Ep 142: Not Original, Not Sin

00:00So, here's where I'm going to say something that is going to annoy an awful lot of people.

00:07You can define sin about as well as you can define what, six, seven.

00:14It's a hundred percent vibes.

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

00:25Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible

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

00:34How are things today, Dan?

00:35Oh man, I'm feeling sinful, just absolutely sinful.

00:40That's kind of your baseline, isn't it?

00:42It's just norm.

00:43That's like standard, but like also feels like it was just born there.

00:48You know what I mean?

00:49Oh, oh, okay.

00:51Yeah, that's me tipping off what we're going to be talking about, I guess.

00:55I'm very subtle.

00:56I don't know if you guys know that about me, but yeah.

00:59That's also your baseline, subtlety is, it's one of the great markers of my character.

01:06It's true.

01:08So today we're going to be talking first, first we're going to do a chapter and verse

01:15and we're going to talk about the Garden of Eden and we're going to talk about Adam and

01:19Eve specifically.

01:20We've talked a lot about Genesis one, two, little three, little four.

01:26We're mostly doing two into three now, we're going to get that creation, not the creation

01:30story.

01:31The fall.

01:32Yes.

01:33The fall.

01:34We're going to talk about some of the peculiarities of this story as well, things that the unanswered

01:38things where we do an awful lot to fill in the gap, there's a lot of fraud DNA that we're

01:42just chucking in there to fill in the gaps and that results in a weird Adam and Eve story

01:50where they can turn invisible and all this kind of stuff.

01:56Yeah.

01:57Sure.

01:58Why not?

01:59Asexual reproduction.

02:00It's not what we call it.

02:01Yeah.

02:02I don't know.

02:03A biogenesis.

02:04Let's call it that.

02:05Absolutely.

02:06As a result of that.

02:07Yeah.

02:08Rare species of frog DNA.

02:09If anybody should have something to do with a biogenesis, it's Adam and Eve.

02:13You would think.

02:14I would think that's great.

02:16My high school daughter is reading Jurassic Park right now in her class and so we got

02:23her some couple of her own copies and it's fun to revisit what it was like to read that

02:28book back in the 90s.

02:30They made a book of that?

02:32That's interesting.

02:33They did make a book out of it.

02:34They decided the movies were so successful.

02:35They might as well write a book and a book that was so good, I ended up reading pretty

02:40much everything else that Michael Crichton wrote and then watched some of the movies

02:44they made of those things, which were not nearly as good.

02:47Yeah.

02:48Well, Spielberg tends to make a fine movie anyway.

02:50Yeah, he does.

02:51Moving on.

02:52In the second half of our show, we are going to sort of jump off from that and we'll do

02:57a what is that about original sin?

03:01Yeah.

03:02So that'll be exciting and fun and weird.

03:04So long right now.

03:05Yeah.

03:06Everything about the Bible is weird to me.

03:10So let's dive in with chapter in verse.

03:14All right.

03:16You said you wanted to start in chapter two now.

03:19Yeah.

03:20Most of chapter two is Adam sitting around in a garden all by himself and God trying

03:26to make him less bored.

03:27Yeah.

03:28Twiddling his ribs and the Garden of Eden story really starts in the second half of

03:36Genesis two four and then runs through the end of Genesis chapter three.

03:40So three 24 is the end of the Garden of Eden story.

03:44Chapter four is a different story altogether, but we get this, this creation account.

03:48All this is happening on one day.

03:49We've discussed in the past about how Genesis one one through the first half of Genesis

03:54two four is a separate creation account.

03:57It's an entirely different creation account that is trying to correct a lot of the stuff

04:01that's going on in our creation account.

04:05But we have in verse seven, then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground

04:11and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.

04:16And you know, reams and reams of books have been written on this passage alone.

04:22But I really like the theory that what we have is basically a divine image being made where

04:29because in this time and place divine images would have been made primarily of clay, but

04:35also of stone and things like that.

04:37But we can represent it as clay and then there would there would usually be some kind of

04:41enlivening ritual or activation ritual where the agency of the deity would enter the statue

04:51and or the standing stone probably.

04:54And here we have a very similar thing where the dust of the ground is this is where clay

04:59comes from.

05:00And the word formed there is if I'm not mistaken, it's Yatsar, yeah, Yatsar, which is the word

05:07that is used to refer to using making pottery, using making clay and then breathe the breath

05:14of life into the human's nostrils.

05:17And this is one of the illustrations of the fact that breath was considered fundamentally

05:21constitutive or constitutive for all the people who feel like correcting my pronunciation of

05:30life.

05:31And so breath is what causes life to be in this story.

05:37And then God plants a garden in Eden and chucks the man in there whom he had formed

05:43according to verse eight.

05:45And we've talked in the past about how there are some there's some squirrely translation

05:49going on in these passages where the translators try to turn past tense verbs into blue perfect

05:55verbs and basically what that means is they change God caused this to happen to God had

06:01caused this to happen because the order of events in Genesis two is different from the

06:07older.

06:08Yeah.

06:09Yeah, it's one.

06:10Yes.

06:11Sure.

06:12And so you've got God planting this garden and he throws in a couple of trees.

06:20Yes.

06:21Very curiously.

06:22I think it is so weird to throw in trees that he knows it's like it's like putting a power

06:33socket into a room into the baby's room without you know without any covers or anything and

06:40just being like don't touch that now.

06:43Yeah.

06:44It's like Macguffin central.

06:45We like God has no use for these trees.

06:49God is just created this garden is like bam trees.

06:53Oh by the way, don't touch that one.

06:56Like could you could you get any more Macguffany?

07:00Obviously this is obviously this is a lesson in search of a narrative.

07:06And so in verse nine out of the ground, the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant

07:11to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and

07:15the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

07:17So we've got these two trees and this is one of the one of the unanswered questions of

07:22the story of Adam and Eve because later on at the end of the story and spoiler alert,

07:28if you haven't read the story yet, if you've never heard the Adam and Eve story, yes, podcast

07:34listener who's listening to a show about the Bible, yes, God is going to kick them out

07:40of the garden of Eden and then put cherubim guarding the entry so that they cannot partake

07:48of the tree of life because if they do that, they would live forever again, Macguffin alert.

07:56Why why this the like because in Genesis in verse 15, 16 in verse 17, you may or 16 and

08:0617, you may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of

08:10good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.

08:16So this does not say don't partake of the tree of life.

