Ep 138: Who Deserves to Eat?

00:00Does the context support that interpretation?

00:05I'm going to say, along with the majority of scholars, of course not, you jerk.

00:14Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan Beacher and you're listening to the Data

00:22Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible

00:27and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:31How are things today, Dan?

00:33As good as can be expected, I think is the answer to that.

00:37All things considered, yeah, yeah, with one thing against another, we're coasting on it.

00:44We're going just fine.

00:45In this economy, the man in the White House, what else can you expect?

00:50Well, yeah.

00:51What can one do?

00:54We're doing okay.

00:55We're going to be talking about some interesting stuff.

00:58I'm actually fascinated by a few of the things we're going to be talking about.

01:03First, we're going to do a chapter and verse.

01:06We're going to hit some second Thessalonians.

01:08Love the Thessalonians.

01:10Yeah.

01:11Yeah.

01:12Well, one, you know, I like to write an epistle to a Thessalonian if I can every now and then.

01:17This is chapter three and the way that it is used to be a jerk.

01:24Yes.

01:25It is.

01:26It is.

01:27This is one of the jerk passages and then we're going to jump to Hixos.

01:34The Hixos.

01:35Yes.

01:36And I have never heard of Hixos's, the Hixos, the very, your various Hixis.

01:41We were still trying to figure out the plural there, I guess.

01:43Yeah.

01:44I am, I looked at it, but I'm excited to hear about it and and whether or not it actually

01:53helps us understand the Exodus, maybe Joseph, there's so many things.

02:00This is a verimathea or no, not that Joseph.

02:04That's, that's much later.

02:05Would you?

02:06No.

02:07Yeah.

02:08Joseph finds just picker Joseph, pick Joseph's and Joseph Smith.

02:14You can't miss with a Joseph.

02:16Right.

02:17That one will, we'll leave that one to lie and we'll go on with our first thing.

02:23We're in verse and as we said, this chapter in verse is second Thessalonians chapter three.

02:32We're going to, we're going to do sort of a whole, a whole paragraph, basically.

02:35Yeah.

02:36A sense unit, if you will, a sense unit, six chapters or verses six through 13.

02:43There you go.

02:44You're going to really land on one verse though, because this is the jerk verse.

02:49This is where if you bring this up like jerk automatically, yeah.

02:54If someone says 2 Thessalonians chapter, chapter three, verse 10, you know you're, you're

03:06about to get a really a jerk argument, somebody's, somebody's about to be a real piece of work

03:15for you.

03:16Yes, but let's dive in. We'll read through the thing.

03:20Okay.

03:21And then I want to talk a little bit about context.

03:22I want to talk about what scholars think is going on here and before we get into how

03:27people are leveraging this.

03:30Well, since you mentioned context, this is an epistle from Paul.

03:36Is this one of the actual epistles, Pauline epistles?

03:39No.

03:40Okay.

03:41This is, this is one of the disputed Pauline epistles.

03:44Okay.

03:45It's more common among your critical scholars than among your apologists and your and your

03:51theologians to acknowledge this.

03:53It's not unheard of among the conservatives and theologians, but most critical scholars

04:00would say that this was likely written by somebody pretending to be Paul after Paul's death.

04:06This isn't the one, one of the ones that we're pretty sure.

04:09No, the, so you've got the spurious, which is generally just the, the pastoral epistles.

04:16So that would be First and Second Timothy and Titus.

04:19Okay.

04:20And these are the, the disputed.

04:22So we don't have as much of a consensus as we do with the pastoral epistles, but, and

04:28these would be Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, probably not written by Paul,

04:34but we're, we're not going to put as big a punctuation mark on it as we are with, with

04:40the pastoral epistles.

04:41Was it actually sent to Thessalonians?

04:43Like, yeah, yeah, it was probably was sent to, or, or at least was circulated among the,

04:51the inhabitants of what we now refer to, at least when I was there as Thessaloniki.

04:58So up in the, in the top portion of, yeah, of the Aegean, a nice little port city.

05:07Last time I was there, there was a TGI Fridays there.

05:10Don't know if it's still there, but that is, that is an interesting marker of civilization.

05:17I will say that.

05:19I'm not sure what it portends.

05:22I don't think it's good.

05:23Probably not good now, but I, yes, I spent much happier times in, in some of the ancient

05:33sites there in Thessaloniki, but, but yeah, it was, there was a European League basketball

05:39game on the TVs there.

05:40So it was like going to Canada, you've been to Canada many times and it's like going to

05:45Canada and it's like, okay, there's speaking my language.

05:48I don't recognize the football teams right on the TV screen.

05:53Everybody says A, it's, you know, it, I'm like, wow, gas is pretty cheap.

05:58And they're like, no, that's per liter per liter.

06:00Yeah.

06:01At one point, I wanted, I was my mom lives up in Canada and I wanted to translate miles

06:08per gallon.

06:09I wanted to understand what her mileage on her car was.

06:13Yeah.

06:14And I was like, kilometers per liter, kilometers per liter.

