Ep 66: Thou Shalt Not

00:00Like in Egypt, you've got the God of bricks, you've got the God of lovemaking, you've got

00:07a beer.

00:08Those gods knew how to party.

00:09Yeah.

00:10You've got your bricks, you've got your beer, you've got your lovemaking, and you've got

00:14a weekend.

00:15Yeah.

00:16Hey, everybody.

00:17I'm Dan McClellan.

00:18And I'm Dan Beacher.

00:19And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the

00:27academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about

00:32the same.

00:33We got a hot one today, don't we?

00:35Ooh, ooh, we're like coming off the heels of some current events.

00:41Oh, we're getting topical.

00:44We are, you know, we try, we're maybe a couple of weeks late, but it's okay.

00:49Like an effective cream today, we're topical.

00:54We're going to be talking about recent legislation that was signed into law by the, the, the

00:59love owner, no, the governor of Louisiana.

01:03Yeah.

01:04HB 71, House Bill 71, which requires that all public school classrooms have prominently

01:12posted a specific version of the 10 commandments.

01:17Yeah.

01:18And we're going to talk a little bit about what specific version they're using and why

01:23and then get into some of these commandments, how they're, how they're written up, why

01:27it's a little confusing, and then talk a little more about some of these commandments and,

01:32and then move on to some name of God stuff, you know, just, just an average Thursday.

01:38Yeah, exactly.

01:39Yeah.

01:40It's going to be Monday, whatever, I don't know when you're listening, yeah, you listen

01:43whenever you listen, it's Thursday for us about time as a flat circle.

01:48So it all, none of it makes any sense.

01:51Uh, all right, well, let's, uh, let's dive in, uh, to this Louisiana has, as you say,

02:00has chosen to, uh, to try to force all of the, uh, schools to have the 10 commandments

02:09on a poster in every, uh, in every classroom, it feels a little weird, uh, definitely a

02:18problematic, I think problematic, current and, and, and controversial.

02:23Yeah.

02:24So this is, this has been tried in a bunch of states, Texas tried it, uh, recently here

02:30in Utah, they tried it and it didn't get passed.

02:34Uh, and this ought to strike most people as a pretty flagrant violation of the establishment

02:41clause of the very first amendment to the constitution.

02:46And we're going to get into that, but, um, shall we, shall we just kind of, I want to

02:50read one of the paragraphs that introduces the 10 commandments and then we can read through

02:55it.

02:56Does that sound okay?

02:57I love it.

02:58Okay.

02:59So, um, paragraph, let's see, line 11 on page three of the final form of this bill that

03:04was signed into law, no later than January 1, 2025, each public school governing authority

03:09shall display the 10 commandments in each classroom in each school under its jurisdiction.

03:16The nature of the display shall be determined by each governing authority with a minimum

03:19requirement that the 10 commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document

03:24that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches.

03:27The text of the 10 commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or frame document

03:33and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.

03:37The text shall read as follows.

03:39And then it starts with the 10 commandments.

03:43That's the first bit of text that you have to have on there, which I think should probably

03:47be read only in your best, uh, Charlton Heston impression.

03:53My, when I think Charlton Heston, I think of Wayne's world.

04:01Oh, because I never, I never watched the movie, the 10 commandments.

04:06Really?

04:07Never seen it.

04:08Oh.

04:09Yeah.

04:10That is grave.

04:13Well, he can, he can roll around all he wants.

04:14Uh, I just have, I was not raised in a religious household.

04:20It was just never a movie that, uh, that we watched.

04:23And so I know I'm, I'm a heretic already to a lot of people out there, but that makes

04:27me even more heretical.

04:28So that's the movie that I first saw Charlton Heston in.

04:32I was like, what?

04:33Okay.

04:34This guy's a much better actor than the first guy that they had in the gas station, but

04:37I don't get the significance and then later on, I was like, ah, okay.

04:41Moses.

04:42Yeah.

04:43I am the Lord.

04:44My God.

04:45That's my, that's, that's my best Heston.

04:48Yeah.

04:49Uh, which is also the next few words in, in the commandments.

04:53Should we go through?

04:54I mean, I don't know.

04:55I don't, we don't need to read all of the 10 commandments, but the point is I, at

05:00least one of the points for the purposes of this conversation is that they chose very

05:04specific, uh, translation, a very specific version of these because different translations

05:10of the Bible do these differently, word these differently.

05:14Yeah.

05:15We, there, there are a bunch of different ways to understand the 10 commands.

05:18We've already done a show where we talked about the fact that Exodus 20 is not labeled

05:23the 10 commandments.

05:24It's actually Exodus 34 where we have the 10 things, the 10 words, uh, the 10 commandments,

05:30but that's the ritual decalogue.

05:32This is a different set of 10.

05:34So we've discussed that, but the specific version, not only is it not labeled as 10

05:39commandments, it's not numbered either.

05:42Like there's, there's vast disagreement on which are the 10 and it's very reasonable

05:49to say there are not 10.

05:51Yeah.

05:52You could, you could number it at as few as nine easily or as many as 12.

05:56Like that it's not obvious in any way that this is supposed to be 10 different commandments.

06:06Yeah.

06:07This is, uh, this is a negotiation of the text.

06:10This is our decision to impose that organizing framework, but you can even organize it different

06:15ways.

06:16You can split the commandments up in different ways.

06:18Some people think of, uh, you shall not covet your neighbor's house as one commandment and

06:24then you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or slaves as a separate commandment.

06:29Sure.

06:30The first commandment can be split up in a variety of different ways.

06:33Is the statement, I am the Lord, your God, a commandment within, uh, most Jewish streams

06:38of tradition that is considered the first commandment, but within most Christian traditions, it's

06:45the actual pro-scriptive, uh, you shall have no other gods before me and is the commandment

06:52to not make any graven images.

06:54Is that part of the same commandment?

06:56Is that a separate?

06:57So there, there are a lot of different ways to do this.