08:18So the question is, were Adam and Eve partaking of the tree of life the entire time and okay,

08:25that's what I've never thought about before I like that and then is God kicking them out

08:29to stop them from continuing to eat from the tree or are they not even eating from the

08:34tree to begin with and then God is like because of these new circumstances, oh, we don't want

08:39them to suddenly eat from the tree because because it raised and this is something that

08:44a lot of Christians will will say.

08:48This God or Adam's transgression and Eve's transgression brings death into the world prior

08:55to that there's no death in order to conclude that you have to conclude that they were eating

09:01from that tree the whole time.

09:03Well, you don't have to conclude it.

09:05Well, certainly one of the that seems like the way that you would do it.

09:09Yeah, but although if you if you conclude that, then it makes one wonder is the way that God

09:15is immortal just that he keeps eating that like you know what I mean?

09:19It raises more questions than it answers because yeah, because let's see if they are eating

09:24him from it already, then they should already be immortal, right.

09:30So stopping them from eating from the tree would not suddenly end their immortality unless

09:37eating from the tree just keeps you alive temporarily.

09:43It's not permanent immortality.

09:45Right.

09:46It's just current immortality.

09:47Yeah.

09:48Yeah.

09:49Like that.

09:50And that's that's not really what we think of when we think of this and and God's warning

09:53in in chapter three, if they take and eat from it, they will live forever.

09:58That's a one time thing.

10:00Yeah.

10:01So what's going on here?

10:03It's all very confusing.

10:04Yeah.

10:05And then what that brings us to verse 17 in the day you eat of it, you shall die.

10:11We've talked about this before as well.

10:13Yeah.

10:14The consensus view is that this means if you eat from that tree, you will be put to death

10:21relatively immediately on that on that day within that 24 hour period.

10:27You are executed.

10:28That is what the Hebrew demands.

10:32We understand it to be saying and that doesn't happen.

10:37So God's God's threat doesn't happen.

10:40And then when we get to the curses and we'll get to him in a moment, there's no indication

10:45that they were anything other than mortal the entire time.

10:50All right.

10:51So this, but this is one of the unanswered questions.

10:53This is something that people, if this is how the story, how we have it, if that's how

10:58the story was originally read and originally, whether it was performed, read out loud, whatever,

11:04how it was originally consumed, either the audience is not paying attention to these

11:09questions because the story is serving some other function or they already have a background

11:14in this.

11:15They're bringing the correct knowledge to this story that we don't have access to.

11:21Right.

11:22Or there's something going on that's missing.

11:25They have additional texts, additional stories that we don't have.

11:29But I digress.

11:32Immediately God is like, hmm, something's missing.

11:37It is not good that the man should be alone.

11:39And this is one of the big distinctions between this creation account and the creation account

11:43and chapter one, because here God creates something and then goes, Oh, my creation is

11:47not good.

11:49Chapter one.

11:50God creates everything.

11:51God creates.

11:52God goes, damn.

11:53That's good.

11:54Nailed it.

11:55Yeah.

11:56Again.

11:57Man, I have six for six on this.

12:00So he says, I will make him the NRSVUE says a helper as his partner.

12:04This is, this is a phrase that is taken on increased significance these days as our

12:09connecto particularly as the University of Oklahoma has decided that it is not in the

12:16business of educating people anymore.

12:18You don't know what I'm talking about.

12:21Don't look it up.

12:22You will just get depressed or if you do look it up, you have to read the essay and then

12:27read the essay that the essay was supposed to be, oh my gosh, you have to read it.

12:32You can't just get mad because of the headline.

12:36And then so God's like, I'm going to make a hell, literally it's helper equal to equivalent

12:42to sufficient for something like that, a suitable helper.

12:47Okay.

12:49So God's like, let's make some animals.

12:51Starts making animals out of the, out of the ground, just like the human was made and

12:56brings them to Adam and Adam's like, not for me, not for me, what are you thinking here?

13:03This thing doesn't even, I mean, presumably actually they do talk because we're going

13:07to learn later, at least one of them has a full grasp of speech.

13:13Yeah.

13:14So I'm going to presume that they all do.

13:16They could.

13:17Yeah.

13:18Again, it's something that's not in the narrative.

13:20Like the fact that the snake is just like, what's up, dude?

13:23And he's like chilling.

13:24I think it is in the narrative because these are the things that God is creating to keep

13:28Adam company.

13:29So I feel like it makes sense to assume that if that is the point of these animals, and

13:34then later on in the narrative, one of the animals talks, I think it is reasonable to

13:39say these animals talk, cattle, birds, all the things that they're, he's having conversations,

13:47they're just not that interesting.

13:49Well, and he's giving them names, he's naming everything again.

13:54So it's very a soppy at this point in the story.

14:00All the cattle, all the birds of the air, every animal of the field.

14:04But for the man, there was not found a helper as his partner, whether he just wanted, you

14:10know, I need something with a little more cake on it.

14:12I need whatever he was looking for, the animals were not providing it.

14:17So God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept, then he took one of his ribs

14:23is how we translated it.

14:25The word there, it literally means sides, one of his sides.

14:30And this word is never used to refer to human anatomy anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

14:35It's used to refer to like architectural sides or sometimes the sides of a ship.

14:41And people think, well, you know, you've got, you've got these pieces of wood that kind

14:47of go up the sides of a ship, you've got beams on the side of a building.

14:51So maybe the, this is supposed to be metaphorical reference to ribs.

14:57But it could also mean just a hunk of his side.

14:59Yeah.

15:00I mean, the first time you and I talked about this on the show, I became and remain relatively

15:08convinced that it's supposed to just mean he just split the dude in half and made half

15:14him and half her, like it's, it's one side is him, one side is her.

15:20This rib thing is just astounding.

15:22So, I mean, and, and probably just comes from like a need for the patriarchy to have the

15:28man be the progenitor of the thing and be, and the woman be less than the man in some

15:35way.

15:36Yeah.

15:37And, and the story says he took one of his whatever and closed up its place with flesh

15:46and just the rib or whatever that the Lord God had taken from the man.

15:51He made into a woman and brought her to the man.

15:53And yeah, it does sound kind of like Aristophanes, he, oh gosh, it's been a rough morning.

16:01Aristophanes myth from Plato's symposium, which is where all, all humans were originally part

16:08of a, a dual entity, right, which had either two male sets of male genitalia, two sets

16:17of female genitalia, or one male, one female, they were split in half.

16:21And then we spend our lives trying to reunite with the other half.

16:25So it, it sounds an awful lot like that.

16:28It could be something like that.

16:31But it's not exactly clear.