06:17I can't, what am I, like, I, I was, I was mystified and then to try and figure out how

06:23the gas prices, like, like Canadian dollars per liter versus American dollars per gallon.

06:30I was just like, I give up.

06:32I am not doing this.

06:33That math is beyond me.

06:34Yeah.

06:35I tried to do it in my head, driving by a gas station and I was like, I give up.

06:37I don't know.

06:38There's literally no amount of math that can possibly figure that out.

06:40It doesn't exist.

06:41We have not cracked the code yet anyway.

06:45So second Thessalonians, we got chapter three here and this is NRSVUE as we are won't to

06:52default to.

06:53Yeah.

06:54Now we command you brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to keep away

06:58from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they

07:03received from us.

07:06So they're getting a little bit of a tongue lashing or who's the we?

07:10It's not I.

07:11It's we.

07:12Yeah.

07:13It would be Paul and whoever is companions and were ostensibly various Paul and the

07:19palettes.

07:20Yes.

07:21It was the pips turtle was there.

07:26They probably had different members of his entourage.

07:30Yes.

07:31Scooby shaggy Velma.

07:33Okay.

07:34All right.

07:35For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us.

07:39We were not irresponsible when we were with you.

07:42And we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it.

07:46But with toil and labor, we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you.

07:52This was not because we do not have the right.

07:55But in order to give you an example to imitate for even when we were with you, we gave you

08:00this command.

08:01Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.

08:05Boom.

08:06Are we here?

08:07That's put a sticker on that one.

08:09That's the one.

08:10We're going to come back to, we'll circle back to that before we hear that some of you

08:14are living irresponsibly mere busy bodies, not doing any work.

08:19No such persons.

08:20We command now such persons.

08:21We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their

08:27own living.

08:28Brothers and sisters do not be weary in doing what is right.

08:33So the verse that gets wrenched out of context and quoted in Congress that gets quoted on

08:42social media all over the place for even when we were with you, we gave you this command

08:48and usually that's omitted.

08:50Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.

08:52So the, and this obviously recently has been salient because of the government shutdown

08:57and the threat of ending of snap benefits for the poor and needy.

09:05And there were just an obscene number of people, some of them in positions of prominence

09:12and power and privilege who were just tickled pink about the poor and the needy being denied

09:19snap benefits.

09:21It's shocking to me.

09:24The cruelty seems to be the point with these people.

09:27Oh, absolutely.

09:28I think there's, there's an idea that poor people don't deserve right.

09:33These things like, you know, and things like food and shelter.

09:37Yes.

09:38Yes.

09:39You'll, you'll hear people be like, they shouldn't be allowed to buy sodas and things with sugar.

09:44It should just be meat and bread and, and milk, they were buying delicious things.

09:49How dare they?

09:50Yeah.

09:51They were buying food that they would enjoy instead of just sustenance gruel.

09:56Things where they're going to get a lot of calories efficiently and quickly.

10:01Yeah.

10:02It's not going to take a long time to prepare and it makes them feel good.

10:07Like, I don't know, I don't know how many people listening have lived in poverty.

10:11I grew up in, in, I would call it poverty conditions.

10:16I have, I don't know, there are some people out here out there who will get this, but

10:21I know the Bishop's storehouse well.

10:23Yeah.

10:24I know that, I love their salsa.

10:26They had a granola cereal.

10:27I really, really loved.

10:30And sometimes you want a frozen pizza or a soda because it feels like you're treating

10:37yourself after a lot of hard work for not a lot of benefit.

10:43Right.

10:44And it makes you feel human.

10:45It makes you feel like you are a part of this grander society where all this amazing stuff

10:51is available.

10:53And if you are forced to subsist on gruel and, you know, bread and bad meats and things

10:59like that, it feels like you're being punished, that you don't merit the dignity of the right

11:06to choose to, to have something sweet or have something particularly savory or fatty or,

11:14or oily or whatever, whatever your, your poison is.

11:18So yeah, the cruelty is absolutely the point and it is so, yeah, the other thing I've been

11:24seeing is people who are like, you know, I saw, I saw a thread just the other day that

11:33said jobs that deserve 20 something dollars an hour.

11:40And it listed, you know, like EMT and blah, blah, blah.

11:43And then jobs that don't McDonald's worker.

11:46And I was like, what are you, what are you talking about?

11:50Yeah.

11:51That person works just as hard.

11:52That person, like, like these people, it's so weird to me that there's this hunger to

11:57keep people poor and miserable, yeah, and, yeah, there were, you, you, you also get a

12:07lot of the, you know, well, McDonald's job, that's intended for high school kids.

12:12Right.

12:13That's intended for part time high school kids so they can have a little walking around money

12:16or something like that.

12:17And, and, and I think this is overwhelmingly coming from people who live in very nice areas

12:22where maybe they're McDonald's is populated primarily by high school kids.

12:27Right.

12:28There are plenty of places where it is.

12:29No, because you can't afford in that neighborhood to live there and on, on the subsistence salaries

12:35that they choose to pay.

