Ep 55: Can Jesus Forgive Sin?

00:00- His first impulse isn't just like, "Hey, I'll heal you."

00:04His first impulse is like, "We'll do this other thing."

00:07And then he'll use the healing as the proof

00:09that I have the authority to do that.

00:11- Yes, it's almost as if the story was carefully crafted

00:15to tag these rhetorical bases.

00:19You didn't hear it from me.

00:20(upbeat music)

00:22Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:26- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:27- And you are listening to the Data Overdogma podcast

00:31where we increase public access to the academic study

00:34of the Bible and religion and combat the spread

00:37of misinformation about the same.

00:39How are things today, Dan?

00:41- Going well, man, I don't have a headache like you do.

00:43So that's good, I mean, I'm one up on you anyway,

00:48so that's great. - Yeah, yeah.

00:50- And I'm looking forward to today's show.

00:52We got some fun stuff.

00:54We're gonna do a Bible versus Bible.

00:58And find some interesting contradictions.

01:02And then we're gonna look at the concept

01:05of sin forgiveness via a big hole in the ceiling.

01:10So that's gonna be fun.

01:13Everyone should stay tuned for that.

01:15But first, let's do Bible versus Bible.

01:19(upbeat music)

01:22- All right, so what are we talking about today?

01:24- Well, since it was your idea, I think you are.

01:28No, but Ahaz might, is the name of a guy

01:33that I had never heard of, but he pops up

01:36in both Second Kings and Second Chronicles

01:40are just first chronicles. - Second chronicles.

01:42- So yeah, he's in both of these places.

01:46It's always a bad idea for the Bible

01:51to retread the same ground, because every time it does that--

01:56- It's tricky, it's tricky, yeah.

01:58- It's a different retelling

01:59and they have some different things.

02:01So why don't you walk us through the story?

02:05Do you want, who is Ahaziah?

02:09- Right, so we actually have a couple Ahaziahs

02:12in this history, but Ahaziah is a king of Judah.

02:18- So in this period, traditionally we think

02:21of the United Kingdom that was founded by Saul

02:26and David and Solomon, and then we had the divided kingdom.

02:29The reality is that there was probably never

02:31a United Kingdom, that these are two kingdoms

02:34that developed separately and were never--

02:37- Peter and Israel?

02:38- Correct, so Judah in the south with Jerusalem as home base,

02:42and then Israel in the north with Samaria as home base.

02:47And the northern kingdom of Israel was the larger kingdom,

02:52the more successful kingdom, and in the eighth century,

02:54this was, there was a lot more economic growth going on,

02:59there was a lot more cities popping up,

03:03there was a lot more money flowing in,

03:05and Jerusalem to the degree that it was able to engage

03:08in international trade and things like that,

03:10it was probably through the northern kingdom of Israel.

03:15And Jerusalem doesn't become prominent

03:18until the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel,

03:22because they kind of take over the identity

03:25of the northern kingdom of Israel,

03:27and we get the creation of this history

03:30where there's a United Kingdom.

03:32But Ahaziah is a king in Judah,

03:36and we have Jorim as a king in Israel,

03:41so that's in the northern kingdom,

03:43and then J who is given Jorim a hard time.

03:47And J who is a, is some sort of antagonist,

03:51but a powerful dude has a lot of this.

03:55Yes, and J who is actually going to,

03:59J who is one of the earliest figures

04:01from the Hebrew Bible for which we actually have

04:04direct archaeological evidence.

04:07Oh, cool.

04:08In fact, even a pictorial representation of J who.

04:13Oh, bowing down before an Assyrian emperor,

04:18Jomenezer the third, but still one of the first ones

04:21that we have represented anywhere

04:23in the late ninth century.

04:25But we have the story of Ahaziah's death

04:29because Ahaziah is considered a wicked king.

04:33And so J who is on the war,

04:37well, J who is coming after Ahaziah.

04:40And let me see where we got the J who,

04:43he's going after Jorim first.

04:45J who drew his bow with all his strength.

04:47This is second king's nine, verse 24,

04:49and shot Jorim between the shoulders

04:51so that the arrow pierced his heart

04:52and he sank in his chariot.

04:55Yeah, this is probably, it's like chariot,

04:57all a bunch of chariot stuff.

04:59Yeah, meet each other on the field in chariots.

05:04Yeah, and we're in the Jezreel Valley,

05:07which is you got Megito over there,

05:10the Jezreel Valley, you go further north and you get--

05:13The Jezreel, I'm sorry to interrupt,

05:15but I've just pronounced Magneto.

05:17(laughing)

05:19And further north, Nazareth is kind of in a little bowl place

05:24where if you go up on the hill,

05:27you can look south over the Jezreel Valley.

05:29And on a clear day, maybe you can at least pick out

05:33where Megito would be way off in the south.

05:37And J who said to his aid, bid car,

05:40lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground

05:42belonging to Naboth, the Jezreel Light.

05:44For remember when you and I rode side by side

05:46behind his father, Ahab, how the Lord uttered

05:49this oracle against him,

05:50that basically he was gonna die.

05:54When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this,

05:56he fled in the direction of Beit Ha'gan,

05:59a house of the garden.

06:01And this is southeast of Megito.

06:05This is basically just over the hill

06:07from the southern tip of the Jezreel Valley.

06:09J who pursued him, saying, shoot him also.

06:14And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent to Ghur,

06:17which is by Oblyum.

06:19And then he fled to Megito and died there.

06:24His officers carried him in the chariot to Jerusalem

06:27and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors

06:30in the city of David.

06:32So all very specific.

06:35He was riding in his chariot, he was shot.

06:39He slumped, but he didn't die yet.

06:44- It was another guy who slumped to the ground.