06:59And this legislation is prescribing a very specific way to do it to some degree, because

07:05it doesn't number them.

07:06Like you were, you were saying, um, before we started recording, you could even divide

07:12up the, the, uh, laws, the commandments as they're represented in the, uh, bill to 12.

07:19Yeah.

07:20Like there are.

07:21It looks like 12 to me when I read it, uh, because of how, because they do, they do

07:27have line breaks and a couple of them extend beyond the line breaks.

07:32And it's very obvious when that has happened.

07:33Right.

07:34And then there are, but if you just go down and you, you don't count sentence by sentence

07:39sentence by sentence, it looks like 12, uh, different, uh, commandments to me.

07:45Yeah.

07:46Yeah.

07:47So, so that's unclear.

07:48So, uh, if somebody wanted to thumb the nose at, uh, at the, this legislation, they could

07:53like number them by 12 or something.

07:55And they definitely should thumb the nose of this legislation.

07:59It's true.

08:00But the, the reason that they have picked the version that they have and the specific translation

08:05that they have, because you will not find this exact list of, of commandments in any

08:12translation.

08:13This comes from a document that was created, uh, in the, uh, 1950s by, uh, the fraternal

08:23order of Eagles.

08:25And this is not Don Henley fans.

08:27This is a charitable...

08:29It's the Eagles, man.

08:32That's the only part of that movie I, I don't like, um, it's, it's funny, but I'm like,

08:38you have lost points.

08:39You're like, the dude doesn't like the, you're telling me the dude.

08:43Doesn't like the Eagles.

08:45Now, I will be clear.

08:46I prefer CCR over the Eagles, but I do love me some Eagles.

08:50Um, now, uh, this is a charitable organization that does a lot of good work, but back in

08:57the 50s, uh, they were involved like a lot of people in red baiting, uh, in the red scare.

09:06We had a lot of communism as destroying the world.

09:09We need to develop kind of an identity that distinguishes us from the Ruskies.

09:15Yeah.

09:16Um, and so one of the, the main thing that kind of took over US identity was, was this

09:23idea that they are godless communists and we are godful, I don't know, um, um, God fearing.

09:31God fearing.

09:32Yes.

09:33We are the theosubis.

09:34We are the, um, we follow the commandments of God.

09:37And so there was this push to consider the 10 commandments, uh, an identity marker.

09:45Right.

09:46Now it had never been an identity marker prior to that time period.

09:50There is an argument that this is sits at the foundation of our, our nation's heritage

09:54and its laws all entirely false.

09:57Right.

09:58There is absolutely no case to make that the 10 commandments sit at the foundation of any,

10:03uh, our laws or our nation in general.

10:07Sure.

10:08The Bible does, sure.

10:09Even the King James version of the Bible does.

10:11Sure.

10:12The 10 commandments are something that appear in like old spelling books from the 19th century.

10:16Right.

10:17Sure.

10:18That does not a foundation make.

10:19Well, and this bill actually references a couple of text books and just, and, and for,

10:26and in language that's meant to also go on these posters, yeah, it says, you know, the,

10:34the 10 commandments were, was in this book and the 10 commandments was in that book.

10:38And it, and it makes it sound like every child in, in school for the entire history of the

10:46United States has had to read these words and blah, blah, blah.

10:49Yeah.

10:50That's just silly.

10:51Yeah.

10:52It's, it's nonsense.

10:53But in, in the 50s, uh, Cecil B. De Mill and the fraternal order of Eagles hooked up and

10:59decided that they were going to produce these big, uh, kind of monumental displays of the

11:0610 commandments.

11:07Right.

11:08And distribute them throughout the country to put like next to, you know, your Capitol

11:13building or your, uh, your courthouses or and stuff like that.

11:17And so you had a bunch of these go up.

11:19Right.

11:20And for De Mill, it was just like it was publicity for his movie.

11:24Well, and he was, he was also very much, uh, um, you know, he would have been a McCarthy

11:29stand.

11:30He was also a very anti-communist.

11:34So I'm sure this was personal for him as well.

11:37But yeah, but it was, it was mainly going to be publicity for his movie.

11:41Yeah.

11:42Um, and so they go up all over the place.

11:44And then I think it's 2003 somebody sues because one of these, I think it was in, it might

11:53have been the one in Texas.

11:54I don't remember where, but Sue's saying this violates the establishment clause because,

12:00uh, this is establishing a religion.

12:03And there was a big flurry of activity.

12:06Uh, and the most of them were just kind of like, you know, off in a park, nobody cared

12:11about it.

12:12They don't even make an association between this thing and, and, you know, a government

12:16building.

12:17Right.

12:18So when we get this ruling in 2005, Van Orden versus Perry, where, and this actually is

12:25released the same day as another ruling about the, um, display of the 10 commandments in

12:33public spaces that ruled the other way.

12:37So we got two rulings, each of them five, four going in opposite directions.

12:43And um, it was, uh, I think it was Brayer who, who was the one who was the deciding vote.

12:50But they said the display in Texas is good.

12:54This can stay.

12:55This does not violate the establishment clause, but a bunch of other displays, I think in

12:58Kentucky or, um, or somewhere around there, they violate the establishment clause.

13:04And part of it was because like it was a part of a bunch of displays and they were asserting

13:08this, you know, the 10 commandments are the foundation of our, uh, of our legal system

13:13and of our nation, just kind of reflecting that 1950s, uh, era, uh, you know, that ethos.

13:21Right.

13:22And, uh, they get rejected.

13:25And so, uh, and that was McCreary County versus ACLU.

13:31And so we've got a version of the 10 commandments that passes constitutional muster.

13:36And we've got other versions of the 10 commandments that don't, the version of the 10 commandments

13:40that Louisiana put up is identical to the version in Texas that passed, which is from

13:48the 1950s era.

13:50And I think that there were, I don't remember this well, but I think that there were other

13:54issues at play as to why they allowed the, the Texas one to stand, including like, uh,

14:01you know, they claimed that it was there, it had been there for so long and no one had

14:05complained about it for so long that it now had sort of a traditional standing.

