Ep 75: Shrouded in Mystery

00:00I can imagine Egyptians being like, "This is an unusual number of frogs."

00:07This feels excessive.

00:08Yes.

00:09This feels excessive.

00:10Did you leave the fridge open?

00:11Because we have…

00:12Honey, what are you making because there's frogs?

00:17Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:23And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:24And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:30the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:34the same.

00:35How go things today, Dan?

00:37Things go great.

00:38It's a beautiful day.

00:42And I just got back from a trip.

00:45I went and saw my mom in Canada, so that was…

00:48Nice.

00:49That was nice.

00:50Hi, mom.

00:51And swung by our nation's capital, or at least adjacent to our nation's capital to attend

00:55a podcast convention.

00:57Yeah, I took pictures of the capital, but I never…

01:01I got…

01:02I was in Virginia.

01:03I was in Maryland.

01:04I was never in D.C.

01:05I don't think I was ever officially in D.C.

01:07Is Reagan in D.C.?

01:08I don't know.

01:09No, I think it's in Virginia.

01:11I think it's in Virginia.

01:12Yeah.

01:13So I don't think I quite ever made it into D.C.

01:15I flew over though.

01:17Yeah.

01:18Good views.

01:19You fly out into and out of Reagan.

01:21You get good views.

01:22Oh, it's such a gorgeous area.

01:24I love the East Coast.

01:25Yeah. And particularly around the D.C. area.

01:28I grew up just on the other side of D.C. from where you were.

01:31Oh, right.

01:32A place called Gaithersburg or North Potomac.

01:35I think the name changed while I was living there, but…

01:38I haven't been back there since, so we left in July of 1993.

01:43Whoa!

01:44And yeah, so it's been 30 years since I've been back to the old stomping grounds.

01:51At some point, I'm going to get out there.

01:53Yeah.

01:54Yeah, you should.

01:55All right, well, we got a show to do, so let's do that show.

02:00We've got a couple of things we're going to do.

02:01We're going to do a chapter and verse, and I'm kind of excited about it because today

02:06is plague day.

02:09Plague day.

02:10We're going to do the Exodus plagues.

02:13And then we're going…

02:14Don't skin plague day.

02:15Never?

02:16That's right.

02:17That's important.

02:18You don't want skinny plagues.

02:20Nope.

02:21And then we're going to talk about the Shroud of Turin, that's also very exciting.

02:27And topical…

02:28I don't know, it shouldn't be topical, but it has reared its head again and has suddenly

02:35started to come back with a vengeance.

02:37So…

02:38And in an untimely way, and I'll explain why, it doesn't make any sense, but yeah, you

02:45reminded me…

02:48My wife and I try to go to a gym nearby whenever we can.

02:50Which turns into twice a month, some months, and then we go twice a week, other months.

02:56And we brought my 12-year-old daughter a couple of times last month, and it was so funny.

03:01After the first day, we get back in the car and my 12-year-old daughter knows nothing

03:05about gym culture, knows nothing about all this stuff.

03:08It's like, how come there are so many guys that are just gigantic with tiny little skinny

03:14legs, and I laughed for hours, it was so funny to me.

03:23Yeah, next take her to a cycling event, and she'll be able to comment on all the guys

03:28with enormous legs and tiny little upper bodies.

03:32Yep, that's… it'd be like that, it'd do sometimes.

03:37So…

03:38Yes, indeed.

03:39Yeah, chapter and verse, yeah, let's watch it, let's do it.

03:43Chapter and verse.

03:45All right, so, our first thing, we're in Exodus, and we are going to talk about the

03:55plagues of the 10, is it 10?

03:59Well, that's a question.

04:02Plagues of Egypt.

04:05Now, all of you who are like me were raised watching the Cecil B. DeMille 10 Commandments

04:13movie every year.

04:16You have one idea of the plagues, but if you haven't read through them kind of carefully,

04:24it's different, it hits a little different, and so we're going to talk a little bit about

04:30what is so different about these plagues, about the experience of reading it, and why

04:35it's… and Dan, I do need some explanation because there's stuff that doesn't make

04:41any sense to me or is weird or is whatever, so…

04:44We'll talk about it.

04:45So what we got, the background is apparently, at least according to this, Egypt has taken

04:56all of Israel, the Israelites into slavery, and is holding them in bondage or in bondage,

05:07as Charles Heston would say, and so it's time the Lord has decided that Moses and his

05:18brother Aaron are going to be freeing them, are going to make them free, and so it's

05:28time to do that.

05:29Moses is now… there's been a bunch of build up to this, but now Moses goes to Pharaoh,

05:39and he's been prepped for this by the Lord.

05:43The Lord has told him what to do.

05:44Well, and oddly, if you go to the beginning of Exodus 7, God is talking to Moses and says,

05:50"Look, I've made you a God to Pharaoh," which is an interesting verse to start off

05:56with, "and your brother will be your prophet.

05:59You're going to tell Pharaoh everything that I tell you," and then in verse 3 says, "But

06:03I will harden Pharaoh's heart."

06:05Yeah, that messed me up.

06:08Yeah.

06:09Like, it's not Pharaoh doing it, it's the Lord playing a trick on everybody.

06:14Yeah.

06:15And the point is, basically, I am going to create drama so that everyone can… so that

06:22I can manifest my signs and wonders.

06:26It's like, "You're going to go tell him to do all this stuff.

06:28He's not going to listen to you.

06:30It's going to be so aggravating, just you wait and see, and then I'm going to come

06:33and do my light show, and then everybody's going to be like, "Wow, that out of an eye.

06:39That was something."

06:40And it's not just a light show, like people are going to die, and we're going to find

06:49out that it's not a small number of people who are going to die.

06:54So it's rough, it's rough, but the Lord says multiple times throughout the story,

07:02this is so that everybody in the world will know how big and powerful I am.

07:07Yeah.

07:08So Moses is like, "Okay, so I'm basically just doing repetitions here for no reason.

07:16This isn't going anywhere, but I've got to do it anyway.

07:19All right."

07:20Yeah.

07:21And it does feel like it's going through the motions, and we'll get to why.

