Ep 101: The Slave Bible

00:00Next time you want to put on a fancy sweater or a fancy suit to go yell about how much

00:06poor people suck to a congregation of other Christians, sit a few plays out, have a coconut

00:13smile, and you know how to finish that quote.

00:17Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan, and I'm Dan Beecher, and you're listening to the

00:24Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the

00:29Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:34Are we things today, Dan?

00:37Things are great.

00:38Things are great.

00:39Just it's there have been snow flurries all day where I'm at, and none of it's sticking

00:47to the ground, which is good.

00:50So far, I'm guessing overnight there's going to be some accumulation, but yeah, I'm not

00:54looking forward to that.

00:55I've got to take my 16-year-old to high school, like 730 is when we leave, and this morning

01:02it wasn't bad, but I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a little more annoying.

01:07Yeah, I think your area gets a little more hard hit than mine.

01:12Yeah, yeah.

01:13Well, there you go.

01:15Kind of snuggled up in the foothills where we tend to catch the stuff coming over the

01:22mountain.

01:23Oh, it's a problem.

01:26There you go.

01:27At least we don't have as much of the inversion and stuff like that.

01:30Mm-hmm.

01:31Well, there you go.

01:32If you're not familiar with Utah, you've probably never heard of inversion, and count

01:36yourself lucky.

01:37Yeah, Salt Lake Valley has a very lovely little weather phenomenon that happens, and it makes

01:45for fun air.

01:46I frankly, if your air is see-through, you should feel grateful.

01:50That's all.

01:51Yeah.

01:52And rub it in.

01:53It's not always the case.

01:54Yeah.

01:55Anyway, look, we've got a whole show that we need to do here.

01:59We've got a whole diddly-doo that we're doing.

02:03Our first segment is going to be, "What is that?"

02:05And it is fascinating.

02:08It's disconcerting, it is disappointing, but very, very interesting.

02:13We're going to be talking about the slave Bible, and then we're going to go for the second

02:21half of the show.

02:22We're going to be talking about wealth, and is it okay?

02:28Mm-hmm.

02:29We'll say about that.

02:31Yeah.

02:32So, we'll have a little fun with that, but first, what is that?

02:41And then, like we said, what is that?

02:43What is the slave Bible?

02:46The slave Bible, yeah.

02:48Yeah.

02:49It's a name that's been given, a colloquial name that's been given to a publication that

02:54was published in 1807, and its actual title is "Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the

03:02Use of the Negro Slaves in the British West India Islands."

03:06Ah.

03:07So, yeah, it was not originally framed as a Bible.

03:12It's always been explicitly framed as select parts of the Holy Bible, selections of kind

03:17of thing, which is something that was popular.

03:20Back in the 1600s and the 1700s, you had the soldiers' Bible, which was like 100 passages

03:27that was soldiers kept a little copy on them, and it was, I don't know, inspired them to

03:33hide better or kill people better, or made them feel like war was something God was with

03:41them for, and so this kind of stuff had been done before.

03:45And the idea here was to take out about 90 percent of the Hebrew Bible and about 50 percent

03:53of the New Testament, leaving just a handful of passages so that they could get a feel

04:00for what the Bible is, and basically it was intended to be a missionary instrument.

04:06It was intended to allow enslavers to preach the gospel to their enslaved folks without

04:14them getting their heads filled with ideas about freedom, and about escape, or deliverance,

04:23or redemption, or anything like that related to enslavement.

04:28So, andling tells me they skipped Exodus.

04:31It just feels like that would be a good one to just pass over, if you will.

04:35They skipped the first 18 chapters of Exodus.

04:38Okay.

04:39We'll conclude the Ten Commandments and a little bit more, but it's actually very peculiar.

04:46You can find a copy on like Archive.org.

04:48I think Google Books probably has a PDF as well.

04:52But you go through, and it's like Genesis chapter 1, 2, 3, 6, whatever reason they take

04:58out four and five.

05:00Then you got seven, you got eight, and then we're going to skip to 18, and then we're

05:06going to skip to 37, and then 39, and then it's like 40, 41, and suddenly we're in Exodus.

05:16Exodus 18, and they're like a handful of chapters of Deuteronomy, and some of the like Deuteronomy

05:245 has some references to the Exodus.

05:29So you do have a handful of references to deliverance from slavery, you know?

05:36You brought us out from the House of Enslavement or the House of Bondage or something like that.

05:42There are a handful of passages that refer to that, and then you get, you know, a smattering

05:47of 1 Samuel and 1 Kings, and suddenly you're in Job, and it's like the first two chapters

05:55of Job in the last three chapters of Job, and then you've got a handful of Proverbs.

06:00No Psalms.

06:02They completely cut out the Psalms, and then we get to the New Testament, and it's a little

06:06more of the New Testament.

06:08You get a little more of the Gospels and Acts, you get a little more Jesus in your diet here,

06:17but you're cutting out a lot of the references to deliverance, you're cutting out a lot of

06:22the references to salvation in a temporal sense, and this was something as far as I know it

06:30was just published the once.

06:31It does not seem like it made a huge splash on the literary scene.

06:36Well, especially considering it was specifically for a very small group of people, probably

06:44many of whom, most of whom were unable to read anyway, so it does seem like that you've

06:52got a very small audience for this particular publication.

06:58And the reason a lot of people are aware of it now is because the Museum of the Bible

07:02has had one.