06:48It was Jorim who was killed.

06:49And then J who was like, get him too.

06:53And so he's gonna get away.

06:55And so they shoot Ahaziah in his chariot.

06:58- Yes.

07:00- And it says then he fled to Megito and died there.

07:02- Yeah.

07:03- And then--

07:04- And Megito isn't even as, oh yeah.

07:07So they shot him at the ascent to Ghur.

07:10I mean, he's climbing a hill or something in the chariot.

07:15And then he made it to a little town and then died.

07:19- Yeah, it's a little, it's out of the way.

07:22Like his chair, he turned and went another direction.

07:25Probably like, I'm not gonna make it there.

07:26I'm gonna head to this place.

07:28I'm gonna, can't shoot me if I serpentine.

07:31- Right, serpentine.

07:32And then Ahaziah's own officers carried him in a chariot

07:38to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb

07:41with his ancestors in the city of David.

07:44So we've got a clear picture of how this happened.

07:47And then we're gonna go to second chronicles.

07:51And it's funny how many of these contradictions

07:53are between Samuel Kings and chronicles.

07:56Chronicles is Samuel Kings are basically taking

07:59a bunch of records and putting together a single history

08:03of what was known with the Kings.

08:05And then chronicles are basically doing the same thing,

08:08but a couple of centuries later.

08:11And they're like, eh, we don't like what that's doing.

08:14We're gonna take this over here.

08:15We're gonna carry the two.

08:16And we're gonna slice that out right there.

08:18- So that's not what I heard, what I heard happened.

08:22- Yeah, we think he, whoever put together chronicles

08:26certainly had access to some version of Samuel Kings.

08:30It certainly wasn't the version exactly as we have it

08:32'cause even in the Dead Sea Scrolls,

08:34like there's a lot going on that's different.

08:37And so, and this was centuries before that.

08:39So some version was there, but among other things.

08:43And also they were trying to,

08:47the reason they decided to compose those histories

08:49because they had certain rhetorical goals,

08:53so to speak of their own.

08:56And then, so we go to second chronicles 22, verse seven,

08:58but it was ordained by God

09:00that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about

09:02through his going to visit Jorim.

09:04So we're on the same page, at least,

09:06that Ahaziah and Jorim are having a game night or something.

09:11And says for when he came there,

09:16he went out with Jehorim to meet Jehu, son of Nimshi,

09:21whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab.

09:24So Jehu had been anointed by Adonai the God of Israel

09:28because these are members of the dynasty of Ahab.

09:33And so they've got a,

09:35Jehu's gonna shut him down.

09:38When Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab,

09:41he met the officials of Judah

09:44and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers who attended Ahaziah

09:47and he killed them.

09:49He searched for Ahaziah,

09:52who was captured while hiding in Samaria

09:56and was brought up to Jehu and put to death.

09:58They buried him.

10:00For they said he is the grandson of Jehoshaphat

10:05who sought the Lord with all his heart.

10:07And the house of Ahaziah had no one able to rule the kingdom.

10:10So end of the dynasty here,

10:12but we got a very different telling of the story.

10:15- Yeah.

10:16- We've got Jehu executing judgment on the house of Ahab,

10:20the officials of Judah. So remember, this is the king

10:22from Judah, the sons of Ahaziah's brothers,

10:25all the, they get killed, Ahaziah is not there.

10:29And so they had to go and pound the pavement

10:33and look for Ahaziah and captured him hiding in Samaria.

10:36And now this is a reference to Shomron.

10:38This is a reference to a city,

10:40not the region of Samaria.

10:43And they, and this is the people who are searching for Ahaziah,

10:49brought him to Jehu and the Hebrew is plural,

10:54which means they put him to death.

10:57That being the people who sought him out

11:01and found him in Samaria.

11:02They, the people who sought him out,

11:04found him, killed him, buried him.

11:07And it gives a reason why they would bury their enemy.

11:10- Right.

11:11- 'Cause they said, hey, this guy's daddy was important,

11:14grand daddy was important.

11:16So we're gonna do him the honor of giving him a proper burial.

11:20So right off the bat,

11:23we've got a number of significant differences

11:25between these two accounts.

11:26- Right, again, a very specific set of circumstances

11:29or set of plot points,

11:32but just none of them line up

11:34other than the cast of characters.

11:36(laughing)

11:38- And even there, like we don't have Jorim being shot

11:43between the shoulder blades and slumping down

11:45in his chariot, a very graphic telling of that story.

11:50But we do have Ahaziah who is hiding out

11:55and brought to Jehu,

11:57which is not Jehu commanding his men to fire upon Ahaziah

12:02in his chariot while he is fleeing.

12:05- Yeah.

12:06- And then fleeing to Megito and dying there.

12:08According to second chronicles,

12:11he was killed before Jehu, by Jehu's men.

12:15And then Jehu's men buried him.

12:16And I think this is one of the most explicit contradictions.

12:20In second chronicles, it is Jehu's men who bury Ahaziah.

12:25In second Kings, it is Ahaziah's men who bury Ahaziah.

12:30- With his ancestors.

12:33- With his ancestors.

12:34Yeah, that is an explicit contradiction.

12:37Jehu's men are not Ahaziah's men.

12:40And so that can't be reconciled.

12:44But we do have interesting attempts

12:46to try to gin up these scenarios

12:51that are not in evidence to make these things gel.

12:54Where he, what was, I heard an interesting one.

12:59They search for him, found him in Samaria,

13:01brought him to the Jezreal Valley, and we're like,

13:04- Run.

13:06- And then he runs off in his chariot,

13:09and then they shoot him and he goes to Megito

13:13and they find, and then they have to go find him again.

13:15And they find him in Megito.

13:17And then they put him to death in Megito.

