Legos.

12:29Everyone does.

12:30But anyway, go on.

12:32So I suggested that it's better to think of this as a bucket of Lego bricks or blocks

12:38or what have you, where there is no, there is no design.

12:43You're putting it together to create whatever you want to create.

12:47And with the second coming, people are looking at all parts of the Bible.

12:51We've got this assumption of univocality that because it all is referring to one thing,

12:57because it is all speaking with a single unified consistent voice from a single unified consistent

13:02perspective.

13:03If anybody references the escaton in any part of the Bible, you can bring them all together.

13:10And that is going to give you the maximum coverage of what's going to happen.

13:14And so you have to triangulate what is going on from Daniel and from Ezekiel and from Isaiah

13:22two and from first Thessalonians and from Mark 13 and from Matthew.

13:26And you have to put it all together to try to figure out what's going on.

13:32And the whole time you're, you're doing this in a historical situation, you are embedded

13:38within history and so whatever's going on around you is going to inform these things.

13:43And so this is why with the horrific things that are happening in Gaza and Palestine,

13:50in Israel right now, you immediately have people going, oh, Daniel nine, Daniel nine.

13:56And we get all these different interpretations where people are going, well, the one group

14:01has to come down from the north and the other group has to come up from the south and they've

14:05got to sign a seven year peace treaty with the Antichrist.

14:11And so this is all an attempt to take this giant mass of Lego bricks and create something

14:18that is going to be rhetorical, rhetorically meaningful or useful to the groups to whom

14:24we're speaking.

14:25And so frequently, this is leaders speaking to their congregations.

14:29These are people on social media like me just crying out for attention, just wanting to

14:35remain relevant.

14:36These are people trying to combat other positions that might have more attention than their

14:41own.

14:42So whatever makes this Lego creation more meaningful or useful is going to be how they're going

14:49to do it.

14:50And because there are so many different bricks, there are so many different ways to put this

14:55together.

14:56Well, and it seems to me that like some of if there's one thing I've learned from being

15:00a part of this show and like, you know, consuming your content, it's that it was a mistake.

15:06A lot of these bricks, yes, exactly a lot of these bricks don't actually line up with

15:13each other.

15:14So you have to like hide some bricks with other bricks in order to harmonize or to come

15:19up with a single narrative that works sort of completely.

15:25Yeah.

15:26And this is something that is required for all of these renegotiations with the text.

15:31And one of the biggest things that needs to be overlooked except for the Preterist view,

15:38which only really holds if you accept this as actual real predictive prophecy.

15:44But we've got in Matthew 16, this statement, there are some standing here who will not

15:49taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

15:54And this seems to be a pretty clear prophecy on the part of the author of Matthew that this

15:59second coming, Jesus's kingdom arriving on earth will happen within the first generation

16:07of followers of Jesus.

16:09In other words, that does seem like an important point.

16:12It seems like unless those dudes are still alive, that seems pretty solid.

16:19Yeah.

16:20It seems like that.

16:21The idea here is that this is coming quickly.

16:25And this is what we see in Paul as well.

16:26Paul thinks all of this is going to happen any day now.

16:30And so we all need to be totally prepared.

16:34And it does not happen within that first generation, which requires you kind of reinterpret what

16:39Jesus is saying here.

16:40Oh, well, generation can mean the whole race of humanity or, you know, stuff like that.

16:46And so you have a bunch of reinterpretations.

16:48And then the son of man coming in his kingdom is reinterpreted.

16:51Oh, well, maybe this is a reference to Christianity taking over the Roman Empire.

16:57And now we have the kingdom that is Jesus's.

17:00Maybe it's talking about that.

17:02Maybe it's talking about Jesus's resurrection.

17:05That's Jesus coming in his kingdom.

17:07So it gets reinterpreted.

17:09And so yeah, you have the Lego block being, you know, covered by other Legos being incorporated

17:16into a different design in an effort to ensure that whatever way you put these things all

17:23together, they inform our experiences.

17:26And they help us make the text more meaningful and useful to us.

17:30Ultimately, the goal for most of these folks, spreaderism is a little bit different.