16:33But the man then says this is, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

16:38This one shall be called woman for out of man.

16:40This one was taken.

16:42So this is, this is a folk etymology for the Hebrew word isha.

16:45Right.

16:46Because ish means man, isha means woman.

16:50That must mean from man or something like that.

16:53But bone of my bone flesh of my flesh suggests that this hunk of whatever that was taken

16:57out of Adam included bone and flesh.

17:00Right.

17:01So, so, you know, when we talk about going out for ribs, we're not chomping on the bone.

17:06Most of the time, there's, there's meat on the bone that we're, that we're actually

17:10interested in.

17:11So maybe this has reference to just a big chunk of bone and flesh.

17:18But the idea seems to be that all the other animals were created from the dust of the

17:23earth.

17:24But for a helper that is suitable, we actually need to, it needs to be created from the man.

17:32So that seems to be what the idea is, which is, which is subordinating woman to man.

17:40Man is has a primacy of place is the original human.

17:45This is the, you know, the, I don't know if you saw multiplicity, but we're not quite

17:53to Steve yet, but, you're, wow, you went, that is a 90s deep cut and, and, and not particularly

18:03relevant.

18:04Don't go watch the movie to try and figure anything out.

18:07It's not going to have anything to do with Adam and Eve yet.

18:13But then we get the famous etiology for pair bonding and independent kinship units.

18:19Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become

18:22one flesh.

18:23The idea is, look, you were torn apart from one entity.

18:27And so you become one flesh.

18:30You kind of return to the primordial state of being one entity.

18:35And it's just a folk etiology for pair bonding and for independent kinship units because your

18:40dad kicks you out of the house and says, get out of my garage.

18:44I need this.

18:45My midlife crisis is starting.

18:47I need to have a band in here.

18:50And so you have to go off and start your own household.

18:54This is not a prescription for monogamy or heterosexuality or anything like that.

19:02It's just a folk etiology.

19:03And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

19:06And so they're, they're in a state of innocence.

19:08And the idea here seems to be that they are juvenile.

19:13They have not matured yet.

19:15It looks like, you know, when you have kids running around, they want naked time to run

19:21around new, they're not ashamed.

19:23So that's, that's basically what's going on here and I'm going to push back on that

19:27just a little bit because I think that I think that or the way I read it, at least now and

19:33you can tell me if I'm wrong on this is just that what it's setting up is the fact that

19:39they don't have a sense of the knowledge of good and evil.

19:41They don't have that yet.

19:43That hasn't been, they haven't eaten that fruit.

19:46And so I'm, first of all, I think it's weird that nakedness is already, is, is already

19:52being considered basically a function of evil.

19:56Like it is like their, their shame over their nakedness is a when it, when that shame rolls

20:04around, it's because they know what good and evil are.

20:08I think that that's weird that, but I mean, it's a norm.

20:13Now too, so they're, and so that's fine, but my, I guess my point is just that it seems

20:19to me like what it's saying is they just don't have that in them.

20:25They don't have a sense of good or evil or what, what they should be it should or shouldn't

20:29be ashamed of.

20:30And, and I think that that is a function of the lack of maturity, that, that part of the

20:37maturation process is learning the difference between good and evil, learning that you ought

20:42to be ashamed of being naked in front of other people, learning all these things that you

20:48should be wearing clothes, you know, stuff like that, I, cause the nudity in the Hebrew

20:55Bible is not associated with, it's not like an erotic state in the Hebrew Bible.

21:01It is always about shame.

21:03Okay.

21:04And, and whether it's Noah, whether it's people who want to pretend that the Bible says women

21:10have to cover up parts of their body, so men don't lust after them, like nothing ever says

21:15nudity is associated with lust or, or anything like that.

21:19It is always about shame and, and I think the story is suggesting that as you get older,

21:29as you mature part of right and wrong is feeling shame about your body in, in a nude state.

21:39Because there's, and, and what's the, we have in the prophecy in Isaiah, Isaiah seven.

21:49Okay.

21:50So the, it is the, a young woman has conceived and will, will bear a child.

21:59And what does it say in the next verse?

22:03He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the

22:09good.

22:10So that's saying before he grows up, before he matures.

22:13So one of the things you learn as you mature is the difference between good and evil, how

22:18to refuse the evil and choose the good.

22:21So, so I, I think that's what's going on here.

22:24They're created like full size adult sized humans, but they're in a, in a mental and

22:31emotional state of immaturity.

22:34So now we've moved from multiplicity to big, I got it.

22:39Yeah.

22:40So wonderful, wonderful analogy there.

22:44So as long as, so now we're moving on to chapter three, chapter three is the big one.

22:49Yeah.

22:50Now we, we go ahead, well, no, I, we're, it starts out with the serpent is what I'm going

22:56to say.

22:57Yeah, it says the, the serpent is, is more ahum is the Hebrew word, which can mean crafty,

23:05but also means nude.

23:10So which is funny because we just got done talking about how they were the man and his

23:20wife were ahumim.

23:22Yeah.

23:23And so now we're talking about how the serpent is ahum, ah, more ahum than any of the other

23:30animals.

23:31Right.

23:32Which, by the way, like if it were, I mean, it must mean crafty because if it meant naked,

23:36you can't be more naked than the other wild animals like nakedness seems to be unless

23:43we're talking about fur, yeah, which snakes don't have no fur and what, and here's another

23:51unanswered question, does this snake have legs?

23:54Yeah.

23:55Because that would pin in that.

23:58Okay.

23:59Pins.

24:00Because yeah, it does seem like that's ah, this, this snake is, is walking around.

24:05So and the snake comes up to the woman and says, because snakes talk ah, in this asapian

24:11um, primordial world, did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?

24:18The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but

24:22God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden,

24:26nor shall you touch it or you shall die.

24:29So another two unanswered questions here.

24:33How did the woman hear about this?

24:34Right.

24:35Because she had not yet been created when God wagged the divine finger at Adam and then

24:42additionally, what she says is not what God told Adam in verse 17, because she adds to

24:49it, nor shall you touch it or you shall die.

24:52God's warning was don't eat it.

24:53Now suddenly you, you're not even allowed to touch it or you shall die.

24:57So what is the audience to think here is are we just so unconcerned with narrative congruity

25:03and integrity that we don't care?

25:06Did are we supposed to imagine that Adam was the one who passed on the instructions to

25:11Eve and Adam elaborated on the instructions in an effort to try to make it even extra

25:17threatening to Eve?

25:19Did God come and talk to Eve about this as well and change the commandment or did Eve

25:25hear it directly from God and then just decide to, she was going to riff on it herself?

