Ep 70: Out of Nothing

00:00He says, "Sir, I have never seen Babylon, and I know nothing about the den."

00:08Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head and carried him by his

00:12hair.

00:13The angel was just like, no, you stupid little, he's going to be like, ow, ow, ow.

00:23Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan, and I'm Dan Beacher, and you are listening to the

00:30Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the

00:34Bible and religion, and combat the spread of that pesky misinformation about the same.

00:40How are things today, Dan?

00:43Good, good.

00:44Just having a lovely time.

00:49You and I are recording this well before it's going to be coming out, because we're all

00:53going on trips, and we're going to be having fun times, so we only have things to look

00:58forward to now.

01:00By the time this comes out, I will probably be, I might be in San Diego for the San Diego

01:05Comic Con.

01:06I don't know when this is going to come out.

01:08Or it will have already happened, and who knows, who knows?

01:12We'll both be tan, you never know.

01:15I will probably be just as white as now, just because I'm so susceptible that I just drench

01:21myself and sunscreen whenever I remember, because the last thing I need is another sunburn.

01:28I grew up perpetually peeling dead skin off of old sunburns.

01:37So yeah.

01:38That's lovely.

01:39That's always fun.

01:40That's always fun.

01:41I did see a thing just, this is not relevant to our show, but I just saw a thing that there's

01:47a new vaccine for skin cancer that they've been working on.

01:53Really?

01:54It's an mRNA thing that has been very effective for stopping melanomas and stuff.

01:59So maybe it'll save you.

02:02Who knows?

02:03Man, wish I would have known about that in the 80s and 90s.

02:06Right?

02:06Good night.

02:08Yeah.

02:08Yeah.

02:10I don't know anything more about it than that, but I'm sure it will.

02:11I'm sure there will be conspiracy theories about it soon.

02:16Coming up on today's show, we are going to be looking at a couple of really interesting

02:21things.

02:22So we are going to be diving into the creation of the universe, you guys.

02:28So that's pretty fancy.

02:30Yeah.

02:31I don't know if you know this, but it was us.

02:33It was me and Dan.

02:34We built it.

02:36And then after that, one of the lesser known but fascinating books of the Apocrypha, we're

02:45going to, we're going to get, I always want to say Bell and Sebastian, but we're doing

02:50Bell and the Dragon.

02:51Bell and the Dragon.

02:52And not, not technically its own book, but one of the additions to the book of Daniel.

02:58So we'll talk, we'll talk about that when we get.

03:00How dare you, sir.

03:01How dare you deny it, deny it its book status, but yes, it's, it's a fun one.

03:08You're going to want to stick around.

03:09Yeah.

03:10But first, let's, let's launch into creation stories.

03:16Don't, don't, creation ex nihalo to be more specific.

03:21We've, we've talked about some creation accounts before and we've talked about, in fact, I

03:26think our very first episode of this podcast, we talked about Genesis one, one and one of

03:33the things that we pointed out is that correctly interpreted, there's no creation ex nihalo

03:40going on there that everything seems to have been created from the, the chaotic murky water

03:46waters of creation that probably had some kind of unformed earth submerged beneath them.

03:54And creation was a process of separating things out light and dark, water from water dry land

04:00from water and so on and so forth and thus and so.

04:05But when we get a little closer to the New Testament, we get some passages that people

04:10who are willing to give a little on creation ex nihalo and Genesis one one, these passages,

04:17people are a little more strict about their little assistant.

04:21Let's, before we get too far into this, let's define ex nihalo as a creation ex nihalo is,

04:28is a half of a half of it is Latin out of nothing.

04:33And this is the idea that the universe was created from nothing, that God brought all

04:42the material that makes up the universe into existence from nothing.

04:47And so therefore, God is the ultimate creator of and source of all matter that exists and

04:55yeah.

04:56And it's so funny.

04:57And like you say, the, that Genesis one creation story, it is clear that it's not from nothing.

05:05There is, there's already plenty of something when that starts.

05:10But boy, man, if you, if you get into an argument with a young earth creationist online, ex nihalo

05:19is the only way to go.

05:21Absolutely. And there's a reason for this. And this is something that I talk, we've talked

05:28about in some of the other videos, particularly where we talked about monotheism with David

05:32Burnett.

05:33When we get the development of monotheism, part of the requirement is that you have creation

05:39ex nihalo, because if not, then you had something that existed apart from God eternally.

05:46And there's a question of how God can have sovereignty over all of matter, if it is co-equal

05:54and co-eternal with God. And so part of the doctrine of monotheism is relying upon the

06:02doctrine of creation ex nihalo. So this is pretty important.

06:04But the question is, when do we get it? And a lot of people think it's in the Bible or

06:11maybe in the Apocrypha. But the academic consensus right now is that we don't get it until the

06:19last couple of decades of the second century CE.

06:22What?

06:23So like, like 180 CE is probably where we first see any clear articulation of the idea that

06:29God created everything out of nothing.

06:31How dare you?

06:33Oh, I dare.

06:35Not in the Bible.

06:36Oh, there's so much that's not in the Bible, but usually when you point out that you don't

06:43have creation ex nihalo and Genesis, people are like, fine, but it's in 2nd Maccabees

06:49728. And don't you dare try to tell me it's not.

06:52Okay, so we're diving right back into that old Apocrypha.