13:20So it's a.

13:23- You gotta add a lot.

13:24- And also like, the hiding thing,

13:28like Kings doesn't have any of that.

13:30Kings has him and who's the other, Jai guy?

13:34Jehoram, is that the other guy?

13:35- Jehoram. - Jehoram.

13:37- Yeah.

13:38Both riding out specifically to meet Jehu.

13:43In that place.

13:44Like this whole thing that leads up to it.

13:46So there's, he couldn't have been hiding in Samaria.

13:50That's not possible unless you really, really,

13:55you gotta squint and turn sideways and kinda like,

13:59you can't, you can't, you have to be working real, real hard.

14:04- Right.

14:05You're not letting the text set its own terms.

14:08You're setting the terms for the text.

14:11And here's something that I find so baffling

14:13about the attempt to salvage the inerrancy

14:16and the univocality of these two texts,

14:19is you basically have to turn both authors into liars.

14:23You have to say that each account

14:25is just wildly misrepresenting the events.

14:28- Right.

14:29- So that you can say there are these connecting events

14:34that get us from point A to point B

14:37that are being entirely omitted.

14:39And so you have one story where everything's going on

14:41in the Jezreel Valley and it's, it is coherent.

14:45It makes sense.

14:46There's a beginning, a middle, and an end.

14:48And it all happens in this one little corner of the valley.

14:51And then it's like, no, the reality is that this thing

14:54was spanning over dozens of miles.

14:56And we have people coming back and forth.

14:58And we have people who are giving them a chance

15:01to get away or something and, you know,

15:04playing sport with them.

15:06And you basically make each story entirely false.

15:12In order to protect the inerrancy of the two stories.

15:17Which is something that frequently happens

15:20when we're talking about contradictions.

15:23Like the death of Judas is like that.

15:28People are like, oh, well, that's simple.

15:29He went and he hanged himself.

15:31And then over time the rope broke and he fell.

15:33And then, you know, everything just, he burst.

15:37And all that.

15:38It's like, well, that's not the story.

15:40Yeah. That is a very, very different story

15:43from the two stories that were told.

15:46You have to insist on sovereignty

15:50over what the text is actually saying.

15:53And you turn the text into a falsehood

15:57for the sake of protecting the inerrancy of the text.

16:00Yeah, I mean, one of the things

16:01that I wanted this discussion to be about

16:03was the idea of why we point out these contradictions

16:10on this show, because I think you think

16:14it's a very important thing to do.

16:16And it's not about poking whole, you know,

16:19I know plenty of people who point out contradictions

16:22because they want to poke holes in the Bible

16:24and it's a big gotcha, but that's not what this is about.

16:26So why is it important to you?

16:29It's important to me because I think it is necessary

16:33to take the Bible more seriously.

16:35If we believe that what the Bible is saying is important,

16:40then I think you have to let the Bible operate

16:42it's on its own terms.

16:43But so many people don't want to let the Bible operated

16:46on its own terms, because these presuppositions

16:49of inerrancy, of inspiration, of unibokality

16:53have more authority than the text of the Bible.

16:57And that's not taking the Bible seriously.

16:59That's taking those dogmas seriously.

17:02But if I'm trying to let what these authors

17:06were trying to say come through,

17:09when you mask, when you obscure what the authors

17:13are trying to say and alter it in order to salvage

17:17your dogmas, you're just shoving the Bible down.

17:22You're not taking the Bible seriously.

17:24And this is why I insist there's no such thing

17:26as a biblical literalist because they're one,

17:30the Bible is not univocal, it's multi-vocal.

17:34There are lots of different people

17:35saying lots of different things.

17:36So you can't even extract a single, coherent,

17:40consistent worldview from the Bible as a whole.

17:43You have to pick and choose.

17:44You have to say we're gonna take this one

17:46for this situation and we're gonna leave that one

17:49on the side for this situation.

17:51You have no choice but to do that.

17:53And if you try to impose a unifying framework

17:55upon the whole thing to say no, it all works,

17:58then what you're doing is saying the Bible

18:00cannot operate on its own terms.

18:02It has to operate on my terms.

18:04Well, like that, it doesn't leave room in a book

18:07that was written over the course of what,

18:091,000 years or something like that?

18:11About 1,000 years, yeah.

18:13There's no room in your worldview for innovation

18:16within that period of time for change in thought,

18:21change in philosophy, to theology over 1,000 years?

18:26That's impossible.

18:29Yeah, and it's an example I've brought up

18:32many times in the past but just within my own lifetime,

18:36I have seen people on one side of the political aisle

18:40go from you can never have an adulterer as president

18:44to it's okay to have an adulterer as president.

18:47Like within a single generation,

18:50you can have people entirely flip-flop

18:52on what they claim are absolutely essential

18:56central ideologies for their identities.

18:59Right, and so over the course of 1,000 years,

19:02that's gonna happen thousands and thousands of times.

19:06So yeah, it doesn't treat the Bible

19:10as an authority on its own right.

19:12It treats the Bible as the proof text

19:14for the real authority, which is the dogmas

19:19of the dogmas that are prioritized

19:23for a given set of social identities,

19:26whatever one's identity politics demands,

19:29the Bible be, that's what they're gonna make the Bible into.

19:33(upbeat music)

19:36- It doesn't even allow the Bible to be the authority

19:40on the Bible.

19:42- Yeah.

19:43- Like if there's one thing that the Bible

19:45can definitively be the authority on, it's damn self.

19:50(laughing)

19:52- Yeah, but we assert authority over that as well.

19:55When you have New Testament authors quoting

19:57from the book of 1st Enoch, or referring to 2nd Maccabees,

20:01or the Ascension of Isaiah, or something like that,

20:03we've gotta say, that wasn't really scripture.