12:37Yeah.

12:38But, you know, the, the whole, and the whole idea of minimum wage, when you go back to where

12:43it, when it was established, it was supposed to be a living wage and explicitly not merely

12:49a subsistence living, but a dignified living wage and, and it is, and, you know, objectively

12:57is, has not been that for many, many years.

13:00For decades.

13:01Yeah.

13:02So anyway.

13:0340 years, something like that.

13:04Yeah.

13:05And, and so just the fact that there were a lot of people and particularly people in, in

13:09ecclesiastical positions, who were just like, lick in their chops at the opportunity to

13:16see people go without, and, and, and they had this passage, passage in their back pocket

13:25ready to whip out.

13:26And so does the context support that interpretation, I'm going to say, along with the majority

13:33of scholars, ha, ha, ha, of course not, you jerk.

13:40And that's, you can quote me on that.

13:41That's okay.

13:42Um, that is the, the, uh, the formal academic, uh, term response.

13:48Yeah.

13:49And we'll make that the official position of the podcast as well.

13:52Yes.

13:53There are, there are a couple of different readings of this that, that I think are interesting.

13:57One is the consensus reading.

13:59This is where if you look in, in commentaries, this is overwhelmingly going to be the one

14:03that is preferred by the majority of scholars.

14:05There's another one that is a bit more of a minority reading, but I think is attractive.

14:09Okay.

14:10And, and I'll start with the minority reading just because I think it makes better sense

14:15of the verses that come before the author pretending to be Paul, talking about when Paul

14:20was there and it's like, you know, I had a right to demand the food, but I didn't because

14:26I was, I was working, um, uh, you know, for my, my wages as being a good low worker B.

14:33Yeah.

14:34And specifically to teach all of you how to be good little worker bees to set an example.

14:39And so the idea here is that he was someone who had an ecclesiastical office and he was

14:46fulfilling duties associated with that office, but rather than treat the fulfillment of those

14:52duties as meriting payment through the resources provided by the community, food being, being

15:01the main one, he said, no, no, no, my duties towards the church I'm not charging for.

15:08I'm going to work to earn my, the food that I am, uh, and served and fed.

15:15So the, the reading that I find attractive that unfortunately, uh, just for me, uh, unfortunately

15:23is not the majority reading is that Paul here is talking about people who actually have

15:27responsibilities within the, the governing body of the church, people who hold offices

15:33within the church who are like, well, I may bishop. I'm an overseer. I'm a pastor. I'm

15:39a teacher. I'm an evangelist, whatever. Therefore I don't need to go out and get a day job.

15:45My work for the church should be enough for me to be able to enjoy the resources provided

15:51by the congregation.

15:53It's weird that modern ecclesiastical leaders don't prefer that particular reading of this.

15:59I don't know why they wouldn't. That's, uh, it seems so strange that they wouldn't want

16:05everyone to think that they should also have to have a day job. Yes. Yes. Well, the, you

16:10know, we've, we've merged the day job with the ecclesiastical duties within most, uh,

16:18within most, uh, Christian traditions denominations. Well, that's true. Your tradition does not

16:24do that. Kind of. Yeah. When, once you get into central leadership, there is, there is

16:30a stipend, uh, that is, yeah, the higher ups get paid, but, but like, yeah, you know, the,

16:36the parish leader, the bishop of the ward, uh, yeah, he gets bubcus. Yeah. And, and that's

16:42because he's has a day job. Yeah. He's not, he's not being, um, you know, he's getting

16:48nothing. It's volunteer is the, the lay clergy is, is what they call it, but, and then the

16:53higher ups, that is their only job that they have, which is the rationalization for the

16:58stipend, whether or not you think the stipend is, is fair or exorbitant or whatever, uh,

17:04is going to depend on, on other factors. But one way to understand this is, Hey, these

17:10are people who are working for the church and then saying, I shouldn't have to have a day

17:14job. And the passage is saying, no, if you're going to eat the church's food, you need to

17:21earn it. Uh, so it's not talking about the poor and the needy. It's not saying that when

17:25the, you know, people come into the soup kitchen and it's like, how many hours did you work

17:30down, uh, at the, you know, the shipyard, uh, but before I ladle your soup into your bowl,

17:37that's not what it's saying at all. It's, it's saying, Hey, don't be a lazy apostle. Um,

17:42got a, you've got to have your day job. So that's, that's one reading interpretation.

17:52Number one, the more common reading is based on the understanding that this is, is coming

17:59when people are like, ooh, second come in any day now. Yeah. Any day now. And that was

18:05the historical Paul was like, you know, don't even bother getting married. Don't bother

18:09having kids if you don't have kids because it's coming any day now. So, um, you don't

18:14want to be stuck in some kind of transition period. You don't want to be having to go

18:19through your orientation videos when the Lord comes. So with a kid on your side, like that's

18:26just, that's just going to bug everybody. And so based on that, most scholars today suggest

18:33that this is a reference to people who again are not poor, are not needy, are relatively

18:39well off who are deciding they're just going to coast into the eschaton. The church has

18:44everything I need. I don't need to continue with my day job because Jesus is coming back

18:50too soon anyway. So that's the more popular reading that this is about folks who have

18:54the means to work, who have the resources, but are deciding, you know what, I'm going

19:00to put my feet up and I'm just going to let the church prop me up until Jesus arrives.