06:57Yeah, we're going to get apocryphal on your butt. So let's speak to to paraphrase the great

07:04poet. In chapter seven of 2nd Maccabees is one of the most fascinating stories, I think,

07:12in all of 2nd Maccabees. If you've never read first and 2nd Maccabees, you've really

07:16got to because this is a lot of this is is agreed to be historical. This is about this

07:24great battle series of battles between Antiochus Epiphanes, the fourth, the Seleucid ruler and

07:31the Jewish people in the 160s BCE. And the story in chapter seven is not historical.

07:39It's usually referred to as the mother and her seven sons. And the idea is that the

07:46Seleucid ruler was trying to force people to consume pork and force them to offer sacrifices

07:54to other gods and everything like that in an effort to try to stamp out Judaism. And in

07:59this chapter, we have a story where Antiochus the fourth Epiphanes comes upon a mother and

08:06her seven sons, youngish sons, and one by one tortures each of her sons and then kills

08:13them because they refuse to violate the laws of their people, the Jewish purity laws. And

08:24each time the mother exhorts the sons before they are killed to remain faithful. And there

08:30are a series of promises and statements that go into this. In verse 28, we have this statement

08:39that she says, I beseech you child to look toward heaven and earth and on seeing all

08:46that is in them to know that God did not make these things from what existed. And the human

08:52race came into existence in the same way. And so it kind of sounds like creation ex

08:59Nihlo. And people are like, that's definitely creation ex Nihlo. God did not make these things.

09:04The universe around you from what existed. And so case closed, or so everybody thought

09:11it's going to turn down. Yeah. So the Greek there is did not make these things ex entone,

09:19which is out of the being stuff, or what bees, what it what is, what exists. And this is

09:27actually referring as most scholars today agree to a traditional Greek philosophical

09:33concepts that we find most clearly in Aristotle, but as found elsewhere that matter exists

09:39either in a state of being or non being. And it all comes down to whether or not it has

09:44form and function. And so you can just have an unorganized chaotic matter. And according

09:51to Aristotle, that is existing in in a state or a realm of non being. But once you impose

09:58form and function on it, you have moved it into a state of being. So he has this, this

10:03statement in text called on the generation of animals. Aristotle says for generation

10:09is from non being into being generation, meaning creation. Right. And corruption from

10:16being again into non being. Okay. And so when things deteriorate, yeah, they go from having

10:22form and function to to not having form and function. To being soggy and gross. Yes. And

10:30stuff that you don't want to eat, or play with or whatever. And so the author of second

10:37Mac, it'd be 728 is saying the heavens and earth were created uk ax on tone, or not out

10:43of being stuff. And so the idea is adopting this Greek philosophical view that basically

10:51God took, unformed, unorganized, chaotic matter, and squished it together and shaped it and

10:57made little eyes and a nose and and created human well, created the universe. And then

11:02as the verse goes on to state, the human race came into existence in the same way. Right.

11:09Which is definitely not out of nothing. The human race, even according to Genesis, was

11:15created out of being stuff. Yeah. Or, or, you know, is created out of the dust of the earth

11:20according to Genesis two. Right. And so, yeah, this is not a case of creation X knee. Hello,

11:27this is a creation of creation X. This is a case of creation X materia. And we've even

11:34got a bunch of passages in the New Testament that people will cite and say, well, at least

11:38this is very clearly creation X knee. Hello. So we've got Romans four 17, where Paul concludes

11:48by referring to God as the one who calls into existence the things that do not exist. And

11:53that's how the NRSV translates it. But this things that do not exist is a different, different

12:03Greek words to say the same thing. tame onta, which is the non being things. It is a neuter

12:13plural instead of a masculine plural word for being. And so it's the same idea. And then

12:19we've got Hebrews 11 three by faith. We understand that the universe was ordered by God's words

12:24so that what is seen came from what is not visible. And so people will be like, well,

12:31what is not visible obviously means, you know, nothing means it doesn't exist. Doesn't exist.

12:37Yeah, because if you can't see it, it doesn't exist. But others have pointed out we go to

12:42Colossians one 16. We got the invisible features of God's creation, which are the powers thrown

12:49to minions, rulers, and so forth. And these are always understood as divine forces, they're

12:57just not seen. They're invisible. So that's obviously not creation, X and E, hello, either.

13:02Yeah, we will. I mean, one would point out that God himself is unseen and yet is also

13:09there. According to a lot of New Testament authors. Yeah, God is is themselves unseen,

13:16but exists according to those New Testament authors. Yeah. Now the what the apologists

13:25who are aware of the current academic consensus, but don't like it, we'll we'll go on to argue

13:34is that in the New Testament, we have repeated references to God being the creator of all

13:39things. And the idea is if God created all things, then obviously God, that it came out

13:48of nothing. And this is a pretty strained argument because it would have to mean that

13:55this extends to all things that exist or that have ever existed. In other words, nothing

14:00could exist that was not created by God, including material that pre existed creation by God.

14:07But that's, that's expanding the rhetorical scope of these statements well beyond what

14:13was obviously intended by the authors because the, the New Testament authors are very clearly

14:18trying to make the case that God has sovereignty over all things. What things specifically,

14:23well, the things that are around us right now. So there's a temporal scope to this rhetoric.

