Ep 80: Omni Everything?

00:00- Oh, but what if I want that kind of guy?

00:03Oh, yeah, yeah, that's how God is.

00:04- Go ahead, sure, sure, yeah.

00:06Look, I'm not gonna tell you, no.

00:08- Yeah.

00:08- What's it gonna take to put you into a God today?

00:11(laughing)

00:12(upbeat music)

00:14- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:18- And I'm Dan Beecher.

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

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

00:25of the Bible and religion and combat the spread

00:27of misinformation about the same.

00:30- How are things, Dan?

00:32- Things are good.

00:33We got big things shaken on this week's show.

00:37This week's show is where we're tackling

00:40some of the grand concepts.

00:43- Some of the big issues.

00:45- Yes, man.

00:46- So to speak, all right.

00:47- So coming up, we're gonna start with a what is that,

00:51which in this case, it's three what is that,

00:56which are omnipotence, omniscience, and omni...

01:01- Presence.

01:02- Presence, omni benevolence, omni, everything.

01:05As many omni's as you can come up with,

01:07we're gonna talk about 'em.

01:09And is the God of the Bible those things?

01:14- Omni all those things, yes.

01:17- Omni those?

01:18We don't know, we'll get to that.

01:20And then for our chapter and verse,

01:23we're gonna dive into Acts 15

01:26and you're gonna explain something that I didn't understand

01:29when I tried to read it.

01:30- Just two verses, Acts 15, verse 16 and verse 17,

01:35but yeah.

01:35- Okay, well then why'd I read the whole chapter, Dan?

01:39- Because you're a go-getter.

01:40You need the context, and we'll talk more about that

01:44when we get there.

01:45- But for now, let's dive into what is that?

01:48- All right, what is that?

01:52So yeah, it's these concepts that are at this point,

01:56just assumed and synonymous with the idea

02:01of the God of the Bible.

02:04The idea of omnipotence, which would be all powerful.

02:09- Yes.

02:11- Omniscience, all knowing, and omni presence means

02:14everywhere at all times sort of thing.

02:17- Yes.

02:18- They feel as fundamental as concepts about God can be.

02:23They feel just inextricable from the idea

02:33of our understanding of God.

02:36But it may not have always been that way.

02:39So maybe we should, let's talk about these ideas,

02:43where they come from, and sort of you had some thoughts

02:48that you wanted to sort of start us out with.

02:50- Yeah, I think all three of these concepts have roots

02:54in certain features of deity concepts

02:57that are observed within the cognitive science of religion.

03:01Because in the cognitive science of religion,

03:03deity concepts arrive or arise initially

03:08because of the perception of agency in the world around us.

03:11And we attribute agency and intention to things

03:14that we don't know about, don't understand.

03:16Or kind of initially if something suddenly happens,

03:21the kind of intuitive first place our minds go

03:24is to some intentional agent.

03:27- And someone saw, if someone saw an asteroid

03:30crashing into the ground, they would assume

03:32that someone or something threw it or made that happen.

03:37- Yeah, in the most fundamental deepest roots of our mind,

03:42that's where we're going to first be led.

03:45If you're in the middle of the night, you hear a crash.

03:48The first thing is, oh my gosh, what is that?

03:50And then maybe your reflective cognition is like,

03:53that's the air conditioner kicking on,

03:55or that's the thing you left precariously perched

03:58on the counter in the bathroom, you idiot.

04:00The reflective cognition can overrule the intuitive cognition.

04:06But built into our intuitive cognition,

04:10and it only bubbles to the surface in certain instances,

04:13is the perception that there is agency,

04:16there are agents out in the world around us,

04:18we're very sensitive to their presence.

04:20- So not just what is that when the crash happens,

04:23but actually like who is that?

04:25- Yeah, this is something that goes back to,

04:28even before humans evolved, was just a concern

04:32for protecting ourself and so a hypersensitivity

04:35to the presence of agents around us

04:38is very critical to survival.