07:04There are only three copies known to exist still, and the Museum of the Bible has had

07:08one of them on display, and it started to gain attention, and they were like, "All right,

07:13we're going to do a whole feature on the slave Bible," and they brought in some copies of

07:25advertisements for the sale of slaves and stuff like that, and gave it a whole treatment,

07:31including one thing at the end of the whole exhibit, you are given a card with a question

07:37on it, and you can write down your answer on the bottom of the card, and then they'll

07:41put those on display, and so one of the cards is the slave Bible still the good book or

07:49something like that, which is blah, is problematic, but I have a friend named Jill Hicks Keaton,

07:59and she wrote a whole book called "Good Book," and the subtitle is "How White Evangelicals

08:04Save the Bible to Save Themselves," and she did a whole piece on this exhibit because

08:13she makes the interesting point that the way a lot of folks are talking about the slave

08:17Bible today, and particularly the Museum of the Bible, is as this kind of aberrant perversion

08:24of the Bible, it's supposed to be like, "Look what they've done to my boy."

08:31It's unrecognizable now.

08:32They've taken out all the parts that cancel out, the parts that they left in, and this

08:40is incredibly problematic because it tries to make it seem like, as long as we have the

08:46whole Bible, we know slavery's a bad thing, and the reality is that that's a pretty new

08:53innovation.

08:54Yeah, yeah.

08:55That's a technological advancement that is pretty recent in the history of reading the

09:02Bible, and there's some weird things that Jill points out that the Museum of the Bible

09:07does to kind of massage the facts a little bit.

09:11Oh, interesting.

09:12Yeah, one of the things that they have there, well, this ran from 2018 to 2019.

09:19It's not on, I think it's still there, but the exhibit is not there anymore, but they

09:24have on display a little quote from a Reverend Byle B. Portius, Bishop of London, and he's

09:32giving instructions to some missionaries, and the Museum of the Bible frames this as

09:38a reference to the publication of this book.

09:41As part of this quote says, prepare a short form of public prayers together with the select

09:46portions of scripture, particularly those which relate to the duties of slaves towards

09:51their masters.

09:53So this would be like the Greco-Roman household codes that we find in places like Ephesians

09:59and stuff like that.

10:00Servants be obedient to your masters sort of thing.

10:03The problem is there are two ellipses in here that eliminate quite a bit.

10:09Okay.

10:11So because this Reverend is not referring to the slave Bible at all, this Reverend is

10:18actually talking about how the school masters in the Caribbean should do all these things

10:26to kind of arrange their curriculum in a way that will allow them to teach enslaved folks

10:32to read without, again, filling their heads with the freedom nonsense.

10:36So I'm going to read a larger context that puts back in the stuff that was elided.

10:44This is from the Bishop of London at the time.

10:46Yeah.

10:46This is a letter that's being written.

10:48If it's the Bishop of London and if it's the same as it is today, I think the Bishop

10:55of London is like the third most important person in the Anglican Communion.

11:02So it's like, that's a big deal person.

11:06I do not know if, let's see, successively, Bishop of Chester and of London was a church

11:12of England reformer and a leading abolitionist in England.

11:16Oh, he was an abolitionist, okay.

11:20This must have been after.

11:21Well, no, he, he, he, he, he only wrote this.

11:24He wrote this in 1808, which is a year after the Bishop's Bible was published and he died

11:29in 1809.

11:30Okay.

11:31So I mean, not all abolitionists were good at it.

11:37He was the first Anglican in a position of authority to seriously challenge the church's

11:41position on slavery.

11:43Okay.

11:44All righty.

11:45Well, I'm going to read this, this quote, the school masters therefore may be empowered

11:49to require their attendance in the school room on Sundays as well as that of their children

11:54and the clergymen of the parish in which they reside will probably have the goodness to

11:57add his influence and exhortations for the same important purpose and also to prepare

12:02a short form of public prayers for them consisting of a certain number of the best collects

12:07of the liturgy, the creed, the Lord's prayer and the 10 commandments together with select

12:12portions of scripture taken principally from the Psalms and Proverbs, the gospels and the

12:17plainest and most practical parts of the epistles, particularly those which relate to the duties

12:22of slaves towards their masters.

12:24The school master also may be directed to read to them a plain useful discourse selected

12:29from some of our English printed sermons or from the abridgment of Bishop Williams instructions

12:34for the, and then it goes on from there.

12:38And so did you notice one of the things that he named that is not in the, the select parts

12:44of the whole psalms, the Psalms are nowhere to be found, yeah, which is, yeah, odd.

12:49I don't know if they just didn't want the enslaved folks to be singing Psalms.

12:53I mean, there, there are lament Psalms, there are complaint Psalms, maybe they just don't

12:58like complaining.

12:59Yeah, just, let's just leave that whole part out.

13:02But so, so what, uh, what Portius is talking about is, is just, hey, school masters, if

13:08you're going to do a Sunday lesson, you should, you know, do it like this.

13:12Right.

13:13Um, and, um, yeah, I am now very curious about the, uh, the abolitionist bent of, uh, of

13:18the person responsible for this letter.

13:20It does seem a little weird with him saying, you know, make sure you emphasize the, uh,

13:25you know, the servant, this, the slaves, uh, obeisance to their masters sort of thing.

13:31Yeah, I think that's a little, that's a little weird, but me, you know, also the other thing

13:36is that it was a tightrope walk, right?

13:39You didn't want to fully and, you know, inflame the, uh, the, the, the slavers, uh, you didn't

13:47want to enrage them, you wanted to, it sounds like this was trying to be subversive.

13:52Like let's, let's get, I guess one of the things that confuses me and I'm, I'll just throw

13:57this out to you is why would these, uh, would the church and these slave holders want their

14:10enslaved people to be Christian?

14:14I guess I don't, I don't understand why they would want that.

14:17It seems like that would somehow put them on similar footing.

14:23It would be, you know what I mean?

14:24Like, yeah, it seems like a, a, a, and it's a way, you know, the whole thing about being

14:30a slave, a slave owner, a slaver and then slaver, uh, is that you dehumanize these other people

14:39and it seems like in, you know, in listing them into your belief system, re-humanizes

14:47them to some extent.