07:23The first plague, we can skip the whole errand turns his staff into a snake, but what's

07:33important about that part of the story is that Pharaoh has his own magicians, presumably

07:39who pray to their own gods.

07:41And so when Aaron throws his staff down and it turns into a snake, they do the same thing,

07:48and their staffs turn into snakes also.

07:50Right.

07:51Well, there are two things to say here.

07:52One is that Aaron's serpent then consumes the other magician's service.

07:59He's basically saying, "Our God's more powerful than you're a God."

08:03Right.

08:04But there is an acknowledgement in there that those gods are real.

08:08Exactly.

08:09And we talked about this in the previous episode we did on magic, that they just presume there

08:14was magic all over the place.

08:15These people were getting away with it.

08:18It was real.

08:19And here the idea is, "Yeah, these gods are real.

08:21They have power, but their power doesn't compare."

08:25And then the other thing I was going to say is we don't have the prototypical Hebrew

08:30word for snake here.

08:32This isn't a snake clearly anyway.

08:36It's tannine is the Hebrew word, which is the same word that is used for sea creatures

08:42or serpents or perhaps crocodile.

08:45So it's not clear exactly what the staff is turning into.

08:50Oh, okay.

08:51It certainly could be a way to refer to a serpent like a snake, but it could be something

08:55else as well.

08:57But whatever it is, yeah, the point is, okay, Egypt, you got your gods, but they're no match

09:03for our gods.

09:04This is the Harlem Globetrotters playing against the, what was it, the generals that they used

09:09to play?

09:10The Washington generals.

09:11The Washington generals.

09:12And it's just for show because they're going to get stomped.

09:18But the thing is that they don't get entirely stomped.

09:22And this is the reason we bring this up is because they kind of match trick for trick

09:27for a while.

09:28Like they keep, they keep trying to replicate the thing, which I think becomes very weird

09:34very quickly.

09:35And we'll get to that.

09:36Well, in, in Exodus 12, 12, we have the statement that God is executing judgment on

09:41all the gods of Egypt.

09:43And so the idea is that they're in Egypt.

09:45That's not Adonai's territory.

09:47Adonai's territory is Canaan.

09:50And so Adonai is away from home court.

09:54There's no home court advantage for Adonai here, but Adonai is acting as kind of judge

10:00jury and executioner for the iniquities that are abounding in Egypt, which are attributed

10:06to the, to their gods.

10:09And so the point of this part of the point of this is to say your gods have been naughty.

10:15And I'm executing judgment on them.

10:18Yeah.

10:19So, now we come to plague the first water into blood.

10:26Water into blood.

10:27Now, you know, in the Cecil B. DeMille thing, he touches the water with his staff and sort

10:32of water.

10:33The Kool-Aid, the, the red, the red spreads out and whatever.

10:37Is it a practical or special effect in, in the DeMille film?

10:40Because I never saw it.

10:42I think it's practical.

10:44I don't know how, but well, I mean, it's some sort of, it's some sort of weird effect.

10:48I don't know.

10:49Okay.

10:50Exactly.

10:51I think they probably did a, like a, no, it was a, it was an effect of some sort.

10:55Anyway.

10:56Okay.

10:57Uh, in the book, they first do the Nile, they, they smack the film version in the book

11:04version.

11:05Right.

11:06Exactly.

11:07They first smack the, the, the, that, you know, crocodiles cane onto the water and it

11:14all, the entire Nile turns into blood, but that's not it.

11:17That's not all all the waters of Egypt, rivers, canals, ponds, pools, even the stuff in their

11:25water jugs, their vessels, they're very, you know, it says the wood vessels and the stone

11:31vessels.

11:32Yeah.

11:33All of their.

11:34Ceramic vessels.

11:35They were cool, but.

11:36Yeah.

11:37If you were lucky enough to have one of those, yeah, uh, which is horrifying and it, and apparently

11:44it was stinky, it smelled bad, so that's no good.

11:48Yeah.

11:49Um, and then it says, and this is the first time it says this, but I'm very confused by

11:53it.

11:54It says pharaohs magicians then did the same thing.

11:57They managed to pull the same trick off, which is like, after water.

12:01Yeah.

12:02Exactly.

12:03When you, you just said all the water was already blood.

12:07So.

12:08Oh, yeah.

12:09And this is something that's going to come up again later when, uh, when the livestock

12:11is like the hail destroys the livestock, yeah, like it, it's, um, emphatic every last one,

12:18all of it.

12:19It's all gone.

12:20There's none left.

12:21Everything.

12:22And then two verses later, it's like, so there were still some animals left.

12:24Right.

12:25Um, yeah.

12:26That keeps happening.

12:27Yeah.

12:28So that's tricky.

12:29Well, here's, here's an interesting thing, uh, about the, the, the plagues, which by the

12:34way, the word plague is used a few times in the story, but they're not as a group referred

12:40to as plagues.

12:42Right.

12:43The words that are used to refer to this set of events is signs and wonders.

12:47Oh, I'm going to show my signs and wonders with these signs and wonders.

12:53And so, uh, we have come to know them as the plagues, but only a couple of them are actually

12:59referred to explicitly as plagues.

13:01The rest are signs and wonders, point of order, point of order.

13:06And in the, in the NRSVUE, it refers to them as plagues, plenty, but just in the chapter

13:11headings that aren't right, right, right, right, right, right, yeah.

13:15Um, because that's what we, how we traditionally understand them.

13:18But when we look at the first nine, we're going to call the 10, now, and, and this is

13:22not like the 10 commandments where there's a place where it says the 10 plagues, uh, or

13:27the 10 signs and waters.

13:28It just says, these are the signs and wonders, the, the first nine of them, they're divided

13:34into three groups.

13:36And in each group, there's a, there's a pattern to this.

13:41The first three, the first one, there's a warning.

13:44Moses offers a warning outside as Pharaoh is on the way to the, to the river in the morning.

13:52The second of each group, there is a warning, but it happens in the palace and it does tell

13:57us when it happens.

13:58The third of each group, there's no warning.

14:01Okay.

