Ep 53: The Holy Ghost (and Bears!)

00:00Here's the thing, if nothing else, bears can't kill 42 boys.

00:06Yeah.

00:07Unless they—

00:08You're going to have a couple get away, you're going to have a couple get away.

00:13Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:19And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:21And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:26the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:30the same.

00:31How are things, Dan?

00:33Oh, man.

00:34Life is good.

00:37The end of the show, we're tackling one of the things that I have been asked—we have been

00:43asked to tackle since the beginning.

00:46It is—it's not much of a tackle.

00:49It is just a—one of the weirdest stories in the book, and two little verses.

00:57Yeah.

00:58Boy, does it just throw you for a loop when you first encounter it, and then every subsequent

01:05time thereafter.

01:08So we're going to get to that.

01:09That'll be a fun chapter and verse.

01:12But first, it's a big dog.

01:14We're going—we're going heavy.

01:15We're hitting heavy.

01:16Okay.

01:17And diving into what is that?

01:20I've got an idea, but we're talking about the Holy Spirit.

01:29The Holy Spirit.

01:30God.

01:31Yes.

01:32The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

01:35And not to be confused with the Holy hand grenade, but the Spiritusantu is—I don't know

01:42how many places are named as Spiritusantu.

01:44Now that I think about it, I've been to like multiple places.

01:47I've named that, including a place in Vanuatu and Melanesia.

01:51Oh, wow.

01:52But yeah.

01:53Yeah, the Holy Spirit, let's talk a little bit about it.

01:57I'm going to actually suggest that to understand what's going on with the way the Spirit of

02:02God, the Holy Spirit is working in the Bible, we need to understand a little bit about how

02:06people conceptualize of a human spirit because it's modeled after the human spirit.

02:15And this is actually something that I discuss at some length in my book, Adonai's Divine

02:21Images, which is an open access volume that is freely available online.

02:27But one of the—

02:28You're foolishly giving it away.

02:30Just foolishly.

02:31Yes.

02:32I've gone over many times about how the only compensation that I have from that book is

02:40actually the book that I'm holding in my hand right now.

02:44The contracts that remuneration, 10 hard copies of your book, I gave nine of them away, this

02:50is all that remains.

02:52So when I spoke at a university in Kansas a couple of weeks ago, and they were like,

02:58"We'll get a bunch of your books here to sell and make you a little money."

03:01And I was like, "Not making me any money."

03:03You're like, "Okay."

03:04I don't see any of that.

03:05Do it if you want to.

03:06Yeah.

03:07It's got nothing to do with me.

03:08Yeah.

03:09So people are like, "Oh, they sold out of your book."

03:10And I was like, "You can get it for free online."

03:13You should pull a Taylor Swift and rewrite exactly the same book, and then you'll own

03:19it.

03:20Well, I actually had a bunch of people request audio versions.

03:25And I went to the publisher, and I was like, "I will record myself reading it for free.

03:29As long as I can distribute it for free."

03:32And I have not heard back from them yet.

03:35Okay.

03:36That's great.

03:37Anyway.

03:38Anyway.

03:39So once upon a time, there was this spirit thing.

03:41Yeah.

03:42So to understand this in a way that I think will be most helpful, I'm going to go all

03:47the way back to infancy because one of the cool things about human infants is that we

03:54develop quite quickly a concept of the self.

04:00And it is based on some evolutionarily installed hardware.

04:06One of these things is the mirror neuron system where we see other people moving and doing

04:12things, and we just have this kind of intuitive sense that they're like us.

04:16And so we actually learn how to move from watching other people move.

04:23And we map their movements onto our body, and then we map our movements onto their body.

04:28And we begin to perceive that we have thoughts and goals and intentions.

04:34So we're like, "I want the ball or the cookie, and I can reach my hand out to grab it."

04:39And we see other people reaching out and we're like, "Oh, they want the thing that they're

04:44grabbing for."

04:45And we begin to project the perception of goal-oriented action onto other people.

04:54And this mirror neuron system is this just awesome thing that is in our brains that helps

05:00us to learn how to do things.

05:03And we also have this thing called a teleological outlook, which is based on this idea of goal-oriented

05:08action, as this becomes more sophisticated and complex, we begin to assume that everything

05:15that we see has a purpose and a goal.

05:19And so when things happen in the world around us that we don't understand intuitively, we're

05:25like, "Oh, this happened for a reason.

05:28Some thing, someone, somebody with a mind or agency caused this to happen."

05:34And we also perceive a distinction between our intentions and our thoughts and the body,

05:41because we can hide our intentions and our thoughts.

05:43They are inside of us.

05:45They're not visible on the outside.

05:48And that contributes to a perception that the self is not the same thing as the body and

05:56that there is something inside of us that is distinguished from the body.

06:01And then we also have ideas about what are the limits of this thing, how is it contained,

06:08what happens when we die.