14:50And, and this is their, the history of Christianity's curation of slavery and engagement with slavery

14:58is so horrifying and also fascinating.

15:02Yeah.

15:03Because there were times when they actually did dehumanize them and rationalize them as

15:09other creatures, as, as not human.

15:13And there were other times when they recognized them as, as, uh, human, they, they were, you

15:19know, the hamites, they were descendants of, of ham from Genesis nine and 10.

15:25And at other times they were considered to be other.

15:27There were some other human race that is, was not descended from the three sons of Noah,

15:33but as they started wrestling with the implications of that, they kind of had to bring enslaved

15:40folks under the umbrella of humanity, which meant salvation was available to them, which

15:44meant they were obligated to share the gospel with them, which then brought up all other

15:52kinds of implications that they had to wrangle with.

15:56And, and this was primarily, you know, church leaders and clergy and, and things like that

16:01were the ones doing the main wrangling, the plantation owners, I think for the most part

16:06couldn't have cared less. They were pretty happy with the whole situation. I mean, yeah,

16:13they were wrestling with all of the money that they were making. I thought you were

16:18going to go another direction in reference to how they sometimes increased their supply

16:25of enslaved folks, which is, yeah. That's another thing they did. That's another thing.

16:33But different kind of wrestling. Then they had to wrestle with, okay, if we do allow them

16:38to become baptized, does that mean they have to be free now? And for a time, there were

16:45enslaved folks who would become Christians and they were like, peace out and they were,

16:50you know, would run off or something like that. And so you had to have local and regional

16:57legislation that would be like, no, you don't get to be free just because you became a Christian.

17:03I mean, look at the Bible. The Bible. And one thing that's included in the so-called

17:10slave Bible is Ephesians chapter six, which is one of the main parts where it talks about

17:15the enslaved person's duties to the masters. You've got servants, be obedient unto them

17:20that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in singleness of your

17:26heart as unto Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ

17:32doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, doing service as to the Lord and

17:37not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing, any man doeth the same shall he receive of

17:41the Lord, whether he be bond or free. But interestingly enough, they wanted that so bad.

17:48They didn't divide up any chapters. Like all the chapters are whole. They just omitted

17:53chapters. They wanted that so bad. They had to leave in what comes next. And ye masters

17:59do the same things unto them for bearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven,

18:05neither is their respect of persons with him. So they left in the verse telling and slavers

18:12that you've got to be nice because God's going to treat you. However, you treat your

18:18enslaved folks. Yeah. And so it's a fascinating look at this stage in this ongoing negotiation

18:26between Christianity and slavery and what's going to happen here. And there's a, there's

18:30a fascinating paper that, that I read by a scholar named J. Albert Harrell. And it's

18:36in religion and American culture. That's the name of the journal. And it's called the

18:40use of the New Testament in the American slave controversy, a case history in the hermeneutical

18:46tension between biblical criticism and Christian moral debate. And so it goes through in quite

18:53a bit of detail, the basically mental gymnastics that they had to go through as you had the

19:02pro slavery faction and the anti slavery faction, both trying to use the same tool, right, as

19:10an instrument to defend their worldview and how things changed. And I want to, if it's

19:17okay with you, if it pleases the court, I want to read just a little bit of from the conclusion

19:25because it paints just a fascinating trajectory. I'll allow it. I appreciate that. Because

19:33if it's moral imperative against the pure evil of human chattel bondage, anti slavery

19:38and abolitionist Christianity was forced away from biblicism into a less literal reading

19:44of scripture. So your literal reading of scripture is pretty clear. Like slavery. Yeah, that's

19:50not going to help you with the, with the abolitionist position. Yeah, we're for it. And so they

19:54tried a bunch of different ways to try to, try to make this make sense. Like I was reading

19:58through this for a time they were like, Oh, well, the King James version says servant.

20:03It doesn't say slave. So none of the people in the Bible are actually slaves. They're

20:08servants. This is a voluntary thing. And that as long as we don't look at any other possible

20:14translation. Yeah.

20:20And you see vestiges of this today, like Frank Turic in a debate with Michael Schurmer was

20:26like the only slavery in the Bible was voluntary debt slavery or a means of, you know, stopping

20:34captives from fomenting rebellion or something like that. So that we still have the vestiges

20:41of that rationalization. And then other folks were like, well, you know what, it turns out

20:47there were actually no slaves in Israel during Jesus's day. And well, you had a bunch of

20:55different otherwise well-meaning abolitionist folks who were like, you know, this, this

21:01cannot stand. This aggression cannot stand man. And we're trying to just come up with

21:07whatever it was just throw in the spaghetti against the wall. Let's see what sticks.

21:11So anyway, back to the, the paper. The first step in this move was the development of a

21:17hermeneutics of immutable principles, which advanced an egalitarian reading of Jesus's

21:23golden rule as the kernel of the New Testament over against its patriarchal reading by pro

21:30slavery. So they're like, all right, step one, we need to lay down some immutable principles.

21:36When we look at the Bible, these things are immutable. These are, you know, these will

21:44not be subjected to scrutiny. This view was combined with wig theories of human progress

21:50in history to form a hermeneutics of the seed growing secretly. So this is where you

21:56get the apologists who say that this was, you know, this was subterfuge. This was God

22:02planning the seed in the New Testament that wouldn't sprout for, you know, 1700 years,

22:08but figure it out eventually. Yeah, it might take a, you know, a few thousand generations,

22:14but that's a, that is a deep planted seed. Yes, yes. It is a very slow greed. Sleeved.