14:02And so then, then you get to the fourth plague and it starts over.

14:07There is a warning.

14:08It happens outside.

14:09It happens in the morning, second group, or second, uh, plague of the second group.

14:13There is a warning, but it's in the palace, third, there's no warning at all.

14:17And so that happens for each of the three groupings of plagues.

14:19So there's a literary, there's a literary, uh, structure to this that is, that is grouping

14:24the three and the first three have to do with things coming from the ground.

14:29Got water.

14:30We got frogs.

14:31That's second three happened to do with things that affect humans, things that affect livestock

14:37and then things that are affecting both humans and livestock.

14:40And then the third group are all things that are coming from the sky.

14:43Um, so there's an, there's an interesting literary structure to this that indicates this is,

14:49this is being, this is a literary creation.

14:52Um, and there are attempts to historicize this to try to say, Oh, well, you know, the,

14:58uh, the inundation, the annual inundation of the Nile causes it to be filled up with all

15:04of, uh, of this dirt, the red dirt and that makes the water look red like blood.

15:09I remember hearing that.

15:10Right.

15:11And then, and then the fish die because it's, there's too much silt in the, in the water.

15:16And then the frogs try to escape and then everything dies and then the gnats come and

15:21then the flies come to eat the corpses of everything and that causes pestilence for the animals.

15:27And so there, there's this attempt to try to historicize everything, but, uh, the overwhelming

15:33consensus amongst scholars is this is purely a literary creation.

15:36But the other thing about that, uh, attempt to historicize is that it actually detracts

15:43from the point of the story, because the point of the story is that it isn't a natural occurrence.

15:49Right.

15:50It's a sign of the story is that it's God making him so like if this was a thing that

15:55just sort of happened every now and then like, yeah, it totally ruins the story.

16:01Yeah.

16:02Cause then the Egyptians are going to be like, Oh yeah, that was totally natural.

16:04Right.

16:05Yeah.

16:06Oh yeah.

16:07We have, we have records of this happening before.

16:08Yeah.

16:09But the whole point is to for God to show their signs and wonders so that everyone will, uh,

16:15be in awe of all this that happened.

16:18Right.

16:19Um, so, so I'm, we'll, we'll keep moving through these, uh, you, you already referenced, uh,

16:25the next thing is frogs.

16:26The frogs come out, uh, and apparently it's so many that it's like in everybody's bedrooms

16:31and it's in their mixing bowls and it's in their like, yeah, whatever.

16:36I don't know if you've ever lived in a place with lots of frogs.

16:39No, I love when I lived in Bellingham in Washington, uh, I don't know if it was just our apartment

16:44complex.

16:45We were right by a gigantic field.

16:47Like, um, like we were right by the wilderness basically.

16:49So, uh, but we heard frogs croaking, uh, all night long.

16:53I loved it.

16:54But I can, I can imagine Egyptians being like, this is an unusual number of frogs.

17:00This feels excessive.

17:01Yes.

17:02This feels excessive.

17:03Did you leave the fridge open because we have, uh, what, and an inch, what are you making

17:08because there's frogs, um, in the Hebrew, it's just in the, the noun is in the singular

17:17frog.

17:18Yeah.

17:19And so they're, it's a, it's a collective noun.

17:22Okay.

17:23It can be used to, to, um, and you know, like the word he, in Hebrew for bird, birds is

17:29just singular.

17:31And so when it talks about, oh, he created the birds in, in Genesis one, it just says

17:36bird.

17:37Um, so it's collective, but, um, uh, maybe he only created one bird.

17:43Well, which would mean that there was one gigantic frog that like climbed out of the,

17:48the Nile, and there is an ancient Jewish, um, tradition and interpretive tradition that,

17:54that understands this as, as a single giant frog that like wreaked havoc on that kind

18:00of a Godzilla like, uh, creature stopping like it's and stuff.

18:04Yeah.

18:05Yeah.

18:06I am into it.

18:07All right.

18:08I'll go with that.

18:12So then Pharaoh, and this happens every single time.

18:16The way that each of these pestilences, uh, plagues, whatever ends is Pharaoh's like,

18:22oh my gosh, I've been such a jerk.

18:26I apologize.

18:27Please make it stop.

18:29And then Moses goes, okay.

18:31And praise to God.

18:33And God makes it stop.

18:34The way that it makes, he makes the frogs thing stop, by the way, is that they all just

18:38instantly die.

18:39Yeah.

18:40It's like this is, this is a step backwards.

18:43Yeah.

18:44Right.

18:45That frogs, I don't see how that's better.

18:48And apparently they do, I was like, that's going to stink.

18:51And then it says, and then it says in the Bible, and everything stinks, you know what

18:55I mean?

18:56Yes.

18:57Ooh.

18:58So there's that.

18:59Then there are gnats.

19:00And again, with the gnats, uh, the magicians try to reproduce the trick.

19:05I'm not sure why, but they can't.

19:08So now we have.

19:09So apparently gnats was a clip too far for the, for the Egyptian gods.

19:15I see a beetle juice going, I don't do gnats.

19:19I won't do.

19:20I won't.

19:21Won't do it.

19:23So next we got flies, uh, and, and this is the first time that he's very clear that

19:31the Egyptian people will get flies, but the, the Israelite people in Goshen.

19:37Now where it mentions Goshen a bunch of times as the place where the Israelites live.

19:42Yeah.

19:43How close is that to the Egyptians, et cetera?

19:47Well, the Egyptians are kind of spread out, um, but Goshen is, uh, a part of the eastern

19:54part of the Nile Delta.

19:56So if you look at a map and you see it kind of fans out up toward the, the Mediterranean,

20:01uh, Goshen is on the east side of that.

20:03Now, uh, depending on where you date, uh, these events that didn't happen, uh, you might

20:11have the, the Egyptians being located in different parts of, uh, of the Nile.

20:15But yeah, this is, uh, eastern Nile Delta area.

20:19Okay.

20:20All the way.

20:21As opposed to like, are we to imagine that Pharaoh and the Egyptians that keep getting

20:27referred to are in the Cairo area or where, where are they?