06:10And intuitively, we think that this thing just keeps going on.

06:15And so this is the reason that all human societies that we've ever been able to document, but

06:23most humans within them, think of the world as occupied by unseen forces and agents of

06:33some kind.

06:34And in my book, I refer to these as unseen agents.

06:38And evolutionarily, the primate that was quickest to think the rustling in the bushes might

06:45have been something with teeth passed on their genes more regularly than the one that immediately

06:52assumed it was just the wind.

06:54And so this installed in us a hyperactive agency detection.

07:00In other words, we are incredibly sensitive to the presence of agents in the world around

07:04us.

07:05Whether they're there or not, whether they're there or not.

07:08And so an interesting thing happens.

07:12The brain has a bunch of different ways.

07:14It can be queued to the presence of something and our brain kind of projects a lot of our

07:20experience of other people.

07:23And if one of those true cues gets tripped when there's nothing there, it can still seem

07:29like there's somebody there, just as real as if there actually is somebody there.

07:33This is why scary movies freak us out.

07:35And we think there's something in the shadows or why we are quick to get up the stairs out

07:41of the dark basement and stuff like that.

07:44And this contributes to the presence in all known societies of concepts of ghosts, spirits,

07:52gin, ancestors, some kind of unseen agents out there.

07:58And they're usually based on the concept of the human person.

08:02Yeah, they're an anthropomorphized concept, which it makes sense if that comes from our

08:09perception of ourselves and others.

08:12Yeah, if you start the conversation with the mirror neurons, it makes sense that the unperceived

08:18agents in the ether that we're worried about would look, think, act like people.

08:26Yeah.

08:27Yeah.

08:28And we don't confine them to bodies.

08:30And I think there are such fascinating ways that this manifests in the world today, like

08:36people who go to cemeteries and talk to the headstones of their deceased loved ones because

08:41intuitively, it just kind of makes sense that we're focused on this thing, their names

08:46on it, that this is somehow either housing their agency or it is channeling their agency

08:53or something like that.

08:57And there are a bunch of different ways that this bubbles to the surface within society.

09:02But it also means we think of people as having spirits, of having souls.

09:08And what exactly the difference between these two things is is not very clear.

09:13Right.

09:14And the exact same thing is true of the Bible.

09:16They have the ruach, which means spirit, and you have the neffesh, which means soul.

09:23More or less, it's arguable that those are adequate translations of those words.

09:27But the spirit is usually understood as kind of an animating force, whereas the soul is

09:33kind of the the life force. And then there are a bunch of other ways that parts of your

09:38body are loci or locations of agency.

09:44Yeah, I don't know that I yet appreciate the difference between the two things you described.

09:50Yeah, so and in the Bible, the spirit will, it's used synonymously with soul in a lot

09:59of places, neffesh and ruach, you'll have the same phrase where, you know, there's there's

10:05parallelism and they're used interchangeably.

10:10But the spirit is kind of like what keeps you alive, but the soul is your actual life.

10:17And so the spirit, once you die, the spirit goes away, but your soul remains.

10:23And so it's and this is the concept of life after death. There is some sense in which the

10:30locus of that person's agency continues to exist, which is why we find evidence of necromancy

10:37and ancestor cults and all this kind of stuff in the material remains of ancient Israel and

10:43Judah. And so I've seen this, you know, even people

10:46who leave their religion of their birth, I've seen plenty of people hold on to some sort

10:52of sense of spirit or ghost or, like it is a pervasive and powerful idea.

11:04Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's because it's kind of baked into our cognition. And it's

11:11not something you can just turn off. And there's been a lot of research that shows even even

11:14people who flatly reject any kind of supernatural at all, intuitively, they still feel that,

11:22even if the reflective side of their cognition can kick in and override it. Yeah, it's still

11:27just something that our brains kind of do. Yeah, they want that. Yeah, it's just it's

11:35yeah, I'm in that category. I don't believe in anything supernatural, but I yeah, you

11:42spooked me on a, on a, you know, late night when I'm alone and in the forest or whatever.

11:47Yeah, I was going to start seeing like shadows in the distance or what. Yeah. And like, I

11:55remember when I was in college before I got kicked out of the University of Northern

12:00Colorado, I walked by somebody's room and they, and there was a woman in the room who

12:07had a certain kind of perfume and I had only smelled that perfume on one other person before

12:11my entire life. And that was my high school girlfriend. And like immediately she was there.

12:18Like her presence was there because that was one of the cues in my brain for her presence.

