Ep 63: Wrastlin' With God

00:00- So there's some tradition evidently,

00:03recently where Israelites were like,

00:05"Nope, can't eat that part."

00:06- Wait, was this by the hip?

00:07Get out of here, get this out of here.

00:09- You didn't bring me no hip meat, didn't you?

00:11- I don't do hip meat.

00:12(upbeat music)

00:15- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:18- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:19- And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:22where we increase public access to the academic study

00:24of the Bible and religion and combat

00:27the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:29- How are things, Dan?

00:31- Things are good, it's springtime, it's beautiful,

00:34the leaves are on the trees,

00:36the flowers are all over the place.

00:38I don't have particularly bad hay fever right now, so.

00:42- All right.

00:43- I'm having a great time, how are you doing?

00:44- I'm doing all right, we have a bunch of the,

00:47what are they called, is it peach, white?

00:51We got some kind of trees lining our street

00:53that smell awful when they're blooming,

00:56but that's all over with.

00:58So I don't have to deal with that smell anymore, yeah, so.

01:02- There you go.

01:03- Yeah, doing all right.

01:05What do we got on deck for us today?

01:06- I'm excited, today, it's all famous people,

01:10it's Bible heroes, but we're gonna call it the section,

01:14the segment Bible Heroes?

01:17Question mark, 'cause, you know, it all,

01:22beauty and heroics, heroicism.

01:27- Heroism.

01:28- Heroism, that's the one, it's in the eye of the beholder,

01:32really, and I think a lot of both of these two characters

01:37that we're gonna be exploring, there are many questions.

01:44So hopefully we'll get some answers about those.

01:47So let's just dive into our first Bible hero.

01:51(upbeat music)

01:54Up first, we have Jacob, now that is,

01:59or at least that's how he starts out the story,

02:03but by the end, I don't think he's going to be Jacob anymore,

02:06so that's gonna be confusing.

02:08And I think we can go through and sort of like,

02:13I don't think we need to tell the whole story of Jacob,

02:16but we should just give a little bit of background

02:20to the Jacob story to sort of get us to the point

02:23because there's one point that I wanted to get to.

02:25I've been asking you to do this one for a while

02:28because I find it odd and confusing.

02:32And I have also seen argument on the internet

02:37about what is happening.

02:39So, Jacob is born into a family and his father is,

02:44you have to remind me, I'm not on the right part of the Bible.

02:50- Oh, Isaac.

02:51- Isaac, right, yes, of course, yes, Isaac.

02:54And so, and he's got a brother named Esau

02:58and there's a whole bunch of back and forth about

03:00who's the important brother which goes on

03:03for basically all of their childhood, it feels like.

03:06This is the one, he was the one that like,

03:08like one of them came out, started to,

03:10they were like twins and one of them started to come out

03:13and got the thing, is that what, am I?

03:15- Yeah, they did the string around the wrist or whatever.

03:19- The one like grabs the heel.

03:21- And that's a folk etymology for Jacob's name.

03:25- Oh.

03:26- So, yeah.

03:27- So, what do we say, what does that claim?

03:31What is the claim that the name means?

03:33- Means to grab or follow hot on the heels of something like that.

03:39I think that's how it's, I think in later Hebrew,

03:41that's how they use the verb.

03:43But the idea is like supplant or something like that.

03:46- Oh, okay.

03:47- But another argument is that it means,

03:50may he protect or God protected or protects

03:53or something like that.

03:54- Oh, okay.

03:55- So, like a lot of these patriarchal figures,

03:59there are different stories associated

04:02with different interpretations of the name.

04:05- Okay.

04:06- Here, I think the idea is that because the older serve

04:10the younger, the idea is supplanting,

04:12that's why the story is being told that way.

04:15But yeah, and then Jacob is, you know, that rascally supplantor

04:20goes and tricks Esau out of his birthright

04:24for, what does the KJV say, a mess of pottage or something?

04:28- Something like that, yeah.

04:29- But the word in Hebrew, it's a doubled word

04:33and it means like the red red.

04:35- Oh, the red.

04:37- Yeah, which is just like, I think a lot of scholars

04:41would suggest it's a way to represent Esau

04:44as kind of clumsily just being like the red stuff,

04:48the red stuff, and because he's desperate

04:53and they're trying to treat him like fool.

04:55- Yeah.

04:56- But yeah, so he sells his birthright

04:58and then Jacob gives him some bread

05:00and the red lentil stew.

05:03- The red stuff, you know.

05:04So, a little bit of red red goes a long way sometimes.

05:07Sometimes you just get a hankering for that red red.

05:11- Yep.

05:12- And then we have Isaac dealing with a bimolek,

05:17which is, sounds an awful lot like,

05:19or is it Isaac who deals with, oh my gosh,

05:22it's Abraham who deals with the bimolek, isn't it?

05:25So, I'm sorry, my head is not in the right space today.

05:29I'm on some, my wife is a, I'm on a muscle relaxer

05:34because of an injured back and my wife is like,

05:36that stuff messes with your brain.

05:37- Okay, so we got a half-assed?

05:42- Yeah, oh man, it's gonna be a great show today.

05:44- Good show, this bodes well, this all bodes very well.

05:47- So, yeah, we've got some Isaac going on.

05:52Isaac is kind of a minor figure.

05:53It's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three main

05:56patriarchs of the book of Genesis.

06:00And Isaac is focused on the least.

06:03It's kind of like, oh, Isaac was Abraham's son.

06:05Oh, Jacob was Isaac's son.

06:08Isaac, we're not too worried about that.

06:10I mean, Isaac's probably best known for being,

06:12for not having been killed, right?

06:15Like, like the most famous thing he did was lie down

06:19and wait for his dad not to kill him.

06:21- And maybe, or maybe his dad did kill him.

06:26- Oh.

06:28- Yeah, there are ancient and medieval Jewish traditions

06:33that Isaac was sacrificed.

06:34- Whoa!

06:36- There are other things in the story.

06:38Like, when you look in the story, it says,

06:40and the two of them walked on together.

06:42And the two of them walked on together.

06:44And they arrived at the place.

06:46And then whatever happens happens.

06:48And then the story concludes by saying,

06:50so Abraham returned to his young men.

06:54- Okay.

06:55- Little ominous there.

06:57- But wait, how do we get to Jacob if Isaac was killed?

07:02- Well, that's part of the story.

07:04A lot of scholars are pretty sure

07:06that these were three independently separated,

07:08or circulating traditions that got woven together.