17:35But for most of these folks, the goal is to find a way to make this connect with us and

17:40help us understand how we relate to all of this and how we are a part of the story.

17:46Yeah.

17:47The idea is to extend the narrative from all the way back then down to today so we can

17:52be a part of the same story.

17:54Yeah.

17:55I hear a lot of pastors, you know, when they talk about the second coming or when they

18:00talk about the rapture or whatever, they talk about, I think there was a scripture in Thessalonians.

18:10I'm not sure where it was anyway, a scripture about be prepared, you know, be doing the

18:16work.

18:17Don't, and I hear a lot of pastors talking about don't get caught off, don't get caught

18:20off guard.

18:21Like you're not doing it.

18:22Yeah.

18:23Be, you know, and it's a good way to say like, it could happen at any time.

18:28So you got to, so you've got to be ready.

18:30There's vigilance, but it does create, I don't know, like an anxiety, we'll talk about that

18:37in the next, in the, in the second half of the show.

18:41But I just think there's a, like it's a double edged sword where yes, you're, it's a good

18:48way to say, Hey, let's all be prepared.

18:51Let's all be ready to go when, when this thing happens.

18:56And let's, let's keep our vigilance up.

18:58But also the other side of it is a massive amount of like angst about like, is it coming?

19:06Is it coming?

19:07Yeah.

19:08And that's what where we get this vigilance where we're watching every world event.

19:12Is that a rumor of a war?

19:13Is that, is that the war?

19:14Is this the one sort of thing?

19:17And yeah, and we're, we're kind of on the, on the back nine of the whole COVID thing,

19:23but you know, that was a, that was a huge part of this as well.

19:28All the pestilences.

19:29And, and we saw all the folks talking about trying to read COVID into the, the scriptures.

19:36But yeah, you've got Jesus talking about this coming like a thief in the night.

19:41And you have the, the, the virgins, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins who are not

19:47prepared for the bridegroom to show up.

19:51And I think this is particularly harmful when we take it from, Hey, be good Christians too.

19:57We need to change things so that we're prepared for this.

20:03And we need to ignore other problems because this is coming soon.

20:08Yeah.

20:09And I definitely have seen that.

20:10I've, you know, people talking about who cares about the environment or who cares about

20:14this, that and the other thing.

20:15Yeah.

20:16Jesus is coming.

20:17Yeah.

20:18And, and we see this in particularly again, going back to the horrific things happening

20:23in Gaza and Palestine in Israel right now, you see folks saying, well, the only resolution

20:30of this is Jesus, the second coming and so all these people need to get with the program

20:35and become Christians, which is phenomenally ignorant and phenomenally harmful and turns

20:41this and tokenizes the lives of these people that are being lost, that are being destroyed,

20:47that are being forever changed and turns them into just pawns in this game, this eschatological

20:53game where we get to sit back and have a front row seat to the end of the world and we're

20:59grabbing our popcorn and talking about this, like, this is something to be excited about.

21:05When the reality is, this is not the eschaton.

21:09This is just horrific, horrific suffering.

21:11Well, and this is not something we haven't seen over and over and over again.

21:17And if you're using the same images, the same, the same things happening to beat to mean this

21:24is the eschaton.

21:26This is the end times, even though it happened 100 years ago, it happened 50 years ago, it

21:32happened 300 years ago, it happened blah, blah, blah, you know, you can point to the

21:38same thing happening all the time.

21:42How is there any reason to believe that this is any different?

21:45Yeah.

21:46And so, yeah, it's kind of disgusting to see people using it in that way.

21:52Well, and I think one of the things that makes it easier to reduce to that is the fact that

21:58those events that have happened in the past, we didn't directly experience.

22:03They are entirely abstract to us.

22:06And so, it becomes easy to think about the things that we're actually experiencing right

22:11now is a lot more real as a lot more.

22:16There's a lot more of Spanish words are coming to my head, I can't remember the English words

22:23but things, there's just a lot.

22:26In fairness to you, you did just come back from England.

22:29So how would you know any English words?

22:32Yeah, well, I was more recently, though, in Germany and Amsterdam.

22:38Well, okay.

22:39Well, then the Spanish shall make sense.