19:08So it's an eschatological laziness that, that is being condemned in verse 10. According

19:15to what seems to me to be far and away, the most common reading of this passage.

19:22What, what, what weirds me out about that is, uh, if the eschatana is coming, why not coast?

19:29Let them coast. What are we doing here? It's cut. Look, it's, it's all over in just a

19:34little bit. If you, if you have the means to coast, feels like coast, maybe fun. Well,

19:41and, and that is, that is a question that you would bring up if maybe this were actually

19:48written by Paul. Right. But that's one of the reasons probably for the post Pauline

19:53authorship of this text is the delayed perusea, the delayed eschaton. Hey, it hasn't come yet.

20:00Generations are passing on. It was supposed to be here and that's when you get, yeah,

20:05that's when you get people going, okay, back to having kids back to work. Let's, you know,

20:12we can't just rest on our laurels and, and just wait for this thing to happen. We got

20:17a knuckle down and, and, uh, support ourselves. So that may be the reason that that this is

20:24in this passage is because people were doing that. People were like, I thought y'all said

20:29it was going to be any day now. So I decided to cancel, uh, you know, my contracts and

20:35this work trip, uh, and, and all that kind of stuff. And they're going, well, we knew

20:40to, we need to do something about this. Write another letter. And, um, okay, well, what

20:46are we going to say? Well, tell them that they don't work. They don't get their asses

20:50back to work. They're not going to eat, uh, you know, the Bishop's storehouse is going

20:55to close. That's right. So, um, I think that's, that's the more popular reading. Don't eat

20:59your meat. You can't have any put up. Okay. I don't want to quote more of the, um, of

21:06the song. You, you have made me paranoid. Uh, how can you have any pudding if you don't

21:13eat your meat? That's all I'm saying. Anyway, how can I be expected to speak naturally when

21:17I'm not allowed to sing, uh, and you know, I'm an awful singer. So that's part of it.

21:22But, um, so, so I think that's, that's the most common reading. And that still does

21:28not validate the, the folks who are slinging this passage around, uh, to demonize and to

21:37try to deny snap benefits to the poor and the needy, uh, demanding they have work requirements

21:44and things like that. And we've seen that kind of rhetoric from a number of prominent

21:49evangelical Christians. Very much so. Eric Hovind is one who has, uh, who has come on

21:55and say this, somebody named Pastor Joseph Hall, I'm not familiar with Pastor Hall. Um,

22:02Pastor for ARPS is another, uh, and then there's, there's a guy on, on social media. I, I wish

22:07I could remember his name, but he does a lot of videos where he's in like Disney World

22:12or Disneyland wearing a MAGA hat and he'll be like, and, and film people's reactions

22:19to him being a jerk in, in public and make fun of them. But he likes to, uh, to dance

22:26off beats and, um, uh, and have anti-woke slogans on the screen. And, and he was doing

22:34the same thing. And, and this is an example of someone, you know, he's doing the celebratory

22:38dance. Yay. Kids are going to go hungry. That's how Christian I am. Um, and, and it,

22:46I also see it used by people like talking about, here's why you don't be a socialist

22:53and blah, blah, blah. And, and, and often in the context of people pointing out that

22:58like likely Jesus would have been considered a socialist now, considering some of it, what

23:03he said, I don't know that that's correct. We should get into that at some point. Oh yeah,

23:07that would be a great topic for a, for a show. Uh, but I do think that it, that it is, uh,

23:14because here's the thing. Okay. I, I, I believe you that scholars have, uh, that perspective,

23:22those different potential perspectives on this passage, but it does seem to me that a

23:29plain reading of the passage feels to me pretty clear. Like it feels like it is a valid interpretation

23:38of this passage to say, if you don't work, or if you're unwilling to work, you should

23:44not eat. Now unwillingness is a very slippery slope concept, uh, especially considering the

23:52fact that, you know, it doesn't take into account mental illness. It doesn't take into

23:56account inability to work. It doesn't, you know what I mean? Not all disability is visible.