20:32Um, again, it depends on, on where you date them, but they're probably, we're supposed

20:37to be understanding them to be nearby.

20:39And so, uh, during the, uh, the reign of, uh, Ramses, I got a, so it moved around a little

20:46bit.

20:47Um, if you date it in the 1300s or the 1400s, it's going to be, um, in different areas,

20:55high Ramses is a city that was, uh, built, uh, as a new capital for, uh, for Ramses.

21:01And that's in the Goshen area.

21:03So that's like Eastern Nile, uh, Delta region.

21:06And that's a, that's a city that is mentioned in the book.

21:10Yes.

21:11That they built that they built this, um, this city, uh, when they were enslaved.

21:18And also none of this is taking place during a period when they were building pyramids and

21:24just in case anybody is trying to find a, a kind of chronological slot for all of this

21:29pyramids, they stopped building pyramids centuries before any of this happened.

21:34Yeah.

21:35So in case you want to apply this fictional, uh, story to the pyramids and imagine the Israelites

21:44building those alas, no, yes, alas, indeed not.

21:49Yeah.

21:50Um, okay.

21:51So one of the ways that we know, like we, this is presumed, we have talked on this show

21:56about how the Exodus as a, as a thing is presumed to either be based on based on a true story,

22:04but like so loosely that none of this actually applies to it, yeah, or just made up from

22:10whole cloth.

22:11Yeah.

22:12Because, because there's no archaeological evidence or, uh, or records of any kind that

22:19support any of this, except this story in the Bible.

22:22Right.

22:23There's, uh, some people sometimes will point to the Ipa where papyrus as, um, cause it's

22:28talking about talks about blood.

22:30It talks about, um, the, the poor stealing from the rich.

22:35It talks about all this stuff that, that people try to squeeze into the round hole of, of,

22:40uh, the Exodus tradition, but in addition to the fact that most scholars think the story

22:45in the Ipa where papyrus dates to several hundred years prior, uh, it doesn't fit.

22:51It's talking about societal collapse.

22:53It's talking about invasion from the outside to exploit, uh, the weakness of the society.

22:59And it's talking about the inversion of all the, the, the social hierarchy.

23:05And so, um, that people will point to that, but yeah, for the most part, there's not a

23:09place to fit this.

23:11It does feel very much like the Egyptians might have written about all of these plagues

23:17happening to them, you know, remember that time when everything went horribly for us.

23:24And then we lost two million of our slave of our labor force and they, they would have

23:31attributed it.

23:32Like people like, oh, they're not going to write about, you know, they only wrote about

23:35their wins. It's like, no, they, they wrote about their L's, but they just either said

23:41these people were mean to us or they will spin it into a W. So yeah, there would have

23:48been something about all of this happening since this would have fundamentally overturned

23:53their entire, um, social infrastructure and way of life and everything that this could

24:00not have escaped some kind of indication in the, in the material and in the literary

24:04record.

24:05And we find nothing. We find pretty smooth transition, uh, in literature, the material

24:13remains the, uh, the reigns, the succession of, uh, of rulers. It's all pretty smooth,

24:20apart from your regular intermediary periods, which, you know, you have from time to time.

24:24Yeah.

24:25I mean, I could see them not writing, you know, not recording things about nets and flies.

24:32The next one is flies or even frogs, but like all of the water turning to blood, that seems

24:38like it get written about. And then after flies, it's the livestock one. And what that,

24:45that one is hard core. That one is all of the livestock. And like you said, it's very

24:52clear that it says all of the Egyptian livestock, including horses, donkeys, camels, herds and

24:58flocks. And then only each, oh, this is what was funny. So they all die. Only the Egyptian

25:05livestock dies, not the Israelite livestock. Yeah, which made me go, well, won't the Egyptians

25:12just go and take the Israelites livestock? Like they, they're the slave owners. They

25:17would be the ones who anyway, um, but yes, all of their livestock dies. Then, uh, everybody

25:26gets all the Egyptians get festering boils on their humans and their animals, which what

25:31animals their livestock is dead. Yeah. Uh, and then what I wrote down is Thunder Hale

25:41because, uh, oh, I probably can't see that. Um, you're not thundercats, Thunder Hale,

25:47Thunder Hale. Oh, and it, I'm just going to quote, this is chapter nine. Exodus chapter

25:52nine. This is verses 15 and 16. Okay. It says, uh, indeed by now, I could have stretched

25:58out my hand. I could have stretched out my hand and struck your people or instruct you

26:04and your people with pestilence. And you would, and you would have been cut off from the earth.

26:10But this is why I have let you live to show you my power and to make my name resound through

26:17all the earth, which again, like, well, when we were talking about, even though you're

26:23not supposed to say God's name, well, okay. Fair. That's a fair point. Or a story came

26:30before that prohibition. Right. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. But also like again, this story

26:38is contained in one place only. So if that, if the point of this was to make Adonai's

26:46name resound through all the earth, it didn't work. It resounded through their culture for

26:54a long time, but like, yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and you even have, uh, you know, the, the

27:00practice of, uh, Passover is like explicitly intended to facilitate the remembrance of

27:07these, uh, events. Right. Um, but yeah, this, this is something that we see a lot. These

27:13signs and wonders are intended to so that people will know that I am Adonai or so that

27:18my name will be known. Um, and we don't find much remembrance in the historical record beyond

27:25what is in the, uh, in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, we can, you know, when you look at the,

27:30the Jewish settlements at the, the Jewish garrison at Elephantini in Egypt, there are some, some

27:36passing references to the celebration of something that sounds like the Passover, but they never

27:43talk anything about this story. Um, but yeah, it's, and then, and then you've got the additional

27:50idea that when God sets their hand to recover, uh, all of the lost tribes and bring everybody

27:57back and, and affect this grand restoration, it's going to make the story of, of God leading

28:02the Israelites out of Egypt look like, uh, uh, look pale in comparison. I can't think of

28:09a funny, uh, comparison. But, uh, you're, you're, you're vast trove of, of, uh, pop culture

28:20references has failed you. Yep. All right. So the Thunder Hale comes and the Thunder