20:07- Yeah, that's a problem.

20:10- Yeah, the folks 300, 400 years later

20:13who sat down and hammered out what the boundaries

20:15of the Bible were gonna be, they knew better.

20:19Or at least we're giving them more authority

20:22than we are to the actual authors of the biblical texts.

20:25So it's, it's such a disingenuous concern

20:30that this, trying to protect univocality

20:34because it has absolutely no choice,

20:37but to assert the authority to dictate to the Bible

20:41what it is and is not allowed to mean.

20:44Like the, this is one of the reasons

20:46I'm not a huge fan of the new international version

20:50of the Bible, because it says in the preface

20:53that the, or the introduction,

20:55that all the translators are committed to

20:58the inspiration and infallibility of the texts.

21:01It's like if you're committed to that,

21:04then you're not letting the authors speak.

21:07You are speaking for them and on their behalf

21:10and you have to make changes in order to make things fit.

21:14And they do, you can find places where they are fiddling

21:17with the translation in ways that are not

21:21academically defensible just to make things fit.

21:26This ideology.

21:28- Yeah, it makes sense to me that the,

21:31yeah, this whole thing.

21:33I will say this on a slightly different topic

21:38because I think we've made that point.

21:41I think that that's, I think we're clear on that.

21:44- Anyone who would disagree with us at this point

21:48about that is they're just, you know,

21:52they're defending that ideology

21:53or they're defending those dogmas.

21:55I do think that one of the things,

21:59when I was reading Second Kings chapter nine

22:02about Jehu son of Nimshi,

22:04I think we should have in our merch,

22:07we don't have merch yet, but we will.

22:09But in our merch, I think we should have a bumper sticker

22:12that says Second Kings chapter nine, verse 20,

22:16because that has the part that says,

22:19it looks like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi

22:25for he drives like a maniac.

22:27- And I just think that, you drive like Jehu son of Nimshi

22:32would happen, bumper sticker or something like that.

22:36- Is that what it says in the King James version?

22:38- Oh, that's what it says in the RSV.

22:40- Oh, and RSV drives like a maniac.

22:41- Drives like a maniac.

22:43Oh, I probably can't sing.

22:47- That nobody heard that, right?

22:48- Yeah.

22:49- The King James version says,

22:52"For he driveth furiously."

22:54- Yeah, either way.

22:55Both are good.

22:55- Fast, fast, fast, and furiously.

22:57(laughing)

22:59And then the new English translation says,

23:02"He drives recklessly."

23:04- Oh, I like like a maniac, but furiously also,

23:07yeah, the fast and the furious, I love it.

23:09Jehu son of Nimshi, like a peaceful.

23:13(laughing)

23:15- All right, well, there's that.

23:18However Ahaziah died, we will never know the truth of it.

23:23Unfortunately.

23:24- Probably not, probably not, yeah.

23:27- So I get it.

23:28- Yeah, I would just say that Second Kings

23:31is probably closer to the truth than chronicles

23:35since it's coming so much later

23:36and is trying to fiddle with things more.

23:39- Okay, fair enough.

23:41All right, we're gonna say he drove wounded,

23:44his chariot back to wherever the place was.

23:49(laughing)

23:50- All right.

23:51Well, I think it's time for a bit of chapter and verse.

23:55- All right, let's hit it.

23:56(upbeat music)

23:59- All right, so we're going now to Mark

24:03and walk us through.

24:05This is, we're in Mark chapter two.

24:08- Mark chapter two.

24:09- And there is a fun story

24:12of Jesus and it starts at his house.

24:17- Yeah, so this is Mark chapter one.

24:22The gospel of Mark begins with,

24:24we've got the forerunner coming.

24:27Here's Jesus, he's getting baptized.

24:29He's been baptized.

24:30And then we have Jesus staying within

24:34what some people call the evangelical triangle,

24:38which is a triangle of three cities

24:42on the northwestern corner of the Sea of Galilee.

24:46Bechon.

24:46Is it Bechon?

24:49Capernaum and I've, shoot.

24:52I forget what the other one is,

24:53but it's a little up the hills, up the hills way.

24:56And it has black stone,

24:59like the city was constructed of black stone

25:01and there are high racks is there.

25:03And so you gotta be careful

25:04because these rodents will yell at you

25:08and they're bizarre creatures.

25:10However, so everything's going on up in Galilee in Mark one

25:15and he has a cast out an unclean spirit.

25:20He heals many at Simon's house

25:23and Simon lives in Capernaum or Capernaum or Capernaum.

25:28However you like to pronounce that name.

25:32And if you go visit, if you ever have the privilege

25:35of visiting, there is a statue

25:38right outside the front entrance.

25:40As you're going in the front entrance,

25:41you look to the left and there'll be a bench

25:43and there is a, what looks like a homeless man

25:47covered in a sheet or something laying on the bench

25:52but you look at the feet

25:54and you see there are scars on the feet.

25:57And so this is Jesus.

26:00It's trying to remind you Jesus is one of us.

26:04He's a beggar.

26:05I thought that was a, that's a lovely touch.

26:08But you go into Capernaum and you can actually go visit

26:11what some people think is Simon's actual home.

26:15Like they've drilled down to a dwelling place

26:19that likely dates to the first century

26:22and seems to have very quickly become a pilgrimage site.

26:27And so a lot of folks think this might be Peter's home,

26:30but it's Simon's home, but you.

26:32Simon Peter.

26:33Oh, okay.

26:35Sorry.

26:36He's guys and these names, man, I never,

26:39I will never get the New Testament prophets straight

26:43or New Testament apostles.

26:45Yeah, we did a show on this.

26:47I know.

26:48And so Mark two begins when he returned to Capernaum

26:54after some days.