22:41Yeah.

22:42So, and funny enough, I heard an awful lot of Spanish.

22:45So there it makes it, because these are things that we are actually experiencing, it makes

22:52it a lot more easy to say, this is real, everything else is conceptual is abstract.

23:01And then you have people making excuses as well and multiple fulfillments of this kind

23:05of stuff.

23:06And so, for instance, Isaiah two, verse two, where it talks about in that day, the mountains

23:12of the mountain, the Lord's house will be established in the top of the mountains and

23:16all nations will flow into it and all this kind of stuff.

23:18Within the Latter-day Saint tradition, that has had multiple fulfillments.

23:23We had prior to the church arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, that was understood to refer

23:30to the establishment of the New Jerusalem.

23:33Once we did arrive in the Salt Lake Valley, that was understood as the building of the

23:38Salt Lake Temple.

23:39And then we had the Olympics in 2002 and Gordon B. Hinckley said, "If the winter Olympics

23:48is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, that's something weird is happening."

23:53Yeah.

23:54Well, and Mitt Romney's got a prominent position in the fulfillment of that prophecy.

23:59But that was interpreted as one of the fulfillments of this prophecy.

24:03And so, you have these texts get pulled into multiple different uses, and you have multiple

24:11fulfillments of prophecy.

24:12And that brings up one of the other main texts that is used for this, which is Daniel 9,

24:17the prophecy of 70 weeks.

24:18Have you heard about this one?

24:20Yeah, and I want to get into it, but I'm going to pause us.

24:23We're going to take a quick break, come back and get some Daniel.

24:27You and I are both Daniel.

24:29We'll get some more, Daniel.

24:30It'll be a Daniel pastor a little bit.

24:32All right.

24:34We left.

24:35You were about to talk about a bunch of numbers, sevens and 70s and what?

24:39I don't know.

24:40Yeah.

24:41Daniel gets into some weird stuff.

24:42Seven.

24:44Not six.

24:45You can't even work up.

24:46You get your heart rate up in six minutes, but so we have this prophecy in Daniel 9.

24:51The first thing to note about Daniel is that this is not something written by a historical

24:57Daniel during the Babylonian exile.

24:59How dare you?

25:00This is ex-eventus, the name of the segment.

25:03Okay, fine.

25:06The book of Daniel has brought together from some traditions that were collated and finalized

25:12in the middle of the second century BCE.

25:15In fact, we can probably date it to within maybe two or three years of whatever.

25:22Wow.

25:23It was probably written around 167-ish BCE.

25:28And the reason we know this is because the story is the earlier in time it gets the closer

25:34it gets to its ostensible composition in the beginning of the Babylonian exile, the less

25:39historically accurate it is.

25:40The closer it gets to 167 BCE, the more historically accurate and the more detailed it gets.

25:48And then once we get past 167 BCE, it all falls apart, none of it is accurate.

25:54And so this is an ex-event to prophecy.

25:58We are, it is being written and most of it is being written in or being gathered and

26:02collated.

26:03Some of the traditions probably date to earlier around that time period.

26:07But we have this idea of, so this is the NRSV, Daniel 9.25, "Know therefore and understand

26:15from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an

26:19anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks.

26:22And for 62 weeks, it shall be built again with street and moat, but in a troubled time."

26:28Now this is, this is the author basically redoing the prophecy that we originally find

26:33in Jeremiah about how long the Babylonian exile is going to last.

26:38Jeremiah said it would be 70 years.

26:41And then everything would be restored.

26:45And we did come back, but during the Persian period, Israel did not become an independent

26:51kingdom all over again.

26:53So for someone from a later period, they look back on this and go, and that's not really

26:58what we were expecting to happen.

27:00So it must not have happened yet.

27:02So we're going to redo the prophecy.

27:05And now it's not just 70 years, but 70 weeks of years, which would be 70 times seven.

27:11Okay.

27:12Okay.

27:1370 weeks of years, I'm, I'm pretty sure that's not a thing, but okay, keep going.

27:18And then so we have our seven weeks and we have our 62 weeks.