25:29You have no idea.

25:32And I think that question is kind of critical to how we interpret the story in a way that

25:39allows us to answer the questions that we bring to the text, sure, because if you want

25:44to ask questions about, you know, how did Eve hear about it?

25:49What was the precise threat is why is Eve being punished the way she's being punished?

25:55All these things, we don't have the data to answer those questions.

26:00But the serpent said to the woman, you will not die for God knows that when you eat of

26:04it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

26:09So here's something interesting.

26:11The serpent was right.

26:15What God said would happen didn't happen.

26:16What the serpent said would happen.

26:18That's what happened.

26:19Yeah.

26:20And as much as people don't like that, as much as people get angry with me for pointing

26:24that out, like the text itself acknowledges that that the serpent was right because in

26:30verse 22, then the Lord God said, see the humans have become like one of us, which is

26:36precisely what the serpent said would happen.

26:39According to the text, what the serpent said would happen is what happened.

26:43Right.

26:44So the first liar in the book is God, not the serpent.

26:48Yeah.

26:49Whether you want to take the fact that what God said would happen didn't happen to me to

26:52be a lie, to be kind of that parental, oh, I don't want to do this to my kid.

26:57My boy.

26:58Look what they did to my boy.

26:59Well, I, you know, I'm going to ease up a little bit.

27:02I'm, I'm just going to make him, you know, sweat a lot.

27:05Yeah.

27:06Um, whether you want to interpret it like that, or you want to interpret it as a lie, what

27:10we can say is that the serpent was not the first liar because the serpent is telling the

27:16truth.

27:17Now, there's another thing.

27:18The serpent just says you will not die.

27:20Does that mean ever?

27:21Right.

27:22Does it mean you're not what God said about dying on the day you eat of it?

27:27You won't die that day.

27:28But you know, you might get hit by a bus the next day.

27:31You might die.

27:32Um, does, is he saying this will make you immortal?

27:36More questions we can't answer with the available data.

27:38Yeah.

27:39Yeah.

27:40And there's, there's a lot.

27:41I mean, the critic, we didn't even get to questions like why did God put that tree there?

27:49Just don't put the tree.

27:51Yeah.

27:52Well, if I, that's, that's the McGuffin part of it is, you know, the, I, as much as people

27:58would like this to be like a verbatim transcript of the dialogue that actually historically

28:04happened.

28:05It's a story that people's hold in the middle of the first millennium BCE.

28:09So.

28:10And I think you're right to call it a fable too.

28:11It has all of the trappings of a fable.

28:14It's not, it's not meant, I don't, you know, you and I have talked about this before, but

28:19I don't think that it, I mean, and you said this too, it's, it's unreasonable to think

28:25that they thought of this as telling a true story as opposed to telling a, a legend of

28:32how things started or, or a, yeah, cause you, you can just look at the, the middle four,

28:38five verses of, of chapter three.

28:41And you can imagine that this story is a result of somebody coming to their parents and saying,

28:47Hey, why do women give a, why are they in pain, giving birth to children?

28:53Why do men have to, to work so hard to make food and why do snakes not have legs?

28:58Right.

28:59Well, sit on my, on my knee, a young whippersnapper and let me tell you a tale.

29:05It starts off.

29:06In the day that God made the earth and the heavens, like it's just a, it's just an etiology.

29:12It's a folk story that tells you how the world got to be the way it was when the story was

29:17told.

29:18The men went out and worked hard to, to get food.

29:24The women had pain and childbirth and the snakes had no legs.

29:28Yeah.

29:29And, and even the, the part that is known as the, um, protovangelium, the proto gospel in

29:35verse, uh, 15, no, 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring

29:40and hers.

29:41He will strike your head and you will strike his seal.

29:43That's been held up as this, this prophecy about Jesus is, no, it's not, it's an etiology

29:48for why people don't like snakes.

29:51It's very basic.

29:52Don't make this into more than it.

29:54What it was.

29:55Yeah.

29:56Yeah.

29:57And also, yeah, I got, it's funny because I got into a thing, uh, on threads just yesterday,

30:02I got into a little, a little spat, a little argument around, uh, because, uh, a guy was

30:09a guy posted just a thing that was just like, what he said was, why didn't God ever tell

30:16Adam and Eve that Satan was in the garden with them?

30:19So I wrote because Satan wasn't in the garden with them.

30:23There was a snake and, and then another guy got into this whole thing with me and was

30:27just so mad and was like, no, no, the snake is Satan.

30:31And I was like, okay, you will show me the verse then.

30:33And he's like, he goes into all of these things and I'm like, yeah, but none of that is related

30:38to the verse that we were talking about in Genesis.

30:42So, yeah, probably went to Ezekiel 28 and Revelation 12 and 20, like that's the best

30:47they got.

30:48Yeah.

30:49And, and none of that works.

30:50Yeah.

30:51So yeah, they didn't even have a concept of Satan as, as the name of a figure, right yet,

30:57but, um, anyway, we got to get through the story.

30:59We got to get through the story.

31:00Yeah.

31:01We got to get through the story.

31:02So, um, yadda, yadda, yadda, uh, and, uh, I mentioned the bisque, um, so the woman, uh,

31:09saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was

31:12to be desired to make one wise.

31:13She took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and

31:20he ate.

31:21Now I, I emphasize who was with her because historically translations have sometimes left

31:27that out for, for no actual reason.

31:31There is no manuscript that lacks it.

31:34Why would they leave it out unless they don't want to acknowledge that when Eve ate the fruit,

31:41Adam was standing right beside her.

31:43Yeah.

31:44Going, how's it taste?

31:45Is it all right?

31:46What's it like?

31:47Hey, you didn't die.

31:48I'm going to try some of that.

31:49Yeah.

31:50Like he was there and, and if you decide that, that, you know, Adam and we're later going

31:55to see that Paul blames everything on the woman, um, even though it is the sin of Adam

32:01that, that is responsible for bringing death into the world, uh, Paul blames it on the woman.

32:06The woman was deceived.

32:07Not the man.

32:08Well, the man was sitting there with his finger up his nose right next to her the entire time.

32:13I think that makes some people uncomfortable and some translators in the past have been

32:17like, just put out, just leave.

32:19He was, he was off tending to the garden.

32:22He was talking to the orangutan and, uh, and she just showed up with some fruit and try

32:29this.

32:30He was like, if you seen these lemurs, they're like mini ones of us with big tails.

32:34Orangutan means, uh, means jungle man first.