26:55It was reported that he was at home

26:57and the Greek here suggests that Jesus was at his own home.

27:02So Jesus probably lived in Capernaum.

27:05Okay.

27:06There you go.

27:07If you need to send his letters, send him letters.

27:09Yeah, care of Mary.

27:13And so many gathered around that there was no longer room

27:17for them.

27:18So the word got out.

27:19It's like the tours going around where the rock lives

27:24and people are like, I saw him go in it.

27:26And they all run over, not even in front of the.

27:30At the top on, without the top.

27:32So that they go and see.

27:34Yeah, the double ducker.

27:35Yeah.

27:36Got to have that.

27:37One of the funny, just a sidebar here.

27:41One of the things I remember the most about writing

27:43double-decker buses in England was,

27:47I was always surprised by how much moss and mold and stuff

27:51grew on the tops of the bus stop.

27:54Oh, because normally you see a bus stop

27:57and you see there's a covering there,

27:59but you're not looking down on the top of it.

28:01But when you're on the top deck of the bus,

28:03you're like, oh, I'm looking down on this roof here

28:05and there's moss everywhere.

28:07Okay, so.

28:07I just liked being on the, sorry, now I'm on double.

28:11I just loved being at the very front

28:13on the top layer of a double-decker.

28:16Because- You're just flyin'.

28:17You think you're going to hit literally ever.

28:20First of all, those bus drivers,

28:22especially in London, are maniacs,

28:25but they-

28:26They drive it furiously, huh?

28:28Yeah, they do.

28:29They do.

28:30They are like, what's his name, son of what's his name?

28:32But they also like, they get really close

28:35and you feel like you're just like going to hit

28:38every single front of it.

28:41I don't know what would be more on,

28:44I don't think that's as uncomfortable

28:46as back in the day, riding in the back of the station wagon,

28:50the seats that pointed backwards.

28:53Oh, you still want that, that was my favorite.

28:56I hated, 'cause when you're on a road trip

28:59and somebody's behind you on the interstate

29:01and you're like, where do I look?

29:03I don't want to just stare down

29:05the person who's going to be behind us for an hour.

29:07Oh, I was there like an idiot waving.

29:09Ha!

29:10(laughing)

29:12Okay, so many gathered around there,

29:14so many gathered around that there was no longer room

29:17for them, not even in front of the door

29:19and he was speaking the word to them.

29:22Then some people came bringing to him a paralyzed man,

29:25carried by four of them.

29:27And in the King James version,

29:28it says one sick of the palsy,

29:30but this just means of someone who was paralyzed.

29:33Yeah.

29:34And there were four people carrying him.

29:37And when they could not bring him to Jesus

29:39because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him

29:42and after having dug through it,

29:45they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.

29:48So they climbed up on the roof,

29:50which would have been a flat roof

29:52and there would have been a couple layers of things there.

29:55There would have been some mud brick

29:57and then probably a bunch of straw and stuff like that.

30:00They literally dismantled Jesus' house.

30:03Yeah.

30:04And then what, aimed at the guy up,

30:05how did they, like, it seems like they could have just

30:10sort of maybe asked the crowd to part a little bit.

30:13Okay, we're going in the hard way.

30:15That's fine.

30:16Yeah, yeah, the very hard way.

30:18When Jesus saw their faith,

30:20he said to the paralytic child, your sins are forgiven.

30:24So he's obviously not upset about the property damage.

30:27No, he's beautiful.

30:28'Cause he can, yeah.

30:29'Cause I'm sure he can just wave his hands and, you know.

30:34He built it.

30:36Bippity, bopity, boo.

30:36Yeah, he has repaired.

30:39Maybe it's not Bippity, bopity, boo.

30:41Maybe it's, what does Merlin do and sort in the stone?

30:47Like, I'm not sure.

30:48It's whatever the Aramaic is for Bippity, bopity, boo.

30:53Yeah, yeah.

30:55Now, some of the scribes were sitting there

30:57questioning in their hearts.

30:58So they're not saying this out loud, they're thinking this.

31:01And this raises an interesting thing here.

31:04Mark is a little closer to kind of the, let's say,

31:09Semitic culture than to the Greco-Roman culture.

31:12And in the more Semitic side of things,

31:15your heart was the seat of not just emotion,

31:18but also cognition.

31:19Right.

31:20So you thought with your heart,

31:23you didn't think with your brain,

31:24'cause they didn't care about your brain.

31:26That's why the Egyptians, when they mummified people,

31:29they just scooped the brain out.

31:31Throw that away.

31:32Threw it away, yeah.

31:33Can you get rid of those?

31:34Yeah, it's like a gigantic oyster,

31:39just this goo that we're gonna get rid of.

31:43So the heart was the seat of cognition.

31:46And so in the statement,

31:49the first great commandment,

31:50love God with all your heart might mind and strength,

31:54that is a Greek translation

31:57of the actual commandment from Deuteronomy

32:02which only says heart might and soul.

32:06So if they're talking about the mind,

32:09it's not Hebrew Bible stuff.

32:12And that, yeah, that would not have been

32:12Interesting.

32:15how Jesus would have talked about this stuff, but.

32:18I'm also interested in the fact that the author of Mark

32:21is writing in the third person omniscient.

32:26He's talking about what's going on in everybody's heart.

32:29Yeah, well, and this is something

32:32that some folks bring up when it comes to

32:34some of the stories of Jesus' trial,

32:37'cause when Jesus is before Pilate,

32:41Pilate takes him out, like puts him on display,

32:43"Hey, everybody, what's going on?"

32:45And they say, "Crucify him."

32:47Pilate brings him back in and interrogates him.

32:49He's alone.

32:51And then Jesus immediately goes to his death.