14:29It's talking about now, now, that was then this is now, when will then be now soon? And

14:40so we still don't have any, any concept of creation, X and E. Hello. And we also have

14:46in the, in the New Testament, there are, there are plenty of places where people use that

14:50word, panta, which means all things in ways that obviously don't actually mean all things.

14:58The woman at the well and John four goes to her town and says to the people, come see

15:03a man who told me all things that I have done. You had a long conversation. If Jesus told

15:10you literally all things that you have ever done. And in Matthew 1711, Jesus says Elijah

15:20is going to return to restore all things. Don't think that literally all things that

15:27have ever existed down to the minutest Adam will be restored. So the, it's not taking

15:34seriously the, the rhetorical context of, of these phrases in the New Testament. So there's

15:41just no case to make that's we find creation, X and E. Hello, in the Hebrew Bible, in 2nd

15:48Mac, it'd be 728 in the New Testament. We don't see it's anywhere in the Bible or the literature

15:54that was composed around the same time as the Bible. What we see is the earliest Christians

16:02agreeing with the conventional wisdom that matter is eternal, that matter goes all the

16:08way back. That's out of nothing. Nothing can come. But things start to change in the

16:15second century, because in the second century, we've got this effort on the parts of Christians

16:23to intellectualize the gospel. The apologists take over. These are educated folks who are

16:29trying to make the gospel palatable for the Greco-Roman intelligentsia so that the gospel

16:34can then, you know, be disseminated on, on a higher social level rather than the traditional

16:41notion of Christianity as a religion for women and slaves, which is how it's described

16:46right when we get into the 2nd century CE. And we have these, these debates between Christians

16:55and Gnostics and other Greek thinkers, philosophers, arguments about the one morality of eternal

17:08matter. And two, the rationality of the resurrection, because within the Greek philosophical mindset,

17:19the only thing that is divine and eternal and unchanging is spirit. The flesh is corrupt

17:26and dumb. And, you know, we just don't like it. We want to get rid of it. And this is why

17:32in the Gnostic worldview, salvation is about escaping the prison of our fleshly bodies

17:38so that our spirits can ascend to the Pleroma and be one with the divine forever. And so

17:48you basically have Christians going, oh, no, our bodies are going to be resurrected and

17:52we're going to live eternally in fleshly bodies. And they're like, why would we want these

18:00to live forever basically strapped to this pig sty that we're trying to get away from?

18:07Like they didn't, they didn't like the worst part. Yeah. And it was like, hey, you know,

18:12these bodies die, they get consumed by animals and then ejected as waste from animals. And

18:19you're saying that that excrement is going to come out and reconstitute the body and

18:26we're going to just live like this forever. That's gross. So there's a lot of criticism

18:34of the idea of the resurrection. And you have arguments that begin with this idea of, oh,

18:39well, you know, God can, God can create a human being out of what begins as just a tiny

18:46little bit of matter. So God can reconstitute a body that has been burned to cinders or that

18:53has been consumed by an animal that has deteriorated at the bottom of the sea. That's not a big

19:00obstacle for God. But then there's also the problem of the morality of eternal matter.

19:07If you've got matter existing eternally and matter is dumb and corrupt and changing, then

19:14it exists eternally apart from God and God is not sovereign over it. And it just creates

19:22this kind of tension with the way the direction Christians are wanting to go with how they're

19:27representing God within the Greco-Roman milieu. If we want to make this sound rational and

19:34reasonable to Greek thinking people, we have to do something about this. And the idea that

19:42we get is that matter and the divine are not co-eternal twin principles. And I think the

19:52first person who clearly articulates this idea that no, God created all matter from nothing,

19:59which is a flagrant violation of the conventional wisdom about, you know, how matter exists.

20:06So this guy tation who was a student of Justin Martyr, around 170 CE, he's got this text

20:15called address to the Greeks, where he argues that God created all matter out of nothing.

20:23And I've got a quote here, neither is matter without cause as is God, nor is it equal in

20:30power to God because it is without cause. It was generated. And it was not generated

20:36by anyone else, but it was expressed only by the demiurge of all. Therefore, we believe

20:42that there will be a resurrection of bodies after the consummation of everything. So it

20:45kind of combines both of these ideas matters not co-eternal with God. And the resurrection

20:50is not stupid. And shut up. Yeah, shut up, man. And we have the first articulation of

21:00creation ex nihalo of creation out of nothing. And then we have and the first ex, the first

21:07mention of the special pleading for God, the uncaused causeer. Yeah, where not everything

21:13else was caused, but that doesn't have to apply to him.

21:17Well, and that goes back a little further with, with platonic philosophy, but certainly

21:24the, the first use of that argument to, to defend Christianity and its belief that we're

21:31all going to be our soggy, messy, fleshly bodies are going to be resurrected. And then

21:38we've got this do named Theophilus of Antioch, who comes after tation. And he mocked the

21:45Platonists who believe that matter existed eternally and argued that God created all matter. Um,

21:55around 180 CE, he wrote in a text that just as God is changeless because he is ungenerated.

22:02So also if matter is ungenerated, it is also changeless and equal to God for that which

22:07is generated as mutable and changeable. The ungenerated is immutable and unchangeable. Therefore matter

22:14can't be co equal and co eternal with God. Uh, and we have to have this idea of creation

22:23out of nothing. I find that so interesting. Like, I just quickly, I, this idea, because

22:34what you just said, that argument, the thing doesn't follow for me. Like these two things

22:40share one set of features that is eternality and therefore they're equal. I don't know

22:50why that would necessarily follow, but okay. Well, there, there is an idea in, in some

22:56philosophical surface surfaces, what circles circles circles, circles makes more sense

23:05and surfaces. Um, that's what comes before is superior. What comes after is inferior.