28:26Hale destroys not just, so, and this is where this is where it says, uh, you better bring

28:32in all that livestock from the fields or it's going to be killed by the hail, which is funny

28:37because you literally just killed the livestock. Yep. Um, and this is where the hail destroys

28:45all the crops and quote, shatters the trees. Mm hmm. So now there's literally no food sources

28:54for presumably millions of people. Am I right? Like if there's no livestock, the fish are

29:00all dead, the, uh, the crops are all dead. Mm hmm. That feels bad. Yeah. This, this is

29:09pretty scorched earth. Um, there's, there's, uh, there's nothing for, uh, to keep the

29:15Egyptians alive at this point, uh, except for all the stuff that is, uh, down the street

29:21in the, uh, land of Goshen, right? All of the Israelites are hanging out. Uh, and Pharaoh

29:28again promises that he's going to let everybody go. Uh, he pinky swears, he double dog dares

29:35them to please, uh, get God to stop raining fire hail on them. There, by the way, there's

29:43fire in the hail. I don't know how that's the case. Uh, and, and so they, they, Moses

29:50says, Hey, God, let up. And then a Pharaoh's heart, uh, heart gets hardened yet again,

29:57cause we still have more, more things we got to do. Now we got locusts, which by this point,

30:04who cares about locusts? You know what I mean? Like it feels like after all of this stuff,

30:09it's like, Oh, bugs again. Okay. Oh, bugs we can eat this time. Right. Oh, thank you.

30:16Yeah. But the bugs eat all of the remaining crops, which, uh, I guess, I guess the stocks

30:23on the ground or whatever. So yeah. And then a wind blows them all into the red sea, um,

30:29with, with, and you can help me with this one. I, a footnote that says, or sea of reeds.

30:36Uh, yeah, the red sea is a misnomer. Um, and it probably comes from the fact that, uh,

30:44in ancient Greek, they referred to this as the red sea. Uh, that's not what it says in

30:50the Hebrew. Uh, yam suf means sea of reeds. Um, and so in the Greek, some people think

30:57red, uh, they use like colors for cardinal directions. And so some people think that,

31:03uh, this was like the, the seat of the south or something like that, but there, there's

31:08just this name, Red Sea from Greek. And so we have taken to calling it the Red Sea after

31:14the Greek, uh, but in Hebrew and the, in the Hebrew Bible here, it's yam suf. Okay. So

31:19we assume that's referring to the same sea. Yeah. Most, most people are pretty sure it's

31:23the same sea. There's some people who think, ah, it's a different sea. Um, but yeah. Um,

31:29most people agree. It's the same one. Okay. Uh, and the sea of reeds was also what Moses

31:35ends up partying later on. Is that correct? Okay. Um, ninth plague is, uh, three days

31:42of darkness, which, uh, which would be annoying. That would be a problem. Yeah. Well, it's

31:49not, it's not like they're living in Northern Alaska. Right. It's like a six months of darkness.

31:55That's right. Yeah. So, and then we get to, uh, the grand finale, uh, which is, you referred

32:05to Passover before, this is the great plague. This is, uh, Israelites, uh, put, mark their

32:12doors with, with, uh, sheep's blood and everybody else, the first born of their, uh, of their

32:22household is killed. And not just people, the first born of their livestock, which there

32:28is no more livestock, but even then if you happen to get a livestock back, now the first

32:35born of your livestock is also killed. Get a livestock back. You went into, uh, to the

32:43store and said, give me a livestock. I need all of my livestock were killed. I need at

32:49least one. Give me a livestock. So, and there's a, there's an interesting thing. We, we haven't

32:56really talked about the Akkadah, uh, on the show. We talked about the sacrifice of Isaac.

33:00I don't know. Oh, you know, we need to. I don't know if we have cause there's an interesting

33:06thing going on here. Um, one of the things that, that some scholars think the sacrifice

33:09of Isaac, that story is doing is something that this story might be doing as well. It

33:14might be coming up with a, an explanation for why we have, we seem to have this command

33:22to sacrifice the firstborn child. Um, because in, in the end of, uh, after this story, there's

33:30going to be this idea that, uh, I, you know, I killed all the first born children and the

33:34first born livestock of Egypt. And so now in remembrance of that, you're, you're supposed

33:39to sacrifice your first born, but not really, you're actually supposed to redeem them. And

33:44then you're the, the first born of your livestock, you're also supposed to sacrifice except for

33:48certain among them, you're supposed to redeem them as well. And so for some folks, this is

33:53an attempt to create kind of a narrative background and etiology for this weird part of exodus

34:01that says sacrifice your first born, uh, children. So that might be going on in the background

34:07here. It's, it's woven in pretty intricately, if that is the case, but, uh, but yeah, the

34:13idea is that the death of this lamb and in Genesis, uh, 21 and 22, there's a ram that

34:20gets sacrificed in place of Isaac here. The lamb gets sacrificed, uh, as a replacement

34:26for the first born. Um, so in that sense, it's, it's reflecting, uh, things from other

34:32other parts of the Pentateuch. All right. Well, there you go. That's, uh, there's some plagues

34:38for you, a little bit of plague talk for anyone who, who wanted it. Uh, I, it's a crazy story.

34:47It is that would not be a fun time. And also, yeah, I think I don't feel like Adonai comes

34:53over, comes off great. Uh, in this whole story, like in all of the Exodus story, Adonai is

35:00the one who keeps, he's his own antagonist. He's the one that keeps hardening the heart

35:06of Pharaoh. He's the one that keeps making it, like you said, he's just causing drama.