32:54So whoever is telling that story obviously is just,

32:58we have to imagine what Pilate would have said to Jesus,

33:03but yeah, the narrator is omniscient.

33:05So they're questioning in their hearts,

33:09why does this fellow speak in this way?

33:10It is blasphemy, who can forgive sins but God alone?

33:15At once, Jesus perceived in his spirit

33:19that they were discussing these questions

33:21among themselves and he said to them,

33:23"Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?"

33:26Which is easier?

33:27To say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven,

33:30or to say stand up and take your mat and walk,

33:33but so that you may know that the Son of Man

33:37has authority on earth to forgive sins.

33:41He said to the paralytic,

33:42"I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home."

33:45And he stood up and immediately took the mat

33:47and went out before all of them

33:48so that they were all amazed and glorified.

33:50God's saying, "We have never seen anything like this."

33:53Well, there you go.

33:55Quite the powerful parlor trick here

33:59of healing the paralyzed man.

34:02Right.

34:04And there's something interesting--

34:05The reason of being able to,

34:07as a demonstration of the authority to forgive sins,

34:12which is a interesting reason,

34:15not it's like it's his first impulse

34:18isn't just like, "Hey, I'll heal you."

34:20His first impulse is like, "We'll do this other thing."

34:23And then they'll use the healing as the proof

34:26that I have the authority to do that.

34:28Yes, it's almost as if the story was carefully crafted.

34:32(both laughing)

34:35Wait a minute.

34:36To tag these rhetorical bases.

34:39Yeah.

34:40Here's what I--

34:41You didn't hear it from me.

34:42Right.

34:43Here's what I think this story does.

34:44At least one of the things the story does.

34:46We'll get to the frickin' thing

34:47'cause that's where we're really angled for.

34:49But if anyone ever claims that they are a Messiah,

34:54if you ever run into a David Koresh figure or whatever,

34:58dig into his roof, break into his house,

35:00but if he's mad at you, that's not him.

35:04Not the Messiah, not the one.

35:06(both laughing)

35:08So we've got this question about divine forgiveness.

35:10Who can forgive sins but God alone?

35:13One of the thing that baffles me about this,

35:16and this text is appealed to frequently by folks

35:20who are trying to make the case that Jesus is God.

35:25Yeah.

35:26And basically you have to agree that the scribes,

35:29is it scribes or who does it say in here?

35:32Sorry.

35:32Yeah, I think it's scribes.

35:34You said the words.

35:35Yeah, some of the scribes.

35:36Some of the scribes are sitting there questioning in the heart.

35:37So basically you have to suppose that the scribes are right,

35:42that no one can forgive sins except for God alone.

35:47And this is, I mean, this is not an incorrect inference

35:51to draw from the way the Hebrew Bible talks

35:54about the forgiveness of sins.

35:56However, I think Jesus' response precludes

36:00that understanding of what's going on here

36:02because Jesus doesn't say, doesn't turn around

36:06and give him one of these, what do you think that makes me?

36:09Jesus says, eh, wrong, so that you may know,

36:15you lack information, you don't know something,

36:19I am going to drop some knowledge on you.

36:23What is that knowledge?

36:24That the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

36:28In other words, the scribes were wrong.

36:32Who can forgive sins, but God alone,

36:34Jesus says, son of man can forgive sins.

36:38And son of man here is a reference specifically to him,

36:41himself, right?

36:42So there's a debate about this.

36:45I think Mark is presenting Jesus as the son of man.

36:48However, those who, Bartirman and others

36:52who try to reconstruct how Jesus himself

36:57might have thought about this,

37:00some of them will argue that Jesus did not actually

37:03think he was the son of man.

37:05And this requires kind of taking some of these

37:08son of man statements as actual words of Jesus,

37:13but reinterpreting them as third person references

37:17rather than first person references.

37:20Okay, but the way this story presents itself,

37:24it is very clear that he is saying,

37:26I have this authority, he's not saying anyone else does.

37:29So it's basically, according to him,

37:32at least in this moment, me and dad.

37:34Yeah, yeah, the guys are saying only God can do this.

37:39And Jesus says, I am God's plus one,

37:42because the son of man has authority on earth

37:45to forgive sins.

37:46I just don't see how you can interpret this

37:49as anything other than a correction of an error.

37:53And now it's, and so right off the bat,

37:57I don't think it serves to as a proof text

38:02for the notion that Jesus is God.

38:04But there's more to this when it comes

38:06to the forgiveness of sins.

38:08Because this is a question that we see rising up

38:13in some other Jewish literature,

38:16even some Greco-Roman period Jewish literature.

38:19There's an idea that there might be a Dead Sea Scroll fragment

38:21that is talking about a priest

38:24having authority to forgive sins.

38:27But there's, this is a debate

38:29that people have been having for a while.

38:31Does the Bible say that only God forgives sins?

38:35And is there anything else, anywhere else

38:37that says anyone else has the authority to forgive sins?

38:40Because this is something that is repeatedly attributed to,

38:45this is a divine prerogative throughout the Hebrew Bible

38:48and most of the New Testament, except for here.

38:52So we have in numbers 14,

38:57Moses asks God to forgive the people.

39:00And God says, "I have pardoned according to your word."

39:03We have a bunch of references to God

39:06having authority to forgive sins.

39:07In fact, in Joshua 20, I think it's 2419,

39:10you have Joshua telling the people, you can't serve God.

39:18'Cause he's a jealous God and he will not forgive your sins.

39:23The word there is a word

39:25that's more commonly translated transgressions,

39:27but there's a lot of semantic overlap between the two.

39:31But Joshua says he will not forgive your transgressions.

39:35And most scholars agree this is not saying

39:39that you're hopeless, God's never gonna forgive your sins,

39:42but that God is the one who has the authority to do so.