12:25And so it's not even that it has to be supernatural. It's just how your brain kind of helps you

12:31experience the world. But so when we, when we get in the Bible, people have a Ruach and

12:37Nefesh just like God does. Right. And so in the Hebrew Bible, we have the Ruach Alohim,

12:46the, which you see in Genesis one verse two. And it's usually translated spirit of God,

12:53but both the word Ruach and Nefesh fundamentally refer to breath. Okay. And so it's kind of

13:00this sense that whatever this animating force is, whatever this life force is, it's, it's

13:05kind of conceptually represented as breath. And but it can also mean wind. So there are

13:12some people who will translate the divine wind. There are some people who will translate the

13:19wind of God or the breath of God or something like that. And so from the very beginning,

13:25this is representative of the, the animating force of God. And just like with humans where

13:32you can have spirit possession and you can have this concept that, that the soul or the

13:37spirit can leave the body. So too, God's spirit can leave their presence, their body, wherever

13:44it may be. And so that becomes kind of the active agent for God on earth. And you see

13:53this reflected in a bunch of different ways. And in the Hebrew Bible, I think one of the

13:57most fascinating ways is, is in the idea of ecstatic prophecy. And one, I think fascinating

14:03example is in first Samuel chapter 10, where Saul has been chosen to be king in Israel.

14:09And in chapter 10, verse six, you get Samuel explaining to Saul, then this from the King

14:17James version, it says, in the spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy

14:22with them and shall be turned into another man. And in the Hebrew, the verb there that

14:29is usually translated, come upon thee, Salah actually means four century into our penetrate.

14:36And so the idea is that the spirit of God is going to penetrate you. And it says, turn

14:42you into another man. And in a couple verses later, that's what happens. And it says, God

14:49gave him another heart. And basically the idea is that spirit that that animating agent

14:55of God went into Saul's body. And the heart is kind of constitutive of personhood, right

15:03for them. And so altered Saul's heart, turning him into another man and he had a new heart.

15:11But this is also what allowed Saul to prophesy. And this is, this is a static person turned

15:17him into the heart of Patrick Swayze. And that was when Whoopi Goldberg could speak on behalf

15:24of Patrick Swayze. Right. It was, it was a very intimate scene. And the righteous brothers

15:30playing in the background and everything. Yeah. But this is, this is spirit possession.

15:38This is someone else's spirit. And in this case, God's spirit is forcing entry into the

15:44person taking over executive function of their body. And and probably in the early conceptualization

15:52of ecstatic prophecy, through him on the ground, tore his clothes off. And he was probably

15:58convulsing in an ecstatic frenzy. And that was how you prophesied. It's pretty exciting

16:05stuff, man. Yeah, that's, that's what the spirit of God does in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah.

16:12And but that, that concept of this, this agent, this extension of God's agency changes as

16:23the society changes. Once we get into the Persian and the Greco Roman period, you're

16:27incorporating ideas from Persian period about dualism. You start to get in the Greco Roman

16:35period ideas about demons who are also these unseen agents. And so by the time we get to

16:40the New Testament, you have demon possession. So yeah, I presumably, if a good guy can take

16:46over your body, a bad guy can probably do it too. Exactly. And, and this is something

16:51that we see people worrying about this in what are called a magical medical texts. So they're,

16:59they're like medical textbooks and texts from the ancient world. Only it's more magic than

17:04it is medicine, but it addresses things having to do with, with the human body and pathologies

17:10and things like that. So I, I, in a previous episode of the show, I, I joked about demons

17:17getting in through the ear or during menstruation. And, and that's literally what some of these

17:23texts say is that women are particularly susceptible when their, their openings are where the,

17:32the boundaries are, you know, their integrity has been, has been compromised. And so, yeah,

17:39it's funny that a not an incorporeal entity would need a physical entrance, but there you

17:47go. That's, that's how it works. Just open a door, then in they go. And so the, you know,

17:55the ears were considered particularly susceptible to this and, and you had magical spells that

18:00you had to do to, to try to get that, get that demon out of there, kind of like, I get my

18:05left ear, like if I go swimming or anything like that, or even if I just move my head

18:09wrong in the shower, like immediately gets plugged up with water and then I've got to

18:13be like, trying to get that out. I think you mean plugged up with demons, Dan.

18:19Well, that's, that's, yeah. But a demon possessed person would never admit that. And so the,

18:29you have the, the further development of this concept of these unseen agents that can possess

18:35your executive functions and can do good or bad things to you. And by the time of the

18:39New Testament, you've got these, these demons floating all over the place, but you've also

18:43got development in the concept of God's spirit and the Holy spirit. So Guacala heem would

18:49be the spirit of God, but you all also have Guac Kodesh, which would be Holy spirit.

18:55And it's the same thing. It's God spirit, but because it's from God, it is holy. It becomes

19:03personified more and more. And this is something that you see with a lot of the, the features

19:10of deity, the aspects of deity when we get into the Greco-Roman period. So like Chochma

19:15wisdom and in Proverbs eight is personified, treated as this woman who was, you know, I

19:21was conceived back before the foundation of the, of the earth and I was birthed and all

19:26this kind of stuff. So Hochma becomes Sophia once we get into Greek and that becomes personified.