04:40The primate that first assumed the wrestling

04:44in the bushes was something that might have teeth

04:47and be focused on them, generally survived long enough

04:50to pass on their genes, more than the primate

04:55that initially thought it was just the wind.

04:57- Right.

04:58- So there is an upside to this.

05:01And because there's no real ceiling to our sensitivity

05:06to agency in the world around us,

05:08there's not a point at which it threatens our survival.

05:11We can be phenomenally sensitive.

05:13And this is why horror movies make you feel

05:16like there's somebody in the dark shadows of the corner

05:20and in the dark basement when you're running up the steps

05:23a little more hastily than you normally would.

05:26But these are things that are going on

05:29on an individual level.

05:30But once stories start to be created

05:33about these alternative realities

05:36with these unseen agents that are occupying them,

05:39then it moves to a social level.

05:41And there we develop rituals,

05:44which are interactions with each other

05:46and with these unseen agents in order to facilitate

05:49the favorable relationship with them

05:52and all this kind of stuff.

05:54But one of the things that develops with these deity concepts

05:57is or one of the reasons they become very salient

06:01on like a broader social level, like a national level,

06:04like why one of these entities might become like

06:07a patron deity or a national deity or a large scale deity

06:11is because they are perceived to be able to do some things

06:15that are helpful on a pro-social level.

06:18And so one of those things is monitoring.

06:22If you have an unseen agent who can monitor,

06:26they can more effectively ensure

06:28that people are not free riding.

06:31So if you have certain social expectations,

06:33certain social mores and standards,

06:35you want the people to live up to those standards.

06:39If there is an unseen agent who might be at any point

06:42in time monitoring you, then that is useful

06:47as a means of enforcing those social mores.

06:51And particularly if that unseen agent

06:53also has the capacity to punish in some way, shape or form.

06:58deity concepts are also useful and are widespread

07:04because deities frequently are perceived to have access

07:07to what we call strategic information.

07:12That is not necessarily all information,

07:15but to any information that might be useful to us

07:18for planning, for acting.

07:21All of these things are anything that might influence

07:24decisions that we make.

07:26- So this could be like when to plant the crops

07:29or when to. - When to plant the crops, yeah.

07:31If we're gonna invade,

07:32if we're gonna go out to battle against these people.

07:35- Yeah, it will be successful.

07:37- Yeah, if we should engage in this arranged marriage

07:40with this other nation, like there are all kinds of things

07:43where we want information that we don't have.

07:47And we even see this in the case of like ordeals.

07:49We need to know if this person killed this other person,

07:52we don't have evidence, we're leaving it up to the God,

07:54they will know and then they will engage in the punishment.

07:58And so we count on a deity to have all access

08:02to strategic information.

08:04This is not omniscience because it only bubbles

08:08to the surface when it's needed.

08:11So initially it's just like, well, can the deity do this?

08:15Yeah, the deity should be able to do this.

08:17We need this as strategic information

08:19the deity can do this.

08:21And you see these kinds of things going on in the Bible,

08:26the way the God of the Bible is represented.

08:28They are somebody who monitors.

08:30They are somebody who has full access

08:33to strategic information.

08:35They are somebody who can punish.

08:37And they're also somebody who can do what needs to be done.

08:42If a deity is understood to be able to act in the world,

08:45then there are needs that humans have that they can't fulfill

08:50on their own that they might outsource to the deity

08:54and count on them to be able to fulfill.

08:57And usually this has to do with competition

09:00for goods or resources or protection or conquest,

09:05things like that.

09:06These are all things where deities frequently

09:09in the history of human civilization

09:12have been appealed to in order to get the job done.

09:16And then they get praised for their ability

09:19to get the job done.

09:20And in sort of multi deity civilizations,

09:25ancient Greece or whatever,

09:28you could have a deity that was specific

09:31to one sort of thing.

09:32So this deity is about protecting us in this scenario

09:36and giving us this specific kind of information.

09:39And if we want this specific information, we go to this other guy

09:42or whatever.

09:43- Right. Yeah, exactly.