32:39Yeah.

32:40Yeah.

32:41And, um, in Malay, um, so anyway, sorry, that was, that was irrelevant.

32:46So I, one of the things that I did want to mention, just a brief little sort of issue

32:52that I had when I was thinking about this earlier today was just, how can God be mad

32:58at them for this when he knows they did not yet have a knowledge of good and evil?

33:05How can anyone be mad at them?

33:07How can it be considered wrong for people who can't, who can't have had knowledge of

33:13good and evil to have done a thing?

33:16Yeah.

33:17And, and interestingly, within the LDS tradition that what they, what they, there's a part

33:23where, um, Adam is told to do something, he doesn't know why he's supposed to do it.

33:29But he says, uh, I don't know.

33:31I was just told to do it.

33:33And that's supposed to be held up as like the, the paragon of, of virtue.

33:39You don't ask questions.

33:40Right.

33:41You just do what you're told.

33:42So, so there will be people who will be like, uh, well, she can follow orders.

33:46They can follow orders.

33:47They don't have to know whether it's right or wrong.

33:49Well, deciding to follow orders requires some kind of cognizance of good and bad, uh, right

33:57and wrong.

33:58So you're making a choice there.

33:59Yeah.

34:00Yeah.

34:01And, and so yeah, it is that's part of the story that is just inconvenient for the questions

34:08that we're bringing to the story.

34:10Now, if this is just a folk etiology, it doesn't matter.

34:14Yeah.

34:15So why does, why did, uh, you know, why did God get them in trouble for doing something

34:20that they didn't know they weren't really supposed to do that that would be bad?

34:24Doesn't matter.

34:25This is why snakes don't have legs.

34:26Right.

34:27Junior.

34:28That's the point of the story.

34:29That's what you asked me.

34:30Why don't those snakes have legs?

34:32It's because of this story, um, why was, why was mommy screaming when she had my little

34:36sister?

34:37Well, I don't know, she ate a fruit one time.

34:41Yeah.

34:42There's a whole thing.

34:43Mommy's got her own issues to deal with, um, but it's, if you look at the rhetorical

34:49goals of the story, if you try to, what's the genre here?

34:52What are the authors trying to accomplish?

34:55If it had, if it's a folk etiology, then these questions are irrelevant.

35:00We're bringing questions to the text that it was never intended to answer.

35:03And so we probably shouldn't be asking these questions, uh, that were never intended to

35:09be a part of the story.

35:10Like if we could, if we could resurrect the author of this text and, uh, and ask them,

35:16Hey, what's going on with this?

35:17I imagine the answer would be, uh, I wasn't thinking about that because that has nothing

35:22to do with why I told this story.

35:24Sir, this is a Wendy's.

35:26Yes.

35:27Exactly.

35:28It would be, it would be, why are you asking the moral implications of hop on pop?

35:32Yeah.

35:33Yeah.

35:34It, it doesn't matter what pop's job was, but the story is just about getting you to

35:40to, to learn to rhyme words, um, so yeah, I, I, I think all those questions as, as critical

35:47as they are for so many of the ways that we try to understand the implications of these

35:51stories and, and, and maybe there is part of that going on in the background.

35:56I'm sure that these authors were a lot more creative than we give them credit for.

36:00That doesn't necessarily mean that they were anticipating all the questions that we're bringing

36:06to the text.

36:07So, um, you know, some of these things, I, I think we're just not intended to, uh, to

36:13ask those questions, much less get answers to them, but that, that brings up the grand

36:17question.

36:18Yeah, I, but I'm going to, I'm going to say cut you off because the grand question is

36:23our second segment.

36:24Second.

36:25Is it not?

36:26It is our second segment.

36:27All right.

36:28So, uh, we're going to leave that there with now the snake is crawling on the ground.

36:33You can read it for yourself.

36:34You can go.

36:35Yeah, it's, it's, it's free online.

36:38Yeah.

36:39You can find it.

36:40It all came to be.

36:41Um, but now we're going to move on to the biggest, you know, if, if, if asking our questions

36:47about how this, uh, story is playing out is a mistake.

36:52Well, wait until we get to Augustine because things are about to get nutty.

36:58Yeah.

36:59So let's move on to what is that?

37:06And this week's what is that is the grand, what is that?

37:12The thing that plagues and haunts us all the original sin.

37:17Now I'm going to start.

37:19I'm going to throw this out, uh, the original sin is neither original nor sin.

37:24Discuss.

37:25Talk amongst yourself.

37:26Talk amongst yourselves.

37:27Yes.

37:28All right.

37:29So let's, let's get into this because yes, original, I think we all understand that original

37:35sin, original sin, like is attributed to the characters of Adam and Eve, specifically Adam

37:43usually, uh, you mentioned the, the, uh, the Mormon tradition, the LDS tradition, which

37:50I think it's the second article of their faith, which says we believe that men shall be punished

37:55for their own sin and not for Adam's transgression.

37:59It was a big, bold stand against the concept of original sin.

38:05Mm hmm.

38:08So let's, I guess start with the question of like, is original sin in the Bible?

38:15Well, the concept of original sin, uh, obviously isn't.

38:19It is something that was, is triangulated after the Bible is, is completed by theologians

38:25who are in, and my argument has long been that the, the apologists of the second century

38:31and on through the early church fathers, their primary goal was to systematize, create a systematic

38:39and philosophically satisfying and defensible articulation of the gospel.

38:47And so part of that means finding a way to make all these various pieces fit.

38:51I've talked a lot about the analogy of the Bible as a toy chest or a box full of Lego

38:57bricks.

38:58Yeah.

38:59From a variety of different sets and we just dump that box over and then we go to work.

39:04And so in my opinion, the grand project of the apologists and the church fathers was

39:11try to use all as many of the Legos as we can and build who can build the best, whatever.

39:17Right.

39:18So part of that includes recognizing that we've got this story about, uh, Adam and Eve being

39:25expelled from the garden of Eden.

39:29And that is, that is the pivot from, we don't know the difference between good and evil.

39:33We know the difference between good and evil, humanity is kicked out of paradise.

39:38And you know, one of the, one of the main themes of so many of the, the moral and ethical

39:45and wisdom stories from this ancient time period was why do we suffer?

39:51Why are we mortal?

39:52Why do bad things happen?

39:55And there are a lot of different answers to this question, but you know, you can look

39:58at in Gilgamesh, you can look in adapa, you can look in all kinds of different myths.

40:03And that's just a central lament of humanity, the human condition in this time period.