27:22And then it says, "After the 62 weeks and anointed one shall be cut off and shall have

27:26nothing in the troops of the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

27:29And then he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week.

27:33And for half, and this is that seven year peace treaty that people are talking about

27:38being signed right now.

27:40Okay.

27:41So basically we got seven, 62, and then we got another week.

27:47And so that would be the 70 weeks.

27:50Now Jeremiah's prophecy was around six, supposed to be around 605, 604 BCE.

27:56Some people read this, the seven and then the 62 is back to back.

28:00I think it's more likely that they overlap.

28:03You have them running concurrently.

28:05Because if you go 62 weeks of years from 605 BCE, the beginning of this period of exile,

28:14you get 171 BCE, which is when a high priest named Onias is killed.

28:25And this is right before Antiochus Epiphanes and the Seleucid Empire comes in and rapping

28:31to Jerusalem.

28:32No idea what that is.

28:33Okay.

28:34So I'm just going to believe you, but we don't have time, we don't, we can't get into

28:40all of this.

28:41We don't have the time.

28:42Okay.

28:43So we're going to, the short, short version.

28:45Yeah.

28:46Yeah.

28:47So, so basically Daniel is writing from the late one sixties BCE and redoing the prophecy

28:55about how long the exile is supposed to last so that it is all culminating right there

29:02around 167 BCE.

29:05Okay.

29:06But now 2,167, 190, three years later, whatever, we're looking back on this again and saying,

29:18well, that didn't turn out the way they thought it was.

29:20So we're going to redo it.

29:22So it must have been about now.

29:23Yeah.

29:24Must have been about now.

29:25And so you've got all kinds of different ways to redo the math to play with these numbers

29:30to make it sound like this is all happening today.

29:33So if you hear people talking about these prophecies in Revelation, in Daniel, in Ezekiel,

29:40Gog and Magog or Russia and Iran, no, they're not.

29:44That does not work at all.

29:46If you hear people talking about this to try to suggest that try to predict the future,

29:52they do not have the first clue what they're talking about.

29:56And none of what they're saying is accurate.

29:59So there's a lot of anxiety out there about what's going on and leaning into this kind

30:06of stuff will only make the situation worse and will only spread more harmful and more

30:13problematic ideologies that are only going to make it harder and harder for us to get

30:18out of these problems and actually come up with solutions that are going to lead to

30:24a better world rather than just more anger, more anxiety, more conflict.

30:31So this is an ex event to prophecy.

30:33Don't be afraid.

30:35Well, speaking of problematic theologies, I think it's time to move on to our next segment.

30:43What is that?

30:45I don't I don't know.

30:47I don't know in Hebrew, so manna, what is it today's what is that is the Rapture and

31:00and I got to say, I, you know, I grew up in the LDS tradition that you're a part of and

31:09I never heard the word Rapture.

31:11Yeah.

31:12Never heard anything about a Rapture.

31:14And so when I started to hear that word and when I started to hear people very, very adamant

31:20about what's about to happen or about it's coming or about the Rapture, I was a confused

31:27and be couldn't really find it when I looked for it in the Bible.

31:33Like I didn't know what it was referencing.

31:36So talk us through where did where did the concept come from?

31:43Where is it in the Bible?

31:44What are we talking about?

31:45What is the Rapture?

31:46So the word Rapture comes from the Latin translation, the vulgar translation of the New

31:53Testament and specifically 1 Thessalonians 4 17, where we have this statement and reading

32:00from verse 16 to 17 from the NRSV, it says, "For the Lord Himself with a cry of command,

32:07with the archangels call and with the sound of God's trumpet will descend from heaven and

32:12the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught

32:18up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air.

32:21And so we will be with the Lord forever."

32:25So this is caught up in the clouds, baby.

32:28Caught up in the clouds.

32:29And this is appealing to imagery that is associated with storm deity imagery, basically.

32:33So the New Testament concept of Jesus coming in the clouds, that comes from Daniel 7, which

32:39itself is drawing from earlier storm deity imagery, where the storm deity was the writer

32:44of the clouds.

32:45So this goes all the way back to Baal in the second millennium BCE.

32:51And so it's going all the way down to Jesus.