07:12- Oh, okay.

07:12- In other words, there were Abrahamites,

07:14there were Isaacites and there were Jacobites.

07:17And at some point, they were like,

07:18"We gotta make this one line.

07:21"Let's tell them as consecutive children of the other."

07:26- Okay.

07:28- And some scholars think that Jacob is probably

07:28- Oh.

07:31the earliest.

07:32And that's probably the main tradition

07:35of Israel's origins.

07:38- Oh!

07:39- And Abraham and Isaac were added on earlier

07:42and you get the covenant with Abraham and everything.

07:44'Cause Isaac is the main character from then on,

07:49because Isaac has his name changed.

07:52- No, Jacob, sorry, you're saying Isaac,

07:54but you mean Jacob.

07:55- Yeah, there's the drugs again.

07:57Jacob has his name changed.

07:59- Right.

08:00- And becomes Israel.

08:01And Israel's the main story.

08:03- Right.

08:04- Yeah, I mean, do you wanna talk about a usurper?

08:08Everybody talks about Abraham as being like the big daddy

08:11of all, you know, the Abrahamic religions

08:15and all that stuff.

08:16If he came after Jacob,

08:18that's, he's the one that should be called Jacob then,

08:23'cause he's the one that's so kind to him.

08:25- There are a lot of folks who think

08:26that the earliest fragments of Israel's charter myth

08:31are found in the Jacob cycle.

08:34That Abraham is, a lot of the stories in Abraham

08:37are later literary layers.

08:40- Okay.

08:41Well, there you go.

08:42When your grandpa comes long after you,

08:44that's a fascinating thing to do,

08:46but that's not what we're focused on today.

08:48So let's move on with,

08:51so Jacob, there's a whole thing where he goes

08:53with his family or he goes,

08:56he's tending flocks and he's gotta wait for his wife.

09:01There's a whole thing there.

09:03So he goes to,

09:05he goes to find a wife.

09:06- Yeah.

09:07- And Laban is the guy who's like,

09:10yeah, I got some daughters.

09:11- I got a wife or two.

09:12- And Jacob likes the look of Rachel.

09:18And he's like, "Works seven years."

09:20And then you can have Rachel

09:22and then he works for him for seven years.

09:24And then he sneaks Leah or Leah

09:28into the bridal tent.

09:30- Yeah. - And tricks, Jacob.

09:34And now here we got this idea

09:36that once a man sleeps with a woman,

09:38that's kind of like the declaration,

09:40the reification of their marriage.

09:44- Right.

09:45- So he's like, as far as they're concerned,

09:47he has married Leah.

09:49And Jacob's like,

09:50(grunts)

09:52- There's a lot of one.

09:53There's one of the things about this whole story

09:57that bothers me is how much trickery is just okay.

10:02- Yeah.

10:05- Like it seems like it's just okay to like fool people

10:08and con people.

10:09And like, you know, if you fool your brother

10:11out of his birthright, if you con him

10:14and he agrees to it,

10:16ha ha, shame on you, I win.

10:21And you're not the bad guy for doing that.

10:23- Yeah, but there's, Jacob's gonna,

10:26so Laban tricks Jacob,

10:28but Jacob's gonna trick Laban back.

10:29And Jacob is actually going to attribute,

10:31attribute the trickery to God.

10:34- Oh, right, yeah.

10:35- And I have a friend who wrote a wonderful book

10:37on this, Jacob and the Divine Trickster,

10:39a theology of deception.

10:41- Yeah.

10:42- In the Jacob cycle.

10:44But, so he works for another seven years for Rachel.

10:48- Which is a hell of a long,

10:50like Rachel's God must be very flattered at this point.

10:54This dude has worked 14 years to get her to marry him.

10:59By the way, 14 years is a long time.

11:01I, you know, hopefully, like, you know,

11:04Rachel's still as cool as she was 14 years ago.

11:08- And I'm thinking of shooting,

11:11now I can't remember the name of the movie,

11:12but I'm thinking of Marissa Tomay stomping her feet

11:14going, my biological clock is looking like this.

11:17- My cousin Vinny.

11:18- My cousin Vinny.

11:19- Yeah, man.

11:20- Here we go.

11:21- I get, you're lucky I'm here

11:23to fill in these blokes for you.

11:24- Yeah, I've got to say this,

11:26go downhill quick.

11:28But, Jacob's trickery is he's got his two wives

11:33and he's ready to bounce.

11:36- Yeah.

11:37- But he doesn't want to go empty-handed.

11:38He's been working for 11 for so long.

11:40And he's like, "Tell you what,

11:42go work for a while.

11:44All of the sheep and the goats

11:47that are speckled or striped or whatever,

11:49I'll take those, everything else you can keep

11:51and that'll be my payment.

11:53And that's what we'll go off with."

11:55And then he does some sympathetic magic

11:57where he takes some mandrake branches

12:00and like tears off bark

12:02to make them striped and speckled and stuff

12:04and then puts them in the water troughs.

12:05The idea being when they come to drink,

12:08they'll, this will influence the color

12:11of the offspring that they have.

12:13- Which anyone who's studied any kind of biology knows

12:15that's how it works.

12:17- Yeah.

12:18- I mean, if a goat sees stripes,

12:21they're going to give birth to a stripey kid.

12:24- And then the idea would be to have those in the water troughs

12:28when the strongest and the biggest sheep and goat come by

12:31and then take them out when the weak ones do.

12:34And so what happens is the litters that results next,

12:39all of the strongest ones are all speckled and striped

12:44and modeled and whatever adjectives you want to use there.

12:48And then all the weak ones are not.

12:49And so basically, Jacob uses this sympathetic magic

12:52to trick Laban into producing a whole ream of sheep and goats

12:57that are healthy and strong and big.

13:01And Jacob gets to take them all.

13:03And then he's left with the rants of the litter

13:06and all the weaker ones.

13:07And then Jacob actually says that it was God who did it.

13:11- Yeah.

13:12Well, I mean, you know, God's probably behind the magic.

13:15So it's not a total lie.

13:18I, again, the trickster thing,

13:21the con artist deal really messes with my head.

13:26I do not understand why this is all like,

13:30'cause it's never none of that's ever condemned in the book.

13:34All of that is like totally okay part of the,

13:36but you know, it's a different, it's a different time.

13:39It's a different society.

13:42I'll let it go.