24:03You know, it's easy to say, Oh yeah, the guy in the wheelchair probably shouldn't be made

24:07to do construction or whatever, but like it's not easy to see everyone's disability and

24:13not everybody's capable of work. Yeah. However, so I think that that's a, I think I think

24:20it's a valid thing to say, look, it says, if you're, anyone unwilling to work should

24:26not eat, it says that, but it seems to me that there are many passages, red letter passages

24:35at that that quickly refute it. And if you're willing to ignore passages that are quotations

24:44of Jesus Christ himself, in favor of potentially pseudopographical Pauline epistle, it feels

24:53like you're on the wrong track. Yeah. Yeah. There's, and there, there are plenty of passages

24:59where Jesus talks about the need to provide for the poor and the needy without adding

25:05any, any qualifications, uh, to it. And yeah, and you know, you have a lot of Christians

25:12today who will talk about it. And this is particularly popular among the, uh, the folks

25:19who confused Jesus for a libertarian, surprisingly common, uh, people who are like, uh, you know,

25:28no, the, uh, in the New Testament, you know, the, uh, Jesus was all about your, your own

25:34liberty and, you know, didn't want to force anybody to do anything and say, you read the

25:39New Testament. Right. Jesus was all about forcing everyone to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And

25:44then, and then what, and then they, they do the whole, the, the role of the government

25:50is just to protect the rights of the people. Everything else is, is the role of the individual.

25:56It's like, that's a, that's an enlightenment era at very best idea. Like it's developed

26:05more in the 19th century, but that's, it's like Austrian school libertarianism, not the

26:10New Testament. Right. And the notion, and, and they appeal to this in order to obviously

26:17defend, uh, not funding or not supporting, um, welfare programs, a social, a strong, robust

26:27social safety net as if you could make the plausible case that when you look in the New

26:33Testament, Jesus is like, look, my priority is not that they get fed. It's just that the

26:40correct mechanism is used if they are going to get fed. Right. Like the notion that Jesus

26:47would be like, look, it, it doesn't matter if they end up with food. It, if it's going

26:53to go through the government, cause I don't want it to go through the government. Right.

26:56That's acid nine. That's just laughable. And then they say, no, it's our responsibility.

27:00We got to do this. Nobody's been stopping you. Right. Like there are, and, and, and this

27:06is not to say Christian Christians and atheists and Jewish folks and Muslims and Buddhists

27:11and Hindu and pagans and other traditions and non traditions don't give generously. There

27:18are, there are generous givers across all of those social identities. Right. But Christians

27:24have not been stopped from, from solving themselves, the problem of poverty. Right. And oddly

27:31enough, it hasn't been solved. Yeah. That is a funny question. Like, yeah, if someone's

27:36like, that should be, that should be up to the individual. Okay. Are you doing it? Yeah.

27:41If not, what are you doing? Then shut up. Yeah. Cause what did Jesus say in Luke chapter

27:4712, the commandment sell your possessions, right? Give the money to the poor. That's right.

27:54Like you can, you can dismiss the rich young ruler as like, Oh, that was just his, that

27:58was just the sidebar where he was like, this is just for you. This is what I'm going to

28:02tell you and nobody else. Don't write this down. This is just for you. But Luke 12, you

28:07don't really have that option. Jesus is like all y'all, all y'all. Whoever has two coats

28:13must share one must share with another. Whoever has slightly different context there. But,

28:19I don't know. It just seems like a thing, right? I don't know. I have two coats. I should

28:25probably give one away. But, but the point is that rhetoric is very clearly intended to

28:31absolve them of the responsibility to do it because they're saying we got to do it ourselves.

28:36You're not doing it. And guess what? You couldn't possibly do it. Yeah. Without the government,

28:41you cannot as a group of Christians, no matter how many you are, you cannot, and you will

28:49not solve the problem. And that's the, that's the real issue. I mean, that was pointed to

28:54anyone who has been on TikTok over the last three weeks or whatever has seen the experiment,

29:01the experiment, the woman who she went and started calling churches, all kinds of churches

29:07and other mosques and a Buddhist temple and whatever asking for a thing of formula for

29:18her non-existent baby. She claimed that she had a baby, she had run out of food and her

29:25baby needed to eat. And she just said, "Can you help me?" And of the something like 40 churches

29:31that she called, I think nine said yes, including the Islamic center and the Buddhist center

29:44and stuff. It was rough. If you listen to those conversations, you hear people just outright

29:52saying, "Oh yeah, no, we don't do that." Yeah.

29:57And these are, and there's a degree to which the receptionist or whoever it is. And I don't

30:05know if Sheila's put me in touch with your boss if she was getting up to decision makers

30:10or if it was just whoever answered the phone. But a lot, and some of them have mechanisms

30:16for that. They were like, "Oh yeah, we work with this organization. You just need to call

30:20them and they will get used to stuff." There was an example where, and she was like, "Oh,

30:25I call them." And they said no. And they were like, "Well, they're actually have been

30:29closed today. And here's the person. I know them personally and there's no way they told

30:34you no." So there are, I think that there are mechanisms in place for a lot of these

30:43organizations. A lot of them were just being straight up jerks though.

30:46Yeah. It was shot like to me, I don't care if the church, if the organization that your

30:53church has set up to provide things is closed today, if there's a baby that's not going

31:00to eat unless you help, that to me, like, if I'm the receptionist, I'll go in pocket.

31:08That's okay. Like, it's absurd to me that anyone would say no to that. But all of these

31:14churches that purport to be following Jesus with all of the commands from Jesus about,

31:21you know, again, the red letter of commands about, you know, I was hungry and you gave

31:26me food in as much as you do it. To the least of these you did it to me. Like that seems

31:31like the most important mandate possible. And she wasn't asking for money. She was like,

31:38she made it very clear. I just want the formula. Yeah. Crazy. It was, it was nuts to me.