22:20Yet a growing doubt about using egalitarianism to interpret the Pauline household duty codes

22:26led radical abolitionists, especially Garrisonians, admittedly not a representative group, to

22:32the second step, the total abandonment of biblical authority in favor of secular arguments

22:37from conscience. So the Garrisonians were like, we're not waiting. This is taking too

22:43long. We're, we're skipping over trying to rehabilitate the Bible and we're just going

22:48to go straight to secular arguments. Some African American abolitionists, such as Frederick

22:55Douglas, did not want to go that far and worked with white clergymen to save a biblical understanding

23:00of Christianity. These abolitionists were more representative because of their eagerness

23:05to build popular support. However, other African Americans, such as Denmark, Vessie and Nat

23:11Turner, rejected white Christianity altogether and took the third step that of violence.

23:17They employed a hermeneutics of biblical typology and the conjure of apocalyptic eschatology.

23:24So there's a lot of, a lot of $10 words right there. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the idea is, is

23:28basically they looked in the Bible and they were like book revelation time. It's, it's

23:33the final, the final countdown just like they always sung about and, and they were on the

23:38side of God. So that would be the, the, the conjure of apocalyptic eschatology. The political

23:45imperative of pro-slavery in contrast, foster to move toward literalism and bolden by the

23:52findings of biblical criticism that the New Testament writers did not condemn slavery

23:56as abolitionists would wish, but instead express views similar to those in the wider Greco-Roman

24:03slave culture. Biblical scholars argued that the New Testament contained passages that

24:07did not merely recommend subjection of slaves to their masters. Those passages signaled acceptance

24:12of an organic model of civilization for which such subjection was essential. Most embarrassing

24:19for today's readers of the Bible, the pro-slavery spokesman were defending the more defensible

24:24position from the perspective of historical criticism. In other words, one of the groups

24:31had it right. Yeah. Unfortunately, it was not the abolitionists.

24:35Well, had the Bible right? I think the abolitionists may have had, yeah, may have, may have been

24:42on the correct side of history. Yeah. As, as the great poet once said, we lost the war.

24:47I don't think that made us know what he said. From firefly. You were wrong. And he don't

24:55think we were wrong. We just lost the war. Um, and then the essay goes on to say the carries

25:00implication beyond its case history of slavery, the opposing values of literalism and moral

25:05intuition remain at odds in American religious culture, shaping contemporary debates over

25:10race relations, military conflict, capital punishment, poverty, abortion, full emancipation

25:15of women and lesbian and gay rights. Ready answers to these moral questions all too often

25:19fall short of persuasive power because they merely repeat truth claims found in the 19th

25:25century battle over slavery and the Bible. Biblical criticism is seldom able to settle

25:30contemporary moral debate, but contemporary moral debate can and does shape broad and

25:36influential trends in biblical criticism. Yeah. I think, I think one of the things that's

25:42interesting and one of the things that that should be instructive in how people address

25:49the Bible at, at this moment in history, it should be instructive that almost nobody believes

25:58that slavery is okay. Uh, in a modern context. Yeah. And they, and nobody should believe

26:04that it's okay. Like that is a, that is a very obvious, uh, easy moral stance to take.

26:11Yeah. That slavery is absolutely, uh, abhorrent. Yeah. And if we can, if we can agree on that,

26:18then we can move forward with addressing other issues, things like, uh, LGBTQ, uh, questions

26:25from that perspective saying, look, the Bible was a product of his time was a product of

26:31its, uh, of, of its cultures and wasn't purely just, you know, God raining down words that

26:41must last in perpetuity forever. Amen. Uh, unfortunately I have actually seen people in

26:50people who claim to be Bible literalists, who then when you confront them with the idea

26:55of slavery and say, you surely we can agree that slavery is wrong because they're so tied

27:02to the literal, uh, I did to the literal interpretation of the Bible. They can't say that. They tie

27:12themselves into, uh, this, this system that forces them not to be able to say, just slavery

27:19is wrong. Well, I see, I see it off a lot of, uh, of Christians today, conservative readers

27:26of the Bible who are willing to say that slavery is wrong and try to credit Christianity for

27:33abolishing slavery based on the Bible. And this is one of the points I wanted to make

27:39about this. One of the, one of the things that I think this paper does so well is demonstrate

27:44this changing tide, which is all about consensus because leading up to, uh, the 16 in the 1700s,

27:53overwhelmingly, the consensus among Christians was slavery good. There were occasional, you

27:59know, you had anti-slavery representatives bubbling to the surface for now and then.

28:04And then once we get to the enlightenment and questions of universal human rights, the

28:10natural law, all this kind of stuff become more widespread. And suddenly there's more

28:16focus on this and you get the Quakers who like were the first group among the Christians

28:22to really stay, take a, a hardcore anti-slavery stance. And what happened was slowly the consensus

28:28shifted and this paper is charting the different arguments that were taking place, uh, at during

28:37this pivot during the, the time period when this, when the consensus was shifting. And

28:42it's saying that the, there were folks who were like, okay, we're going to, we're going

28:47to take this slow and easy and we're going to do this right. And they weren't convincing

28:51many people. And there were other folks who were like, oh, we're just going to skip to

28:54the end. And, and they weren't convincing many people. And there was a group who was,

29:00if you're, if you're looking at the Bible as the rule book, they were right. Yeah. But

29:05ultimately they lose out because what happened is the arguments as not good as they were,

29:12they were good enough for enough people to say based on, on the moral conviction of the

29:18wrongness of slavery, I'll buy that. Yeah. I can, I can live with that. I think that argument

29:23works. And so everything slowly shifted. And now you have the folks, the Christians who

29:29say slavery is evil. It's always been evil. God was just trying to hold Israel's hand

29:34because, you know, God couldn't just overturn everything all at once. That would have caused

29:38all kinds of economic problems. And you know, it's a, it's the economy stupid. And, and

29:43now we're saying Christians are responsible for doing it all because the Bible inspired

29:46them because obviously the Bible is anti-slavery. And, and these arguments are still awful.