23:12And so if matter and deity neither precedes the other than chronologically at least and

23:20therefore morally, um, they are equal. I mean, it makes sense. I'm older than my sister

23:26and I'm way better than she is. There's some logic to that. I can see that. Um, I can see

23:32that too. I'm older than my brother, but he's like three inches taller than me. So that's

23:37the only, the only part where our relationship just, uh, totally violates these natural laws.

23:44So, um, you should tell him that you violate that. And so we, once we get this idea, then

23:54we have Christians looking back on those passages that we talked about and stroking their beards

24:01and clucking their tongues and saying, Hey, look at that. Creationists, Nihilo. Uh,

24:07so they look back at Romans and they look back at second Maccabees 728 and they look back

24:12at these passages. And there's another one, Shepherd of Hermes, uh, 26 one. This is,

24:17this is part of, this is a text written around 100 CE. Didn't make it into the Bible ultimately,

24:23but was included in some of our earliest, uh, editions of the Bible. I think it's in

24:29my night. I can see why it didn't make it in. That just, that even the name just sounds

24:34like it made it up. That's just made up. Uh, but, uh, in the Shepherd of Hermes, it says,

24:39truly then the scripture declared, which says, first of all, believe that there is one God

24:42who has established all things and completed them and having caught and having caused that

24:47from what had no being, all things should come into existence. Um, and so they're now

24:53saying, Hey, look at these passages. This is all confirmation of creation, Nihilo.

24:59So basically we came up with this new way of thinking about creation and that became the

25:03interpretive lens. And then when they turned that interpretive lens back on the biblical

25:08text that never meant that before, it was like, ah, it makes sense. It makes perfect sense.

25:14It all fits together. Everything's working, baby. Yeah. Um, everything, uh, in its place

25:21and a place for everything. I think I probably got that backwards, but it'll be fine. We'll

25:25show that. And then, um, we have later, uh, kind of authoritative Christian philosophers,

25:32uh, Tertullian, origin, Augustine, Aquinas, and others kind of come in and further flesh

25:40out, um, how this all fits within the Christian worldview as well as within, um, a philosophical

25:49kind of canon. They make it philosophically defensible. Um, they, they set up the, um,

25:57the reinforcements for it. And then, you know, by the time you get to the medieval period

26:03and then into the enlightenment, it is rock solid, baby. It is in the foundation of, uh,

26:11of Christian theology. And so when we get to the creation of monotheism in the 17th century

26:15with, uh, Henry Moore and Ralph Cutworth and the deists in the, uh, in the 18th century,

26:22creation ex nihalo is, is just presupposed and in fact forms the foundation of the concept

26:28of, of monotheism. So these things are all interrelated. Um, right. Ultimately in the

26:34long run, that's, that's how it turns out. But, um, but yeah, totally made up, uh, second

26:40century. See you. That's, that's maybe, uh, yeah, it's, it's so funny because, you know,

26:46I've had conversations online with people. I've had conversations in person with people

26:51who presuppose ex nihalo creation to the point where like even questioning it makes you like

27:02all her, her radical utterly, her radical. Yeah. And, uh, and then, and now they're going through

27:09and they're sort of back filling it with like astrophysics and, uh, you know, all of the

27:15stuff that we're here, that, that we hear every, the, you know, every time a new, the

27:19word quantum comes into the picture. It's just like, okay, you guys. All right. There's

27:26it. There's definitely an apologetic, uh, argument these days where it will be like,

27:31uh, you know, even Stephen Hawking thinks that the universe was created or there was

27:36a time when it didn't exist or something like that. It's like, well, that kind of misrepresents

27:40the, uh, the physics a little bit. But, um, yeah, they, the doctrine didn't exist when

27:46the Bible was being written. Right. And there are, there are a bunch of wonderful books on

27:50this. If anybody wants to read up, uh, there's a book by, uh, Gerhard Mai from the nineties

27:55called creation. Uh, X knee hello. Uh, James Hubler, uh, wrote a doctoral dissertation,

28:02I think at the university of Pennsylvania, uh, on creation, X knee hello and talks about,

28:06um, the philosophical discussion all the way up through to, uh, Aquinas, their, uh, Marcus

28:14Bach Mule and Anderson have an edited volume on creation, X knee hello where they're, they're

28:22talking about, um, a lot of moral and theological implications, but like the first chapter of

28:29this edited volume is, is saying basically, yeah, we have the building blocks. We don't

28:35have a clear articulation until the second century CE, but, um, you know, it's biblical

28:40ish. Um, so there's, um, there's a pretty widespread acknowledgement that the idea was

28:48not articulated until 170 180 CE, um, which yeah, but, but if you question it today for

28:56a lot of people, it just totally undercuts God's sovereignty. How can it possibly be

29:01that God is not the creator of all of the material that exists in the universe? And

29:07that's, um, that I think shows that a lot of people are operating in their theology,

29:14not on the level of the biblical texts or the biblical authors, but on the philosophical

29:18level, which is, which is this, uh, this conceptual fortress that is constructed in the thousand

29:25years after the Bible was written, not during the writing of the Bible. Fair enough. All

29:32right. Well, uh, let's, uh, let's, we're, we're going to switch gears then, uh, we're

29:39downshift. We, we're gonna have it like, like Rocky too. Yeah. And that, and that portion.