09:44So you have, you know, if you go to ancient Egypt,

09:46you've got a God of bricks.

09:48So, you know, the brick guild,

09:51the brick making guild is very concerned

09:53for making sure that deity is appeased.

09:57And yeah, you have different deities

10:00that have some degree of sovereignty

10:01over some constituent element of the universe

10:05and it's functioning.

10:07And you always wanted to ensure that

10:09the cycles always were functioning appropriately

10:14so that the river could flood,

10:15so that the crops could grow,

10:17so that the defense of the cities was successful,

10:21so that conquests of other cities were successful.

10:23All kinds of different ways that the deities

10:25were involved in the success of a given civilization.

10:29But it was also all situationally emergent.

10:33These were things that happened as the need arise.

10:37Arised, arose.

10:38Oh man, it's been had arisen.

10:42- Yeah, and so we see this kind of stuff in the Bible.

10:46So for instance, there's a story of Akhan,

10:50who was the one who in the book of Joshua,

10:54they were supposed to have destroyed all of the goods

10:58in this town that they destroyed

11:01and Akhan decided to take some and, you know,

11:04got a little bit of a five finger discount

11:06on some of the goods.

11:08And then they failed the next city they attacked

11:11and Joshua was like,

11:12I don't understand what's going on.

11:13And God's like, well, one of your guys turns out,

11:18he took something.

11:20And so what they do is they line up all of the tribes

11:24and the families and everything,

11:26and then they whittle everything down

11:28and God is the one who identifies Akhan

11:31as the one who absconded with the goods

11:34that were supposed to be dedicated to harem.

11:38And then the earth opens up and swallows Akhan, and...

11:42- That'll happen.

11:43- Punah. - No, you don't want to steal

11:45the stuff that God tells you not to steal.

11:47It's just not, you're gonna get swallowed by the earth.

11:50- But that's a perfect illustration of this thing

11:53that we see in society after society

11:56that has these unseen agents functioning as deities.

11:59They are there, they are monitoring to ensure

12:02that people are not free riding,

12:04which means they are taking the benefits

12:07of living within a society,

12:08but not putting out what is expected.

12:12They're not living up to the standards.

12:15And so Akhan was a free rider

12:17and the deity used their capacity to monitor

12:21in order to call out the person

12:22who otherwise would have gotten away with it

12:24without anyone knowing, and then the deity punished.

12:28So in that story is kind of the quintessential patron deity

12:34doing what patron deities do.

12:36But you also see the God of the Bible represented

12:40as unable to do things,

12:43and as not knowing certain things.

12:46- Yeah. - And as being absent from places.

12:49- Yeah, that's always stood out to me.

12:52You look in the story of Adam and Eve in the garden

12:56and they eat the apple or they eat the fruit

13:01and then God comes in and is like, what happened?

13:05Why are you guys just like that?

13:06And that was always-- - Why are you hiding?

13:11- What's happening? - Yeah.

13:12- Which feels very much against the idea

13:16of an all-knowing God.

13:18- Yeah, because one, God doesn't know what's going on here.

13:22And God is like, did you eat from the tree

13:25of which I pretty explicitly told you not to eat?

13:30So there are multiple questions there.

13:33Did you eat this fruit?

13:33Where are you?

13:35And also the fact that they run and hide, why?

13:39Because they hear God's footsteps in the garden.

13:44- Which is not omnipresence.

13:46- Right, it does localize him.

13:49- Yes, that is an entity that is restricted

13:51to a specific point in time and space.

13:55And also they have feet and weight

13:58and make noise walking around in the garden.

14:02And so this represents God as not omniscient,

14:06not omnipresent.

14:08And I think to a degree, if you're not omniscient,

14:12then you're also not omnipotent.

14:15I think there's a degree to which

14:18there's some overlap there.

14:19But anyway, there are other places where God is not omnipotent.

14:23For instance, in the first chapter of the book of Judges,

14:26God is gonna go out and fight a battle for the people of Judah.