13:44What we're building toward though is Jacob's on his way

13:49back to his, I guess, ancestral home.

13:54- Yeah.

13:55- So he goes, Rebecca steals Laban's gods, Laban shows up

14:00and then they have a heart to heart.

14:04And then they shake hands on it

14:07and they swear to their different ancestral deities

14:10and they keep going on.

14:11And Jacob is nervous.

14:14Because he's gonna meet up with Esau.

14:17- Oh, right, yeah.

14:18And yeah, he's worried that Esau's gonna kill him.

14:22- Right, and in the beginning, it says,

14:24Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him.

14:26When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is God's camp."

14:29So he called that place Machanaim camps.

14:32And then in anticipation of meeting up with Esau,

14:35Jacob wants to grease the skids a little bit.

14:37So he sends some gifts on ahead

14:41just to show him he comes in good faith.

14:44- Yes.

14:45- But he's gotta spend the nights by the river Yabbok.

14:51- Sure, like you do, like generally you have to.

14:55- Yeah.

14:56And he's got all his stuff there.

14:57And we just have this weird story.

14:59There's no intro, they don't ease it into you.

15:01They don't, you know, it is literally my favorite,

15:05like one of my favorite things

15:07that has ever happened in the Bible

15:09is when Jacob is left alone,

15:13this is verse 24, it says,

15:15"Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him

15:18"until daybreak, which makes it sound like in ancient times.

15:22"Every now and then someone was just lying in wait

15:25"and would jump out from behind a bush

15:26"and be like, "Wrestle, wrestle!"

15:28And now we gotta run.

15:29And so now he's in the wrestle of his life.

15:33- Yeah.

15:34- Generally speaking, if that happened to me,

15:38yeah, I would not just continue wrestling a stranger

15:43for until daybreak, but--

15:46- Yeah.

15:47- And what's interesting is right before this happens,

15:50it says he got up, took his two wives, his two maids,

15:53and his 11 children and crossed the fort of the Yabbok.

15:56He took them and sent them across the stream

15:58and likewise everything that he had.

16:00So he's actually like, all right,

16:02everybody get on the other side of the river.

16:04- Go, go, go.

16:05- I got man stuff to do, and then that night,

16:09it's just like, so anyway, some dude was wrestling with him.

16:12- Yeah.

16:14- And he's like, he is like the object of the wrestle.

16:19Like, he was wrestled at is what happened.

16:22(laughing)

16:23- Yeah, he's not the agent.

16:25He's not the subject of the verb.

16:26He's the other guy who's--

16:27- Just got wrestled, until daybreak.

16:31- Yeah.

16:32- And yeah, go ahead.

16:34Verse 25 says, "When the man saw that he did not prevail

16:37"against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket."

16:40And Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

16:44So Jacob's winning.

16:45- Yeah, or at least not losing.

16:48- Against said man.

16:49And then the guy gives him, you know,

16:52the little hammer fist to the hip, and--

16:56- The old hip socket or runny.

16:58I think that was Rick Flair's big move, wasn't it?

17:02(laughing)

17:03- Okay, if it's not Jake the Snake Roberts,

17:06it doesn't matter.

17:07So, then he said, "Let me go for the day as breaking."

17:11But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

17:15So his socket's out of hip, but he's still got--

17:18- He's got him in the full Nelson.

17:19- Hold on him.

17:20- He's got him pinned, basically.

17:23He can't get away.

17:24Whoever this stranger is.

17:26- And for us, the blessing part seems odd.

17:29- Yeah.

17:30- If you were just camping out

17:31and some guy jumped in your campground

17:35and was like, "We're gonna rassel!"

17:37And you're like subdue him.

17:40- Right.

17:41- Yeah, exactly.

17:41- You're gonna be like, "Bless me."

17:43Why is that the outcome of--

17:44- I'm not gonna let you tap out

17:45until I get a nice little blessing.

17:48- Yeah, and it's not like, you know,

17:50maybe this is a kind of, say, uncle thing.

17:53- Yeah, exactly.

17:53- No, but then the man says, "What is your name?"

17:57He said, "Jacob, then the man said,

17:58"You shall no longer be called Jacob,

18:00but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans

18:03and have prevailed."

18:05And this is another folk etymology for the name Israel.

18:09- Right.

18:10- 'Cause the name Israel is not unique to Hebrew.

18:13- Oh, interesting.

18:14- It's a name that is actually known in Ugaritic.

18:16It's known at Mari.

18:18There are texts that go back 1,000 years before

18:20this was written that have this name.

18:21And the name basically means L-contents.

18:24- Right.

18:25- But it's kind of squishy.

18:27You can interpret it a few different ways.

18:29And so the idea that Jacob has striven or contended

18:34with God and with humans is kind of the folk etymology.

18:37In other words, Jacob is the one who contended with God.

18:41- Yeah.

18:42(upbeat music)

18:45- So by that, now I would, now, you know,

18:51I'm just a naive guy.

18:52I'm just a small town country lawyer

18:55just trying to make sense of all of this.

18:58But it seems to me that what we have just learned is a,

19:03if you don't, even the loser of a rassel

19:07can just change your name all of a sudden.

19:10No, but the main thing is this was God.

19:15Like, yeah, it says you shall be called,

19:19no longer be called Jacob, but Israel for you

19:21have striven with God and have prevailed.

19:26- That's pretty clear to me.

19:29Would you say that that is a fair assertion?

19:32- I think at this point in the narrative

19:34with the details that have been given,

19:36you've got to arrive at that conclusion

19:38because it says you've striven or contended or raseled

19:43with God and with man or with the divine and with the human.

19:46And up 'til now, all we've seen is stories of Jacob

19:49contending with humans like Laban, like Esau and others.

19:53And so it sure seems like this is a story

19:56about somehow Jacob contending with God.

19:58And then he asks for the man's name

20:00and he says, "Why is it that you asked my name?"

20:05And then he blessed him.

20:06And this kind of hiding the name is something that is,

20:11you see deities doing in narratives

20:13right in the ancient world.

20:15Because once you know an individual, a deity's name,

20:18you can influence them, you can invoke their presence,

20:20you can-- - Interesting.

20:23- Exercise a little power.

20:24And then verse 30 says, "So Jacob called the place Peniel,

20:28"which would mean face of God,

20:30"for I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved."

20:34- Right.

20:36So-- - And with all of that in place,

20:39it seems to me that it's a little weird to me

20:44because I have heard many, many people say,

20:48"Jacob wrestles with an angel."