35:12Mm hmm. And, and you, you see this in a few different places and even that one of the

35:19other explanations for that commandment, sacrifice, firstborn child, what we see in Ezekiel, Ezekiel

35:2420 versus 25 and 26, Ezekiel's like, yeah, you guys were just so stubborn and hard, hard

35:29at God was like, you want to sacrifice something, I'll give you something to sacrifice, sacrifice

35:33firstborn children. And, and the, like Ezekiel represents the point as he just wants to show

35:39you who's boss and he just wants to, you know, decimate you basically and punish you. And

35:46so there is kind of a vindictive streak in a lot of the, the traditions regarding Adonai

35:51and, and Adonai's, um, desire to show off, um, to, uh, to make sure everybody knows their

35:59name, uh, and by intentionally hardening some, hardening somebody's heart. So a lot of the

36:06free, free will folks, when they get into this part of the Bible, uh, are finding themselves

36:11having to, uh, engage in all kinds of mental gymnastics to make this fit the notion that

36:15God respects free will, because, yeah, because here God's like, ooh, you know what? I got

36:19an idea. I'm going to put on a show and, um, to do it, I need to kill a bunch of people

36:25and I need to ensure that Pharaoh does not, uh, undermine my, uh, my drama. Yeah. Yeah.

36:34Yeah. Because one plague could have been plenty. Yeah. I mean, that first plague, the water

36:39into blood. Yeah. That, that should have been more than enough. Yeah. Pharaoh could have

36:44been like, Oh, you're serious serious. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Do you think I really liked

36:50that water? So my bad off you off you go. Yeah. All right. Uh, let's move on. We're going

36:56to do, we're, we're, we invented a new category of our, of our segments to for this one. We're

37:02going to call this one artifacts and fiction. So, uh, there is an artifact. There is a thing.

37:14We know that it exists and that is the shroud of Turin. Mm hmm. And it is a just to just

37:25as a description so that I mean, most people probably know what it is, but just so that

37:29just quickly, we are talking about a long piece of fabric, uh, sort of, uh, kind of

37:37a burlap-y sort of weave. Yeah. I think, uh, that was that has in it an image that looks

37:46like a bearded man in, uh, with, with like sort of a ruddy red color. Uh, yeah. So it's,

37:56it's pretty faded. It's, it's really, really long. And if it's a really, uh, long rectangular

38:02piece of, piece of cloth with some holes in it, but if you folded it in half, then, um,

38:08you have the front and the back of image of the, this person. Right. Um, and it's supposed

38:15to be the, the shroud that was used to bury Jesus, uh, supposed to be, I think you mean

38:21it was the shroud in which Jesus was buried because a whole bunch of ticktockers have

38:28been saying lately. That's exactly what it is. And we know it for a fact. Yes. It has

38:35been reported recently that scientists have confirmed the authenticity of the shroud.

38:41Now by the time this episode comes out, I don't know how dead this story will be, but

38:45at the moment, there have been several days of prominence, social media personalities,

38:51it's going to be going strong. So hope, so refer people to this episode as needed.

39:00So, um, there are a lot of reporting that scientists have confirmed this through, through

39:07new tests. Um, but I just want to briefly cover the origins of the shroud of Turin because

39:14the first time it pops up in the historical record is in 1356 in a town in France, where

39:21it, the, our first records of it are all rejections of its authenticity. People saying, hey,

39:28there's somebody going around with this fake relic, uh, trying to pass it off as real.

39:33In fact, a bishop of this town, um, in France in 1389, wrote to Pope Clement the seventh

39:41saying that, uh, this thing has been a part of a faith healing scam in which people were

39:47hired to pretend to be sick. And then once the shroud was brought to them or they were

39:52brought to the shroud, they would suddenly pop up and hey, I can walk again and they

39:59have, they have been healed. And according to this letter that was written to Pope Clement

40:04the seventh after a thorough investigation, they found the artist who created it and he

40:12admitted to having painted it. What 1389? So a mere 33 years after the first ever reference

40:22to the shroud of Turin, we have people said, yeah, it's a fake. We know who faked it.

40:27They admitted faking it. Oh, wow. However, it makes its way to Turin where it has become

40:35cemented in, in the, uh, in the lore. Uh, so, uh, Turin is, is Turino, Italy. Yeah. Yeah.

40:44So, um, there have been tests run on this thing, uh, for years and in 2019 and then again in

40:542022, there were a team of Italian scientists who published a couple of papers in an open

40:59access journal called Heritage. Um, and the 2019 paper was called X-ray dating of ancient

41:06linen fabrics. And then the 2022 paper was called X-ray dating of a Turin shrouds linen

41:12sample. And they're engaged in something called wide angle X-ray scattering, uh, which is,

41:20uh, that sounds very sciency. It is very sciency, but it is new sciency. Um, it is something

41:27that has not been, this is the, these are the first actual publications of attempts to

41:31use this to date fabric. And so it is an innovative means of testing and it has not been well

41:39established. It's just these two papers. And what they're suggesting is look, we got the,

41:44we got some fabric that was, uh, found at Masada. So we can date very securely this fabric to

41:51the first century CE. Okay. And then we're, we're doing this wide angle, um, X-ray scattering

41:58analysis on that fabric and then this fabric and other pieces of fabric. And we're going

42:02to try to basically calibrate this, this way of testing it. And, and they claim that the

42:08results from the, uh, shrouded Turin are consistent with 2000 year old fabric. Although, and here's

42:15the part that, that baffles me. They suggest that the, the results only work if the shroud

42:23has been kept in an environment with a temperature that averages between 68 and 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

42:30Okay. Which is not the Eastern Mediterranean. Right. Uh, you get degrees much lower than

42:38that, particularly during the night and during the day and during certain, during certain

42:42periods of the year, temperatures much, much higher than that. Right. Um, and so there

42:48are going to be criticisms of these papers, but it's these papers that people are suddenly

42:53in the year of our Lord 2024 becoming aware of and saying new, new science just dropped

43:00that has proven that it is authentic when it's really just this claim that, Hey, this new

43:05kind of testing could, um, suggest that 2000 years old, even if that testing was a hundred

43:13percent accurate, the most that it would be capable of doing is telling us that that is

43:20is telling us a date for that fabric. That's still, that still doesn't get us anywhere

43:27near. This was definitely the thing that Jesus himself was buried in. And, and there are

43:33a bunch of problems with even that because this fabric is a particular kind of weave,

43:38a herringbone weave that requires a specific kind of loom, unless you're doing it by hand,

43:46running a little shuttle back and forth by hand, um, which is not something that they

43:51did 2000 years ago, uh, for long pieces of fabric. This particular weave was not done.