32:52Jesus is coming in the clouds and it says, "We'll be caught up together."

32:57And the word there, Harpagi Sometha, has reference to being snatched, but also just being caught

33:08up to make off with someone's property by attacking or seizing, to grab or seize suddenly

33:14so as to remove or gain control, to snatch, to take away.

33:18So we who are alive, who are left, will be stolen in the clouds.

33:24That's how some people think about it.

33:25When you hear people talking about the rapture, it's like you're going to wake up one day

33:28and there are going to be a pile of clothes where--

33:30Oh, yeah.

33:31I've seen that imagery a lot.

33:33Yeah.

33:34So what this is referring to is Paul here is using imagery associated with a new sovereign's

33:41arrival to their kingdom where what would happen is when the person is approaching, the whole

33:48city comes outside the city gates and goes out front and there's a kind of reception

33:54committee out there and then they travel with the new sovereign back into the city where

34:00they take up their rule.

34:01And so Paul is kind of reorienting this vertically because our sovereign is coming from up.

34:09Right.

34:10And so--

34:11Clouds are up.

34:12Sorry.

34:13Right.

34:14So just like Jesus ascended, Jesus is going to come down.

34:15And so the idea is we're all going to rise up into the clouds to meet him, not to then

34:22take a trip in our big old rocket ship into the heavens, but to come back down with Jesus

34:28so that Jesus can take up his rule on earth in his kingdom on earth.

34:33Now this is, you know, but people reading this 2000 years later who are not familiar

34:39with these literary conventions with this imagery are not going to understand what's

34:44going on here.

34:45And so you got this guy named Darby, John Nelson Darby in the early 19th century with

34:51I believe the Plymouth brethren, if I'm not mistaken, who again, triangulating with a bunch

34:58of the other Legos that we find in the Bible, decided to try to work this into a theory

35:04about what was going to happen and came up with this idea of the rapture that this is

35:08about the people, the people who are followers of Jesus who are alive when he comes are going

35:16to be snatched away to go up to heaven with Jesus.

35:22And so this is as recent as the early 1800s.

35:26Yeah, I don't remember the exact year, but it would have been, I think the 1830s is when

35:32Darby initially came up with it.

35:37Translations of the Bible that John Nelson Darby analyzed in 1833.

35:42So yes, this is a very recent idea, you don't have any concept of the rapture for the other

35:481800 years between Jesus's death and Darby.

35:53And this wouldn't really gain a bunch of traction until it was picked up in a study Bible,

36:00the Scofield, I think it was called the Scofield Reference Bible, which was popular in the

36:06United States.

36:07And these days, most Christians around the world don't accept the rapture.

36:12It's almost entirely, it's concentrated within the United States, it's US Protestants, primarily

36:19who maintained this concept of a rapture.

36:23And speaking about the end of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century, series

36:28of books called Left Behind were very influential in kind of embedding this rapture anxiety

36:36in a whole generation of evangelicals who carried that with them to this day.

36:43Yeah, there's two sides to this coin because there's rapture delight as well.

36:48There is rapture anxiety and we should talk about that because I have spoken to many people

36:53who like for spent many years or decades of their lives just really freaked out about

37:02this idea.

37:03But other people delight in it, oh, I can't wait.

37:07I get to be caught up with Jesus and all of the sinners and all of the bad people and

37:12all the people that I fought against my whole life and all the people that I dislike and

37:17all the Democrats or whatever are going to have to stay and be in the tribulation and

37:25it's going to be awful for them and blah, blah, blah.

37:27Well, that would be the pre-trip concept of the rapture.

37:30Okay, yeah, exactly, but I mean, I think that's I think that's pretty common is that is this

37:36pre-trip idea of like, yes, every all the good people get raptured up so that they don't

37:41have to be part of the horrible tribulation, right?

37:45And then all of us sinners are going to be left here.

37:50And then, you know, the the various tortures will happen to us.

37:55And there's something there's something a little gross about just about both sides of

38:00that coin, either taking delight in it, not great.

38:03You don't look good, guys.

38:05It's not an awesome look to be delighting like that.

38:10And as we talked about, that's the same delight that people are taking when they see signs

38:16that they think are leading to the rapture, including horrific things happening.