39:46And God is jealous about that authority

39:49and God is also pretty sparing with that authority.

39:53- Which does, I mean, that feels in conflict

39:56with what I was taught, which is that like anyone

39:59who asks for forgiveness earnestly and repents

40:03and doesn't sin anymore, gets forgiveness.

40:06- It certainly sounds like that

40:09in the way the New Testament represents it,

40:11where we forgive those who have sinned against us

40:14seven times 70 times and things like that.

40:18It sounds an awful lot like we have the ability

40:20to forgive other people's sins.

40:24- Well, no, I'm saying like I thought

40:27that God forgave our sins, like he's not stingy about it,

40:31all you have to do is go ahead and ask for forgiveness.

40:35- Ask for forgiveness.

40:36- Then you get it, like it's, so it's interesting

40:39that the earlier idea was maybe, I don't know.

40:44- We're gonna see, I doubt it, he doesn't like you very much,

40:50so.

40:51- Yeah, it's a mixed bag because the Bible's not univocal.

40:56So you've got a lot of different representations

40:59of God's perspective on sin because you have other things

41:02where Micah, for instance, is praising God,

41:06who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

41:10and passing over transgression for the remnant

41:12of his inheritance?

41:14So God is praised as being pretty liberal

41:18with the forgiveness of sins and elsewhere.

41:20God is stingy with the forgiveness of sins,

41:23but God is mainly the one who is able to forgive sins,

41:28at least forgive the sins of, well, forgive other people's sins.

41:36Now, I was about to say, in human circumstances,

41:41we're supposed to forgive others who sin against us.

41:44And so, but we can't really forgive the sins

41:47of someone against somebody else.

41:50And so, that's outside of our purview.

41:53That's above our pay grade.

41:55- Right.

41:56- And here we get into the question of how God's authority

41:59relates to that, and scholars would say that

42:04the sins as they are laid out, as they're described

42:08in the Bible, and within like early Jewish literature

42:11and things like that,

42:12overwhelmingly are represented as violations

42:15of God's commands.

42:17- Right.

42:18- So if it's not against God's command, then it's not a sin.

42:21And so God is the offended party, is the injured party,

42:26when it comes to any sin whatsoever.

42:28And so it's up to God to do that.

42:30(upbeat music)

42:35- Yeah, because it's often bothered me,

42:37the idea that, you know, someone, even if it's God,

42:41that someone other than, like, you know,

42:43I do something horrible to someone else.

42:48And then, like, forgiveness is something

42:52that God can grant me.

42:54But I don't think, to my mind,

42:56that's not how that transaction works.

42:59Like the only person who can grant me forgiveness

43:02is the person that I have hurt in some way.

43:06And, you know, they're under no obligation to do so.

43:10But so, I think that there's an, you know,

43:13I think that forgiveness also means different things.

43:16You know, there's forgiveness, I think,

43:19oftentimes, in these kinds of contexts,

43:24in biblical contexts, it's more a sense of forgiveness

43:27as in we forgive a debt.

43:29Not as in like an emotional forgiveness.

43:32Like, I have gotten myself to a place emotionally

43:36where I, you know, can now let go of the fact

43:41that you've done harm to me.

43:43But it's rather like, okay, you owe me X amount

43:47because you did this and I forgive that debt sort of thing.

43:50- Yeah, and I think that is a metaphor

43:54that governs the representation of the moral transgressions.

43:58So the word that is used for forgive

44:01is like release, loosen, let go.

44:05And so I think it's probably related

44:08to the idea of that debt.

44:10And as you pointed out,

44:12as we were outlining what we were gonna talk about today

44:15in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, it says,

44:20"Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors."

44:24And then if you go to the Lucan version,

44:27the sermon on the plane, it says, "Forgive our sins."

44:31And so one could interpret Matthew

44:34to be talking about fiscal principles.

44:38Or it could be, I think it's probably more likely

44:42that it's being used figuratively

44:44to refer to moral debts and things like that.

44:48- All I know is that the first time I looked up

44:50the Lord's Prayer, 'cause I didn't,

44:51I wasn't raised saying it, LDS people don't say

44:54the Lord's Prayer, but I had heard it in media

44:58on movies or whatever.

45:00And I kind of know it, it's enough in the zeitgeist

45:04that I kind of know it, so I look it up in Matthew

45:06and I'm like, "And forgive us our debts."

45:09Or what?

45:09That doesn't say trespasses, what's going on?

45:13It was very, and then I was in a frantic,

45:16like I'm looking at all of the different translations

45:20and whatever, and it all says debts.

45:22And I was blown away by that.

45:24- Yeah, there's what the text says,

45:28and then there's the discourse about it,

45:32and frequently what we internalize

45:36and what we remember and what the level

45:38at which the discourse operates is not,

45:40what's in the text, like people.

45:43And now people, there are a lot of conspiracy theorists

45:47who claim that that's because CERN

45:49has been screwing with the fabric of reality

45:51and has been changing things.

45:52So it is the lion and the lamb because in reality,

45:57the Bible never talks about the lion and the lamb.

45:59It talks about the wolf and the lamb.

46:01But it has become the lion and the lamb in the discourse.

46:05And a lot of people are like, no, NASA,

46:07and CERN have changed reality and--

46:10- Mendel effect, mandel effect.

46:12- The mandel effect, exactly.

46:13So they're like, "I know what I remember."

46:16And you know, there was a scholar at one point,

46:21I can't remember where this was,

46:22I don't remember the context,

46:24but somebody at some point was talking

46:27about when the pharaoh gave Moses his ring,

46:32and I was like, "You're thinking of the Prince of Egypt."

46:36(laughing)

46:37That was an animated movie, that's not in the post.