43:57Yeah. And that particular type of loom was not, um, existing 2000 years ago. It was very

44:05common in the 14th century, though. Um, and are you denying the miracle of the loomed

44:11weave fabric? I am suggesting that the data do not support the antiquity of this. Um,

44:19and, and there are a bunch of other things. Uh, I saw the daily mail like posted of video

44:24about sciences have come to a chilling discovery. Um, and then like two days later, they did

44:30another video as like scientists have arrived at another chilling discovery. And then they

44:34shared this, this, um, they said scientists looked at the blood, the blood stains that

44:39were evidently on the fabric and they determined that they had, uh, the owner of that blood

44:47had suffered from severe trauma, had been tortured. And, um, how do you determine that

44:54from the blood? Uh, well, they suggested the, um, there were certain chemicals and, and

45:00things like that, that, uh, the blood reacted a certain way that usually happens when there

45:05is some kind of torture going on, just like, I am out of cortisol or something, something

45:10like that. The, and what the daily mail piece forgot to go look up was the fact that this

45:16was a, this is a paper that was published in 2017 and was retracted by the journal that

45:22published it shortly thereafter. Uh, the, the editors commented concerns have been raised

45:28that the data presented in this article are not sufficient to support the conclusions

45:32drawn, the provenance, integrity and availability of the material used for the study have also

45:37been questioned. Uh, and then they go on to say that, uh, they're concerned that there

45:41are not sufficient controls to support conclusions referring to human blood or site physical

45:45trauma. Uh, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thus we consider the main conclusions of the article

45:50are not sufficiently supported. So those scientists who published that study in 2017,

45:57most of those are the same scientists who published the studies in 2019 and 2022. And

46:01here we are shocked. Shocked. I tell you, indeed. Um, so the, the chilling discovery

46:07is actually just a chilling misrepresentation of, uh, of the science. Yeah. Now it's so

46:14weird to me because even if all of the nonsense that has been presented about this turned

46:23out to be true, it's still not evidence of what they're claiming its evidence of. Yeah.

46:30Like it's you, you know, if you, if you can find that, I mean, I, I did a TikTok live

46:36fairly recently and someone, you know, I was chatting with somebody and she was a very sweet

46:41person, but was like this, they even tested the blood and it was the same blood type as

46:47Jesus. And I said, how, how do you know what Jesus's blood type is? Where is that somewhere

46:56buried in Matthew? And it's like, and lo the Lord was own negative. What are we talking

47:01about? Yeah. Yeah. There, there's an awful lot that, that is riding on faith, which is,

47:08which is an interesting part of this because you have, uh, they're, Oh, what do they call

47:12them? Oh, I don't think they call them authenticists, but they, they have a, some of the scientists

47:18who work on this kind of stuff, they have a, a label for the folks who are dogmatically

47:23committed to the authenticity of the shroud. And like one of the people who worked on one

47:27of those studies from 2019, 2022 and 2017, like claimed in an interview that they had

47:33personal revelation in the nineties, while they were standing in front of the shroud,

47:39that it was authentic. And it's like you can't, you can't reason with that level of commitment

47:44to that dogma. You can not reason with that. No, no, sure. Do you? I mean, like at that

47:49point, just admit that this is a, this is a faith belief. Right. And don't worry about

47:56proving it. Just, uh, just keep believing it. Yeah. And then, uh, in 1988, there was radio

48:02carbon testing done on, uh, they took a patch from the, or I don't want to say patch because

48:09people are, I'll get to the reason why, but they took a piece of the shroud and they divided

48:15it up into a bunch of different pieces and sent it away to three different laboratories

48:20for radiocarbon dating. And this was all blind. None of the laboratories knew what the other

48:26laboratories were doing. They all come up with roughly the same result. This dates to the

48:33mid 1200s to the late 1300s CE. Okay. And was the first time that anyone ever mentioned

48:40the shroud of Turin in the mid 1300s CE. So medieval production. Right. And immediately

48:48afterwards, of course, you have a bunch of people crying foul that they did it all wrong.

48:52And that, oh, um, and there was one, um, person who published a study suggesting that the

49:00radio carbon dating had actually come from a patch that had been sewn into the shroud

49:07that was of medieval production. Okay. But if you go read the 1988 paper where they talk

49:13about the radio carbon dating, they're like, we took this piece from just this part of

49:18the shroud that was not near any patches. Right. And the claim is that this was a patch

49:24that was so expertly woven into the shroud that it is impossible to detect with the naked

49:31eye. So it's an invisible patch. Right. But it's of medieval production unlike the rest

49:39of the shroud. And but then there there've been studies done more recently than that that

49:44have said, no, we've re looked at all of this stuff. And the argument that they're using

49:48for how this can be a patch, uh, doesn't fit the data. So they're you're going to have

49:53back and forth until the earth crashes into the sun or the sun engulfs the earth, whichever

49:59happens first. Um, there's going to be back and forth about this because this is a matter

50:05of dogma. This is not, uh, a matter of critical thinking, a rational thought for some folks,

50:15which, if, yeah, I mean, the thing that myths me, I guess about things like this is that

50:21when you is that if they just leave it in the realm of this is a dogma that we that we believe.

50:28That's one thing. But when they themselves are like, we are going to venture into the

50:33realm of scientific evidence, we're going to try to prove this to be true scientifically.

50:41And then they refuse to acknowledge what the science actually says. That's very frustrating.

50:49Yeah. Don't don't come into somebody else's garden. And then, and then, you know, claim

50:55that it's not what it is. It's your, if you're going to venture into that realm, you have

51:00to acknowledge what you discover.