19:32And it resonates with the Greek concept of Sophia as this deity. And so you have kind

19:37of a goddess concept. And you have other things that, that are personified as well. But one

19:43of these things is, is the spirit, which comes into Greek as the pnevma.

19:47I'm trying to follow it all, man. This, this, this concept is bouncing all over the place.

19:53Yeah, it's, it's, it's such a complex thing to try to, to reduce in a, in a non erratic

20:01and chaotic way.

20:03Well, and I think that's what spawned a lot of the confusion about, about this entity,

20:12this, you know, this Holy Spirit being, and yeah, I mean, we've talked about the invention

20:20of the Trinity as a useful tool because it does seem like the Holy Spirit is both its

20:27own thing and part of God. And that, that feels confusing.

20:33Yeah. And, and you know, it is confusing. It's because it, it's such an intuitive thing

20:39in terms of if, if we just let the, the natural, intuitive cognition just kind of run wild,

20:46it's like, sure, we, we do that. It's, it's just as natural as a lot of things. It's not

20:51until we're required to like sit down and explain it. And usually it's how can you maintain

20:58these things in tension that you have to be like, well, it's, I would just check in the

21:04overhead rotary girder on like it just, you have to, you're trying to rationalize something

21:11irrational. Yeah. And it usually requires ginning up all kinds

21:15of crazy stuff. Like the, the person who talks to a headstone in a cemetery, if you were

21:20such a jerk as to go up to them and be like, why on earth would you do that? You know they're

21:25not in there. That's just a piece of rock, man. Yeah. It's like, well, what? Yeah. First

21:31of all, that's a real dick move. But, but second of all, the person's not going to be

21:35able to be like, well, you see intuitively what's going on. It's like this is, this feels right.

21:41This is just how I feel like interacting. And there's a story, I don't know if I've shared

21:47it on the, on the podcast before, but it's in my book where I talk about how, you know,

21:54the heart is still constitutive of the person even today. And so there's a story about a

21:59guy whose 21 year old daughter was killed in a car accident, but she was an organ donor.

22:03And so her heart went to another guy named Lamont. And he went to visit him and he brought

22:09a stethoscope and listen to his heartbeat. And was like, that's her heart within him holding

22:18him up. He's like, I was so glad I got to meet him and I got to spend time with my daughter.

22:24And like if you, you know, if you stuffed a microphone in that guy's face and be like,

22:28account for yourself, explain how you can think that that's your daughter in the, like, you

22:32know, they're not going to do that. Again, dick move. But also it's just kind of an intuitive

22:38thing that you just let happen and you don't worry about it. And it's so much useful to

22:44sometimes to, to just have a, an object that you can sort of imbue with, with the meaning

22:53that is useful to you that is emotionally meaningful to you. And you can just say, Hey,

22:58you know, I've, I have literally talked to my dad's, to my, to my grandparents headstone

23:04and to my dad, who is who I keep, he was cremated. So I have him at my house and I've talked

23:13to him before. And yeah, I, yeah, I mean, I don't recognize the idea that there's a spirit

23:19of him in it. I'm right. For me, it has the symbolic usefulness of like me communicating

23:25with, with my past and trying to sort of reconcile my understanding of who he was with who I am

23:31and all this other stuff. But yeah, it's like emotionally and psychologically cathartic.

23:36Yeah. And, and that ex, that intuition expresses itself in, in all kinds of different ways.

23:44And, you know, the, and, and another, another thing somebody might be, you know, if someone

23:51were such a jerk to demand an explanation, I'm sure that guy after he left, wherever

23:58Lamont was and went back home, I'm sure he still visits his daughter's grave and talks

24:03to her. It's like, but she was over there. Yeah. But she's also over here. She's in the

24:08Lamont guy. What are you talking about? Yeah. And so the, the concept of this spirit being

24:13both God and not God and being located in one spot, but also being, you know, accessible

24:21anywhere, it's just intuitively natural. And it doesn't require explanation for it to,

24:28to bubble to the surface in social interactions. It doesn't until it does. And here's the problem

24:35with, with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost is that it becomes a character. Yes. And so

24:45for instance, I recently, I was going to mention this, I recently, there was a tweet by answers

24:53in Genesis, which is Ken Ham's organization. Yeah. And it simply said, because the Holy

25:00Spirit has a mind, a will and emotions. We know that he is a person. And I thought, wow,

25:11there's a lot packed into that one. Very small sentence. And I, I tweeted back at them and

25:17was like, Hey, would you please show us where in the Bible, it says this about the Holy

25:21Spirit? I not know, like I genuinely don't know. Does the Bible say that the Holy Spirit

25:28has a mind, a will and emotions? Did they, did they respond? No, nobody responded. No

25:35response. No, no surprise there. Um, off the top of my head, I can't, I can't think of

25:39any place that there is some personification of the Holy Spirit, but it is overwhelmed.