38:21Yeah.

38:22Blood shed around the world.

38:23They're like, Oh, yeah.

38:24Yeah.

38:25Or, yeah, or or the or the, you know, the climate change or whatever, a lot of people

38:29are saying, aha, this is the prophecy is going to happen now.

38:33It's like, yeah, but you're taking delight in something that's really very scary.

38:41And then on the other side, yeah, all these poor people who live with just terrible fear

38:46that they're not going to have been good enough.

38:48They won't be caught up.

38:49They're not going to have made the cut or someone that they loved yearly won't make

38:54the cut and they'll be left to be tortured.

38:59Yeah, that's I don't think a lot of people think about when they're coming up with a

39:06lot of the rhetorical ways that they try to emphasize the importance of certain principles

39:11that we live within Christianity or whatever worldview, there are a lot of ways we try

39:17to rhetorically emphasize how important things are.

39:20And what we tend to not think about is the unintended consequences of using that rhetoric.

39:27And within the Latter-day Saint tradition, you have the idea of chastity is something

39:32that is emphasized and punctuated and rhetorically and hyperbolicly kind of centered.

39:42And so you have the whole, for those of you who are not at all familiar with the Latter-day

39:46Saint tradition, for a long time, they would tell, and I'm sure it still goes on in some

39:51parts of the United States, they would compare a young woman who has lost her virginity prior

39:59to marriage to a chewed piece of gum or to a licked cupcake or something like that.

40:05And they were like, nobody's going to want a cupcake that's already been licked or something

40:09like that, which is awful imagery anyway.

40:12But what they don't realize is that they are embedding within the psyche of these young

40:19impressionable children the notion that I am not worthy, I am not even worthy to live

40:27if this happens.

40:29And so it inevitably will for a portion of the population who then get to feel like they

40:35would be better off dead.

40:37And we've even had over the pulpit church leaders say that, you know, I one told a story during

40:47general conference about a young man who was going off to war and told his mom, I know

40:53that you would rather I come home in a box than unclean, meaning unchaste, the idea being

41:01I am not worthy to live.

41:04And you have people who take their own lives because they are riddled with that kind of

41:08stuff.

41:09And so Rapture Anxiety is another example of not thinking about the negative consequences

41:14of trying to emphasize how important these beliefs are to children.

41:19And so I wish people would think for a second about those negative consequences.

41:26So people don't have to do that.

41:28People don't have to go through that because that kind of thing can stay with somebody

41:31throughout their entire life.

41:33Absolutely.

41:35With that, I think we're going to pause, take another break and we'll be back with more.

41:42We're going to find a new a new form of Rapture Anxiety to give you.

41:45We'll we'll talk about it during the break and then we'll come back and and inflicted

41:50on you.

41:51Excellent.

41:52All right.

41:53We're back.

41:54We're talking about the Rapture.

41:56I think it's fascinating that this Rapture idea it's it's so thin.

42:03When you look at the the verses in the Bible that are used to justify this idea.

42:10It's so obvious to me, you know, I read first Thessalonians.

42:14I've read some of the other verses that people have used.

42:19It's very clear to me that that like I can see why how you could justify that concept,

42:25this concept of the of the Rapture with those verses, but I don't see how you can say with

42:34any degree of certainty that that's definitely what these verses are talking about.

42:39These verses are really oblique.

42:43You know what I mean?

42:44Yeah.

42:45You can't say absolutely.

42:48This is what this means.

42:49Yeah.

42:50In the Lego metaphor, this is a rickety tower, they have constructed and it is it is wobbling,

42:58but because it gives them a sense of exceptionalism, like, oh, we're special.

43:04We're going to be taken.

43:06That makes things particularly useful and meaningful for the in group.

43:10It's a way to kind of shore up boundaries and things like that.

43:15And it also is a very useful rhetorical tool.

43:19Are you going to be left behind or are you going to be taken with the rest of us?

43:24And it's a good way to draw a firm, hard boundary and say, you need to be on this side

43:28of the line.

43:30Everybody else is on the other side of the line.