29:46All right. Let's do a chapter and verse. Okay. Uh, and this chapter and verse is fascinating.

29:58We are, we, we're back into the, uh, the apocrypha. Uh, we, we, we spent a little bit of a moment

30:04or two in the Maccabees, uh, in the first half of the show now we're, uh, we're in bell

30:12and Sebastian. I mean bell and the dragon and I will never be able to get it right because,

30:17uh, that's just what's going to pop into my head. But, uh, bell and the dragon, which

30:23I was only made aware. Look, I didn't, I don't know the apocrypha. I never read any of the

30:28apocrypha before very recently and I wasn't raised with it certainly. And so when someone

30:36told me that there was a biblical book called bell and the dragon, I got very, very excited.

30:41When I found out it was an actual dragon, I got even excited her because that's amazing.

30:46Uh, and then when I found out that these are stories of a beloved biblical character that

30:53we already know, uh, I thought, oh, that's really cool. So take us in, man. What do we

31:00got? So, uh, we're in the part of the apocrypha that is known as, uh, the additions. And this

31:07means that they're not independent books. It's not first and second Maccabees. Uh, it's

31:11not, uh, those independent books, but it's versions of things from the Hebrew Bible that

31:20were probably added later on. And so this is actually chapter 14 of the Greek version

31:27of the book of Daniel. Oh, okay. And so it's, it's an additional chapter that's tacked

31:32on at the, uh, the end of Daniel and was probably, um, written in Greek, uh, and added into the

31:41book of Daniel. And there are, there's an argument to make. In fact, a lot of scholars

31:45think that, uh, this story of, uh, particularly the story of Daniel and the lion's den comes

31:52from before the story that actually gets preserved in the canonical book of Daniel. Really? Oh,

31:59interesting. Yeah. And you said this was in Greek was the book of Daniel, what, what language

32:05was the book of Daniel originally written? Um, so some of it was Hebrew. Some of it was

32:10Aramaic. Okay. But it comes to, it comes together in the final form as we know it dates, can

32:17date no earlier than the early 160s BCE. So, um, it is, it came together fairly, uh, fairly

32:24late. Right. And, um, the story is, uh, we have this kind of contest, uh, between Daniel

32:34and the priests of Bell, where the Babylonians have this idol called Bell. And this is probably

32:40related to ball. Um, and every day they provide it for it, provided for it 12 bushels of choice

32:49flower and 40 sheep and six measures of wine. And this, by the way, this story does answer.

32:54We had, uh, after we talked about, um, I don't remember what specifically we talked about,

32:59but we were talking about, oh, we were talking about ancestor worship. And we were talking

33:04about people leaving offerings for ancestors and that sort of thing. And there was some

33:10question among some of our listeners about, did they think that these, that their ancestors

33:16or that the, wha, whoever the idol was, whoever that these offerings were going to, did these

33:22people think that they were actually eating them? Cause we talked about how they, people

33:28wanted to be provided food in their afterlife. And did they think they were actually eating

33:34it? Cause surely it just sat there, like, you know, if you take it into your fan, your

33:39ancestral, whatever, the food just stays, but this is an awful lot of food to just stick

33:45around. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there were a few different

33:48ways they did these, uh, like funerary meals and stuff. One way was just, they just ate

33:54in their presence. So the, the, the living people are consuming the, uh, the food themselves.

34:02Another way is, is the burnt offering idea that by burning it, you're allowing the, uh,

34:07the sustenance to take smoke form and rise up or something like that. And then the other

34:13way was just putting stuff in the tomb and then, you know, you wouldn't see it for a year.

34:17And guess what? The chicken wing has deteriorated, um, in, in the year. Um, and if they're boneless,

34:24then, you know, there's nothing left. So, um, which is probably what the, the deceased

34:30folks prefer anyway. Cause, uh, the, you know, the gristle just gets in the way. Um, so yeah,

34:36what you've got here is, is, is basically, uh, they're mocking how they were, were trying

34:45to represent the consumption of the, the offerings. Um, so, uh, the king says to Daniel, do you

34:52not think that Bell is a living God? Do you not see how much he eats and drinks every

34:56day? And, and Daniel Gefaz and said, do not be deceived. Oh, King for this thing is only

35:02clay inside and bronze outside and it has never eaten or drunk anything. So we've got

35:06some idle mockery going on here. We've got it's bold. Yeah. And this, this king, by the

35:13way, is, uh, is Cyrus, right? Yeah. It is Cyrus. Um, and so, uh, Daniel's like, ha ha,

35:22you fool. Um, the deity is not eating these things. And the king is angry and calls all

35:28the priests of, of Bell and, uh, says, um, you know, we gotta, we gotta prove that, uh,

35:34that this deity is eating all these things. And the priests of Bell had a little trap door

35:40inside. Yeah, they were sneaky and they, they would come in at night. Uh, you know, the,

35:47the doors are all shut and locked. Uh, you know, I don't know if you remember from Dr.