40:10So the Garden of Eden seems like it is the Bible's way of accounting for that.

40:15And where bad things come from, however, it's not the, uh, it's not the only player.

40:21It's not the only option, not the only kid on the block.

40:24Right.

40:25Uh, we also have first Enoch and the anochic tradition, which tries to use the story from

40:32Genesis six where the angels, uh, in, in the Hellenistic reading, these are angels, uh,

40:39in Genesis six, they're gods, uh, they, they come down and they have human, uh, they have

40:44children with human women.

40:46And in the anochic tradition, they also teach humanity how to do all the bad stuff, like

40:53eye shadow, which is literally on the list.

40:57If you read the book of first enoch, so shameful, but weapons of war and all of this kind of

41:03stuff.

41:04Okay.

41:05Um, are all taught by the angels to humanity.

41:07And this is kind of an alternative theory of the origin of sin, uh, and it is phenomenally

41:14popular, phenomenally influential and an awful lot of the New Testament is based on the traditions

41:21from the anochic, uh, narratives, whether it's found in first Enoch or a place like Jubilees,

41:26the book of giants, all this kind of stuff.

41:29So you have a competition kind of between the story of Adam and Eve and the story of the

41:35fallen angels as the introduction of evil into the world.

41:40And for folks like Paul, uh, Adam and Eve seems to win out, but one of the interesting

41:47things about the entire rest of the Hebrew Bible is the story of Adam and Eve never comes

41:55up ever again.

41:57Nobody ever talks about it, which is crazy.

42:00No way, like it does. Yeah, it seems, uh, it like they, they told the, the origin story,

42:07the two people.

42:08And then they're like, okay.

42:09Done.

42:10We.

42:11Yeah.

42:12Cause it, cause it, cause it reference back to like, uh, uh, Abraham and there are references

42:18back to lots of different characters.

42:20Yeah.

42:21But just not those guys.

42:22Yeah.

42:23Like it's the kind of story where the, the kids like, well, that's, that's a dumb story

42:28for why snakes don't have legs and the parents are like, yeah, what are you going to do?

42:33And they go on and, and that, and that story does not become an incredibly popular story.

42:39Uh, you have a mention of Eden in Ezekiel 28 and the story is entirely different because

42:47there's some guardian cherub that is in Eden that's supposed to be the Adam, the human.

42:53There are precious stones everywhere. It's a mountain. Okay. None of that is in Genesis

43:00two and three.

43:01Right.

43:02Um, it's, and then you have a, a genealogy in, uh, Genesis five and then in first chronicles

43:11where it mentions Adam, that's it. There's no other telling of the story of the garden

43:17of Eden. And then we get to, uh, Paul and, uh, Romans five, uh, Romans five, 12 through

43:2421 has this kind of meditation on, on the significance of, uh, of sin. Um, and Paul says

43:34as by one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all

43:40men for that all have sinned or until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed

43:47when there is no law. And, and this seems to be say, suggesting that there was no death

43:54in the world until Adam and Eve's transgression. And he, he blames it on the man because of

44:01one man sin entered the world. He ignores Eve. Uh, and, and I, I think probably because

44:08he's trying to draw this parallel what be by one man sin entered the world by one man.

44:16Sin is resolved. Jesus is the, the, the second man. And so you want it to be nice and symmetrical.

44:24I guess so. So, so you say, yes, this is one dude, uh, and, and, or you can, you can do

44:31what the, uh, the person who was pretending to be Paul in first Timothy two, 14, uh, did

44:37where you can say Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

44:44So yeah, it does seem like, it does seem like that is a, a, uh, a retrojection of, of an

44:52ideology back in like, like trying to, trying to make Paul a little bit, uh, a little bit

44:59more misogynistic than even Paul was willing to be. Yeah. Or, or then it, then it occurred

45:04to Paul to be. Yeah. And as, as misogynistic as Paul could get, yeah, the, the authors

45:11of like Ephesians and first and second Timothy and Titus, uh, whether they were one author

45:17or different authors, uh, they are incredibly more misogynistic, but, um, well, although

45:23I will say this, uh, Paul in Romans five, it's a form of misogyny to be like the woman

45:31couldn't have yet. Yeah. We're, we're just going to ignore the woman. There's no way

45:35what she did could have affected all of humanity, but, uh, but homeboy over there, he definitely

45:42yeah rocked the world. Yeah. And for that reason, um, women shouldn't have credit cards

45:48and shouldn't be able to take out a mortgage until like the 1970s through 90s. Um, so yeah,

45:55it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's problematic. Uh, and, and so we have this idea here, the presented

46:02by Paul that the story of, of Adam and Eve is what brings sin into the world. And then

46:07we've got this other passage in Psalms in the Psalms, Psalm, uh, 51, I believe it's

46:13verse five. I'm just going to pull it up in, uh, in yon Hebrew here. So the NRSVUE says

46:22indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. Uh, the KJV says behold,

46:30I was shaping in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Uh, in, and, and the

46:38Hebrew is, uh, yeah, behold in iniquity. Uh, I was, I travailed or I ride the, probably

46:49just means I, uh, was born, uh, and in, uh, Hetah, which comes from Hata, uh, my mother

46:58conceived me. And so if we look at these three passages, if we look at the story of the

47:04Garden of Eden, if we look at this notion that I was conceived in sin, um, and was

47:09born, uh, in iniquity, and we look at Paul's idea that, uh, because of the transgression

47:16of Adam sin entered the world. We get this idea that, that humanity is sinful, not just

47:24from birth, but from conception. Just straight out the shoot. It's, uh, yeah. The, even before

47:30you come out the shoot, when you're, when you're still on the other side of the shoot, when

47:34you're cooking, that's sinful, sinful sperm. That's the problem. Yes. They're, they're,

47:39yeah, they didn't know what they looked like back then. So I'll save that joke for another

47:44time. Um, the homunculus that the man is depositing into the, into the woman is already sinful.

47:53And, uh, and so it's really a result of putting together the Lego bricks in a way that, that

47:59is philosophically, um, defensible and satisfying and sophisticated. And we get this idea that

48:08this sin is passed on from, from parents to children. And it is something that we all

48:14inherit. And it's a way to account for the, the sinful nature of all humans without having

48:21to say that at some point along the way, every single human being is corrupted by something.