31:44And there's a, and there are some people who have, there have been videos of sermons that

31:49were preached where people brought this up and can criticize and condemn the woman call

31:55her somebody called her a witch. And then there's she was casting spells on all the people making

32:03them not be nice. She turned me into a new, um, but, but then there's this, there's this

32:10pastor named Stephen Anderson. Oh gosh. Oh, I know this guy. Oh, I am familiar with Stephen

32:16Anderson. Here's what, here's what he posted. He's banned from many countries. Did you know

32:21that? He is literally not allowed to go to like dozens of countries. Yeah. And he's like,

32:28he's, he's just downright a jerk. Yeah. Like I've, I've responded to a bunch of his videos.

32:35He does not have the first clue what he's talking about. Oh, he gets everything wrong,

32:40but he posted on Twitter. I would be pissed if I donated to a church and found out that

32:45they were giving content warning, by the way, they were giving the Lord's money to single

32:49mother whores. I would want it to go to the Lord's work or towards helping Godly Christians

32:55who are in need. Churches should not be funding fornicators and their bastards. Who does he

33:01think? Well, yeah. Yeah. The Lord's work. What does he think the Lord's work is? Yeah.

33:07Like the, the, the good Samaritan. Yeah. Remember that that was the, the people that they were

33:14supposed to hate who was, who was his neighbor? Oh, it was the people we hate because he treated

33:20him. Well, famously also, uh, like Jesus dealt well with prostitutes. Like Jesus, like if

33:31you're a, a single mother is not a whore, but be, uh, if she were a sex worker, guess what

33:40Jesus would want you to do. Guess, guess how he would want you, like, look at how he responded

33:47to the sex workers and maybe go thou and do likewise. Yeah. Go read lay miss. Yeah. And

33:56you know, uh, okay. So, um, so there you go. Uh, so you got, you got a lot of people who

34:03are, who are trying to dig through the Bible to find excuses to not help other people,

34:11find excuses to literally demonize in some cases, the poor. Yeah. Find, find excuses

34:18to basically hoard more of their money and not, uh, not share it with the poor and the

34:25needy, which is repeatedly commanded of followers of Jesus in, in the New Testament. So second

34:32Thessalonians three, 10, I, I get the appeal on the surface. It certainly sounds like, hey,

34:39we could use this to demand work requirements. If you want snap benefits, but if you understand

34:44the context, you can see it's not addressing that at all. And if you actually consider

34:49it within the broader context of the New Testament as a whole, you can see that kind of undermines

34:54and directly contradicts the spirit of the command to love your neighbor. So, um, go

35:01that one do likewise. Yeah. It's the official, uh, position of the data over dogma podcast.

35:08Indeed. All right. Uh, let's, let's jump into taking issue. And we're taking issue with

35:21Hixos. The Hixos, uh, the, the Hixo. Okay. So let's start by, yeah, who, who slash what

35:32are slash is Hixos. So, so Hixos is a term that we get from the Greek. Um, and, and I

35:41think probably from Manetho, who was a third century BCE author, historian who wrote, uh,

35:50wrote about ancient Egypt and he referred to these as, um, Oh, where is the Hikusos would

35:59be the Greek. And so that is, that has come into English probably through Latin as Hixos.

36:06And this is a, a Greek transliteration of an Egyptian phrase that is actually, and, and

36:14I know people who know how to pronounce Egyptian are probably going to be like, Dan, uh, Hey

36:20cow cas, casut. And, and this means foreign rulers or foreign lords or something like that.

36:27Okay. That is where the Egyptian seems to come from. But, um, Josephus, uh, another,

36:34a Greek writer, a Jewish Greek writer toward the end of the first century CE. He came up

36:39with a different etymology called Shepherd Kings. Uh, so you can kind of, you can see

36:47where where he's going with this. Um, because this is a group of, uh, what scholars generally

36:55refer to as West Asians. These are, these are people who are from, uh, the land of and

37:01around Israel, but probably mostly north of Israel, Amorite territory moving east to Northern

37:09Mesopotamia. So they are, I saw the word people's, I saw the word Levantine, Levantine. Yes.

37:16The Levant is the, the fertile crescent, which would include Mesopotamia up over and down

37:22to the Eastern Mediterranean shores. So, uh, Syria, it would be Lebanon. It would be Israel

37:32down to the Sinai Peninsula, but then also Mesopotamia. So, uh, so that seems to be where

37:38these people are from, but they were rulers in Egypt. In fact, they took over a portion

37:46of Egypt from the native Egyptian rulers. Uh, and, and this happened, uh, 1650 to 1550

37:54BCE, somewhere in their 15th dynasty. This is what is known as the second intermediate

38:00period and intermediate periods in Egyptian history are kind of where things got really

38:05shaky. And then, you know, there was a power vacuum or a rule broke down or, or something

38:10like that. And so you have foreign rulers who come in and take over rule of lower Egypt

38:18and particularly the Nile Delta. Okay. And here's one of the confusing things about Egyptology.