29:53Yeah. But because the, the, because of what you said,

29:58the overwhelming majority of, of people Christians included can agree slavery is a moral evil.

30:05And their argument doesn't have to be that good. Like it was in the first place, but

30:10now since everybody agrees, now the, the argument is kind of pushing a back a little bit and

30:16saying, no, no, it was, it was the Bible all along. I think they're, they're trying

30:20to take advantage of the consensus to try to gain a little ground back from history.

30:24I'll give, I'll, here's what I will grant them. It is that I think that it was Christians

30:32who were willing to take the, you know, allow that worser argument to win the day because

30:40they, because they had their moral center in place. Who, it is them who enabled the abolition

30:49of slavery. It's people like, and I've, I've read a lot about this guy because I happen

30:55to be related to him, but Henry Ward Beecher was a, was a huge, he was literally like the,

31:04he was the most famous man in America, at least according to his biographer who, whose

31:08name I'm forgetting, but that's the title of the biography is the most famous man in America.

31:13Oh, really? And he was, and he was such a popular orator. He was a preacher. He was

31:20a, I believe a congregationalist. His dad was a fire and brimstone preacher as well. And,

31:26but it was his orations and his very, very popular speeches that sort of laid a lot of

31:33the groundwork, at least in people's minds about like accepting abolition as a, as a proposition.

31:41So, okay. And then his sister, and then his sister wrote a book, wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin

31:46and just sort of blew the doors off the whole thing. He was like, Oh, I got you. I'll do

31:52you one better. Yeah. Lincoln had things to say about both of those two. Anyway. So the,

32:01the author of his biography was Debbie Applegate. Thank you. And then he's also famous for his

32:071875 adultery trial. Stop it. Stop it. How dare you? Okay. Look, we were just talking

32:14about how you got to be a little squishy on some biblical things in order to make the

32:19abolition thing work. Yeah. But I, I think it is, I absolutely think there were an awful

32:28lot of Christians who caught the vision and obviously preceding them were the actual people

32:38who suffered under enslavement who were speaking out as well. But, but yeah, I'm, I'm happy

32:44to to acknowledge that that Christians did that. It was because their, their moral sense

32:51overruled the Bible. Yeah. And they were just able to gin up arguments that were good enough.

32:57Right. That they could buy that kind of arguments so that they could feel justified in doing

33:05what they were doing in light of their, their ostensible commitment to the Bible. And people

33:10are still doing that today. And I think we have, you know, we have, we have other issues.

33:17The paper talked about a lot of other issues that are that we're still in the middle of

33:22where the Bible is frequently leveraged as, you know, as the answer to all of this.

33:29And there are an awful lot of people who are like, I think it's, it's the same situation

33:33playing out. We know what the Bible says, but our moral sense tells us correctly, this

33:41is, this is a no, no, this is bad. And I think we're starting to reach a critical mass, particularly

33:47with things like, well, I think we're still a ways away. But, but I think the things are

33:52starting to tilt a little bit when it comes to like LGBTQ plus inclusion or an awful lot

33:57of Christians who are, are a lot more inclusive. And even some of the, the, the scholarly evangelical

34:05voices from the end of the 20th century, who were among those who were, you know, affirming

34:12that the New Testament is not affirming of LGBTQ plus identities have, have now published

34:20books saying I was wrong. I, I now believe that the Bible does open the door for us to

34:30walk inclusion through. And but I think that the other, the other lesson to be learned,

34:36I guess what the point that I was trying to make is that one of the lessons to be learned

34:39is the Bible doesn't have to have an open door. Like the Bible is the product of its

34:46time. It is, it gets things wrong. It conflicts with its own self. Yeah. So like, to some extent,

34:54with, you know, as, as issues come up and as we start to explore things in different ways,

34:59in ways that have never been explored before, the Bible is not going to be particularly

35:04instructive. Yeah. And should, and you know, use it in ways that it is useful, but also

35:12be willing to let go of sort of traditional, like you don't need the Bible to have a moral

35:20center. Yeah. And, and you're, so you would have sided with the Garosonians. Indeed. I

35:27think I am a lot of my advocacy is the same. I'm saying, Hey, yeah, we know better. Like

35:34there, there are so many things that we've just been like, oh, yeah, no, no, thank you,

35:38but we have rejected from the Bible. And there's nothing telling us, Oh, it's okay to reject

35:43that. But this, no, they can't cross that line. Like we can cross whatever line we want

35:48because it all comes down to consensus. That's, that's something that I've, that I've tried

35:53to, a point I've tried to make a number of times when it comes to the Bible's authority,

35:58that authority is whatever the group agrees it is. Yeah. And they can overrule it whenever

36:03they want, literally, whenever they want, as long as the consensus is what it is, then,

36:11you know, that reifies authority consensus. Well, and the trick is you have to pick and

36:15choose because like we say, the Bible keeps contradicting itself. So you don't get to

36:22just believe everything. So you have to pick and choose might as well pick and choose the

36:26things that comport with your own moral center. Yeah. And don't pick and choose the slave

36:33button. Don't that was, that was an example is right out. We all need to agree forever.