46:39(laughing)

46:42So yeah, I totally lost track of where we were going.

46:46(laughing)

46:47- Forgiveness for a minute there.

46:49Forgiveness for sins, yeah.

46:51(clearing throat)

46:52But I wanna return to this idea of God being this jealous God

46:56who will not forgive your transgressions,

46:58because there actually is another divine agent

47:02who, of whom the exact same thing is said word for word.

47:06And that happens in Exodus 23,

47:09when we have the angel.

47:11God says, "Look, I'm sending an angel before you

47:14"to guide you along the way.

47:17"Don't disobey him, don't tick him off."

47:22Says, "Because he will not forgive your sins."

47:25And it's the exact same Hebrew

47:28that we find in Joshua 24, 19.

47:31The purview, the prerogative of the jealous God.

47:34And then it says, "Because my name is in him."

47:37And so I argue in my book that this seems to be,

47:42they're accounting for why the angel's identity

47:44gets mixed up with God's identity,

47:46which we see with the angel who appears to Moses

47:50in the burning bush.

47:51And it happens with Hagar, it happens with Abraham,

47:54it happens with Gideon,

47:55it happens with Minoah and his wife,

47:58where stories that were originally about God

48:01visiting humanity have the angel written in

48:04to kind of muddy the waters.

48:06And this, I argue, is a way to account

48:09for how the angel can do what only God

48:10is supposed to be able to do.

48:12And in the case of Exodus 23, it's that prerogative,

48:17not to forgive sins that the angel has

48:21as a result of God's name being in him.

48:24And so I would take this back to Mark two

48:27and say it's possible, I think it's likely

48:32that the author has in mind an illusion

48:37to this notion that, hey, there was a divine agent

48:40that was able to have authority

48:44over the forgiveness of sins in the Hebrew Bible.

48:47The son of man is held up as an example of someone

48:49who was able to exercise divine prerogatives

48:53and in some instances because they were endowed

48:56with God's name or have God's name indwelling within them.

49:00And so I think that's probably what is underlying

49:05the story here rather than the notion that Jesus

49:08is winking at them about being God through this narrative.

49:13- And true.

49:14- Without actually coming out and saying,

49:16yeah, don't you get it yet?

49:18- I'm the same guy.

49:19- Yeah, it's a me.

49:21(laughing)

49:23- Shimasaya.

49:26(laughing)

49:27- Masario.

49:28(laughing)

49:30Yeah, that's fascinating.

49:33It's weird that it happened like the whole set

49:38up with the paralyzed guy coming in through the roof.

49:43It was real strange to me

49:46since we're setting up something that could have happened

49:51to any number of other ways.

49:52But I mean, who knows?

49:55Maybe it's because it actually happened, you know?

49:57People digging through your roof, that's a fun story.

50:01You're gonna be diving out on that for a long time.

50:03(laughing)

50:05- And I think it's interesting that also that

50:08it says Jesus saw, let me make sure that's plural.

50:12Yeah, Jesus saw their faith.

50:15So it's not the man lying on the bed

50:19whose faith Jesus is rewarding.

50:22- It's the faith of his buddies.

50:22- Right.

50:26And he's like, oh, well, I'm gonna forgive this guy since.

50:30- He's like, it's like the four buddies

50:32are probably like, and what about our sins?

50:35- Yeah, it was our faith you were talking about there.

50:39- We hoisted the guy all the way up here.

50:42We should get something.

50:44- Yeah, unless it was the man who's laying on the cot

50:49or whatever they were carrying him, who was like,

50:52dig through the roof, I gotta get in there.

50:55And he made him do it.

50:57- It literally cannot be that.

50:59It might, like some structural engineer

51:05has to tell me how it is possible

51:07that they dug through the roof

51:08and the whole thing didn't cave in.

51:10I just want to know anyway.

51:12- Yeah, 'cause it's fine.

51:14'Cause it could have been like a basketball hoop-sized hole

51:17and they just kind of lowered him down by his feet.

51:20'Cause if they had to hold him flat,

51:23that is a very large hole that they've got to dig into that.

51:28- And did they, like they keep referencing this guy

51:31in his mat.

51:32Did they lower him down on the mat?

51:34Like it feels like they must have used the mat to look,

51:37I don't know.

51:38This is weird. - Yeah.

51:39They had a dolly and a bunch of straps that they were.

51:43- Stopping into your--

51:45(mumbles)

51:46- Lowering him down.

51:47- That's pinching him down.

51:48- Yeah.

51:49- Clicked by clip.

51:50- Or they just strapped him to the mat.

51:52- Just roll him in there.

51:55- They were like, cross your fingers.

51:56But it is fun to imagine potential historical reality

52:04that he's underlying these literary stories.

52:08- Yeah.

52:09- Because I think some of the ways

52:11that these stories are told,

52:13they're not told so that you imagine these realities.

52:16They're just told so you focus on the points

52:18that they're making and then trying to imagine

52:21those realities raises peculiarities.

52:26- Well, this is what I'm saying.

52:28If I could go back in time

52:30and talk to biblical authors,

52:31I would be like, I understand good storytelling

52:34involves details, but let's not make the details so weird

52:39that it totally distracts from the actual point

52:43we're trying to make here.

52:44'Cause that's a weird detail.

52:47- Yeah, I don't know where they grew up,

52:52how they learned their storytelling craft.

52:56But one thing is for sure is the gospel authors

53:00were definitely well-trained.

53:03So they were sticking with the conventions

53:08and the norms of their time,

53:11even if it strikes us as peculiar.

53:15- And lo, they did, the paralytic man

53:19did crowd surf to the place.

53:21(laughing)

53:22All right, well, I guess that's it for this week's show.

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