43:31It's a very us versus them kind of approach, which for groups is very utilitarian, helps

43:42them stick together for the whole.

43:45It is phenomenally harmful, but that's something odd about so many folks who suggest that they

43:53believe everybody is a child of God, is that they are firmly set on keeping many people

43:59on the outside and keeping others on the inside, which I think leads to one of the funny approaches

44:08to the rapture.

44:09You talked about rapture anxiety.

44:10You talked about, and I forget what word you use, but rapture euphoria or fantasies or

44:16something like that.

44:17I think a wonderful response to this has been those folks who are approaching the rapture

44:24euphorically from the outside.

44:27I can't wait for all the self-righteous Christians to vanish and leave us alone.

44:34Jesus, please come take your people here.

44:37They've been really mean to us, and if you could just snatch them up, that'd be great.

44:43There's a Brigham Young quote, and I don't know the words exactly, but something to the

44:49tune of, "If Mormons go to hell, then we'll turn out the devil and make a heaven of it."

44:56I think there are a lot of non-evangelicals or atheists who are lucky.

45:02If the rapture takes all the Christians away, then earth will become heaven.

45:08Because the rapture stuff tends to be a pretty myopic, close-minded kind of insular approach

45:18to living in a world that is not ending anytime soon, at least because of anything supernatural

45:25going on, our myopia and our misanthropy might lead to us destroying it before too long.

45:34But yeah, I think the folks who pound the rapture drum, the loudest, are the ones that

45:40most people would just like to see disappear.

45:45In a good way.

45:46Go up to heaven.

45:47Do your thing.

45:48Go, go.

45:49Leave us alone.

45:50Not yourself out.

45:51Have a great time in the clouds.

45:52You'll like it.

45:53They're fluffy.

45:54Yeah.

45:55As Delta says, keep climbing.

46:00I've been on Delta planes a lot in the last couple weeks.

46:03Yes, you have.

46:04Yes, you have.

46:05I've had to stare at that motto for a while now.

46:08Wow, I'm just impressed that you haven't or confused that you haven't figured out how

46:12to tune it out completely yet because I've been on a lot too and I just, I have no idea

46:16what they say and that thing.

46:17I know I'm supposed to pay attention.

46:20All right, well, what's our final thought here?

46:25Yeah.

46:26I think the final thought is that this rhetoric does a lot of damage, not only to the psyches

46:31of new generations, people who are growing up in a time when their brains are formulating

46:39a concept of their identity and their position in the world around them.

46:43We don't want to embed that field with this idea that you could wake up and all your loved

46:53ones could be gone and you could be left behind because you rubbed one out the other

46:59day to a Katy Perry video that you saw or something like that.

47:03That kind of anxiety is so corrosive and it also interferes with our ability to govern

47:11a world where we have so many issues that we have to address to have so many people

47:17with their hands on levers of power who can say things as brainless as well.

47:24Genesis 822 says that the climate, you know, climate change is a hoax and so we're going

47:31to stand in the way of making a better world.

47:35That is so phenomenally harmful and the notion that people are giddy about people suffering

47:42and dying on the other side of the world, people that they've never met, that they will never

47:46have to think about in anything other than a purely abstract sense, that they are happy

47:52about this or that they think this is an opportunity to evangelize and to say, those Jews better

47:59become Christians soon because that's the only thing, that's the only way they're going

48:03to bring an end to this suffering, that is so unimaginably harmful.

48:08And it's not just that, it's also that they're using unrelated texts.

48:14They're using the Bible pretending like it's talking about this moment, this thing, and

48:22then saying that that's how we should structure policy, that's how we should structure our

48:28approach to a world tragedy, which leads to not caring about what the best possible outcome

48:38is for everyone involved, but rather only looking to what's the best possible outcome to make

48:45Jesus come again.

48:47And that's all they're looking to and that's, and they're pressuring, you know, they're

48:52voting for people who have that particular view, it's not a world view, it's a theological

49:00view, and they're basing their ideas of world policy and sort of international relations

49:10on something that doesn't even apply.

49:13Yeah, and this is something that we've talked about a number of times, not enough times

49:17we're going to talk about them again, but the texts have no inherent meaning, we create

49:24meaning with the texts.