14:10Yeah.

14:11And, and that sort of thing.

14:12So it wasn't just the wording that was important, but you're right that they, that the lawmakers

14:18in Louisiana grabbed onto the wording as being like, well, if it's okay there, then it must

14:23be fine here.

14:24Yeah.

14:25Because the goal here is to get something up to the Supreme court.

14:30Like the reason they're doing this is so they can get it to the Supreme court and they have

14:34precedence because it's already passed once, but the interesting thing is the, uh, in the

14:40McCreary case, one of the things that they cited in rejecting, uh, the other displays

14:47was what's called the lemon test, which goes back to 1971, uh, lemon versus Kurtzman, where

14:55this is another establishment clause case, but they established a three prong test to

15:00determine if something violates the establishment clause, the purpose prong, it says the statute

15:06must have a secular legislative purpose, the effect prong, the principle or primary effect

15:11of the statute must neither advance nor inhibit religion and the entanglement prong, the statute

15:16must not result in an excessive government entanglement with religion.

15:22And so that's been what's kind of governed establishment, cause, cause cases evidently

15:26ever since in the, in the Supreme court, right until, uh, scuntant and two years ago.

15:33Yeah.

15:34When we had Kennedy versus Bremerton school district, this is the football coach who prays after

15:39the games in the middle of the field and, uh, and got his contract was not renewed by

15:45the school and he sued, and this went up to our justices. And as with so many things

15:52recently, it's a six, three ruling. We know what that means. Um, and in this ruling,

15:59they basically said, we don't care about the lemon test. Our test is tradition. If it's

16:06a part of our nation's tradition, then fair game. Um, and I'm, I'm simplifying quite a

16:12bit, but, but more or less that the main test that, uh, some, the main piece of scrutiny

16:18that it has to pass now is just whether or not it is an established part of American

16:23tradition. I mean, the, but, but these justices go against that all the time too. Oh, yeah.

16:29I mean, these justices, the only test that they care about is what are my personal feelings

16:35about this. Yeah. People like Alito and Thomas and it's just, they, they don't care. They

16:42say that they're originalists, but they don't really care at all what the, uh, what the

16:47founding fathers had to say. They say that they are, you know, that they, that they're

16:52like literally, this is a very, uh, strange, uh, assortment of judges that's currently

17:01on our, uh, our bench. A majority of our Supreme Court justices is right now are Catholic.

17:07Yeah. Like a lot of, which is, which is weird because weird, yeah, this is also a, a, um,

17:16very Protestant version of the 10 commandments that, uh, that has been approved and, and what

17:22I hear from lawyers, to my knowledge, neither of us are lawyers. Um, I, I haven't checked

17:26recently, but yes, last time I checked, I wasn't a lawyer. Yeah. I, uh, my insurance

17:31won't pay for the test right now, but, um, to my knowledge, I'm not a lawyer, but people

17:37who are lawyers, uh, who are no, a lot more about the law and particularly constitutional

17:42law than I have said that in light of the basically abolition of the lemon test, when

17:49this makes it to the Supreme court, unless something drastic changes, it's going to

17:54be six, three in favor of this. So, which means that Utah, Texas, 30 other states tomorrow

18:03are going to suddenly have, uh, the same legislation.

18:11So let's talk about these commandments a little bit. Uh, I think, yes, I think we're all sort

18:17of somewhat familiar with them. I think these, uh, the, I, I, you know, I think they should,

18:23they should have done the Colbert check on all of the legislators who's cosigned on this

18:29bill to say, Hey, can you name all 10 of the 10 commandments? Cause they can't, I want

18:35to tell you a story. The first time I ever went to general conference, LDS church, LDS

18:41general conference. Yeah. This is, uh, every six months, they have this big meeting. This

18:46was, I think this was, uh, a special treat. Like I traveled to Utah. It was before I left

18:52on a mission. I was crossing the street to go into the recently built, uh, shoot conference

19:02center. Right. And there was one of the street preachers on the corner challenging people

19:06to recite the 10 commandments. And at the time I was like, I don't know. And ever since

19:14then I've been like, ah, I want to go back and see if that guy's there. There's always

19:22somebody protesting out there. And it's always, it's very funny because it's always some,

19:27someone of a different denomination, you know, Christian, but like, why are you protesting

19:33this? Anyway, it's very, it's all very weird. Uh, these, so these are, are they not King

19:39Jamesian, uh, in their wording, uh, this remarkably King Jamesian with small divergences. Okay.

19:48And that's, and that's what threw me off the first part because I looked at it and I was

19:52like, yeah, that's King James. And then I, uh, looked it up and I was like, wait a minute.

19:57No, it's not. Uh, there are some small differences. Um, but it is, it is based on King James.

20:05So it's a, it's a revised King James interesting. Yeah. And I don't really understand the reason

20:11for the revisions. So for instance, one of them is thou shalt not make to thyself any

20:18graven images. Yeah. But when we look in the King James, uh, what we have is thou shalt

20:24not make unto thee any graven image. Oh, so we've gone from, don't know what the words

20:32the means. Well, but they know, uh, yeah, to thyself. Right. Uh, maybe, maybe they were

20:40like, we could say to thine own self. Um, but then they've also changed it from the singular

20:46to the plural, um, uh, graven images has now been pluralized in here. And in the Hebrew,

20:53it is not plural, it is singular. It's just one word, pestle. Can we talk a little bit

20:58about what that means? Because that is a, a very strange, uh, and confusing commandment.

21:05And I don't, I think most, uh, you know, I looked at different translations of it. And

21:12most, a lot of the newer translations, including the, uh, the NRSV, uh, they, they replaced it.