14:31And then the text says that they failed in a specific battle

14:38and it just says he and it's not clear

14:42if it's referring to Judah or to God, but irrespective,

14:46because God is supposed to be fighting their battles for them,

14:49if Judah fails, that means God failed to deliver us,

14:53as promised.

14:55And why? It was because the people they were fighting

14:58had chariots, had iron chariots.

15:01And so it sounds an awful lot like God was unable

15:04to deliver in that story.

15:07And we've talked on the podcast about another story

15:10where God loses home court advantage

15:13and loses the game right in second Kings chapter three

15:17when God promises the Israelite Judahite,

15:20Edomite coalition victory when they invade Moab to try

15:25to extract the necessary funds from King Maysha,

15:30who was thrown off vassalage, and they fail.

15:34And it seems in the story because of that it's because

15:37of the intervention of the Moabite patron deity, Kemosh.

15:42So God is not all powerful in a few different places

15:47in the text.

15:48Even though God is represented in certain places

15:51as knowing everything that's going to come,

15:55for instance, there's a part in the book of Isaiah

15:59where God challenges the gods of the other nations

16:03to tell us what is to come so that we may know

16:05that you are gods.

16:07In other words, demonstrate that you have full access

16:10to strategic information that you can divine the future

16:13because God is supposed to be able to do that.

16:17But it's limited and it's spotty.

16:20And so again, you have situationally emergent situations

16:23where it is rhetorically useful to assert that God

16:26can do whatever needs to be done,

16:28that God knows whatever needs to be known

16:31and that God can be in whatever places they need to be.

16:35And you have things like, there's nowhere I can hide

16:38from God, which doesn't necessarily mean that God

16:41is in all places at the same time.

16:44It means that God has access to all places.

16:47There's nowhere you can go where God does not have access.

16:51There's nothing you can hide that God can't find.

16:53But an interesting thing happens

16:57after the Bible has been written

17:00and it is not univocal.

17:02There are a bunch of different perspectives.

17:03There are writers who thought it was rhetorically useful

17:06to have God represented as not knowing something.

17:09There are writers who think it is rhetorically useful

17:11to represent God as being limited in time and space.

17:14God's God, people leave God's presence.

17:17God leaves other people's presence.

17:19God is represented as having a existence

17:22in a specific point in time and space

17:23throughout the majority of the Hebrew Bible.

17:26And after the Bible,

17:28as later generations are negotiating with the text,

17:32I think what we get is a rhetorical kind of one-upmanship.

17:36Every time there's some other deity that does better,

17:39you got to say, oh, well, our God is better than this.

17:42And you see the rhetoric of incomparability

17:44in different places in the Bible

17:45who can compare to our God, no one, that's who.

17:49And even the name Michael Mikhail means who is like God.

17:54And the answer is ain't nobody.

17:57That's their middle name.

18:00And so you have this rhetoric

18:05that is constantly amplifying God's ability to know,

18:09God's ability to access locations,

18:12God's ability to accomplish things.

18:14And so it keeps getting amplified

18:17until you reach a superlative degree.

18:21And I think this is something that happens

18:23in some places within the more philosophically oriented

18:27layers of the Bible, which basically means

18:29the things written during or after the Greco-Roman period.

18:33And primarily in the New Testament, for instance,

18:36I think you have in 1 John 3.20,

18:39the statement, he knows everything.

18:42Genosci-Panta, which just means he knows all things,

18:47which is obviously rhetorical,

18:50but tags that base of omniscience.

18:54- And then so there are rhetorical contexts

18:54- Right.

18:59where this idea in its most basic form is achieved,

19:04where people are saying, oh yeah, well,

19:07God knows everything, all things.

19:09And then after the Bible, you have the more philosophically

19:13oriented thinkers within Christianity and Judaism

19:15who are looking back at the Bible and negotiating with it.

19:18And they're still trying to develop a God concept

19:21that can compete.

19:23And within the Greco-Roman world,

19:25the concept of God, at least on the philosophical side

19:29of things, was the superlative of everything.