20:52- Yes.

20:53- So-- - That is--

20:54(laughing)

20:56- It feels like I'm taking crazy pills when I hear that.

21:00'Cause what I'm reading says he wrestled with God.

21:03- Yeah, well, there's nowhere in this text

21:07where the word for angel comes up at all.

21:09- Okay.

21:10- And so we have, but the angelic reading

21:15finds evidence in another part of the Bible,

21:19specifically in the book of Hosea.

21:21So if we go to, this is the prophetic book of Hosea,

21:24chapter 12, we have, you'll recall I said,

21:28some scholars think Jacob is the main charter myth

21:31for the nation of Israel.

21:33In Hosea chapter 12, the prophet is kind of given

21:37the people a hard time.

21:41Says the Lord has an indictment against Judah

21:43and will punish Jacob according to his ways.

21:45In and elsewhere, Hosea suggests that Jacob was a wandering

21:51man, you know, he had to be a slave for 14 years

21:56just to get the wife he wanted.

21:58You know, a loser, but we have Moses,

22:01the prophet who led the people out from Egypt.

22:05And the idea being, hey, you got two choices regarding

22:07where Israel originates from.

22:09You've got the patriarchal Jacob tradition

22:14or you've got the prophetic Moses tradition.

22:16So some people think that these are two competing myths

22:20about Israel's origins.

22:21However, Hosea gives Jacob a hard time.

22:24He's in the womb, he tried to supplant his brother.

22:27And in his manhood, he strove with God.

22:31So we've got Elohim right there.

22:34And then in verse four,

22:36translations say he strove with the angel and prevailed.

22:40- Hmm.

22:41- Now, an interesting thing about this,

22:44I'm gonna pull up the Hebrew real quick.

22:47- Yes, please.

22:50- So in Hebrew, it's Vayyasar El Malach.

22:55So that is, and he strove El can be used

23:00as a preposition to or in the direction of here.

23:03It seems to be functioning almost like a direct object marker

23:07with or to the angel Malach.

23:10But I have argued that Malach here was an interpolation

23:16that somebody added it later.

23:18Because if you take it out and you treat Elle,

23:20not as a preposition, but as the Hebrew noun God.

23:25- Right.

23:26- Then you have Vayyasar El.

23:28You have exactly the consonants in the name Israel.

23:33- Oh.

23:34- Yodh, Sin, Resh, Aleph, Lomid.

23:38And so this would be taking the folk etymology

23:41for Israel's name and just kind of giving it

23:44a punch right in the nose.

23:46- Okay.

23:47- He strove with God, Vayyasar El.

23:49Although if you interpret it that way,

23:52then Elle is the subject and it would be Elle prevailed

23:56or Elle contended.

23:58God is the one who won.

24:00And one of the reasons that I think this is

24:04a preferable reading is 'cause the very next clause says

24:09he wept and sought his favor.

24:11And a lot of people suggest it wasn't God

24:16who wept and sought Jacob's favor.

24:17It was Jacob who wept and sought God's favor.

24:20- Right.

24:21- At least it seems like we got two very different stories

24:24going on here.

24:25- Yeah.

24:26- 'Cause the Genesis thing doesn't say anything

24:27about anybody weeping.

24:28It does say that Jacob was like, "Bless me."

24:31- Yeah.

24:32- And the only favor that the other entity asked for

24:36was just to be released.

24:38And he was not, not till I get my blessing.

24:40- Yeah.

24:41- So it seems like, I imagine that the reading

24:43in Hosea 12, 4, and it's verse five in the Hebrew,

24:47is where we get the angelic interpretation of this.

24:51But I think that the word angel there

24:53was probably interpolated.

24:55Somebody added it in.

24:56- Right.

24:57- Probably not too long after the story

25:00was originally in circulation.

25:02- Well, and there's good reason to do that

25:04because we know that there are parts of the Bible, right?

25:09That say no one can see God and live.

25:13- Right?

25:14Am I wrong about that?

25:15- You are not wrong about that.

25:17- Okay.

25:17- So that's, that is Exodus 33, 20.

25:21This is where God is talking with Moses

25:26and Moses says, "Show me your glory."

25:27- Yeah.

25:28- And God says, kind of like picks him up and says,

25:32"I'm gonna put you on this rock over here."

25:35And then I will cause my goodness to pass by you.

25:39But I will take my hand and I'll cover up your face

25:41until I've passed and then I'll take it away.

25:43So you will see my back, but you will not see my face

25:47because no human can see me and live.

25:51- Right.

25:52- And the idea here is, is basically that the deity

25:55is so brilliant and shiny that it's deadly to look at.

26:00- It'll cook you.

26:01- It'll stir it at the sun.

26:02- It'll cook your brain unless you're Jacob.

26:04Like if you wear him out and get him down to a, you know,

26:08if you go full hoist Gracie on him and razzle on him.

26:12- It's gotta be, it's gotta be Brazilian or capoeira.

26:15- Yeah, sure.

26:16- Dancing at the same time.

26:17- Yeah, man.

26:18- You wanna kill him with your sublimeness.

26:22- But if you're a grappler and then you can see,

26:26because it literally says, "I have seen God face to face."

26:31So that puts the light of this whole, so yes,

26:34what we don't want, it's so rare that the Bible

26:39ever contradicts itself.

26:40I don't even know why we're talking about it,

26:42but I can see why people would have a problem saying

26:47that Jacob wrestled with God.

26:49Not just because of the death things,

26:51but because God is meant to be, you know,

26:56pretty big and strong.

26:57So a guy being able to like get a submission out of God

27:02is that's a hell of a razzle right there.

27:05- Yeah, yeah, those are some pretty muscular bona fides.

27:09(laughing)

27:11And you see this with a number of episodes

27:14where somebody had an encounter with a divine being

27:16where either the narrative or the characters themselves

27:19go back and forth between identifying the individual

27:21as God or an angel.

27:23And I've argued that, and you see them saying,

27:26"Oh, I can't look at you, I'm gonna die."

27:29Or, "Is it possible that I've seen God and lived?"

27:32Or, "We've seen God, we're gonna die."

27:34Like that happens several times.

27:36And I think in all of those instances,

27:39other scholars have noted that the angel is not doing

27:42angelic things.

27:44They're not doing things angels are supposed to be doing.

27:46They're doing things that God is supposed to be doing.