36:40Slavery is out. That was, that was the, the picking and choosing of 1807 that again, doesn't

36:47seem like it made a big splash in the in literary circles, but, but yeah. All right. Well, hopefully

36:56that, hopefully that beds that, that issue back down. Yes, indeed. So let's move on to

37:02our next segment, taking issue. And the thing that we're taking issue with or the thing,

37:12the issue that we are taking is the concept of wealth. The thing that brought this up,

37:21brought this to my mind was one of your videos that I saw a bit ago that was taught you, you,

37:28you highlighted a pastor. I don't know where this guy was from, but he was, he had, he had

37:35a very Alex Jones vibe to him and he had a little lacost sweater on. Yeah, that he was

37:42kind of busting out of it was a little weird. I think it was in New York. He's a very barrel

37:47chested man. I don't know. I don't know that the sweater vest is the right look. Anywho,

37:53or the cardigan or whatever. Anyway, he, he was talking about how some people very stupidly

38:01say that, that, that Jesus said, blessed are the poor. Yeah. And, and, and this, one of

38:12the things I really didn't like is that he started off by saying, uh, what, what do you

38:17say? Some oddly gendered preachers. Right. Yes. He did. And then it showed video of Bishop

38:23Mary and buddy, um, from DC and I was like, she's the one that, she's the one that, that

38:30confronted Trump while he was in her. Yeah. She's the one who asked Trump to show mercy

38:36to other people and then was demonized, was pilloried for asking for mercy. Yes. Exactly.

38:44While giving a sermon, people are like, I'm being so sermonizing that she's literally giving

38:50a sermon in her church, in her church. She is. Why are you politicizing the sermon to all

38:57the politicians? But what's happening? Yeah. Anyway, yes. So, so he, so he does get his,

39:03uh, his little gender dig in. Yeah. That didn't make any sense. No. Uh, and, and he also calls

39:10out of Piscopalian's. He's, uh, he's also like, these weird gender, the Piscopalian's

39:17saying all this stuff. But Jesus didn't say, blessed are the poor. He said, blessed are

39:23the poor in spirit. Uh, and you said, uh, excuse me. Oh, contrary. Yes. Um, that's not

39:35how I read the word, uh, because he's, he's talking about the sermon on the Mount and

39:40Matthew five, three. And the, the interesting thing is that the sermon on the Mount is not

39:46the only place where we see a collection of Beatitudes. We also see it in Luke chapter

39:50six. Only there, it's not known as the sermon on the Mount. It's known as the sermon on the

39:55plane. And it's basically it like the in rough outline. I saw, I saw a video of a guy giving

40:02a sermon on a plane and I was like, dude, just sit down. Nobody needs to hear the guitar.

40:08Uh, I assume this is, uh, A.I.N. not A.N.E. plane. Correct. Correct. Yes. The, the rain

40:18in Spain falls mainly on the sermons in the plane. Um, and so in rough outlines, it's,

40:26it's basically the, the same sermon, but the details are, are, are different in a bunch

40:30of different ways. Okay. And, and this presents a bit of a problem for, uh, folks who think

40:36that's, or, you know, the folks who accept unibokality and anerrancy and things, right?

40:41Because it sounds like Jesus is like on a hill and he gives a sermon and then he's like,

40:45Hey, let's, let's go down here and then gives mostly the same sermon, but somewhat different.

40:51And, um, say what, why is Jesus doing this? It's, uh, why is he got a, it's the same set

40:58we heard last night. Um, you got to write some new material there, Jesus, but, um, in

41:04Luke chapter six, verse 20, Jesus does say blessed are the poor makahrihi petohi. And

41:15this is, and you know, there's no qualification there. And in Matthew five, three, it does

41:19say blessed are the poor in spirit, which seems to be a reference to the humble. And

41:24it does, it does not say only the people who are humble because of, you know, whatever

41:31is all humble folks, which obviously will include an awful lot of poor people. But in,

41:36in Luke, yeah, it's just straight up says blessed are the poor. It doesn't seem like

41:40the humble, uh, would include pastor Lacoste. But that's just a sense that I have. Yeah.

41:46Hey, I love that he was, he was like his, uh, talking about how he, he ministers to the

41:51poor and he prays for him and more than a lot of people. And, uh, and like, not, that's

41:58sincerely though. It doesn't say, yeah. And something tells me that you just, you, you

42:02pray down to them. Yeah. You don't, you don't pray with them. And then he, he talked about

42:07his brother. He said his brother lived on the street for a while. And he was a wild man.

42:13And, uh, what, what did he say? He, he wasn't humble and that, uh, nobody could tell him

42:19what to do. I wanted to be like, it sure doesn't sound like you're the kind of guy who lets

42:25other people tell him what to do. Right. Yeah. Exactly. I wonder if this runs in the family,

42:31maybe he, he, he, what economic, uh, status is not the, uh, the main factor here. It's

42:40not the problem. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's probably not it. But, um, uh, but yeah, then,

42:45then he starts crapping on the poor and talking about how, uh, they're, they're not humble

42:51and that, uh, are, are haughty and, and all this kind of stuff. Um, which, which was particularly

42:59bizarre. Yeah. Uh, because like if you're, what part of the Bible have you, like, not

43:04yet gotten to? Because, I mean, I, maybe you just got to Matthew five, three and we're

43:11like, ooh, I'm going to write a sermon on this and I'm going to stop reading the Bible.

43:15I'm, I'm going to start at Matthew five and end at Matthew five, three and that will be

43:20the, uh, the beginning and end of my reading of the Bible. And then I'm going to put on

43:24my little alligator sweater and I'm going to go yell at, uh, at my congregation. But yeah,

43:34the, the message that the poor are blessed is not just limited to Luke six, 20. It is

43:43something. In fact, the New Testament, interestingly enough, Jesus's followers were, were overwhelmingly,

43:49at least as far as we can tell, uh, seem to be from the lower economic half of, uh, of

43:56first century Judea and Galilee from, from what we can tell there were not a lot of incredibly

44:01well off people. We do have the story about the rich young ruler and Joseph of, of Arimathea

44:06and there are some, are some examples of, of people who were pretty well off. But for

44:11the most part, uh, his following seems to be represented as, uh, not a bunch of incredibly

44:18wealthy people. And the message of Christianity in the earliest years seems to have been directed