49:26And so a lot of folks will respond, well, that's what the Bible says, it's the word of God.

49:30That's what the scriptures say.

49:33No, it's not.

49:34It is what you have decided will make the text most meaningful and useful to you, unfortunately,

49:41that translates into something that is harmful to the people around you because you're trying

49:48to make it most beneficial to you.

49:51And so something that it's a drama I've been beating my entire time on social media and

49:56will continue to beat nobody has any other option but to negotiate with the text.

50:03Anybody who sees the Bible as authoritative in any way, shape or form has no option but

50:07to negotiate with the text and in those negotiations, we should consider what our priorities are.

50:13Are they to structure power and values in our favor?

50:16Are they to serve our identity politics or are they to achieve some kind of progress

50:22for everybody, the people that we interact with on a day-to-day basis and the people

50:27on the other side of the planet that we will never know personally?

50:30Are we trying to help others?

50:31Are we trying to progress humanity or are we just trying to shore up our access to

50:37power and resources and ensure that people we don't want to have access to power and

50:42resources don't have it?

50:43If so, I would suggest that that is a phenomenally corrosive approach and that is a misuse of

50:50the biblical text.

50:52And so if anything else, hopefully we've shown that this approach to the rapture that is

50:58very common these days, this approach to understanding geopolitics and world events that is associated

51:04with the second coming and the rapture is not supported by data, is not supported by

51:11much at all, apart from a concern for structuring power and values.

51:15Well, and even if we say this is a valid way of interpreting these scriptures, it is a

51:27polarable defense, it is a, you know, even if we were to say that, why are you choosing

51:35that interpretation?

51:37We need to be, you absolutely must be asking yourself why you're choosing to follow one

51:44interpretation over another.

51:46And if you're, and because it is a choice to do that, because it's because just because

51:53it's a possible interpretation doesn't mean that it's the right one.

51:57And if you're doing it because it makes you feel special in your special group of elect

52:02people at the expense of a bunch of other people, I know I'm just reiterating what you're

52:08saying, Dan, I'm just saying the same thing in different words.

52:11But if you're, but I wanted to emphasize that this is a choice that you're making.

52:17And there are ugly choices, and there are good, there are lovely choices.

52:24And, and you need to ask yourself, am I making the ugly choice?

52:28Am I choosing the, an interpretation of scripture that makes me feel good at the expense of

52:37others, or should I choose a different, a different path?

52:42And I don't think people think of it as a choice.

52:44I think a lot of-

52:45I think a lot of pastors present it as facts, or whatever, a lot of, a lot of spiritual

52:51leaders present it as this, there is no choice in how we believe in what we're believing.

52:58This is the only way to think.

52:59Yeah.

53:00And it's just not true.

53:01If anybody standing over a pulpit is telling you, you have to think about it this way, or

53:05else you're not one of us, they're selling you something.

53:09And, and we've talked before about how nobody is immune from the influences of our intuitive

53:16identity politics and stuff like that, not me, not you, not anybody else.

53:20I get accused all the time of being like, yeah, well, you are too.

53:23It's like, I know, I've acknowledged that.

53:25The difference is, I would then turn around and I interrogate what I'm doing.

53:29And I try to get to the bottom of my own intuitions and what's motivating me to try

53:34and find out, is there something there that shouldn't be there?

53:37And so for those of you who were caught up in this stuff, think hard about why you're

53:42doing it.

53:43And I think you will run up against this line where you realize, I don't want to cross

53:49this line because it's going to reveal ugly things about myself.

53:54That's the line you have to cross because that's how you get over those things.

53:59That's how you heal from it.

54:00That's how you become better and you make those ugly things, not ugly things.

54:06Nobody has to go through that many times in their lives.

54:08And the people who, who, who demure the people who say, I don't want to see those ugly things

54:13about myself.

54:14Those are the folks who never remove those ugly things from themselves.

54:19So please think critically, be self critical about where these things are coming from.

54:24And let's make a better world for everybody.

54:26Can't think of a better way to end this episode.

54:31Thanks so much, Dan.

54:32I think that was amazing.

54:33Thank you.

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