27:48And so these are probably stories that originated in

27:52traditions about God themselves interacting with people.

27:55And then later on, somebody came in and wrote angel in there

27:58just to kind of muddy the waters.

28:00They're not saying this wasn't God, this was an angel.

28:03They kind of leave it half and half,

28:04just to confuse things.

28:07And I think that's probably what you've got going on here,

28:10even though the edit wasn't made until Hosea 12,

28:15way off on the other side of the Bible.

28:17- You know what it is?

28:19It's that kind of adding that level of confusion

28:22is an acceptable, is a permissible con.

28:25They're doing the con thing.

28:27- Oh yeah, a little bit of trickery there.

28:30- And the idea is just to mask God's presence.

28:32Who was it God?

28:33We don't know, you're not sure.

28:35But at the same time, it also refers to God as a man.

28:38You multiple times you have an ish,

28:41a man, the one who's represented that way.

28:44And so Esther Himori wrote a wonderful book

28:48called "When God's Were Men."

28:52And it was all about divine anthropomorphism

28:54and how you've got this story and a couple others

28:56where God is referred to as a man.

29:00And somebody who's, it doesn't say whether people confuse God

29:04for a human, but they kind of just treat him as like a human

29:07when God, for instance, in Genesis 18, appears to Abraham.

29:11Listen, there were three men.

29:13And Abraham was like, whoa, it's you.

29:15And treats the entity like he knows who they are.

29:20- Well, and we also get the story in Genesis three,

29:26I guess, of God walking through the garden.

29:30- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

29:30- And that, it doesn't seem like it's some amazing,

29:35giant, powerful, it just seems like it's another guy.

29:39- Yeah, it says the, they heard the sound of him walking

29:43in the garden in the cool of the afternoon,

29:46the breeze of the afternoon.

29:47- Yeah.

29:48- And so, yeah, repeatedly, the Bible,

29:52you have different representations of what God looks like.

29:55You have kind of apocalyptic theophanic visions of God

29:58where God is high and mighty on a throne,

30:01or God is riding this chariot made of living beings

30:06and ophanim and kind of what we get in Ezekiel one,

30:11whereas like where there should have been a body,

30:13it had the appearance of something that kind of looked

30:15like maybe humanoidish and like Ezekiel is really trying

30:20to say, this is what God looks like,

30:21but it's not really what God looks like.

30:23You know, you didn't hear it from me,

30:25but when you have narratives where God interacts directly

30:28with humans, which happen, it's always pretty straightforward.

30:31God is human-sized, human-shaped, male-presenting,

30:36a very anthropomorphic depiction to the degree

30:39that the eponymous hero of the nation of Israel,

30:43Israel himself, Jacob, is able to subdue him

30:46in a wrestling match.

30:47- Yeah, yeah, well, there you have it.

30:50That's Jacob, or sorry, now he's Israel.

30:55So I find that a fascinating story.

30:58I don't know what to do with it, but there it is.

31:02- There's one more piece, there's one more piece

31:03just in case you didn't have enough loose threads.

31:05- Good, good, good.

31:06- The sun rose upon him as he passed penual,

31:10limping because of his hip.

31:12Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat

31:15the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket

31:17because he struck Jacob on the hip socket

31:19at the thigh muscle.

31:20So there's some tradition evidently,

31:22ancient where Israelites were like,

31:24"Nope, can't eat that part."

31:25- Don't eat, no, no, no, no, wait, was this by the hip?

31:28Get out of here, get this out of here.

31:30Okay.

31:31- You didn't bring me no hip meat, did you?

31:33- I don't do hip meat.

31:35All right, that's fascinating.

31:38And now, let's move on to another hero question mark.

31:43We're gonna do Samson.

31:46(upbeat music)

31:49- We're gonna continue to muddy up the waters.

31:52- Yeah, Samson is another story

31:55that everybody kind of thinks they know.

31:57But when I read through it,

32:01first of all, like his whole story is bananas.

32:05It's, I, and a lot of it, I didn't understand at all.

32:09You know, there's this whole thing about him

32:14encountering, he kills a lion at one point in his story.

32:19And then he comes back to it a couple of weeks later

32:21and it's rotting, but there's bees

32:24that have built a hive in the lion's carcass.

32:27And that all sets up a weird riddle

32:30that he tells that no one could, like again,

32:34he's cheating at riddles is one of the things

32:36that I'm gonna say, because you can't,

32:38like if you have a riddle competition,

32:41you can't be like, ha ha, what's in my aunt's basement

32:44underneath the sofa or whatever,

32:47'cause like, it's gotta be something

32:48somebody could figure out.

32:50- Yeah, can't go all Bilbo on him.

32:52- Right.

32:53- Just be like, what's in my pocket?

32:54- Right, exactly.

32:55But Samson proves throughout his story

33:00to be relatively easily duped,

33:04especially if it comes to a lady person.

33:07- Yes, he's not a particularly smart man.

33:10- No.

33:11- Well, and to start, his birth was announced

33:16by probably originally God themselves.

33:19- Oh, wow.

33:20- This is one of the stories.

33:22- Okay.

33:23- You've got his dad's name is Minoach,

33:24and it never says who his mom is, but in Judges 13,

33:28they are there and suddenly the narrative says

33:33an angel of the Lord appeared to them.

33:35And basically, they're gonna have a kid

33:39and the angel says not to cut his hair and all this.

33:44And no razor is to come on his head

33:47for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from birth.

33:49It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel

33:51from the hand of the Philistines.

33:53- Now, we've heard the word Nazarite before.

33:55We heard that a couple of weeks ago

33:57when we talked to Dr. McGrath about John the Baptist.

34:02- Yeah.

34:03- What is a Nazarite?

34:05- So a Nazarite, we find this in numbers.

34:08I think it's number six, where this is a type of vow

34:11that a person can take upon themselves.

34:13And my understanding is that it was usually

34:15a temporary thing where you would be like,

34:19"Hey, I'm gonna take the vow of the Nazarite

34:21"for the next year.

34:24"I'm gonna go walk about, do a gap year.

34:26"I'm gonna take the Nazarite vow."

34:29And basically means you can't cut your hair at all.

34:33You're supposed to avoid grape products and particularly wine.

34:36And then you're supposed to entirely avoid contact with corpses.

34:40- Okay.

34:41- Now, normally that just renders a person

34:43ritually unclean for a certain number of days.

34:45And there are things you have to do to cleanse yourself

34:49of that ritual impurity.