48:27Right. Um, it's a way to say that's the seed and then the, you know, it sprouts in, in

48:34all humans. So everybody gets, uh, this original sin passed on. When did this idea sort of coalesce

48:41into like, you know, you mentioned these multiple different sort of concepts that were being

48:47that were then triangulated to come up with this original sin idea. Do we know when that

48:53happened? Um, so we, we have this idea in the middle of the second century CE with like

48:59Justin Marta, we have this idea that that Adam and Eve's sin brought death into the world.

49:06And so that is, and, and we get from Paul, the notion that the wages of sin is death.

49:12In other words, everybody who is mortal is sinful. And, and so there's this idea that

49:18we all have some kind of sin that, that we inherit as a, as a result of being human. Uh,

49:25I think tortulian is toward the end of the second century is one of the first ones to,

49:30to suggest that we inherit sin from parents, but it's not until Augustine around the, uh,

49:36end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth century, uh, CE that we get the phrase original sin,

49:47okay, not in English, obviously. Uh, but, but I think, uh, Augustine is the first one

49:54to, to actually name this idea. And then the doctrine has to be developed from there because

49:59you have these ideas of, uh, you know, how has it passed along? Is it passed along, uh,

50:05from the mother from the father? Do they both contribute? Is it, is it, uh, physical? Is

50:09it spiritual? Is it, how is it, um, getting from the, the parent to the child and what

50:16exactly is the nature of the sin and, and something that we get to in the reformation,

50:21uh, is does baptism absolve us of original sin? Does it make it go away or is this something

50:31that we always have with us? Because if, if the wages of sin is death, then baptism,

50:39if it, uh, got rid of original sin would make us all immortal and to my knowledge, it does

50:45not. So, um, not that I've ever seen. Yeah. So, and, and in all of this, we're basically

50:51just, we're just chasing down the implications of the result of previous chasing down of implications

51:00from the result of previous, like it's, it's a never ending cascade of, uh, we answered

51:06questions that don't really have answers in, in the scriptures that we, we think have

51:10all the answers. And so now we have to deal with the fallout of the answers that we came

51:14up with. Maybe I need to, I, I need to ask a question that's, that has always, like it

51:21just occurred to me that we need to talk about what the heck sin actually is. Oh gosh. I

51:27mean, if we're going to talk about the original sin and if we're going to talk about human

51:33nature being somehow sinful or whatever, like what is sin? What are we even talking

51:40about? Cause I mean, I think we all feel like we have a, a floating sort of nebulous concept

51:46of it. It's when you do something bad, but you know, a baby can't have done something

51:53bad yet. So it's got to be bigger than that, but also like just what is it? So here's where

51:59I'm going to say something that is, is going to annoy an awful lot of people. You can define

52:05sin about as well as you can define what six, seven, it's, it's a hundred percent vibes

52:16sin is whatever somebody says it is because you can, and, and this goes back to my concern

52:21with, with just attempts to define conceptual categories. Sin is a is an abstraction and

52:28as an abstraction that is not reducible to anything observable to anything testable.

52:35It can be whatever people want it to be. Yeah. And, and so, you know, we can look at it

52:40etymologically. Uh, and, and we've, I, I even got on rain, rain, Wilson, yeah, I got on

52:48rain Wilson's case because on his podcast, he was like, it, it's an archery term. It

52:53means to miss the mark. It's like, okay, the word is an archery term, but it was not used.

52:59You know, you didn't say that because you were talking about missing the mark all the

53:04time. That's the etymological fallacy. Um, so that's not helpful. Uh, but we can look

53:11at like in Hebrew, kata is the word. And this has to do with some kind of in a, in a religious

53:21sense, and I don't like using the word religious for the ancient world, but it is certain behaviors

53:27that are religiously disqualified because of, uh, and, and ultimately I think it's gotta

53:34be rooted in ritual because a lot of the language that we see for sin, particularly in the Hebrew

53:41Bible, but even when we get into the New Testament has to do with uncleanness with contamination

53:47with, with things that make you impure. Uh, and, and that usually has reference to a kind

53:55of binary notion of you are qualified or authorized to engage in certain cultic activity

54:02or you are prohibited from doing it. So that usually has to do with some kind of concept

54:08of purity. And so, um, in the Hebrew Bible, you see an awful lot of discussion where sin

54:15generates kind of a metaphysical contamination that gets it on the temple. And so the, a

54:21lot of the purification rights that are described in Leviticus and elsewhere are not about,

54:28have nothing to do with cleansing the people it has to do with cleansing conceptually the

54:35sacred space because we've dimmed this thing and suddenly sport. There's a bunch of metaphysical

54:42contaminant on the wall of the temple and we've got to do the stuff to scrub it off. So, um,

54:49it seems to originate in the notion that there is, there are behaviors that make us unclean

54:57or impure when it comes to religious activity. And then that then kind of expands to include

55:03behaviors that are considered wrong. Uh, whether it's, it's about offending other people or

55:10offending God or hurting other people or doing things that are, that are considered, um,

55:16social no knows. So, uh, it is, it is very ambiguous, but we've got these words interesting

55:22that it, that that word sin isn't always because in my mind, I associate it almost exclusively

55:29with sort of morality with like a, a, a commission of an act that is, that could be considered

55:36immoral or is somehow against morality, but it's interesting that that word doesn't have

55:41to have anything to do with morality. No. And, and I think when it comes to because there's

55:46a deity that is dictating what is and is not sinful, uh, in the Bible, I, I, it, like

55:55divine command ethics would suggest that it's entirely arbitrary. Sin is whatever God says

56:02sin is and God can change their mind whenever they want because it doesn't have to, it doesn't

56:08have to be anchored in anything that we would consider morality. Right. It's a, it's shellfish

56:13and that's that the end. Yeah. But, but that's not philosophically satisfying. So when we

56:18look in like the legend of Aristias, which is supposed to be about how the Septuagint came

56:24to be at night, the 72 scholars would dine and they would have these symposia with the

56:30leaders of Egypt and they would wax philosophic on how it's all systematic and the shellfish

56:40have all these things in common and those things are, are metaphorically like this, uh, immoral

56:46thing. And so we abstain from eating the, those things in order to, to, you know, perform

56:53this refusal to engage in that immoral behavior. So, um, you, you've always got people trying

56:58to explain why, which brings us back to the Garden of Eden story. We always have to, we,

57:04we got questions that we're bringing to the text and we need answers, even if the author

57:08would have been like, that's a dumb question and has nothing to do with my story. Um, but

57:13yeah, I think you get a, a slow kind of generalizing where initially it has to do with your ability

57:20to participate in ritual, but then it spreads out to become about morality and about right

57:26and wrong as you get more systematic development of, of what it means for things to be right