21:19The words graven images with an idol you shall not make for yourself an idol. Yeah. Um, what,

21:25what does the original seem to be saying and, and what, what are the sort of more common

21:31interpretations of it? So pestle is a Hebrew word that refers to, uh, an image that has

21:38been crafted from wood or from stone. And so the graven image, the idea is it is an image

21:46that has been engraved, uh, or something, or a carved image or something like that. And

21:54you have, uh, in judges 17, you have a story of, um, Makaya who makes, uh, a graven image,

22:03but I want to say it says a graven molten image. And so it's not clear if there's a

22:09process going on here or if there are some people understand it as two different types

22:14of images, uh, but yeah, it's, it's an idol. So, uh, divine image would be the, the object

22:21that is the focus of worship that is considered the index for the deity and their presence

22:29and all that kind of stuff. And usually these would be, these would be carved out of wood

22:33or, uh, carved out of stone and then they would be covered in gold and silver, uh, or

22:39they would be cast in gold and silver or something like that, a variety of different ways to

22:44make divine images, but that's fundamentally what we're referring to here. But it does

22:49go on, like the verse goes on to say, and I'll read KJV right now just because it says,

22:54it says, it says, that shall not make under the any graven image or any likeness of anything

23:00that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is under, uh, that is

23:06in the water under the earth. So, and, and it goes on after that to say that shall not

23:11bow down thyself to them nor serve them. So that, that, you know, verse five indicates

23:19to me that, yes, it's an idol or whatever, but it does seem like, you know, when I look

23:23at, you know, Islam has a prohibition against imagery, uh, which is why when you go to like

23:33the Alhambra in Spain, you'll see really ornate writing, but no, but, but no picture and

23:41a lot of representative imagery. Yeah. No representative. And I wonder if this was,

23:47if there was any of that prohibition of just representative imagery contained in this,

23:55it was certainly understood that way because you do have, it's not nearly as, as programmatic

24:00as within Islam, which comes from many centuries later, um, and, and develops within kind of,

24:07uh, a more philosophically oriented, uh, social environment, but, uh, you do have an omission

24:15of an awful lot of imagery. You don't really have any, uh, you don't have much ancient

24:20artwork, uh, within Judaism depicting animals or, um, other kinds of sentient beings. Now

24:29the interesting thing and the idea here is probably we know that nations around us make

24:35divine images that look like, uh, people that look like animals, whether swimming in the

24:41sea or flying through the air or walking on the land. So the idea is almost certainly

24:47don't make images in order to worship that look like anything that you might see running

24:55around. Right. And we know the five minutes after this, you know, he comes back down the

24:59mountain and there's a cow there that everybody's worshiped. But, and, and we do actually have

25:05from, uh, the lands of, of Israel and Palestine from, uh, the end of the Bronze Age, beginning

25:11of the Iron Age, we have, uh, divine images that have been discovered. Most of the miniature

25:17divine images, but, uh, we know that cow, uh, bulls and calves were a, uh, one of the forms

25:24that was frequently used, uh, to represent deities and almost certainly to represent

25:29Adonai, they got of Israel. That's, uh, that's insane. That's not insane, but it's like

25:34very interesting that like, yeah, the Israelites in the Exodus story get in big trouble for

25:43a calf, uh, considering the fact that the calf slash bull was used as, uh, you know, as

25:50a proxy for their God. And you, and you see it in other places throughout the, the Hebrew

25:55Bible, the fact that you have horns put on the, uh, the incense altars and the sacrificial

26:01altar and things like that reflects this idea of a pedestal animal that is associated with

26:08Adonai. And you have a, uh, the King James renders it mighty one of Jacob, but that's

26:14the word for bull. The bull of Jacob. Um, and so there are, there are a bunch of different

26:21vestigial relationships between Adonai and bull imagery as well as L and bull imagery.

26:31And if you look in the Eucharitic literature and other Northwest Semitic literature, you

26:35see L and ball, the storm deity, the, uh, Northwest Semitic counterpart to Adonai. You

26:42see both of them are represented with bulls as well. So the, this is probably, uh, coming

26:47from much later on, but it's a way to kind of create this blanket proscription that includes

26:53in it the prohibition of, of Adonai's pedestal animal and that kind of imagery, but it gets

27:01interpreted as don't have artwork, yeah, that represents people or animals or things like

27:07that. So you don't really see it apart from the commandment to put like cherubim on the

27:13curtains of the, of the temple and stuff like that. Right. Um, so it's not until you get

27:17down into the Greco-Roman period around the turn of the era around the time of, of Jesus's

27:21life that you see a lot of like pomegranates and rosettes. Uh, and you see some other animals

27:28and plants and things represented in some, um, imagery and synagogues and, and things

27:33like that. I just, you know, it's funny because I, thinking

27:37about how the next, the next verse does talk about don't bow yourself down before it. To

27:42me takes the curse off of just, you know, drawing a lamb or drawing a, whatever, but that gets

27:49me thinking about images that I see all the time of someone kneeling down in front of either

27:56a picture of Jesus or a, you know, a candle of a saint or, you know, a crucifix, a crucifix

28:03or anything and praying. It feels like that could run afoul of this graven images idea.

28:12It certainly could. And you have a lot of people who, uh, particularly Protestants and

28:17particularly evangelicals today who accuse Catholics of violating these commandments.

28:23Uh, all day and twice on Sunday, um, because they understand, particularly the, uh, worship

28:30of Mary and images and things like that. But at the same time, the way that a lot of Protestants

28:38treat the Bible as the word of God and hold it up as its own icon, like there's, there's

28:45plenty of scholarship out there talking about the Bible as icon as a divine image. Um, you

28:52know, that could run afoul of this as well. I mean, uh, not for nothing, but you put a

28:57poster up in a classroom and, you know, say, say that it has deep importance. That could

29:07easily be a, a graven image in this, in this sense. If yeah, and, and particularly because

29:15it is, it's functioning as an icon. Yeah. Like it's not functioning as a text. Like,

29:23um, it's functioning as an icon, because even if you can't read it, you know what it is.