34:51And you know, you have to at some point or another,

34:54but the Nazarite is not allowed to period,

34:56not even for their own parents, for their own children.

35:00They're supposed to avoid that entirely.

35:01And the idea seems to be just to kind of maintain a heightened sense

35:06of ritual purity.

35:08- Yeah, it's sort of an acetic,

35:10like almost a monastic sort of thing.

35:16- Yeah, and this is probably is what made,

35:19you know, with John the Baptist at least,

35:22this is probably what allowed that tradition

35:25to kind of dovetail with asceticism,

35:29which was something that you did find in some Greco-Roman

35:32social groups.

35:33And so it kind of made it seem a little more natural.

35:36But normally, like I said, as far as I understand,

35:38this was usually a temporary thing.

35:40So we know of three people in the Bible

35:42that seem to have been lifetime Nazarites,

35:45or at least according to the story,

35:46that's how they come across.

35:47John the Baptist was one.

35:49And then Samuel is another.

35:50Hannah says, I'll give him to you all the days of his life

35:54if I can have a son.

35:56And so Hannah gives birth to Samuel and Samuel is dedicated

35:59to priestly service.

36:02And then we have Samson,

36:04who is supposed to be the third lifetime Nazarite,

36:09which kind of seems like a raw deal.

36:12I imagine once you're, you know, as a kid,

36:14you're like, why don't I get a haircut mom?

36:17And she's like, oh, so funny story.

36:20You'll love this.

36:22But the, but as soon as this angel disappears

36:27after promising that they, that Manoah's wife

36:30would have a child, he says, we shall surely die

36:34because we have seen God.

36:36- Oh, hey, oh, now we've tied it all back.

36:41It's all making sense now.

36:45It's all, it's all tying itself together.

36:47Speaking of tying itself together,

36:50can we just briefly mention the foxes?

36:52Because this is the most insane part

36:56of the entire Samson story.

36:58And I know you're going to get to like real stuff,

37:00but there's a moment where Samson is like bitterly trying

37:04to ruin everything for, what was this?

37:08It was supposed to be his father-in-law,

37:10but then he didn't get married at the last minute

37:13or whatever.

37:14Again, because of trickery, I think.

37:16Anyway, the way that he exacts his revenge is like,

37:21here's the thing, if I absolutely needed to,

37:27there's just no way I could, I could gather,

37:30let's say five foxes.

37:34I couldn't, I couldn't trap 10 foxes.

37:38He gets like 300 foxes, ties them tail to tail

37:45with each other, lights them on fire,

37:48and sends them into his potential,

37:51his supposed father-in-law's fields.

37:54Yeah.

37:55That's, how do you get that many foxes?

37:57You can't get that many foxes.

38:00First of all, and also like just,

38:01why are you being cruel to foxes?

38:03That's not really nice.

38:04Yeah, you can't get them to hold still for long enough

38:06to tie 300 of them to kill.

38:08No, I mean, if his brother had a fox farm,

38:11he couldn't get that many foxes.

38:13Anyway, I'm sorry, that's neither here nor there.

38:16(upbeat music)

38:19The interesting thing about Samson

38:22is that he's growing up right on the borders

38:25of the Philistine territory and the Israelite hill country.

38:30So if you go to Israel and Palestine,

38:33one of the places you can visit is Telbez Shemesh,

38:36which is a very cool site that has a gigantic underground aquifer

38:42that you can go down into, it's no water in it anymore,

38:44but you can go down into it.

38:46But from that site, you can see the places Timna,

38:50you can see these other places,

38:52and you're looking down a valley toward

38:54what's called the Schvella or the coastal plains.

38:57And the Philistines occupied the coastal plains,

38:59the Israelites were in the hill country.

39:02Samson's growing up basically right in the middle of this.

39:05So he's just, he's growing up at that kind of

39:09liminal space between Israelites and Philistines.

39:13And in this time period,

39:14the Philistines are supposed to be given

39:15the Israelites a hard time.

39:17That's one of their main kind of battlegrounds

39:21is those Philistines are after us again.

39:24- Yeah, it does feel like that is sort of a constant,

39:28like if you need an enemy for your story,

39:31just chuck in a couple Philistines and you'll be good to go.

39:34Or a thousand of them,

39:36which is the number that Samson manages to kill

39:41using only the jawbone of a donkey.

39:45Which is impressive, I'll give him that.

39:49They must have been learned how to fight

39:51watching too much TV and movies

39:54where they all just wait their turn and go in after him.

39:56- Yeah, but it's kind of just a comedy of errors

40:00with Samson, he always seems to find himself

40:03budding heads with Philistines and is shown

40:06to have like superhuman strength and everything like that.

40:09And so the defeating of the lion

40:10is supposed to be this miraculous.

40:12Wow, with his bare hands, can you even imagine?

40:15- Right.

40:16- But the thing that keeps coming up

40:17is he keeps performing these feats of strength

40:21that are then somehow associated with symbols for fertility.

40:26So honey is a symbol of fertility.

40:30- Okay.

40:31- So is water, which comes up in another story.

40:34And I don't think there's a ton of significance

40:36to like the honey appearing in the carcass of the lion.

40:41- It's so weird, cool.

40:44I'm taking some with me.

40:45- Literally, like that's the weirdest thing.

40:47I did hear someone say an explanation

40:51about how they used to think that bees,

40:55I don't know if I buy it,

40:57that bees liked carcasses of animals.

41:00- I don't think that that's true.

41:02I think there are some wasps that like the carcasses.

41:05I did a whole, I went down a rabbit hole.

41:08But the bee honey, the lion honey thing is crazy.

41:13I think there's a brand of syrup,

41:19of golden syrup in the UK

41:22that has a picture of a lion and some bees around it,

41:25of a dead lion and bees around it as their logo,

41:29which is weird.

41:30But we should get to the part of the Samson story

41:35that everybody kind of thinks they know.

41:38- Yeah.

41:39- Which is that he, we're going to chapter 16,

41:44Judges chapter 16.

41:45- So Samson went to Gaza where he saw a sex worker

41:51and went into her, so patronized her business.

41:55And that is not, again, that is not condemned in this.

42:00Like that's just a normal thing to do.

42:02- Yeah.

42:03And you see this a lot, you know, Judah does it.

42:06It ends up being Tamar, his daughter-in-law.

42:08And again, trickery, and he's like, you got me.

42:13- You got me, oh, you got me good, oh you.