19:32The unmoved mover, the first cause,

19:35the thing that is all good and all that kind of stuff.

19:38And so because God is defined by these superlatives,

19:42God's ability to know, God's ability to be located wherever,

19:46they need to be located, God's ability to achieve things,

19:50also gets ratcheted up to a superlative degree

19:53until you get the ideas of omniscience, omnipotence,

19:58and omnipresence.

20:00But then you also obviously have people saying,

20:02well, what about can God make a stone so large

20:05that God can't lift it?

20:07You get a lot of stuff like that.

20:09Can God do the impossible?

20:12Can God lie?

20:14And these are all, these are the discussions

20:16that happen within the realm of philosophy.

20:18This is not what happens when priests are wondering

20:22if when they're gonna plant their crops.

20:25These are not the things that are happening

20:27when somebody is contemplating

20:28why bad things happen to good people.

20:31These are things that happen as people engage

20:33in philosophical, kind of dialectic,

20:37back and forth discussions.

20:39And that's overwhelmingly taking place after the Bible.

20:43And so what began as kind of fundamental tent poles

20:47of deity concepts were because of their incorporation

20:52into these philosophical discussions.

20:54They get amplified to these superlative degrees

20:58within philosophical context.

21:01And suddenly your God isn't just able to do the things

21:05that need to be done.

21:06Your God can do any and all things

21:08and even impossible things and even paradoxical things.

21:11God can do whatever.

21:12And then it's not just the God that can give you

21:15whatever strategic information you might need

21:18in any given situation.

21:20God knows all things.

21:22And it's not just a God that can access any location,

21:25can find anything, can find your missing wallet.

21:30It's a God that is located in all places.

21:34And so I think what we get is,

21:36is certain rhetorical, rhetorically useful concepts

21:41of God that are building on,

21:42innovating on, elaborating on these kind of basic ideas

21:46that then get picked up and philosophically

21:50further innovated on and elaborated on until we get to,

21:54oh, this is a deity that is omniscient,

21:56that is omnipotent, that is omnipresent.

21:58And that is the lens through which we have looked at deity

22:03ever since.

22:04And so that's why it is fundamental.

22:06It is basic, it is intuitive.

22:08It's just what a God is.

22:10(upbeat music)

22:13- It has only just now occurred to me

22:17that while I understand wanting to make God

22:22all of these things, these superlatives,

22:28and it makes sense that like, in order to make sense

22:32of the innovations later in the Bible

22:37and just sort of how to make sense of this concept of a God

22:41that you would want these superlative descriptors to apply.

22:46It also seems like you lose something

22:52when you make the God this big and powerful

22:58and it feels like the God that, you know,

23:02Old Testament, the writers of the Old Testament

23:05were writing about where it was more recognizable

23:10and understandable, was more, you know what I mean?

23:13Like there was a sense of like,

23:15it's like us, but more powerful.

23:21And the God of omniscience and omnipotence

23:25doesn't feel like us at all to me.

23:29I don't know how to relate to that in any way.

23:32- Yeah, and that's definitely a tension

23:35because one of the reasons that deity concepts are so useful,

23:40particularly on the individual level

23:42is because there is a relatability

23:44and there is an imminence that allows them to be approached

23:49in things like prayer and things like that.

23:52And so you've got a give and take

23:56between the function of the deity on an individual level

23:59and the function of the deity on a social level

24:02and even an institutional level.

24:04And so one is, you know, as one is increased

24:09the other is somewhat decreased,

24:12which is why these deity concepts need constant curation

24:17'cause as the deity is elevated further and further away

24:22from the individual, you also need to say,

24:24well, we got prayer, we can always pray.

24:27God is always accessible through prayer.

24:30And so there are traditions where we have God

24:34who has, you know, legions of angels as intermediaries,

24:38but is still accessible directly through prayer by anyone.