25:45It would overwhelmingly be in poetry and in, in metaphor and stuff like that. And, and

25:54it's odd because a lot of, a lot of conservative Christians would say you can't build a doctrine

25:59off of, of, you know, like a psalm or poetry or things like that. And, and why it would

26:05be male, um, strikes me. Yeah. As a, because the words male, right? The word. Yeah, that's

26:14definitely the assumption. The word Ruach is, is feminine in Hebrew. Although in the places

26:20where it talks about spirits as actual agents, sometimes as in first Kings 22 with Maciah,

26:29it uses masculine verbs. So, um, it can conceptualize of a masculine spirit. Um, and then once

26:37you get into the Greek, I believe it's neuter. So it's in the middle. So it would actually

26:44be the third gender. If, if there you go, if the New Testament Greek, uh, were considered

26:50in errands, it would have to be something in between. Um, interesting. I was, I was mistaken,

26:57by the way, one person did, uh, answer my tweet. Okay. And mentioned John 1526, which says,

27:07when the ad, that's just the comforter. Yeah. Uh, I will send you, I will send it to you

27:13from the father, the spirit of truth, who comes from the father, he will testify on

27:18my behalf. Mm. So is that the spirit of God? Is that the same spirit? Like, you know, this

27:26says, I will send to you from the father of the spirit of truth. Is that the same thing

27:30that we're talking about? I, I think the Holy Ghost, I don't know. I, I think it treats

27:36these, these spirits. It uses different names for them, but I think it's, it's basically

27:41just dancing around the idea that this is this active agent that, that comes from God.

27:46And it's the, the comforter or the advocate, paracritos is, um, is the Greek word, which

27:53means a mediator or an intercessor or something like that. Um, and so yeah, I think it's, it's

27:59referring to God's spirit that way. But yeah, the, the fact that this actually personifies

28:06the spirit is a, is a little squishy because the, the whole idea of, of testifying, well,

28:15that's just something that, you know, the spirit could just be transmitting an understanding

28:20or a feeling to your heart. It's not like the, the comforter is sitting there and whispering

28:25into your ear. It's testimony. Um, that, that seems like a kind of squishy proof text

28:31for this notion that, um, that the spirit has a mind and emotions and a, and a hairy

28:37chest and stuff like that. That's just, well, and it's funny because the guy that tweeted

28:41that to me, I said, that doesn't say anything about a mind, a will or emotions. And he was

28:45like, oh, that's right. That's true. You got me there. Um, that was, that was the only

28:53response you got though. That was the only response I got other than a joke from a friend

28:57of mine. So, okay. Well, yeah. And someone else says, someone else pointing out that dogs

29:02have minds, wills and emotions. So I guess they're persons too. It's just, it, can you

29:08talk a little bit about, I don't know if you even know this, but it seems like the concept

29:14has evolved a lot over time. The concept of, you know, it, because it seems like most

29:21of the scriptures that I've read about the Holy Spirit are a very soft notion. Like you

29:27said, like it's this, it could be its own entity or it could just be God just sort of whispering

29:34something across the, the, the universe to you or whatever. But at some point, theologically,

29:42it became a distinct entity. It became important enough that like every Catholic, please priest

29:48blesses someone in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Yeah. Yeah. This,

29:54this seems to be a New Testament development because it's, it's treated as, but one of

29:58the things you have in, in, as you get from the Hebrew Bible into the New Testament is

30:02you have a lot of consolidation. A lot of things that are done by different figures in the Hebrew

30:07Bible or in the, uh, the Greco-Roman period Jewish literature get consolidated into individual

30:12characters. So like Satan is every bad thing that happens in the Hebrew Bible is Satan in

30:21the New Testament. Everybody from Baal to, um, in early Christianity, I would say after

30:26the New Testament, but you got Lucifer, you got the serpent, uh, you got, um, Leviathan,

30:32uh, everybody becomes Satan. And, and just like Jesus is consolidating a lot of different

30:37traditions about mediatory figures. And so what I think what you have is a lot of the

30:41different kind of, uh, personified extensions of God get consolidated in the spirit. And

30:48because it is personified and you're getting to this Christological debate where we have

30:55these big questions about Jesus's relationship with God, there were probably people saying,

31:01it says the same thing about the spirit over here. And so it became, um, rhetorically necessary

31:09to, um, create space for that additional person of the, of the Trinity and which then compelled

31:18it to be even further personified and concretized as an individual person. So I think that's

31:26contributing to the development, but certainly it is, uh, it is among the different, um,

31:33semi-autonomous agents that are discussed in Greco-Roman period Jewish literature. When

31:37you get into rabbinic stuff, you have, you like the Shekina, which is the, the presence.

31:42Uh, you have the Hochma, you have the wisdom, uh, you have the Kavod, the glory, uh, even

31:48the name of God is a kind of semi-autonomous personified entity and some literature. And

31:57so I think the spirit is just the one that became the centerpiece of this, this concept.