38:23We're used to thinking about countries on a map. Lower Egypt is north of upper Egypt.

38:28Right. Because it's a reference to geography. To the direction of the flow of the river.

38:34The flow of the Nile river. Right. So upper Egypt is higher Egypt and, uh, lower Egypt

38:41is lower Egypt, the Nile Delta. So there was a city of ours that is, uh, considered to

38:48have been the capital of Egypt, the lower Egypt during this period. Um, and there were

38:57more native, like native Egyptian is kind of an odd term because the, the Egyptians,

39:03their ethnicity is, um, was, there's always been kind of complex, but about 500 miles

39:11south of, uh, the Mediterranean Sea on the Nile is thebes. And that's where there was

39:17another dynasty that was ruling and they were like, no, you know, they were shaking their

39:21fist at the, uh, uh, at the foreign rulers. Okay. And we have, we have like, uh, little

39:28scarab seals where some people adopt, they, they would identify themselves as the Hixos

39:36as foreign rulers during that period of rule. And, uh, for a while, people were using the

39:47Egyptian literature that said these people came in and conquered and they were blood

39:51thirsty and they were vicious and, and you know, they, they just took over and then we,

39:57we kicked him out. One of our heroes rose up and, and was able to expel the blood thirsty

40:03heathens from, from the land. Right. Sounds like the way a lot of people talk about immigrants

40:09to the United States today. But, um, that is not what happened based on archeological

40:16and, and other data. We know that they actually had been not infiltrating, uh, but they had

40:24been, uh, moving into the land and settling and intermarrying and just getting along just

40:30fine for centuries prior to the rise of, uh, their dynasty, their rule. And it, and their

40:39rule was probably something that was pretty organic. They were like, Hey, we'll, we'll

40:44take over while, while things are, are, you know, while you're trying to get things figured

40:48out until you get back on your feet, we'll go ahead and, uh, we'll be in charge. And

40:53while they did seem to, uh, there does seem to be some kind of uprising against them,

41:00there were still Semitic West Asian people, uh, all over that area for centuries afterwards

41:07as well. So a lot of rhetoric and propaganda tries to reduce things to simple binaries.

41:14Right. And then vilify one side, glorify the other side. Uh, and that is what was probably

41:22going on in Egypt, but right. The reason we bring up the Hixos is because I've been seeing

41:26a lot of people trying to argue that the Hixos represent evidence that the Hebrews were enslaved

41:35in Egypt or that this was the context for Joseph's rise to power, uh, in the book of

41:43Genesis. And, uh, there have been folks who have argued that, well, if there was already

41:49a Semitic, uh, administration in power and makes it so much more likely that they would

41:55have elevated this other semi even though, yeah. And in the book of Genesis, when Joseph

42:03invites his family to come to Egypt, he says, tell them your shepherds and then Egyptians

42:10hate shepherds. They'll tell you, ooh, go over, take the, uh, that land over there and

42:16then they get Goshen. And so for Josephus to call them shepherd kings is kind of, hmm.

42:24Yeah. Suggesting. Oh, these are, these are people associated with, uh, with Joseph and

42:29Jacob's family. And so, uh, the, the timelines don't really work out though. That's, uh,

42:35that's a problem if we take the, so when would, so when are we thinking you mentioned

42:40that the, uh, the Hixos were sort of, uh, 16, mid 1600s to mid 1800s, B.C. 17th to 16th

42:50centuries B.C. And then so when, when would Joseph theoretically have been supposed to

42:57have been alive? Well, yeah. Okay. So, uh, it depends on when you date the Exodus. Um,

43:09they were supposed to Joseph, Joseph was before the Exodus, right? Yes. Yes. Joseph was well

43:13before the, I mean, I know, I know Genesis is before Exodus, but I don't know how if it

43:18also, if it's supposed to be chronological in that way. Yes. It is supposed to be an,

43:23and Joseph, Joseph gets sold into slavery in Egypt and then the family comes to Egypt

43:29to escape famine. Joseph is in power. Joseph says, Hey, uh, you know, stay with me. And,

43:36um, and then that is supposed to explain how it is that the Hebrews became, um, you know,

43:44located in Egypt. And then oh, okay. Another king rose up that did not know Joseph and

43:49he was like, Hey, there are a lot of these Hebrews around. Let's enslave them precisely

43:54as, uh, you know, Columbus did when he arrived, uh, in 1442 or 92 and said, Hey, we could,

44:02we can enslave all these people. Right. There's, doesn't seem to be any gold, but, uh, look

44:07at all these people we could just decide we own. Yeah. They're, that's, they're like

44:13money. Yeah. Um, so the, if you date the Exodus to the 1400s BCE, which is what a lot of

44:24folks do, they'll say, Oh, this is Amunhotep II. That was the, the Pharaoh 1440 to 1420