29:28Yeah, this is going, this is going into kindergarten classrooms. It's not like the kids are going

29:33to be going, oh, adultery is probably a bad idea for me. Yeah. Yeah. Like what, you know,

29:38once it's up there, you're going to have high school kids. They, you know, um, in however

29:44many years, uh, until, uh, our legislatures, uh, grow up and get over this, uh, these

29:53petty and naive identity politics, however long they're in classrooms, you're going to

29:57have high school kids, uh, who know exactly what's going to be there. They've read it

30:01a billion times, but they're not going to take it down. It's going to remain up there

30:05because it is a symbol and it is a symbol of authority. And that's precisely what divine

30:11images are. Yeah. They're, uh, they're to remind you who's in charge and there to function

30:17as an index for that authority and for the presence of that authority. So in a lot of

30:22ways, it's, it's functioning, uh, like a divine image. I, I, I do love the idea of these,

30:29of these things breaking their own commandments. I think that's brilliant.

30:33Oh, and yeah. So I want to just see some kind of, uh, fundamentalist who's just part of such

30:39a niche, uh, like little, tiny corner of American evangelicalism who, who, uh, tears it down

30:46and, and stomps on it like, uh, like that doofus did for the, uh, the, uh, church of satan,

30:53or the, uh, satanic temple, right, right, right, in one place because it's functioning that

30:58way.

30:59Yeah. I also wanted to talk a little bit. Sorry. You were going to do something. No,

31:04go ahead. I wanted to jump onto, um, the, uh, they'll show, not, not take the name of

31:11the Lord that got in vain. Uh, we will, that's going to eventually transition us to our second,

31:17to the second half of the show, but I wanted to talk about what it means, what, what it,

31:23what, what that means because I know growing up in my life, uh, I had, I had the idea that,

31:32uh, to take the name of the Lord that got in vain, you know, if I were, if I, you know,

31:38if I said, oh my God, like to me to, like, I thought that that was what it meant to take

31:43the name of, I don't think that's what it means now. No, that's, that's not what, what

31:48it means. And I want to point something out as well. The, the official text, the language

31:53that it has to be on there. I am the Lord thy God. I am is in all caps. Right. Oh yeah,

32:00I hadn't cut that. So they're, they're, they're trying to say the great I am. Right. Um, they

32:06want you to, they want to make note of that. However, in, uh, in the text of, uh, Exodus

32:1120, that's just anarchy, which is just the, uh, the, the first person singular, um, personal

32:19pronoun. It is not the phrase in Exodus three that is rendered, uh, I will be what I will

32:28be or I am that I am or something like that. So it's actually imposing that on the Hebrew

32:34and it's not in the Hebrew. And it's sneaky too, because it is a way of differentiating

32:39this God from, I mean, you know, no one, no one associates Allah with I am. Yeah. So I

32:50feel it does feel like they're very clearly putting down a marker that this is the Christian

32:58or, or Jewish, I suppose God and not, uh, and not any other God. So you can't, you're

33:04not allowed in their minds to interpret, uh, I am the Lord thy God as being, you know,

33:11this could be Shiva or this could be, you know, some other God. And that, and that comes

33:16from the original displays from the 1950s. They have both I am and Lord in all caps. Right.

33:23So, um, that's an interesting, yeah, that's an interesting thing to note. However, we get

33:28back to thou shall not take the normal name of the Lord that God in vain. The, the word

33:31here that is, um, translated in vain is, uh, to do the shav. So, uh, for vain, uh, in

33:42Hebrew and shav there, uh, is a word that means make it worthless, make it useless. That's

33:50basically what it is. So in vain is an okay. Our word vain in this sense is like, uh, you

33:57know, Shakespeare used it a lot and, and would say, yeah, yeah, to go somewhere to, to do

34:02something in vain is to do it, uh, fruitlessly or without, without the right effect or something.

34:08To no effect or something like that. Right. And, um, the, what is translated thou shalt

34:14not take is, uh, nasa, which means to lift, bear or carry. And the idea here of lifting

34:23bearing or carrying the name in vain is almost certainly a reference to swearing an oath.

34:32That's how this is used elsewhere. In fact, we've got in Leviticus, another commandment.

34:36I think it's, uh, Leviticus 19. I'll just verify real quick, but can't find it, but it's, um,

34:45it says not to swear by the name of Adonai falsely for as a lie. And so that's almost

34:55certainly what's going on here. The idea being for an oath and ordeal in court, whatever,

35:03don't say don't lift your hand to the square and say God's name as part of an oath if that

35:10oath is false or if it's something that you promise to do that you're not going to carry

35:14through with. Right. And, and so it's really just saying, don't invoke me, uh, and then,

35:21and then forsake that, uh, or, or, or, or fudge. Or if you're in, yeah, so in court, you know,

35:28you put your hand on the Bible or you raise your right hand and, um, and you swear to

35:33tell the truth, the whole truth, but the truth so help you God. That's a way to bear, lift,

35:38bear, carry the name of God there. It's just the title of God. Uh, but if you're lying in

35:42your testimony in court, that would be directly a violation of, uh, that commandment. Now it

35:50became inappropriate to use the divine name at all shortly after this, probably in the

35:56Greco-Roman period. Okay. Second first century BCE, which is why you don't say it on the

36:01podcast. Yes, that's because there are still people that holds to the, uh, to the, uh,

36:06absolutely. Yeah. And, and a lot of friends of mine and, um, several of them have, uh,

36:12have said, if I would not mind making that accommodation, and that's not a costly accommodation

36:17for me. I'm used to hearing it, um, in academic conferences and stuff like that. I'm, I'm fine

36:22with that. So, um, yeah, around that time period, it became considered inappropriate. And my

36:29opinion on this based on work that I've published is that, uh, the divine name was considered,

36:37uh, a way to invoke God's presence and authority, kind of like how in Russian, they don't say

36:45the actual Russian word for bear, because they're afraid they're, the bears are going

36:49to show up or something like that. The idea being, um, you only invoke it, you know, there's

36:54only one person who can say it in the holy of holies because when you say it, God is,

36:58is, um, invoked. And so to be outside the temple and to say it is to bring God into a

37:05profane context and that would be considered inappropriate. And so I think it was probably

37:11that, that sensitivity that taboo developed because the name was thought to invoke deity,

37:18which is probably why this tradition developed of not destroying texts that had the divine

37:25name on it. Uh, you had to use the Ganesa. You had to sometimes you buried the texts.