35:51Noah, uh, James Bond does a little point, takes out a little hair and licks it and puts

35:56it across the, between the door and the frame so that he can tell if someone has opened this

36:01door, you know, they got all that in place. Yeah. Um, but because they've got this trap

36:05door in inside, they can sneak in and they can eat all the food themselves. It's not exactly

36:10David Blaine levels of, of magic. It's a, it's a pretty obvious trick, but, uh, they haven't

36:17told anybody about it. So, so when Cyrus is like, we're going to put this to the test.

36:23Mm hmm. Uh, yeah. Daniel's like, all right, we'll, we'll put it to the test. They go in,

36:28they put in all the food. Uh, but Daniel has an extra, like, Daniel's going full amazing

36:36Randy on this one. Yeah, this, this is where it would have been really nice to have Gallagher

36:42come in. Oh, that's a, that's a reference to a, a totally different podcast. Call back

36:49to, uh, our, our time on, um, God, awful movies of the podcast. So, um, Daniel's like,

36:54Hey, King, check this out. Uh, everybody's gone for the evening. You and I are the only

36:59ones here. We're going to take a bunch of ash. We're just going to sprinkle ash around

37:03everywhere. And, uh, and the priests don't know about this. So it's dark. They are tripping

37:10over each other. They come out of the trap door. They go munch on the food. Uh, and then

37:15it's not just the priests, by the way, it's the priests, their wives and all of their

37:20children. It is like, and, and there are 70 priests, I think. So it is, it's mayhem in

37:26there. Yeah. And, uh, and then the next day, uh, Daniel and the king show up in the priest.

37:37They're like, huh, the food is gone. And Daniel's like, Oh my gosh, look at the floor. Everybody.

37:43Yeah. And the king says, I see the footprints of men and women and children. Then the king

37:50was enraged and he arrested the priests and their wives and children. And they showed

37:54him the secret doors, which they used to enter to consume what was on the table. And therefore

38:00the king put them to death and gave bell over to Daniel who destroyed it and it's temple.

38:06So this is anti idol polemics, which is kind of taken a, um, you know, this, this probably

38:13brings a tier of appreciation to the eye of some of the more militant of the, uh, of

38:18the online atheist these days, um, that, uh, maybe not that people were killed, but the

38:25fact that, uh, that Daniel was able to cleverly, uh, expose the ruse. Yeah. Um, but it does

38:33get it. One of the things that it's sort of points out is that at very least, according

38:38to the story, the, the king Cyrus actually believed that this, that this God was eating

38:47all of this food. Yeah. So, so I, I, at very least the story claims that people believed

38:54that. I don't know how, I don't know how much, how much people actually believed it, but

39:00that's interesting. Uh, so there you go. Daniel has has slain one God. He is the God slayer.

39:07Uh, and now, but that God was just a statue. Yeah, which is, but anybody can prove a statue

39:14is not a God, but who can, what, but his next task is starting to feel like the, the, the

39:21tasks of Hercules or something because he, he gets, he gets another. There's an, he's

39:27confronted by another more differenter God. And that is a dragon. It's trogg, don't,

39:35don't, don't. So, so yeah, uh, that, where, where does this come from? Do we have any

39:45sense? Because this is not, this is not like, uh, a metaphor or something. This is like this.

39:52The story is the king's like, Oh yeah. Well, what about the dragon though? That's a God,

39:59right? Yeah. So say you cannot deny that this is a living God. Yeah. So worship him. Yeah.

40:08So what, what's going on there? So, um, dragon slash serpents. And this is, this is based

40:16on earlier mythology associated with like Leviathan, uh, which is a serpent slash dragon. We've

40:22talked about that Isaiah 27 one, Psalm 74, bunch of plate job. Uh, you know, the, on,

40:31on Twitter, I think I saw the best summary of, uh, of the book of Job. And it was God

40:37saying to, uh, Job going, uh, what's up with all the suffering and God saying, how dare

40:43you speak that way to the inventor of the hippopotamus. Um, but so the Leviathan is this

40:49classical mythological chaos dragon monster sea serpent. Right. And so in this period,

40:57the idea is that there were these things in antiquity, uh, and, and this is being written

41:02probably in the second century BCE, third or second century BCE. And so, uh, you know,

41:09the Babylonian exile is hori antiquity. And so maybe the dragons were around back then.

41:13Yeah. So, so, you know, Cyrus is like, well, what about the dragon down there? Got a little

41:20dragon over there. No, no, it is a great dragon. It says so right in verse 22. And, um, and

41:27Daniel says, I worship the Lord, my God, for he is a living God, but give me permission.

41:31Oh king. And I will kill the dragon without sword or club. The king said I'll allow it

41:37a little. Just this once. So Daniel took pitch, fat and hair and boiled them together and

41:45made cakes. And I think I had one of these cakes before, but, um, yeah, if you've ever

41:51if you, it's dense, but it's delicious. Yeah. And boy, it is dragons can not resist. Yeah.

41:59They, um, that's their Achilles heel. Uh, and he fed them to the dragon. And there's a,

42:07if you get the, uh, SBL study Bible, there's a wonderful, um, 16th century painting of

42:15Daniel slain the dragon by a, um, a Dutch, um, artist. And it shows Daniel feeding these

42:24cakes to a dragon. Who's kind of like, Oh, I've had enough. No more. Um, but, uh, and

42:31the, the dragon eats them and explodes. Yeah. So there you go. Uh, portrait door. He is

42:38done. Daniel says, see what you've been worshiping. Yeah. The idea being, Hey, if this thing can,

42:48um, you know, if this thing can get aced by, you know, a rough cake, then, um, you know,

42:54you don't have a God, you have, uh, something with a pretty weak constitution. You have

43:00a dragon, which is pretty darn cool. I feel like, you know, I get that he didn't want

43:05him to worship the dragon and that, that like, you know, if you're claiming God ship for

43:11the dragon, that's probably not right. But don't kill the, don't blow up a dragon with

43:16cakes. Just to make a point that dragons are cool thing to have, man. Yeah. All right.