42:16- Got me real good.

42:18The gazites were told Samson has come here,

42:23so they circled around and they wait for him

42:25all night at the city gate.

42:27- Yeah.

42:28- But Samson was like, I'm going to take off

42:32about around midnight.

42:36And it says he took hold of the doors of the city gate

42:39and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all,

42:41put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top

42:43of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

42:45- Why did he take the door?

42:48- It's another, you know, this is a festivist feat of strength.

42:52- Yes, exactly, I got to show these puppies.

42:56- He was really feeling his oats after that time

42:59with the sex worker.

43:01All right.

43:02- He couldn't stop thinking about her.

43:03- Yeah.

43:04- And so Delilah is the one that he falls in love with.

43:08And as usual, everybody's like, she's a Philistine.

43:12Why you got to do this with Philistine?

43:14- Why can't you find a nice Jewish girl?

43:19- So, yes, he finds a Philistine woman named Delilah

43:23and just in a mirror of what happened in the previous thing.

43:28We didn't really talk about it, but previously in his story,

43:32you know, he's in love with this other woman

43:35and the men enlist the other woman to trick him

43:40so that he will give them the answer to the riddle

43:44that was unsolvable.

43:46Now we have other men using Delilah

43:51to trick him, to try and trick him

43:55into revealing what will cause him to lose his strength.

44:00- And each time he, the first few times he's like,

44:04"Oh yeah, sure, baby, it's this, it turns out to be a lie."

44:07And she gets mad at him.

44:09- Yeah.

44:10- After he thwarts the assassination attempt,

44:13she's saying, "Do you really not love me?"

44:16- Yeah.

44:17- "Do you keep lying to me?"

44:19- So, let's just go through it.

44:20She says, "Hey, tell me what makes your strength so great

44:23"and how you could be bound."

44:25She's like, "Is it even possible?"

44:28And he sees it coming.

44:29He gets that this is a trick and he lies to her

44:33and he says, "If they bind me with seven fresh bow strings

44:38"that are not dried out, then I shall become weak

44:41"and be like anyone else."

44:43And they sneak in while he's asleep

44:46and they tie him up with seven fresh bow strings

44:49that are not been dried out.

44:51And he wakes up and he's just like, "Pwing, I'm free.

44:55"You didn't get me, beats up everybody or whatever."

44:58So he knows that she is trying to get him,

45:04that she's in cahoots with bad men who want to get him.

45:09So, and then she tries it again.

45:12She's like, "Hey, but no, but seriously tell me, though."

45:15And he's like, "Oh, okay.

45:17"If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used,

45:21"then I shall become weak and be like anyone else."

45:23And she's like, "You promised?"

45:24And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

45:26And so they do it again.

45:27They sneak in, they tie him up with new ropes

45:30that have not been used and he just snaps those open to.

45:33He's got no problem.

45:35- I like the, I like if you weave the seven locks of my head

45:39with the web and make it tight with a pin,

45:41then I shall become weak and be like anyone else.

45:43So basically, if you give me a man bun,

45:47- Yeah. - And I'm useless.

45:48- Yeah. - And I've...

45:49- If you breed in card is revoked.

45:52- I think in some of the,

45:55am I wrong?

45:56In some of the translations, it says if you weave it

45:58into a loom, like you have to loom my hair.

46:03- Yeah.

46:03- How this guy did not wake up for any of this,

46:08I will never know.

46:10But again, a third time, the Philistines come in

46:13and try and get him, they weave his hair

46:16and then they put it, make it tight with a pin.

46:20They, you know, they do a pretty French braid

46:23and then he wakes up and beats the crap out of him again.

46:27I just don't, okay, this is one of those moments

46:31where it just becomes, this is not believable.

46:34- Yeah. - There's no way

46:35that this is believable because then after every time

46:39she asks him something, he says a different thing

46:42and suddenly there's bad guys attacking him.

46:47A, he does not know when to leave a relationship.

46:51I'm just gonna say that.

46:52(laughing)

46:54But B, she finally nags him enough and she,

46:57and he tells her?

46:59Like is this just a, oh man, look,

47:02I just wanna be done with this now.

47:04So, and he's like, hey, you know,

47:08if you cut my hair, that would actually do it.

47:11And they're like, okay, well, let's just try it.

47:13And it works.

47:14- And it says, it's interesting in verse 18,

47:17before it happens, it says when Delilah realized

47:20that he had told her his whole secret,

47:22she sent and called the Lords of the Philistines.

47:25- Yeah.

47:26- And then as soon as they cut his hair,

47:28and, you know, he didn't cut his own hair,

47:32but he gave away the secret

47:33which allowed someone else to cut his hair.

47:35And it says the Lord, his strength left him

47:37and then it said the Lord left him.

47:39- Oh, wow.

47:40- So he has, he had responsibility

47:43for keeping his hair unshorn.

47:44- Yeah.

47:45- And he failed on that.

47:49And then they gouged out his eyes

47:51and brought him back to Gaza

47:52and bound him with bronze shackles.

47:54And he ground at the mill in the prison.

47:56But the hair of his head began to grow again

47:59after it had been shaved.

48:00So that's your little foreshadowing

48:03at the end of act two.

48:04- Right.

48:05- You close in on him,

48:08pushing the flower grinding thing,

48:11and you can see the hair slowly.

48:13- One little hair goes, "Pilly!"

48:15- Yep.

48:16- So then we get to verse 23,

48:20"The Lords of the Philistines are gathered to offer

48:22"great sacrifice to the God Deagon and to rejoice."

48:25For they said, "Our God has given Samson our enemy

48:27"into our hands."

48:28And I would actually suggest that Deagon

48:31was probably not a Philistine deity.

48:33That was a Northwest Semitic deity

48:35and the Philistines were from further west

48:38in the Mediterranean region.

48:40So they could have adopted Deagon at some point,

48:44but it would not have been anywhere near this early.

48:46This is putting this like the instant they show up

48:49in this part of the world.

48:51- Interesting.

48:52So the idea that you're saying is that

48:56whoever wrote this just grabbed a non-Israelite deity

49:02and just checked it in there or?

49:04- Either that, or they are writing from a much later time

49:08period when anybody who was Philistine

49:11may have adopted the worship of one of the local deities.

49:14- Okay.

49:15- So maybe Deagon is a Philistine deity

49:17in like the 8th to the 7th century BCE.