32:05And I think there was also, when they had three, I think they kind of felt like that

32:11completed the set. Uh, cause I, I don't think they wanted to get to, um, you know, a set

32:17of 11 different, um, entities that, that comprise this Trinity. And so because when you look

32:24at Nicaea and the Nicene Creed and the Christological arguments, the spirit is, is not the center

32:32of discussion. The spirit is kind of like, we got to have the spirit there. It's kind

32:36of a third wheel to the Trinity until subsequent centuries where it's like, it's here, we might

32:43as well deal with it. And they kind of flesh out a more full conceptualization of the spirit

32:48as the third person of the Trinity. Um, but it's, it's certainly just one of them.

32:54I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't fit into the other cat. Like father and son makes a lot

32:59of sense. That, that is a relationship that we know and understand person and spirit is

33:05a relationship that would be understandable also, though, though to separate them as different

33:11entities feels a little weird to me, but like those two relationships are nothing to each

33:18other. Like, you know, father and son and person and spirit feel like they are completely

33:24different relationships and completely different categories of relationship.

33:28And when you see Jesus talking about the spirit, particularly in the gospel of John,

33:32it's like, I'm here, the spirit can't be here. And yeah. And when I'm gone, then the spirit

33:37will be back. And so yeah, it's certainly not like the relationship that Jesus has with

33:42God is, is identical to the relationship that Jesus has with, has with the spirit. It's,

33:47it's kind of like their, uh, their, you know, competing brothers. Um, and yeah, spirit tries

33:53to show up and he's already, Jesus is already there. He's like, I wanted to go to that.

34:00You beat me. Um, and in, in Greco-Romans period Judaism, when you look in, in phyllo and things

34:05like that, you know, you have the logos, which is what Jesus, the word, which is what Jesus

34:10is identified with, but, um, you have a handful of other figures as well. And they all get,

34:18they just kind of get brushed aside in favor of the spirit, or they kind of get mushed

34:23together with the spirit. Cause like Hochma, the wisdom, um, that is, there are early Christian

34:30texts where Jesus is, is identified as Sophia as the wisdom. And there are others where

34:35the spirit is identified as Sophia. So it's, it's kind of still being worked out, uh, until

34:41you get to the councils and the, and the philosophers who are like, we're going to nail this down

34:46once and for all, we'll figure it out. Well, let's vote on it. All right. Well, uh, I'm

34:53still confused about it, but that, that gives me some, some background, some, some stuff

34:59to go on. Uh, maybe we'll come back to it. Who knows? Maybe people will have enough questions

35:03and we'll come back to it. But for now, we'll probably say, Hey, that, don't talk about

35:08that again. Don't please don't do that ever again. Please don't do that. But let's, but

35:12I'll tell you what they will be excited about bears, bears, that we're going to do a chapter

35:20in verse. So this chapter in verse, uh, we are, we are going to second Kings. Oh, I clicked

35:31away from it. Oh, what a, oh no, yeah, second Kings chapter two, uh, and this, this is one

35:39of those ones that like, I don't even know what to do. I literally, I, it's, it's a very

35:45self-contained story. Um, I'll just do the setup, uh, which is that, uh, the prophet

35:51Elijah, uh, starts off this chapter. And he, uh, he and his sidekick, Elisha are, are,

36:00you know, tooling around the various parts of the, of the ancient land, uh, prophesying

36:08as they want to do. Uh, Elijah gets in a truck and, uh, and hitches his way back home

36:16to heaven. Yeah. Uh, a fiery truck. He literally a, a chariot of fire with horses of fire,

36:25which I think, and then in a whirlwind, which that may be the coolest earthly exit that

36:32has ever occurred. Uh, and, and, and, unless you get Thanos involved or something, I don't,

36:38I don't know. Anyway, a pretty, a pretty, uh, strong exit. Yeah. But it leaves, uh, it

36:44leaves us with the, the prophet now, Elisha, who is, uh, who, who is, has some pretty big

36:50shoes to fill. Yeah. Uh, when it comes to Elijah, uh, including like just people not

36:57mixing up their names and thinking that they're the same person. So now we're on to Elisha.