43:23Well, but because God is, you know, the destroyer of the Leviathan and, um, the tamer of the

43:30savage beast that representing Daniel as, as wielding the same power. Um, yeah, but then

43:37the Babylonians are upset because, you know, you killed our dragon. You killed, you killed

43:42our statue and our dragon. Yeah. This sucks. And then the, they make a weird, um, accusation.

43:49And they were very indignant and conspired against the king saying the king has become

43:54a Jew. He has destroyed bell and killed the dragon and slaughtered the priests. Yeah.

44:01Going to the king. They said, hand Daniel over to us or we will kill you and your household.

44:06Wow. With, yeah, I, I don't know if this is, uh, this is all the Babylonians. Right.

44:12I mean, it's kind of an eat the rich situation where the whole, the whole, uh, town is, is

44:19just like, we outnumber you significantly. Yeah. Cyrus didn't seem to have a handle on

44:23this, uh, particular situation. Yeah. Uh, the king saw that they were pressing him hard

44:29and under compulsion, he handed Daniel over to them at which point Daniel gets thrown

44:34where in the lions den, right? Which is, which differs from the other account of, of why

44:40Daniel was thrown in a lion's den, which was right. And also the, the, the account of Daniel

44:46being in the lions den, because here he's in there for six days. Yeah. Yeah. It's not

44:50just like the lions are hungry. And if you're wondering to yourself, how did Daniel eat

44:56for six days? What, what happened? Oh, we've got a story for that. But, but first you got

45:04to know that these lions are voracious because normally there were seven lions in the den

45:09and then every day they had been given two human bodies and two sheep, but now they were

45:14giving nothing so that they would devour Daniel. Um, and then, and then we've got a cameo. Yeah.

45:20The prophet Habakkuk shows up and, um, he just, just, uh, incidentally, yeah, he's just,

45:31and he's chilling far away from there. He's all the way in Judea, uh, and he, and he's

45:37hanging out and, uh, he's made us stew, which is nice. That sounds delicious. As one does.

45:43Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and suddenly you imagine he's sitting down and he's got it all laid out

45:48nice and he's like, ooh, I'll get some stew, his student time, baby. And then who shows

45:54up? The angel of the Lord says, says, take this to Babylon and give it to Daniel, which

46:03Habakkuk it's like, I don't what can I make him another, can I, can I make him another

46:09stew when I get there? That's like a ways away. Yeah. I'm low on gas and you need a jacket.

46:17Um, so he says, sir, I have never seen Babylon and I know nothing about the den. Then the

46:25angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head and carried him by his hair. The

46:30angel was just like, you stupid little with a gust of wind. He set him down in Babylon

46:38right over the den, presumably with the stew in tow, right? Like he was a grab the stew,

46:44pick up your stew. We're going. You'd think, you know, you'd think they'd have other modes

46:50of transportation, but the dragon is dead. So all you got is the gust of wind and some

46:54hair grabbing. Yeah. Uh, and then Habakkuk shouted, Daniel, Daniel, take the food that

46:59God has sent you. Um, it sounds like the angel could have just taken Habakkuk's food

47:04because it right is out of the pain. Daniel does seem like a very elaborate way to get

47:12food to Daniel. Yeah. Picking him up by his hair and then flying. He's going to be like,

47:18ow, ow, oh, Daniel says, you have remembered me, Oh God, and have not abandoned those who

47:24love you. So Daniel got up in eight and the angel of God immediately returned Habakkuk

47:28to his own place. You're not needed anymore. At which point, Habakkuk said, was all of

47:35this necessary? Why was I involved in this? Now I gotta go make some more students. My

47:43head hurts. I'm out of stew. This is terrible. And then on the seventh day, the king came

47:50to mourn for Daniel when he came to the Danny looked in and their sat Daniel exclamation

47:55point. The king shouted with a loud voice, you are great. Oh Lord, the God of Daniel and

48:00there is no other besides you. Then he pulled Daniel out and threw into the den, those who

48:05had attempted his destruction and they were instantly eaten before his eyes. The rest

48:10of the nation of Babylon, he threw into the den because it sounded like it was all of

48:15them. Um, yeah, the people who came to the king and was like, we're going to kill you

48:20if you don't do this. And the king's like, I give, I give. Um, this is, this is probably

48:26not Gallagher and the two stooges, um, from, uh, from the book of Daniel from the movie.