24:42And sometimes these concepts kind of,

24:45there's a feedback loop as well

24:47because if you want a deity that is immanent,

24:52that is relatable, that is close to you,

24:54a deity that can be in all places at the same time

24:58is there's a degree to which that's a little more intuitive.

25:02It's like, well, they're doing this thing over here

25:05for these other people, but they can also,

25:09I can also access the deity at the same time.

25:12So that's part of that curation.

25:15Part of the reason you keep getting the ratcheting up

25:18is because you're responding to concerns like these,

25:21a less relatable deity that is further away.

25:23And that's kind of what Jesus does as well

25:26because with Jesus, it's like, we got a dude, we got a guy.

25:31It's a dude, it's a man.

25:33He's tactile, he's material, he's right there.

25:37He walked among us.

25:39So in a sense, Jesus is kind of splitting the difference.

25:44Yeah, that is an interesting point, Jesus becomes,

25:49yeah, the bridge between our human sort of life

25:54and experience and this increasingly foreign God figure.

25:59Yeah, and this is why I argue that Jesus

26:07in some senses functioning as a divine image

26:10'cause that's exactly what divine images do.

26:12We got this deity way up in the heavens,

26:14but check out this rock, it looks like him.

26:18And so we're gonna talk to the rock.

26:20Now, and you know, I'm kind of being treating it

26:23in kind of a crude manner, but it's the idea

26:27of talking to a headstone.

26:28This represents the entity.

26:31It's going to channel the agency of the entity intuitively.

26:34So I'm gonna talk to it because it's here,

26:37it's in front of me, it has their name on it.

26:40And so it's going to act that way.

26:43And so, yeah, there have always been ways

26:45that humans have tried to bring the deity near

26:48and with the Reformation, we kind of went,

26:52we don't like all the material stuff.

26:55We just want the scriptures.

26:58And now the scriptures have to be the divine image.

27:02I'm gonna go commune with God.

27:04What does that mean?

27:04I'm gonna go read the scriptures.

27:06The spirit is going to be here.

27:08I can feel it when I read the scriptures.

27:10You're doing the exact same thing people did

27:12when they went to visit divine images,

27:14or the same kind of thing that the Jesus tradition

27:17functions to do.

27:18It's to bring God near, it's to make God imminent

27:21as God becomes further and further away.

27:23Right.

27:24Yeah, when I read the, especially Old Testament,

27:29depictions of the deity, you get, you know,

27:38you get anger, you get, you get all of these

27:42very human emotions from God.

27:45And the more God is represented as omniscient

27:50and omnipotent and all knowing, all of this stuff,

27:55like it becomes harder for me to reconcile these ideas

28:00of like an angry God who would visit punishment on people

28:05and who would, you know, become enraged or whatever.

28:09Like that doesn't, that doesn't square as well for me.

28:12But when, but to think about an early concept

28:16where their God wasn't omniscient and omnipotent to them,

28:21but was just more powerful than they were,

28:24then all of those ideas, then those stories

28:28start to make a lot more sense in my mind.

28:29Yeah, and here's where I think the accident

28:34of the preservation of the Bible is such a boon

28:38to the later philosophical concept of God.

28:41It's because this is the Amazon.com of religion.

28:47Oh, we got that too.

28:49Oh, you need a deity who can get mad?

28:50We got that over here.

28:51You need a deity that has no parts or passions.

28:54We got that over here.

28:56You need a deity that is concerned about, you know,

29:00your feelings, we got one of those too.

29:02God can be whatever the person needs God to be

29:07because God is represented in so many different ways.

29:10Right.

29:11And so, anciently it was like, hey, we need our God to lie

29:15through the prophet, Miciah, to the king,

29:18to deceive the king to his death and battle

29:21against the Philistines.

29:22Hey, we got one right over here who can do that.

29:25You have this utility deity

29:29who can be represented in whatever way you need him.

29:31And so, that's why we have people today who are like,

29:33oh yeah, God hates abortion.

29:35God hates, you know, members of the LGBTQIA community.

29:40They don't write that all out on their sign.

29:42They write a much shorter word.