44:25at the poor. Um, when the first time we get like, uh, Roman accounts of Christianity,

44:32like Pliny, the, uh, I believe the younger, uh, describes Christianity. Is it plenty or

44:38is it takitus? I don't know. One of the, like early second century Roman historians slash,

44:44um, statesman slash authors refers to Christianity as a religion for women and slaves. So, which

44:52would suggest that this is still, you know, low on the economic ladder, but, uh, the message

44:57of Christianity seems to be directed in the direction of the poor as well. And in addition

45:03to the parts where you, uh, in addition to Luke, 620 and elsewhere, you also have condemnation

45:10of the wealthy. And yeah, it seems like that happens a lot. Yeah. It does. Doesn't it like

45:18I can think of several, you know, the camel and the eye of the needle thing. I can think

45:23of several things just off the top of my head and I'm no Bible expert, but like, like,

45:29yeah, it, it seems like Jesus himself said frequently, you know, sell your stuff. If

45:36you're wealthy, if you're, if you're rich, stop it. Yeah. So sell your stuff and give

45:42it to the poor. Yeah. That's what, what happens after the rich young ruler comes to Jesus

45:47and says, what do, what do I have to do to earn an eternal life? And Jesus says, uh, you

45:52know, starts rattling off commandments and is basically like, you know, the law and, um,

45:57and then the rich young ruler says, Oh, I've been keeping all the commandments since my

46:00youth. I've done all that. What more, what, what more do I lack? And Jesus says, sell

46:05all that you have and give it to the poor. And then you will have mansions and heaven

46:10or something like that. And then it describes the rich young ruler as going away, sad or

46:15dejected because he had lots of stuff. Yeah. And then, and then Jesus says, how difficult

46:22it is for the, or how difficult it will be for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven.

46:29And that's when his followers are like, what's going on here? And, uh, then he gives the

46:34whole, um, you know, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it

46:39is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And his followers are like, well, who

46:43then can be saved master? And he says with humans with mortals, this is impossible, but

46:49with God, all things are possible. And you see so many people trying to turn this around

46:56to be the exact opposite of what it is. It's pretty clearly a, an insistence that you cannot

47:02serve God and wealth because your heart will be with one and, and not with the other.

47:08It's like pick one. Yeah. You want to be rich. You want to go to heaven. No one can serve

47:12two masters. Yeah. For exactly. For either he will, he will hate the one and love the

47:18other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. Yeah. And so when, and, and you

47:23know, there are people who are like, Oh, the eye of the needle is, is one of the, uh, one

47:27of the leaves, one of the smaller doorways that's built into the larger city gate and

47:33it was called the eye of the needle because if camels had to go through you, they had

47:36to get on their knees and they had to take all of the luggage and, and all of the stuff

47:40off of them and they had to go through with carrying nothing. And so that means in order

47:45to, for a rich person to enter heaven, you, you have to be, uh, you know, willing to, to

47:51give up everything and, and, and on and on and on. And this is entirely made up. Uh, those,

47:58those doors are medieval in origin. They're called wicked gates. They start in Europe,

48:03medieval period. There's no indication those doors existed anywhere in around or near Jerusalem

48:09in the first century CE. And so, uh, it definitely was not that. And then, yeah, I mean, it seems,

48:17it seems clear, like even if there was such a thing as the little door that the camel

48:22can barely fit through, like the, the concept is still the same, rich people, like you have

48:27to get rich people don't get into heaven. Like it's almost impossible for a wealthy

48:34person by Jesus is reckoning to get into heaven. Yeah. So then we stumble on the problem of

48:42the prosperity gospel, uh, you know, led by people like Joel Osteen and, uh, Paula White

48:52and Creflo dollar, which, you know, these guys, these people are incredibly popular. They

49:00themselves are insanely wealthy, um, because they, you know, and, and what they preach

49:10is this idea that if you, if you give me money, if you're sorry, if you give the church money

49:17and somehow it magic magically flows to me, uh, then, then you will have everything you

49:23need and wealth will flow to you. And nobody seems to notice that A, that doesn't work.

49:29And B, uh, it seems in contrast with a lot of the stuff, uh, that you read, especially

49:37in the New Testament, uh, I did some research and tried to figure out what scriptural, uh,

49:45references, prosperity gospel preachers use to justify their position. And it seemed almost

49:53exclusively to come from, uh, the Hebrew Bible. Yeah. Well, and, and that's because like I

49:59said, the most of the New Testament is written towards overwhelmingly poor people. The Hebrew

50:05Bible is primarily written by the elite, uh, for the elite and is, uh, you know, a lot

50:12of it is written by the, the, the royal scribes and things like that. So they're writing from

50:18an entirely different perspective. Right. And, and they're still in the, they're still

50:22in this, um, you know, kind of kingdom perspective where we got kings. We got rulers. We're in

50:28charge. Everything's good. As long as we're in charge where in the New Testament, it's

50:33kind of, you know, our guy, our guy got crucified. Um, so we lost the battle, but, uh, and they're

50:41kind of writing from another perspective. So yeah, you have to go to the Hebrew Bible

50:45if you want to try to make being wealthy sound good. And it's not like it. I mean, I, you

50:52know, there are, uh, there are the scriptures that I found were things like Proverbs 14

50:57that said something about all hard work leads to profit. Uh, or, or, you know, Proverbs

51:03also had a thing about steady plotting brings prosperity. Uh, and so there, you know, there

51:09were all these, uh, there were a lot of scriptures that that definitely didn't condemn wealth.