51:04And that's, that's where the cries of persecution ring hollow. Like if you're going to, if you're

51:10going to start talking about scientific data, uh, and you're going to start trying to prove

51:16all of this stuff. Um, yeah, you're going to be criticized for it because you are in,

51:20in another person, you're in the realm of scientific inquiry. Um, there's a, there's

51:26another, uh, scientist, Luigi, uh, Garla skelly, I think his name is, uh, is pronounced

51:33he and some other scientists have done a few different, um, analyses on this. They looked

51:37at the blood. So there's supposed to be some blood stains, uh, on the, on the shroud,

51:43uh, showed that tested how blood would drip and flow, uh, with the arms and various orientations

51:50and showed that, uh, whoever this was here, that blood, um, could not have flowed the

51:57way it did with them laying down. They had to have been standing upright for that blood

52:02to flow the way they did. And they also pointed out there, there is blood that is like flowing

52:08on top of hair and they're like, blood does not flow over hair. If you have an injured

52:16scalp, the blood just mats, yeah. But when you look at the, at the, um, at the shroud,

52:22you see curly little, um, rivulets of, of blood flowing across the top of hair. Um, so it

52:31is, it is very clearly a, a product of the 14th century or maybe the late 13th century

52:38in artistic work. Um, we have the thing that, the thing that almost nobody is talking about.

52:45I never see anybody say this. Maybe they do. And I just haven't heard it. I just haven't

52:50come across it. Is that it's not very well rendered. It doesn't, like proportionally,

52:56it doesn't look correct for a human face. Correct. Yeah. It's not the right proportions

53:02for a person. Right. And it's, uh, the head is too small for the body. Right. The, uh,

53:08it shows the feet laying flat. Oh, not, not upright. Laying flat, which you cannot do without

53:16at least a 90 degree bend in your knees, which is not what happened. But, and there are so

53:21many other problems with it. Like if you, the hands are covering up the genitals conveniently,

53:27but if you lay flat and cover, cover yourself with your hands and then you just go limp,

53:34your, your hands separate because your elbows fall to the floor. That is not a natural position.

53:39And the, the one of the hands is grotesquely longer than, uh, than the others, uh, or the

53:44other. And, and it also doesn't fit historically, uh, according to the practice of the time

53:50period, a dead body, the first thing that would have happened to it as they prepared

53:53it for burial before they wrapped it in any kind of shroud would have been to clean the

53:57body, clean off all the blood. And then they would have applied all kinds of, uh, oils

54:03and, um, and things to it. And then they would have wrapped it in some, a few layers of,

54:09uh, a very thin fabric. And then they would have put a shroud over top of it. So it doesn't

54:14fit historically, uh, either. They're, they're far too many problems with this for, um, for

54:20it to be continued to be taken seriously. And, and some people have said, Oh, well, uh,

54:26no one has ever been able to root produce it. Also false, right? The guy, the, this guy,

54:32uh, Garla Skelly, he was like, Oh, I can do it. And showed that if you take, um, there

54:38was a, uh, back in the, the 80s, one of the guys who was invited to be on the little

54:42team of the shroud scientists who was the pioneer of microscopic analysis was like,

54:48Oh, there's no blood anywhere on this shroud. This is all red ochre and vermilion and things

54:53like that is paint. Yeah. And it is, it is deteriorated. And what's left is just the,

54:58um, uh, chemical etching on the fabric of this, of this chemical sitting on it for

55:05centuries, but this other guy was like, Oh, so let's just take some red ochre, some

55:08vermilion and some other stuff. And we're going to lay a piece of fabric over top of

55:13a bar relief showing this face. And I'm going to do kind of a rubbing with this ink and

55:19then he stuck it in an oven for a little while to try to simulate centuries of, of

55:23wear and tear and everything. And then washed the paint off and showed that the, just having

55:29the paint on there, uh, baked to simulate that aging actually created an image on the fabric

55:37that the paint was gone, but that chemical etching remained and was like, this is how

55:42it was done. I have a question. Uh, what blood type was the red ochre?

55:48Uh, um, I'm trying to think of, uh, of paint, uh, brands and I can't think of any of the

55:56top of my shirt when Williams, uh, well, I guess, I, you know, it's, I, I, I referenced

56:04it earlier, but it does, it does, I want to reiterate it. I don't know why I got into

56:11a, a little bit of a, you know, our friend, friend of the show, David Burnett, uh, posted

56:18on Facebook, I think about enough with the shroud of Turin already and somebody piped

56:21in and was like, cause he's like, there's no evidence for it. And somebody's like, do

56:26you mean no evidence as in zero? Other than the fact it clearly just displays the imprint

56:32of a man who suffered in a way consistent with the manner, uh, Jesus death was described

56:38in the God. And I thought, yeah, okay. It, that's what we see there. But Jesus is not

56:47the only person that could possibly have suffered in that way. Like, yeah, people need to be

56:52better about understanding what something is evidence for. And, and you know, if you

56:58were going to fake something like this, you would try to make it match the story that

57:04you're trying to write. Yeah. If I'm, if I'm a guy who's walking around with an artifact,

57:10trying to tell people that they can have faith healings because of it, I'm going to try

57:14to make it look a lot like Jesus's shroud would look. I'm going to put things, holes

57:19in the hands. I'm going to put, you know, crown of thorn blood on the head. I'm not,

57:25yeah, you're going to, that's exactly what you would do. And the, and the, I don't know

57:30if you've seen this as well, but there's been in response to the, you know, science has

57:37proven the authenticity of the shroud. Somebody used AI to try to recreate what Jesus would

57:44have looked like based on the shroud. And it's, it's white European Jesus. Right. From,

57:49from the medieval European arts world. And it's no coincidence that the Jesus on the

58:00shroud happens to match the depiction of Jesus, including the artistic styles that were in

58:06Vogue during the time period that the shroud suddenly popped up on the scene. Like that's

58:13what we would expect. But yeah. As, as I am, won't to say on my social media channels,

58:19learn to think critically and Google competently. That's right. And you can free yourself from

58:28the grips of these dogmas. And, and you'll learn an awful lot of cool stuff along the

58:33way too. I think that's a great place to close this out. Yep. A good final message. Uh, get

58:40out there and, and, and critically thinking Google and competently Google everybody. And

58:46we, uh, that, that'll be it for the show. If you would like to help make our show go and

58:53in so doing get yourself access to an early and ad free version of every episode as well

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59:14at dataoverdogmapod.com. And we'll talk to you again next week. Bye everybody.

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