37:31There were specific processes you went through to discard texts that had the divine name.

37:37And there were even debates that arose, uh, within Judaism, when the internet became a

37:41thing of typing divine name on a screen that, you know, would just go away. Uh, so it's

37:49something that was taken very seriously within Judaism. But once that happened, you can't

37:54bear the divine name anywhere. And so what does this command mean? And, and I think that's

38:01probably when, um, it got renegotiated to refer to, uh, other things. I, uh, I think one of

38:08the things that, um, one of the renegotiations was this idea that too, you bear the divine

38:14name when you represent the deity in public, in private and in your dealings with your

38:21fellow man. Um, so would you say that for instance, if you wanted to display a series

38:28of, uh, yeah, of scripture, uh, that would be a, an instance of maybe bearing the divine

38:35name. Uh, and if you were to do so under false pretenses, like, let's say you're claimed

38:41that they are just historical and, uh, and, and possibly so then, then, then would that

38:48be perhaps bearing the name of the Lord in vain? I'm just, I'm just, no, no spitball

38:55in here. Yeah. No examples in mind. Just thinking about it. Uh, that could certainly

38:59be according to that renegotiation of the text. That could certainly be an example of

39:04bearing the, the divine name in vain. If you're just using it to try to structure power,

39:09uh, absolutely that could be understood according to that renegotiation. And then it would be

39:14further renegotiated to be, uh, you know, any kind of use in an expletive of the word

39:21God or something like that. Um, and which is, which is, I think how most people from

39:26our generation and generations around us were probably raised with this idea that you weren't

39:31supposed to say, use the word God or, um, Lord or anything like that in, um, in expletives.

39:38Right. Um, even though there are ways that Oh God can be used, uh, devoutly, but really

39:48your inflection is the only thing, uh, like if you, if you're in a prayer and you say,

39:54Oh God, just a little bit wrong. It might come across as a, as, uh, and that's definitely,

40:00it's definitely not okay. If you, uh, if you do it just after stubbing your toe. Uh, yeah,

40:05yeah, but then if you pray for healing, then it's okay. Yeah. The lines get, it could

40:11get blurry. And who know, who knows maybe Genesis 38, uh, own in maybe he let out an

40:18Oh God. And that was really why God was like zap. Well there. Yeah. There you go. We're

40:27going to have to, I don't, how did we do? Have we done that story? We haven't, we may,

40:30I don't know that we've ever done that story. Did we not to own it? Maybe we did. I don't

40:34know. I don't remember. I look at the second we record these things. I forget everything.

40:39So okay. I think, uh, I think it's interesting that they're putting these, uh, 10 commandments

40:51up. Let's since the first four or five, depending on how you number it, of the commandments

40:58are about God. Mm hmm. Uh, and, and specifically, uh, you know, at least one of them is specifically

41:06about God's name. Uh huh. Uh, let's talk about that name. Let's talk about the development of that

41:13name, where it came from. What, what's going on with that? Yeah. Um, so the first thing you need to

41:20know is that, uh, Jehovah begins with an eye. If you, if you ever find yourself in a life or death

41:29situation where you have to spell out the name of God, uh, just keep that in mind in the older

41:34Latin. Jehovah begins with an eye. Um, we did a whole show about, uh, about, or we talked about

41:41the tetragrammaton some, but not, not sort of the development of it. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we've, uh,

41:49probably mentioned that the, the earliest known occurrence of the divine name, the tetragrammaton,

41:54as a reference to the god of Israel, uh, comes from the, probably the third or fourth quarter of

42:03the ninth century BCE. So the Misha inscription where Misha talks about carting away the vessels of

42:09Adonai after having defeated the nation of Israel at Nibo. Um, and we got a couple references. I just,

42:15sorry, I, we, we should just do a quick reminder that tetragrammaton is a reference to four letters.

42:23Uh, yodhave of hay, if I'm recalling correctly, you recall correctly, uh, the, and, and that is,

42:31that is the, the name of God. So, so you're saying that this thing was the first time we saw

42:36those letters in that order in that reference as a reference to a deity. Um, and then we also have,

42:44uh, we have most of the letters of the tetragrammaton, uh, used in names, uh, in some other inscriptions.

42:53So the tell Dan, uh, Steely, uh, which was, uh, probably written by, uh, an airman named Hazael

43:00who's boasting about defeating a handful of kings. And they have Yauistic Theophoric elements in the

43:06name. And by the way, I, I say Adonai, most scholars pronounce it, uh, Y A H W E H. Uh, and, uh, the

43:17name Jehovah is an alternate form of this based on the combination of the consonants, yodhave,

43:25and the vowels that come from the Hebrew, uh, word for my lord, a special form of it. That's

43:32pronounced Adonai. If you put those two together and then you transliterate them into modern English,

43:39Jehovah or Jehovah is what you would get. So if you've ever wondered where the name Jehovah comes from,

43:45it comes from the combination of the consonants of Adonai, the consonants of Adonai and the vowels

43:52of Adonai, the consonants of the tetragrammaton and the vowels of Adonai. Of the word Adonai, right?