57:31and wrong. And so the New Testament, I think is heavily influenced by Greek thinking on

57:36what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong. Um, and you know, by the time

57:41you get to the folks who are writing the pastoral epistles, you're, you're waxing philosophic

57:46on Aristotle's notion of the household where you've got the Potter familius, you've got

57:52the wife, you've got the children, you've got the enslaved folks. Those are the four things

57:56and to be a good household is to have all those things in order and all the members of each

58:01of those different classes fulfilling their duties in their specific classes. Um, and

58:07you know, anything outside of that becomes sin. So I, I don't think you can, you can

58:13define it. It's kind of like the idea of the atonement. Like everybody's got different

58:17models for the atonement and you can't, there's no paper that you can rub on your atonement

58:22theory that'll turn pink and you'd be like, ah, I got it. This is the right one. You know,

58:26there's no acid you can dip it into and, and be like, if it turns purple, that means we

58:31got the right one. Like it doesn't work like that because these are conceptual categories

58:36that literally are whatever people agree they are. So, um, yeah, that, that's not a satisfying

58:45answer. What is sin? Whatever you want, man, it's whatever you want. Um, I mean, I'm pretty

58:50sure it's bad. Yeah. But when we look in the Bible, you know what is not sin slavery. Right.

58:57Yeah. Plenty of things that plenty of things are never labeled sin that we would find horrific.

59:03Puligamy. Um, we taught, we had a whole episode on, on a polygamy recently. Um, and then, you

59:11know, every now and then you get a group come, come along, be like, well, we, we kind of like

59:15that. We won't, we don't have that. Yeah. And the rest of the country or the rest of

59:20the world goes, uh, no, denied, um, stairway denied. Um, so yeah, it's really about consensus.

59:31And if, if you want to, you know, and, and now we've got folks, we've got our Joel weapons

59:37and, uh, and other adult, you know, uh, juvenile minds trapped in adult bodies that are like,

59:44well, we need a women shouldn't be voting. That's, that's sinful. Um, by who's reckoning.

59:51Right. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, it's, it's really just about who you can get to agree with you.

59:57So when it comes to original sin and, and what sin is when we get to the New Testament,

60:03Hamartia is, uh, it's based on the idea of, uh, unclean or impure, uh, unrighteous, uh,

60:14it's missing a virtue or missing the desired goal because of weakness accident or, or whatever.

60:21So, uh, it's going to be different depending on the author. Uh, it's not reducible to

60:27a short list of necessary and sufficient features. So, uh, and the discussion that would need to

60:33be had to review all the different things that sin can be, I think would, uh, would

60:39infuriate both of us and take too many episodes. Um, well, there you go. Uh, if you, the,

60:46yeah, well, I think what's nice about this conversation is that we've, we have, uh, gotten

60:53rid of the need to have a full episode about sin. But what we haven't done, I think, has gotten

61:00all the way through the discussion of original sin because I don't, I, I guess one of the things

61:05that I wanted to know is what problem are we solving when we decide that original sin is necessary?

61:12Like, well, like what theological, I get that like we're trying to solve, we're trying to,

61:19you know, solve for why when it comes to, uh, you know, Romans five and yeah, yeah, and stuff,

61:27but it just seems like why can't humans in the, in the Pelagius, uh, style, why can't humans be

61:36born morally neutral, uh, and, and just sin being a choice rather than it being human nature?

61:45And, and there are going to be, uh, folks in the audience who have a lot more training in, uh,

61:50in moral philosophy. Well, and yeah, this is like theology and that's not either of our

61:55wheelhouse really. Um, and, and I, and I know of some folks we could probably get on the show to,

62:02to get a better answer than, than what I would give. But what I would say is that in this time

62:07period, the nature of sin was, was considered no different from like the nature of blood for,

62:14you know, people in the enlightenment who are cutting open cadavers that they stole from the

62:18cemetery. Like it's, this is just something we, we have to search this out and, and we have to

62:24figure out what this is because it's very real and we don't, we don't even know all the implications

62:31of, of the, the answers that we, that we develop for these questions. So, so I think that folks

62:37like Augustine and others, we're just trying to find the truth of, of what this was and how to

62:43think about it because they consider this something as real as, um, you know, your humors that are

62:49inside your body and, um, and, uh, yeah, and, uh, and you walk around essential oils and, and

62:57suddenly you have sexual desire and you're just like, why do I have this? Yes. And, and you know,

63:04it has the, it has a lot of implications for how we decide what's right and wrong. They, you know,

63:10these were debates that were going on, uh, among the most important philosophers of, of the ancient

63:15world who, who remain some of the most important, uh, thinkers about, about the right and wrong.

63:21I mean, this is, this discussion is still happening, right? Like it is a perpetual discussion to some

63:26extent. I mean, is it okay to like the Raiders? Of course not. But, you know, there are people

63:31who for whatever reason are born with this inclination, concupisense, uh, you can call it if you want,

63:38uh, a hurtful desire. But yeah, for whatever reason, there are Raiders fans out there. But,

63:43you know, it's, it's, uh, it's the perennial question. Why do people like the Raiders?

63:47There you go. Yeah, there's no answer. There is no answer. All right. Well,

63:51I, once again, I'm gonna get a bunch of comments on that as soon as I post this on, on Twitter,

63:57I'm gonna answer. They're not even in Oakland anymore, man. Come on. They're in,

64:01surely they're okay now. They're in Vegas enjoying the, uh, zero Michelin star restaurants.

64:08Who knows how much longer. Yeah. Uh, that was, that's a reference to a conversation

64:12Dan and I had before we started recording. So there you go. Uh, well, I think that we have

64:18managed to not get to anything. We've talked for an hour. We've circled the question a lot.

64:24And we, yeah, boy, did we talk around about some stuff, uh, but I don't know if we got to anything,

64:30but it's, I, I still liked it. Um, if you, if you would like to have an original sin, uh, go out and

64:37have one. I think, I think, I think sending a rigid in an original way. I had two yesterday.

64:43That's a, it's a fun challenge is what I think. Uh, so go, go and enjoy some original sin. If you

64:50would like to commit the sin of, of helping this podcast, encouraging us, I encourage you to go to

64:59patreon.com slash data over dogma, sign up, get the, uh, get access to an early and ad-free version

65:06of the show, get access to the, uh, the, the after party, the additional content that we make every

65:13week and also, uh, be one of our favorite people. So that's always a great thing to do. Thanks so

65:20much to Roger Gotti for editing the show. And we'll talk to you again next week. Bye everybody.

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