49:20But in the 12th, 11th century BCE,

49:23they're not even there for part of the 12th century

49:25and they probably have not adopted the worship

49:30of a local deity.

49:31- And you're saying sorry that the 12th century BCE

49:34is when the Samson story is meant to have happened.

49:38- It's around there.

49:39It depends on when you date judges,

49:41but yeah, it's supposed to be around that time period.

49:45- Okay.

49:46- Yeah.

49:47- So he's grown a couple hairs which seems to be sufficient

49:52because when they put Samson blind Samson

49:56against two pillars in the Philistine, I guess temple,

50:01he says a little prayer about like,

50:07give me just one more try, God,

50:10just one more last burst of strength

50:13and he pulls the pillars down

50:15and drops the building on all of them, including himself.

50:19- Yeah.

50:20And it says those that he killed at his death

50:25were more than those he had killed during his life.

50:28- Oh, yeah.

50:30So that's a solid, I mean, does that include foxes?

50:33Because then it's a big number.

50:35- Yeah, I don't know if he was labeling the foxes Philistines

50:41but it's a story of this champion

50:45who was able to make the first big dent

50:48in the Philistine armor

50:51because that had been their main enemies.

50:52So we get in verse 31, then his kindred and all his family

50:55came down and took him and brought him up

50:56and buried him between Zora and Eshta'ol

50:59and the tomb of his father, Manoa.

51:01And he had judged Israel 20 years.

51:04And some of these, a lot of these stories like

51:06with Jeff for instance,

51:09they seem to be kind of tragic tales

51:13of warning more than anything else

51:16but at the same time, the people are just celebrated

51:19for what they do.

51:21Part when Samson is celebrated,

51:23he's given an honorable burial with his father.

51:27Jeff was celebrated as well

51:30was somebody who, and the text repeatedly says

51:33that the Lord's spirit came upon him.

51:36So these judges are not just kind of,

51:37it's not like designate somebody a judge

51:40and they're just off doing their own thing

51:41and look, they happen to do a bunch of stupid stuff

51:45but they manage to kill some Philistines.

51:48Like a lot of the things that they do

51:49are explicitly designated

51:52as the outcome of God's spirit rushing upon them.

51:56- Yeah, it does seem like,

51:57and we should talk a little bit

51:59because I don't really know the judges.

52:03This was sort of before this was pre-monarchic

52:08in their culture, right?

52:10Like this is, the idea is that the judges,

52:13they're not the kings, but they're like bigwigs

52:16or important people, they're, I don't know,

52:18what is a judge in this case?

52:20What are we talking about?

52:21- So the Hebrew term is shofat

52:24and it's just someone who judges

52:27and the idea is that they have some kind of judicial power

52:32over a tribe or a group.

52:35So chieftain might be something

52:38that makes a little more sense to us today.

52:41But basically they're warlords.

52:43They have won battles and so everybody's like,

52:47you're the man, we're not worthy, we're not worthy,

52:50and then they'll follow them and they judge

52:54for however long they can keep their power.

52:56And you have major judges

52:58and then you also have minor judges that are listed

53:01or they'll just rattle off some names,

53:03so and so also judged.

53:04And they're in different parts of the territory.

53:07And it's basically like, this is what happens without a king.

53:11When we just kind of let the winds of change

53:14blow whatever warlord is in town into power,

53:18this is how it goes.

53:20But at the same time, it's trying to suggest

53:22that God's power is still acting in the area as well

53:26and God is bringing about their purposes.

53:28- Yeah, it does, I mean, like you said,

53:31like Samson very clearly has

53:33is meant to have had God with him this whole time

53:40because God's taken away from him.

53:42But he's not like, he's a might makes right kind of guy.

53:47He is not a wise, like he's not any of the things

53:51that I associate with the term judge.

53:53He's not a smart guy, he's a pretty dumb guy.

53:57He manages to kill about a lot of people,

54:00but only because he's got this brute strength.

54:03He doesn't manage, you know,

54:04he's not a strategy expert or anything.

54:08- Yeah.

54:09- As a matter of fact, yeah, he just bumbles

54:11his way through everything.

54:12I think that it's a really interesting story

54:16in that respect.

54:18Yeah, I find it baffling.

54:19I don't know what the takeaway is meant to be.

54:23- Yeah, and that happens a lot in judges.

54:27You're like, all right, cool.

54:29- Great, thanks, you guys.

54:32- Yeah, it's not exactly clear.

54:34But I think one of the main ideas there is a statement,

54:38and you get repeated a bunch, there was no king in the land.

54:42Everybody did what was right in their own eyes.

54:45And so part of it is kind of an apology for the monarchy.

54:50And for saying, hey, we want a king

54:52because without a king, here's all the goofy stuff

54:55that happens.

54:56- Right.

54:57- And so I think that's at least partly what's going on here.

55:00I don't think that can account for everything,

55:02but that's certainly in view

55:04with the way they're bringing this together.

55:06Now, a lot of these stories are very old.

55:09A lot of scholars would say you have kind of a,

55:11there's a narrative framework kind of weaving together

55:16all these stories that are being gathered from all over.

55:19Some of them older, some of them younger.

55:21There are a lot of scholars who think

55:22some of the early parts of judges,

55:25judges five, maybe judges nine through 11.

55:28Maybe some of these go back to traditions

55:31that existed before Israel was even a thing.

55:35Back when they may have just been a bunch

55:37of kind of confederated tribes or bands roaming around.

55:41So judges is a complex story, complex set of texts.

55:46Some of it's very old, some of it's very young.

55:50It's very clearly not all doing the same thing either.

55:52So if you're hoping to be able to put one lens on it

55:57and get everything out of it that's there,

55:59that's not gonna work.

56:00- Yeah.

56:02Well, that's, there you go.

56:05We didn't even talk about the moment

56:07where Samson loses the bet,

56:09which he, by the way, he made a bet that he did not have,

56:12he could not back up.

56:13He did not have the sufficient things on his,

56:16he bet money he couldn't afford, he didn't have.

56:20Or rather, he bet tunics that he didn't have

56:23and had to go and kill a bunch of dudes

56:26to steal their tunics so that he could pay his bet off.

56:31- Is this a weird-- - These are our heroes?

56:33- Right, yeah, that's why the segment is called Heroes.

56:38Question mark, anyway, that's fascinating.

56:43You and I are about to go off and talk to our patrons.

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57:28And Dan, we'll talk to you again next week.

57:30- Bye, everybody.

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