29:44Yes.

29:45But you need a God who hates, great.

29:47We got that God too.

29:48You need a God who loves, we got that God too.

29:51But I think the fact that the Bible has been preserved

29:54in all of its multi-vocality

29:56and with all of its different conceptions of God

29:59just makes for a more utility deity,

30:02so that anybody, whatever kind of God you need,

30:06we got that kind of God.

30:08And-

30:09And all you have to do to get that kind of God

30:10is to ignore the other parts.

30:13Right, right.

30:13That are pointed in a different direction.

30:17Yeah, because every person who needs the kind of God over here,

30:21there's also a person who's like,

30:23why would you have that kind of God over there?

30:25And then you got an argument for that.

30:27Oh well, this was just metaphorical.

30:29We need some kind of way to talk about God

30:31because God is beyond all description.

30:33And you know, we'll worry about apophatic theology

30:36a little later.

30:37But anyway, these folks over here,

30:39you know, it's just a manner of speaking.

30:41They just needed to think about God in some way,

30:43so that's how they did it.

30:44Oh, but what if I want that kind of God?

30:46Oh, yeah, yeah, that's who God is.

30:47Go ahead, sure, sure, yeah.

30:49Look, I'm not going to tell you no.

30:51What's it going to take to put you into a God today?

30:51Yeah.

30:54(laughing)

30:55And so yeah, you've got the Swiss Army God

31:00who can be whatever someone needs that God to be,

31:04which is I think that this is one of the reasons

31:08that the God of the Bible has become

31:11the most common God around the world

31:14is because it's a deity that satisfies,

31:18you know, the philosophical concerns.

31:20You've got all the theologians

31:21who have, you know, developed a concept of deity

31:26that responds to all of the different, you know,

31:32criticisms and everything.

31:33And then you've also got the God

31:35who, you know, will happily kill the person

31:38you want to be killed if that's what you need.

31:43So, and omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence,

31:47those are three of the things that God became

31:51mostly after the Bible to satisfy

31:54the more philosophically oriented side of things,

31:57even though, and you know, they're happy to be like,

32:00oh, they got the cute story about God not knowing

32:04where Adam and Eve were hiding,

32:05but you know, he was, God was just playing with them.

32:08God who?

32:09He was kidding.

32:11He was kidding.

32:12God, kids.

32:13Like when you go into, parent goes into the kids room

32:15and goes, now where are you?

32:17(laughing)

32:18You know, when they can see their feet sticking out

32:20from behind the curtain kind of thing,

32:22obviously that's what's going on in the story

32:24of the Garden of Eden.

32:26It's whatever you need it to be.

32:28Like, like the, the great poet once said,

32:30science is whatever we need it to be.

32:32(laughing)

32:34Well, that, I think that's a fascinating discussion.

32:38And I think a lot of people would be very shocked

32:40to hear someone say that the God of the Bible

32:43is not inherently omniscient, omnipotent,

32:48all of those things.

32:49I think a lot of people would be very shocked to learn

32:52that that's not, that that happened after,

32:55that that's not directly in there.

32:58Yeah, you see hints at it, but it's not programmatic.

33:02It's not a philosophical, metaphysical,

33:07kind of ontological doctrine until you get

33:12into second, third century CE.

33:15Yeah.

33:16But yeah.

33:17All right. It's so fascinating I think.

33:20I, I do too.

33:21I think that's, I think that's really interesting.

33:25Well, hey, speaking of that Bible there,

33:29should we, should we go do a chapter and verse?

33:32Let's do it.

33:33(upbeat music)

33:35All right.

33:36And we're in, so we're starting in Acts chapter 15.

33:40Acts chapter 15, we've got the Jan Jerusalem Council.

33:44Yes, yes. We start with some fellas coming in

33:49and saying some stuff and then Paul and maybe Barnabas,

33:54but maybe there's some, there's some question

33:59as to who, who Paul is hanging out with, I think.

34:03Is that right?

34:04And not really relevant to,

34:04I don't know.