51:17And, uh, you know, like you say, if you're writing for a king, you, you, you're not going

51:23to write about how bad it is to be a king. It's, it's unlikely that that's where you're

51:28going to, where you're going to go with it. Yeah. And you do have some interesting perspectives

51:33in the, in the Hebrew Bible, like the, uh, the eighth century prophets and others are

51:38are kind of mad at the wealthy folks. Um, and you do have some folks who take the, uh,

51:45no king, but God kind of perspective. But yeah, there, there are an awful lot of, uh,

51:50pro-monarchy folks and pro-wealth and Proverbs is like that too. Like Proverbs 31, 10 in

51:56the King James version who can find a virtuous woman. Her price is far above rubies. The

52:02heart of her husband doth safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil.

52:06She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax

52:11and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant ships. She bringeth her

52:15food from afar. She riseeth also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household

52:20and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field and biath it with the fruit of her

52:25hands. She planted the vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth

52:29her arms. She perceiveeth that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth not out by night.

52:35She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff. She stretches out her

52:39hand to the poor. Yay, she reaches forth her hands to the needy. And it goes on like that.

52:46Give that woman a break. Yeah, she is. That is a hardworking woman right there.

52:51Proverbs is proud of a hardworking woman. And I think there's a part. She makeeth herself

52:58coverings of tapestry. Her clothing is silk and purple. So she wears expensive clothing,

53:04which is what a certain somebody who will go unnamed. Paul of Tarsus says is sinful.

53:14Yes. That's the one who's not modest. The person who, the woman who braids her hair,

53:18the woman who wears jewelry. Right. The woman who has fancy clothes. But for Proverbs, no,

53:22we're all about the purple. Yeah, we were purple, silk and purple is, you know, sort

53:28of notoriously throughout history, the sign of wealth because it's the hardest. It's the

53:34hardest die to get. Yeah. And then her husband is known in the gates when he sit it when he

53:44siteth among the elders of the land. She make a fine linen and selleth it and deliver with

53:49girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing. And she saw, shall rejoice

53:55in time to come. She opened her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue as the law of kindness.

54:00I feel like I feel like this is not a good marriage. I feel like he is just sitting there

54:06on one sided. Yes, with the other guys. And she is working her tail off trying to trying

54:11to make things good in the world. He's hanging out in the city gates to all hours of the

54:17night. He's he's podcasting with his buddies. I promise you this, this marriage, once the

54:24kids are out of the nest, this marriage is going to end. Yeah. And she's gone. And she's

54:32taken all of her stuff with her. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's going to be singing a different

54:39tune in the city gates. He's what's that old song? That's my story. And I'm sticking

54:44to it. Yeah. Yeah. Just last week, she threw that hammock in the attic. So so that excuse

54:50isn't going to work. But yeah, you you've got very different perspectives on on wealth

54:54between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. And so your prosperity preachers who are basically

55:00trying to enrich themselves by yeah, by lying to everybody else that you will magically

55:05become wealthy if you if you do all these things and just praying on their insecurities

55:10and their faith. Yeah. Like I think of all the all the the sick twisted things to do

55:16is to take advantage of people who have a lot of faith and hurt them just so you can enrich

55:24yourself. Yeah. And then when your promises don't come true, chastise them for having

55:32for not having been faithful enough, tell them that it was their fault that they weren't

55:36able to make it happen, that they didn't do the things that they needed to do in order

55:39to be, you know, that they they just need to pray harder. They need to believe more. There

55:44was some doubt in them. There was some blah, blah, blah. And of course there was doubt

55:48in them. Yeah. Like we all know that's not going to work. But you know, they, but these

55:53are really faithful people. And the people who are the most faithful are the ones who

55:57give the most who give who give what they can't afford to give because they want to show

56:03God what you know, what they're made of. Yeah. The widows might. Yeah. And then I think

56:10to to raise people in circumstances like that where you treat it as a transaction. Like if

56:16you do this, then God will bless you monetarily. It riddles people with anxiety, I think, because

56:25the majority of people are not going to get what they want, get what they think they're

56:31owed from that transaction. And frequently go through life feeling like they're not good

56:37enough. Yeah. And if anybody's not good enough, it's the folks who wear multi thousand dollar

56:43suits on a stage to preach to a congregation about how God wants them to be wealthy. Oh,

56:49yeah. These guys are in multi thousand dollar shoes. It's ridiculous. It is. Yeah. It's a

56:59very, it's very disappointing to me. And, and it's something that, that I think needs

57:06to be called out. And one of the nice things is that I, you know, in researching this saw

57:12plenty of Christian websites calling it out and saying this is not an acceptable theology.

57:20Yeah. Yeah. So next time you want to put on a fancy sweater or a fancy suit to go yell

57:27about how much poor people suck to a congregation of other Christians. Sit a few plays out,

57:35have a coconut smile, and you know how to finish that quote. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

57:42Just to wrap things up, I think, I think we are, we're just going to come out directly

57:47against slavery and prosperity gospel. I think we're with that is now the official editorial

57:54position of the party of the data over pod data over dogma podcast. I'll get the name

58:00of the podcast right one of these days. It doesn't matter. It's the end of the show. Nobody's

58:03listening anymore anyway. Anyway, listen, if you guys are still listening, we appreciate

58:08you so much. If you appreciate us back, you can go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and give

58:18a little bit of your hard earned cash to us. We do not promise that it will make you wealthy,

58:24but we do promise that it might give you a little bit of a nice warm feeling to know

58:28that you're helping us out. It will also give you access to an early and ad-free version

58:33of every episode if you're at the right level. And if you're at the other right level, you

58:38can get access to the data over dogma after party. That's more content every week for

58:44your listening enjoyment. If you'd like to write into us, it's contact at dataoverdogmapod.com.

58:52Link in the show notes for tour dates. Make sure to jump on that and we will talk to you

58:57again next week. Bye everybody.

59:04Data Over Dogma is a member of the Airwave Media Network. It is a production of Data Over Dogma

59:07Media LLC Copyright 2025. All rights reserved.