37:06And the funny thing is that this section of the Bible, uh, if you look, if you're looking

37:11as I am at the NRSVUE, uh, they like to, to sort of give chapter headings or subs, like

37:19headings to subsections. Right. And this one is called Elisha performs miracles. And that

37:27sounds really nice. Yeah. It's, it's maybe not. Um, I mean, the first thing has to do

37:33with like a bowl and some salt and, uh, and then, uh, let's, you know, get making water

37:40nice, uh, which is, that's good. That's good. That's all spring. A spring that isn't, is

37:46has bad water. And then he miraculously turns it into drinkable water. That's good. Um,

37:53but the next one is a little something. Um, do you want to, do you want to read it? Do

38:02you want me to read it? What do you want to make this? I can go ahead and read it. So

38:05we're in, uh, second chain, second Kings chapter two versus 23 and 24. He went up from there

38:11to Bethel. And while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city

38:15and jeered at him saying, go away, bald head, go away, bald head. When he turned around

38:22and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord, then, which I understand. I'm just

38:26going to pause you and say as a man who, who has felt the sting of male pattern baldness,

38:32I, I am, I am understanding of him, uh, cursing them. Yeah. I just didn't know what cursed

38:40them in the name of the Lord, what the implications might mean. Then two she bears came out of

38:46the woods and mauled 42 of the boys. And then from there, he went on to Mount Carmel and

38:54uh, then returned to Samaria there. Like it is so just, just a tossed off little story.

39:03Yeah, 42 kids. Yeah. Like that bear, those bears were hungry. Not only that, they were

39:11efficient. Yes. You would think that if you've got a crowd of 42, even two bears can't like

39:19corral that many kids as they go and murder them one by one. But yeah, these, these were,

39:25uh, god bears. So they, they apparently were capable. Yeah. I, I, I wonder what it must

39:34be like to feel the power of, uh, fulfilling a curse, uh, in, in that way. I imagine it

39:42has something to do with how Mike Tyson felt in the nineties when he was sent men to the

39:48shadow realm. Um, I mean, I, it feels like, it feels like maybe this was a, don't know

39:55him own strength moment for Elisha because you gotta feel bad. He doesn't seem too upset

40:01about it. No, no, that's true. He just goes on vacation. And this is the, and this is

40:10something that a, a point I've tried to make on, on social media in the past. A lot of

40:14times when we're reading these stories and we're trying to try to understand what on

40:17earth that they mean, we try to recreate these scenarios in our head and imagine them being

40:24historical. Imagine what the characters are thinking. Imagine what's going on in the background.

40:30Imagine what other people might be thinking, which is in many cases, totally distorting

40:35things because most of these things are literary creations. They're not intended to operate

40:40on that level. Listen to every literary creation I've ever made, I at least try to think about

40:47what the characters are thinking. Well, that's, that's responsible, uh, literary creation,

40:54but sometimes what's going on on the page is the extent of, of what the author is intending,

41:01at least in terms of the details that are supposed to evoke whatever response from, from the

41:07reader. But there are some things to point out here. There's, um, there is an apologetic

41:13response that tries to understand these not as, uh, small boys as the NRSV translates.

41:20Uh, the KJV says little children. Mm. Uh, the NET says young boys. Um, this, and, and

41:30the Hebrew here is literally Naarim Katanim. And that means small boys. And the, the Naar

41:41is, is a can be everything from a newborn up to an adult, but when it talks about adults,

41:47it's usually talking about someone who is in a servile role. They're a servant or they're,

41:54uh, they have some role within either a household or a kingdom or something like that. Um, and

42:01so like in, uh, in, in what is, what does Princess Buttercup call Wesley in the beginning

42:07of Princess, but right. She calls him boy, doesn't she? Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

42:11Like it's because, you know, you're in a servile position. You're a boy. Um, even if you're

42:16an adult, but usually the, the kind of, um, generic sense is a child and everything from

42:23a newborn up to, you know, uh, someone in their late teens and making fun of a dude for being

42:28bald is a pretty childish thing to do. Yeah. And, and these are not just boys. These are

42:34little boys. So it is, is, these are young children and the idea they're, they're making

42:41fun of him. They're challenging his authority basically. Yeah. Because they're saying you're

42:47not the successor, get on out of here, uh, or, um, the way the NRSV translates it with

42:54go away. Uh, if you, some people, um, translate it, um, go up and, yeah, I think K, the, the

43:02KJV is go up that had to go up that bald head. And let me see the verb there is a la, which

43:07means go up, which, um, could be saying, Hey, follow after your predecessor. Why don't you

43:14go catch a chariot on out of here? Why don't you piece out? Right. Just like him. And so

43:20it is, in a sense, it's challenging his prophetic authority. We like our profits with hair,

43:26idiot. And, and so the, the curse is, is this, this is like a, a scary story to tell kids.