43:58Yeah. And that probably happens in the medieval period, um, in, in a couple of different languages

44:04and becomes very common because if we go look in the Masoretic texts and we, if we look at

44:09ancient texts, they were already using those letters as substitutions, uh, for the divine name

44:15and ancient texts. So anyway, we've got Adonai, we've got Jehovah, we've got the tetragrammaton,

44:21we've got the divine name. It first appears on the scene suddenly in the names of kings and in the

44:29name of the patron deed of Israel, around 858, 25ish BCE. Like, like who, who give me some of those,

44:36these names that this is appearing, uh, Jehoram, Jehu, uh, names like that. Uh, so the black obelisk

44:43of Shalmanes are the third, uh, talks about Jehu, uh, a king, uh, in Israel. And as actually the, uh,

44:51earliest artistic depiction of, um, an actual known Israelite, it shows him bowing down to the ground

45:00in front of Shalmanes are the third. Oh, wow. And I, and I actually ran across this. I was in

45:06the British Museum last October and I was just kind of looking around and then that, it's right

45:11there in front of me. I was like, Oh my gosh. Shalmanes are, um, so that was a fun experience. Um,

45:19but then we don't have anything before that. And we have an inscription, uh, we have, uh, the

45:26Egyptian pharaoh, Marnepta, who talks about a people known as Israel, uh, around 1208 BCE.

45:35So like over 300 years earlier than that, Israel is a people, but there's no indication that Adonai

45:40is their deity. But we can go back even further deeper into the 1200s and even into the early

45:471300s BCE. And we have a couple of inscriptions in Egyptian, uh, on the sides of pillars that use

45:58three of those letters, Yodhay, Vav, and then like an Egyptian version of a glottal stop or

46:05an alla for something like that as a reference to either a people or a land that is associated

46:13with a group known as the Shasu. And this is an Egyptian term that probably refers to nomadic

46:20asiatic peoples, uh, from West Asia. So down into Arabia up further north around the lands of,

46:28of Israel and Palestine and elsewhere. And they've got a bunch of lands listed, the Shasu of this

46:34land, the Shasu of that land, the Shasu of that land. And then they've got the Shasu of Yodhay,

46:39Vav, glottal stop land. And so a lot of scholars think this, most scholars think this has some kind

46:46of relationship to the divine name. Mm. And so, uh, the question is what's the exact relationship?

46:54And I think many scholars would say, if there is a relationship, then whoever occupied this land

47:01or whoever bore this name probably named their deity after the land or the people. And at some

47:08point made their way into the northern hill country of Israel, bringing their deity with them and

47:16introduced that deity into this Northwest Semitic group that was probably already devoted mainly

47:25to Elle, but also to other deities. And now we have the introduction of this deity, um, known as

47:32Adonai, according to the way I pronounce it. Right. And they were probably, uh, inserted into the

47:37pantheon on the second tier. They initially were one of the offspring of the high god who was either

47:43Elle on or, or maybe Elohim. And they seem to have adopted a storm deity profile. It's very similar

47:53to ball who's already operating in the area, which is probably the reason that throughout the Hebrew

47:59Bible, we keep having conflicts. Uh, Adonai and ball keep butting heads, uh, like with the, uh,

48:06challenge, uh, between the contest between Elijah and the prophets of ball. Would this have operated

48:12similarly to, you know, when I hear about, uh, you know, ancient Greeks and how there were all of

48:18these gods, but you know, there would be a certain group, there would be some people who would just

48:22devote themselves, there would be a cult of this god or that god. Is that how this would have operated

48:29likely, uh, with these people is that there are, there are sort of, you know, there's, there's the

48:33high god. And then there's these other sort of lower individual gods that some people would go to,

48:39and there would be like maybe patron gods of a certain group or tribe or something.

48:43Yeah, absolutely. They, there were all kinds of different deities and levels, uh, to the hierarchy,

48:50but they were also associated with different kinds of, of functions. Uh, like in Egypt, you have all,

48:56you've got the God of bricks, you got, uh, the God of love making, you got the God of beer. Um,

49:02you got all these different kinds of gods who are, those two, those gods knew how to party. That

49:07was a fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got your bricks. You got your beer. You got your love making,

49:11and you've got a weekend. Yeah. And, um, those gods were, uh, thought to like, oversee those

49:19industries, um, and the people associated with them. And so if you were a part of that guild,

49:25maybe that was, you know, one of the main gods that you liked, you know, if you were a wife and

49:31mother, maybe you were concerned with Ashera because Ashera, uh, or Athirat in the Eucharitic

49:38text was associated with child rearing with conception, with, uh, lactation breastfeeding and

49:45things like that. So, you know, if you're having trouble getting an adequate latch, you know, maybe

49:51you burn some incense to set up a vote of offering to, um, Ashera or Athirat or something like that.

49:58If you're going off to war, maybe you, uh, you know, pour out a little extra for, uh, the, the,

50:05whatever deity you want to watch over you in battle. And, and you also had ancestral deities

50:10in this time period. You had great granddaddy who passed away a long, long time ago, but, um,

50:16you know, there's his mortuary chapel. We go in and we have a meal in front of his steely. We just

50:22talked about this recently. Right. The idea of the soul being in the steely. And so maybe you

50:27petitioned him for insight about something. You know, I really want Jennifer to know how much I

50:33care about her and that I love her. And, um, I just want her to notice that I exist. Um,

50:39so you would go to Hebrew name Jennifer. Right. Yeah. But, uh, you would go to the, you might go

50:48to the ancestral deity because they were more concerned for your, um, well-being. The national

50:54deity L who was over the whole nation didn't have time to worry about you. Right. Um, and so, you

51:01know, you, you went to whichever deity you thought was most likely to help you out in your, in your

51:05specific circumstances. And so Adam, I, I think in my opinion, and in the opinion of some scholars,

51:10certainly not all scholars, but I think probably started out as an ancestral deity was probably the,

51:17this clan was probably named after, uh, or took their name from, uh, an ancestral deity who they

51:26had particular devotion to, and then they took it into Israel and then this deity for whatever reason

51:32becomes a source, becomes a storm deity. And then, you know, gets into conflict with, with Baal who

51:39wants to be, uh, you know, the storm deity in the land. And at some point, either because, uh, maybe

51:47a king who is a devotee of Adonai rises to the throne, or maybe a king who's on the throne is like,

51:54those Adonai worshipers are, are becoming a, uh, you know, a significant factor. Uh, all the polling