44:31somewhere around there is the day of the Exodus. That only gives, you know, like Max a little

44:35over 200 years from Joseph to, to Moses, which doesn't really make sense. They were supposed

44:41to have been in Egypt for around 400 years. Well, and there were millions of them, uh,

44:46two, yeah, two to five million, um, participating in the Exodus based on, um, calculations from

44:53from what the Texas. So it feels like, it feels like to go from Joseph's family to two to four

45:00million people in 200 years. That feels like it feels like a stretch. Yeah. It is, um,

45:07enthusiastic. Definitely. Um, they were enthusiastic. But you know, this is a folks like Ron Wyatt,

45:16a favorite of the podcast. Yes. Yes. Um, and, and even actual archeologists, like Bryant

45:26Wood, who is somebody who gets appealed to a lot when it comes to Jericho. He's one of

45:30the ones who provided this, uh, argument against Canyon and the, and the consensus view that,

45:36that the, the big walls, uh, fell down around 1550 BCE. He was like, no, it's closer to 1400

45:42BC. Um, but even he, while being a little more cautious was like, it could have been

45:49when Joseph showed up, but that's so that only works if you date the Exodus to the late 1200s

45:57BC, which some people do and say, well, that's Ramses. And you know, you got the city,

46:03Py Ramses is one of the cities that they built. So the 1200s must work better. Um, none of

46:10them work. Like the, the, yeah, no, neither of those dates works. And as we've talked

46:15about, there was no Exodus that we can, we can also just say, like, yes, we're entertaining

46:22the thoughts so that we can just sort of follow the logical thing through, but yeah, I mean,

46:28the thing is that we do have evidence of the Hixos, but we don't have evidence of any of

46:35the rest of this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And other than the Bible itself. And just the fact that

46:40they were Semitic peoples, they came from West Asia is not enough. There were lots of

46:45Semitic peoples and, and I think most scholars think that they were probably further north.

46:49They were probably coming from areas of Syria and, and around there and into Mesopotamia

46:56because there seems to be some, uh, cuneiform, a cadian influence and stuff like that. So,

47:02um, I mean, it makes sense, right? There's, there's a land bridge there. You can just

47:06go from Israel to Egypt. It just, it's, you just go there. So like it makes sense that,

47:13you know, if there was a power vacuum in Egypt and there were a bunch of people who were

47:18powerful in Israel, you could just go. It's just like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah,

47:26it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it needs any more anything greater than that. Yeah. And,

47:32and there was a lot of genetic admixture. You had people, um, going into Egypt from, from

47:38elsewhere, just like same with the US. Yeah. And they didn't even have a border patrol

47:43back then. Um, you know, you could just walk in and, uh, you know, you might be treated

47:50quite differently as a foreigner. Right. But, uh, uh, yeah, they, they wouldn't say, hey, where are your papes,

47:56your papers? Um, right. They might say, Hey, what are you doing here? And if you say, I have an army

48:04and or look at how much money I have, look at how much goods and, and, and gold I have,

48:09yeah, trade, say, hey, uh, you might, you might get welcomed. Yeah. Or robbed. Or robbed. Um,

48:18so yeah, attempts to find Joseph Jacob, uh, the enslaved Hebrews, Moses, those, those folks in,

48:28in the Hixosas misguided at best. Yeah. Um, and, and does not work. And, and please, please, please,

48:35please anybody out there, if you hear somebody say, well, there's a canal called Joseph's canal

48:44in Egypt, please, please, that is, is there such a canal? There is, there is such a canal. However,

48:52that name is only a few hundred years old. Um, yeah. And that, that canal, uh, it connects, uh, the

49:00Nile to the fire, um, which is, but it is, it is basically a, a deepening of a natural,

49:10uh, not constant waterway. Yeah. That, that, uh, broke through, uh, like in the Pleistocene.

49:19Right. So yeah, Joseph didn't dig that canal. Yeah. I mean, that's one of those things like, uh,

49:24Mount Ararat or whatever. Yeah. It's like, uh, yeah, don't, don't, don't read too much into that.

49:30That name is newer than you think it is. Yeah. Yeah. It is, uh, and, and I think it might be,

49:38I think it only might have been like the 1800s that, that, uh, that name was added to, to that

49:44canal. I don't remember. And, and it was, uh, Islamic, uh, in origin, the attribution of that

49:50canal to Joseph. So the, the bar, you stuff? Yes. There's, that's the one. Yeah. I, I

49:57Googled it while you were talking. I can do that. Yes. Uh, he of, uh, not Cat Stevens.

50:05That's, that's, uh, use of Islam. That's right. That's a different thing.

50:10Wrote some of the, the, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time. But, um, yeah,

50:14we're not talking about him. Not talking about him. Not. All right, friends. Uh, well,

50:18there you go. That's the, uh, the Hixos, a little bit of fun with, uh, with history and archaeology

50:25there. Uh, if you would like to, uh, become a part of making this show happen, and let me

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51:20We can always use more help. Uh, thanks so much to Roger Gaudy for editing the show. And thanks

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