43:36Don't curse the profit or, you know, rather than a witch cooking you in an oven to eat

43:42you, it will just be some bears will come out of the woods for each you. Yeah. So it is

43:47pretty gruesome. I mean, the brothers grim got nothing on this. This is like, and, and

43:55the specific number of 42, uh, it just, it just gives it that je ne sais quoi that little

44:03bit of, uh, extra like reality because we named the number of them. It's not just random

44:11crowd. It's not just a bunch of them. It's, uh, but it's, and it's, yeah, yeah. And it's

44:16not even normally you would use 40 or 70. That's, that's kind of, you know, the, the

44:23ancient equivalent of saying a million today, like it's a, a gozillion or something. It's

44:29a, yeah, it's a fill in number for it. Like a large amount. Right. But here we got 42

44:35specifically, six times seven, which, um, the, yeah, there are debates about the significance

44:42of that. I don't think any of them, um, make any more sense than, than the others. Um,

44:50but yeah, we do have, uh, we have this weird story. Uh, that is probably a something that

44:58was circulated around the time period that these texts were coming together as just a

45:02way to, uh, to warn against challenging the authority of the prophet because, uh, of what

45:11might happen. And yeah, back then, if, if you were a young boy, there was, there wasn't

45:17really mercy to spare for you. Um, yeah, if you mocked the prophet, uh, you were going

45:24to get what you deserved. Yeah, I guess so boy between that and like ham making fun

45:30of his dad for being naked. It just feels like the Bible is very fine with disproportional

45:36punishments for seemingly, uh, minor infractions. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there, there, um, you

45:44know, nursery tales and stories where there are similar, uh, what we might consider disproportionate

45:51reactions, but, but yeah, those, those are things that definitely strike us as, as far

45:56enough outside the, the kind of ethical norm that's they are troubling. Um, yeah. Yeah.

46:03Yeah. It is. You know, it's funny because this, uh, this, you mentioned that there are,

46:09uh, like apologetic discussions of this story and you don't need them. Like this, this story

46:17doesn't prove anything negative. Like it's, you, you can't, like there's nothing in this

46:24story specifically that disproves the Bible unless you twist it this way or that way or

46:29the, you know, says something that like disproves the existence of God unless you twist it this

46:36way or that. Like it's just so gruesome. Yeah. That it feels like there's no way this could

46:43have come from, uh, a, a, a good and benevolent Lord. And I think that's why, uh, apologists

46:53feel compelled to, to try to reinterpret it is because it is something that is just used

47:00to mock the, the moral, uh, system of the God of the Bible. It's like, Hey, miners, little

47:07boys. He doesn't care. He'll kill them. Um, in fact, something I, when we were discussing

47:13the segment, I shared, um, a video, I, it just randomly showed up on, I think Twitter somewhere.

47:21It's a video of Sydney Sweeney. That's her name, right? I think so. Yeah. Sydney Sweeney

47:26reading this story from the Bible. Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's, it's like, uh,

47:33the video starts with her sitting in a big comfy chair and it's like, Sydney Sweeney reads

47:37the Bible and she's got this gigantic Bible and opens it up and just reads these two verses

47:43and then shuts it and it's like, just plays it completely straight. Yep. Yeah. Uh, it definitely

47:49speaks volumes, these two verses for sure. But, but that's a source of embarrassment for,

47:54for a lot of folks who try to hold up the, uh, you know, the God of the Bible as some kind

48:01of, uh, moral, um, you know, load star and it's like, yeah, they're pretty messed up morals

48:07in the, in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. It's yet another, I mean, if there's

48:12any takeaway for a believer, it's, this is yet another reason to let go of the need for

48:19it to be a literal truth at all times and gravitate much more toward, uh, the understanding

48:27that this was a product of its culture and of its time. And not everything it says has

48:34to be the literal truth about an omnibenevolent, omnipresent God. Yeah. And, and I'm sure there

48:43are many people over the last 2000 years who have, um, taken this as a personal challenge

48:49to find Jesus in here to, because everybody's like, every word of the, of the Old Testament

48:55is about Christ. It's like, no, um, figure out how, how a bald dude murdering kids with

49:05bears is into that rubric. And, and yeah, the fact that it specifically says she bears and

49:10I was looking at the Hebrew and it is, uh, where did it go? Yeah. Uh, Stein du Weem, which

49:17is, uh, the two feminine bears, which is a weird thing to add. Yeah. Another, another,

49:26like little detail that, and, you know, add some spice to the story. And we, and this,

49:33I think this, uh, I've seen a lot of, I'm not a lot, but I have seen, uh, apologetic arguments

49:38before that have been like, well, how do you know those boys weren't messing with their

49:42cups? Because it says their, their, their she bears. So they were probably screwing with

49:47their cubs earlier. And so they were just, um, they were just coming to exact revenge

49:53or something like that. Oh my God. Here's the thing. Um, if nothing else bears, bears

49:59can't kill 42 boy. Yeah. Unless they, you're going to have a couple get away. Yeah. We're

50:06going to have a couple get away. Uh, all right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Uh, for those

50:14of you who want more discussion from us, you can find it at patreon.com/dataoverdogma where

50:20Dan and I have a, uh, uh, after party every week, uh, that is often related to the episode

50:28and sometimes not. We can talk about whatever we want. It gets a little more personal. Um,

50:33so please feel free to head over there and become a patron. Um, otherwise you can contact

50:39us by reaching out contact at data over dogma pod.com and we'll see you again next week.

50:46Bye everybody.

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