48:33Um, let me ask you this, uh, was, cause I, I'm not remembering my book of Daniel, like

48:41the book well enough. Was the king that threw Daniel into the lion's den in Daniel? Was

48:48that Cyrus or was it? Cause I don't, I don't remember which king it was that, but I don't

48:55think it was Cyrus, was it? So it's a post Babylonian king, but it's Darius who is represented

49:02in the book of Daniel as the, uh, the median king who defeats Babylon and then Cyrus comes

49:10after Darius. Um, I imagine this, this other text might be representing Cyrus as, as the

49:17one who, um, conquers, uh, Babylon. Oh, okay. But if it, if it is integrated into the rest

49:24of the book of the book of Daniel, then it was probably following their chronology, even

49:28though it comes after all of the apocalyptic visions and everything from chapter seven

49:32through 12. So, um, yeah, it is. So where did that? So up until the apocrypha was sort

49:41of yeeted out of the Bible. Did this, did this just sit next to it? Like, what happened

49:51with this? Why? Why was it in? Why wasn't it? You know, why was it? I guess I can see why

49:58it was rejected, why it was, uh, scooted out, but just sort of give me the, because it

50:06doesn't seem like it aligns with the rest of the, you know, with the book of Daniel, for

50:11example. Yeah. Yeah. Well, none of the book of Daniel seems to align with the rest of

50:15the book of Daniel, but, um, yeah, you got to remember, uh, for early Christianity, their

50:22Bible was the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation. And so this was part of the Greek

50:28translation. So when they get together and are like, all right, these are our books. These

50:32are our guys. This, this is our canon. And they put it together, our earliest editions

50:39of a codex with all of the texts of the Bible in one volume are these Greek editions. And

50:46so they have these texts that were either composed in Greek or primarily circulated in

50:52Greek, including these editions. And so this was just a part of the Bible. Um, when we

50:58get to the Vulgate, Jerome is including most of, of what is in the Greek Septuagint. Uh,

51:05and so this is just part of the Bible until we get down to the Protestant Reformation at

51:09which point. Um, now Christianity is, is doing their thing with their version of the Bible,

51:15but Judaism is actually just focusing on the texts that are circulated in Hebrew. So their

51:21version of Daniel is Hebrew and Aramaic. It's not Greek. And so it doesn't include these

51:26editions. And so by the time we get down to Martin Luther in the beginning of the 16th

51:32century, CE, he wants to translate his own version of the Bible and he's like, now we're

51:38doing the, we're doing the Greek New Testament. And then we're going back to the Hebrew. He

51:43learns Hebrew. He, he learns how to translate. Um, and goes back to the Jewish manuscripts

51:49of the Hebrew Bible. And so he's like, Hey, all this other stuff isn't here. Instead of

51:54just having it, um, you know, integrated into the Old Testament, I'm going to take him out

52:02and I'm going to go put him over here in an entirely separate section. And in the, I think

52:06the first edition, it was like an appendix. Everything was moved to the back. And he also

52:10moved James and Hebrews and Revelation and a bunch of New Testament texts to the back

52:15that he didn't like. In subsequent editions, he was like, fine, I'll restore the New Testament

52:21stuff. But I, I'm going to put the other texts, the apocrypha in their own section. And so

52:28it goes Old Testament, Apocrypha, New Testament. And so we, what Martin Luther does is, is

52:34basically isolates and separates the apocrypha and creates a third volume within the Bible

52:42known as the apocrypha that then in the 19th century publishers are like me. Um, and,

52:49and that is where pages, just valuable pages that, uh, it's costing us money. Um, and so

52:58the combination of Protestantism's kind of, uh, demotion of the apocrypha to its own segment.

53:06And then its treatment of the apocrypha as not as inspired as the rest of the text result

53:11ultimately in its ejection from the canon by the end of the 19th century.

53:16Okay. Well, I mean, it makes sense that this was the, the, the Greek part that was not included

53:21in the Hebrew part. Like, I guess, I, I, now I see the logic of that. That totally makes

53:26sense to me. Yeah. So there you go. There is a logic to it all. It's not all entirely

53:31arbitrary. Um, but there are some fascinating stories, uh, like this in the apocrypha, highly,

53:39highly recommend, um, getting, getting yourself a, of an addition of the Bible that includes

53:46the apocrypha, uh, so that you can check some of these stories out. Yeah. We're, people,

53:49who are, who are, you know, living without the apocrypha, they're, they're living without

53:53dragons people. This is, this is Targaryen stuff. Yeah. There, there'd be dragons there.

53:59Um, so, you know, how can you turn that down? And, um, we've, uh, we've talked about the

54:04apocrypha and on the show before, haven't we? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, again, highly

54:09recommend introduction to the apocrypha Jewish books in Christian Bibles by Lawrence wills

54:14from 2021. Great discussion. Nice. Excellent. Well, thanks for that. I, uh, I enjoyed that

54:23thoroughly. I really, I really, I just, uh, yeah, bell on the, it's just a delightful

54:28little story. They, they, um, they're not beating around the bush. They're cutting right to the

54:33chase. Yeah. And it is incisive. It is, um, it is punchy. Yeah. It's literally my favorite

54:42part of the Bible that I've ever read. Uh, I haven't read the whole thing cover to cover.

54:47I've read a lot of it. Uh, and I think that, uh, bell on the dragon is probably my favorite

54:52little chapter that there is. So yeah, there you go. All right. Well, uh, you and I, Dan

54:59are now going to adjourn to the after party where all of our patrons at the $10 level

55:05and up can can hang out with us for a little bit more for the rest of you. Thank you so

55:10much for joining us. If you want to contact us, the email address is contact at data over

55:16dogma pod.com. We, we sure do appreciate you checking in with us and we'll talk to you

55:22again next week. Bye everybody.

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