52:00shows that they, right, you know, they exercise a lot of influence. Maybe they were like,

52:04let's take that deity and let's merge it together with El. Right. And El and Adonai become a single

52:12deity. And that's something that happened recently as well. You see it in Egypt, you see it in Mesopotamia,

52:18you see it in, in other Semitic inscriptions where you have a, a deity with a combined name,

52:24where the, you see both divine names squished together. There'll be like a little hyphen

52:30with them or when they become combined, you have a new name. So when, uh,

52:37Ra and Horace are combined in certain parts of ancient Egyptian mythology, it becomes Ra-harakti,

52:46which is a somewhat different name. And sometimes you have a male and a female deity put together and

52:55you have the two of them hyphenated. So, um, you know, if, if somebody gets married and, and the

53:02wife doesn't take the husband's last name, they have a hyphenated name, you can say, Hey,

53:06this is divine. This goes back thousands of years. You've got nothing to complain about. Even Adonai

53:12did this because if you go to, um, uh, Elifantini in, uh, Egypt, there was a Jewish garrison that

53:21was stationed there. They had their own temple. And when it was destroyed by locals, they asked

53:27for permission from Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. And as far as we can tell, they got permission,

53:33but the locals prohibited them from offering animal sacrifices. They were only allowed to offer

53:39vegetable and fruit offerings. But there's, there's a deity there called

53:46Anat Yau, which seems to be a combination of the goddess Anat and a version of the divine name.

53:55Interesting. Yeah. So at some point along the way, the, the two were, uh, Adonai and El were combined

54:02and you have, uh, the single deity who, uh, adopts the divine profile of, of both of them.

54:09And I think that probably happens around a thousand BCE, maybe a little after that,

54:15because I think it would have had to have happened early enough that by the time we get down to the

54:22middle of the ninth century, Hazael can, um, be defeating multiple generations of kings in both

54:31Israel and in, uh, the southern dynasty of the house of David who have Yauistic Theophoric elements

54:39in their names. So I think there had to be some time for these names to spread out a little bit

54:44among the leadership. Interesting. So well, there we have it. Like this, this name that is,

54:53that is mentioned in these 10 commandments. Uh, it's, it's not, it's not a direct and easy thing

55:00to, to track down. This is not like, this is not obvious and, uh, and, and clear, clap, clean cut.

55:08Um, nor are the, the commandments about it. But what does seem obvious to me is that several of

55:14these commandments that are, that now all the children of Louisiana are going to be so familiar

55:19with, um, they weren't intended for children of Louisiana. It seems clear to me that they were

55:26actually intended for this ancient tribe. Like it was specific to them even, even in that time frame,

55:34wouldn't they have known that this is, this is for them and not for other, other tribes, other people?

55:42Well, uh, you would, you would think particularly because the last commandment says not to covet,

55:47your, well, one, don't covet your neighbor's wife, which means this is probably not aimed at

55:53women. Yeah. Right. Much less children. This is intended for men, but it also says right after

55:59that, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, or to translate that into, uh, something we would

56:07understand today, don't covet your neighbor's slaves or enslaved people. So this is coming in a

56:14time period where they presuppose that slavery is normative. And, um, I, I didn't think they were

56:21actually going to put that on there, but they, they did. So now we're also teaching the children of

56:27Louisiana that, um, you know, your neighbors got slaves. Right. But don't covet them. It

56:33doesn't matter. It doesn't, even if they have good ones, don't covet the slaves. Yeah. And that's, uh,

56:39that's another problem. The, you know, we've got, we've gone over that. That's what I before. But it's,

56:45it's such a deeply problematic piece of legislation, legislation, and a lot of people are, are very keen

56:53on, uh, brushing off the, uh, the problematic parts and just sort of saying, well, what,

56:59what's wrong? Like, you know, everybody, it's a good idea not to kill. Everybody can get behind

57:04the thou shalt not kill idea. And it's like, yeah, agreed. Uh, but I think most kids in school already

57:13got that one down. Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, for all the people who insist that it's the parents

57:19responsibility to educate the children about this stuff, they're the same people who are

57:24suddenly wanting everybody else's kids to be educated about. Not only this, but also the I am,

57:30the Lord thy God part. Yeah. That's imposing, uh, religion on, on other folks. But what,

57:35what baffles me is the same people who want this stuff up here are trying to get back into power,

57:42a man who explicitly proudly repeatedly consistently violates literally the majority of these commandments.

57:55It commits adultery. You might have done it a few times. Yeah. Uh, covets, uh, neighbors wives,

58:01yeah, uh, steals, uh, bears false witness. Yeah. About everything. Constantly. Like the dude,

58:09the dude lies about literally everything. Yeah. Um, doesn't honor the, uh, mother and father,

58:16doesn't keep the Sabbath day. Holy, uh, does not refrain from taking the name of, uh, God in vain.

58:25Uh, and I would suggest that, um, he also puts an awful lot of things ahead of God, uh, and worship

58:33other things. Yeah. I, so I think, I think a strong case could be made in that. Absolutely.

58:40We have no evidence that, uh, that, uh, he has engaged in the, the ratsach, uh, the violated the,

58:47thou shalt not kill, uh, command. So I'm, I'm gonna, I'm happy to give him that one. Okay.

58:53But that's, that's one. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it is, it's funny. The, the, uh, the way people want

59:03to talk about it. Uh, it's disingenuous for a large part. Um, it's an identity marker. It's about

59:10trying to set up that steely in this space to claim that space for your identity to say we are

59:18in charge here. We're in control. We're the ones who get to the side and to send the message to

59:24anyone who doesn't abide by this, that they are less valued. Yeah. You don't long that this system

59:30doesn't, uh, it won't serve them. Right. It's, it's not for them as for the other people. And so

59:37you can get in line or you can just be, uh, marginalized the whole time. Well, there you go. Uh, I think,

59:45I think our positions are pretty clear on this. Uh, for those of you who want to hear us, uh,

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