34:06Not relevant to what we're talking about.

34:07So let's not get into that.

34:09Where we're looking is, remind me,

34:12which of the things are we looking at?

34:14We're looking at.

34:14So let's start in verse 12.

34:16I'm just going to kind of summarize a bit,

34:19but verses 16 and 17 are the two verses

34:21that I want to look at,

34:23which are quotations from the Hebrew Bible

34:26that reveal something fascinating about this story.

34:30So they're basically trying to decide

34:33if are we going to extend the gospel to the Gentiles

34:36without requiring that they first convert to Judaism

34:39and adopt the cultural conventions of Judaism.

34:44And so in verse 12, the whole,

34:45and I'm reading here from the NRSVUE

34:48and I'm going to kind of bounce around a bit,

34:49but the whole assembly kept silence

34:51and listened to Barnabas and Paul

34:53as they told of all the signs and wonders

34:54that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

34:57And then you get this scene where they sit down

34:59and then the, after they finished speaking,

35:02James replied, my brothers listen to me.

35:06So this is the, this is the patriarchal kind of figure

35:09standing up and is going to pronounce judgment,

35:12James is the brother of Jesus,

35:13the very brother of the Lord who stands up

35:16and he offers the final word on this.

35:19It says in verse 14,

35:20"Simian is related how God first looked favorably

35:22on the Gentiles to take from among them a people for his name."

35:26And then in verse 15,

35:27"This agrees with the words of the prophets as it is written."

35:31And then we get 16 and 17.

35:32And I'll go ahead and read these two

35:34and then explain what happens at the Jerusalem Council

35:37and then go back to where these verses are coming from.

35:40'Cause these two are presented at least in the NRSVUE

35:43as quotations.

35:45Yes, yes.

35:46So verse 16, "After this I will return

35:50and I will rebuild the dwelling of David which has fallen.

35:53From its ruins I will rebuild it and I will set it up

35:56so that all other peoples may seek the Lord.

36:00Even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called.

36:05Thus says the Lord who has been making these things known

36:07from long ago."

36:09And so this is basically James is saying,

36:11"Hey, look, this prophet prophesied

36:14that there would come a time

36:15when the house of David would be rebuilt

36:18and it would be extended.

36:20The tent would be embeganed

36:22so that all peoples might seek the Lord.

36:28Even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called."

36:31So that's the important phrase

36:33in the beginning of verse 17,

36:34"So that all other peoples may seek the Lord."

36:39Now, this is something that I found out

36:41when I got my first copy of the Bible when I was 20 years old.

36:45I found out that when they quote the Old Testament

36:49in the New Testament and you go look up

36:52the Old Testament passages,

36:54sometimes they say different things.

36:57What?

36:58From what you expect here.

36:59Yeah.

37:00(upbeat music)

37:02So verses 16 and 17 are supposed to be quotations of Amos.

37:09This is the prophet that James is referring to.

37:12But, and this basically ended the discussion.

37:15Like James says this and then James is like,

37:18immediately he's like, "Therefore I have reached a decision

37:21that we should not trouble those Gentiles

37:22who are turning to God, but we should."

37:25And then he says, "We got four rules.

37:27Four rules only.

37:28Don't eat things polluted by idols.

37:30Stay away from sexual immorality.

37:33Stay away from whatever has been strangled

37:36and stay away from blood."

37:39So four very important things

37:41that have remained obviously incredibly important

37:43for ever since.

37:44Just so vital.

37:45Just so vital.

37:46But James basically says,

37:48"Hey, here's what we're gonna do."

37:49And everybody else says, "Sounds great, James."

37:52And they draft the letters to send out to everybody.

37:55But, so this passage basically ends the discussion.

37:59But when we go look at Amos 9, 12 and 13,

38:04here's what, or 11 and 12, excuse me.

38:09Here's what those passages say.

38:12"On that day I will raise up the booth of David

38:14that has fallen and repair its breaches

38:16and raise up its ruins and rebuild it

38:18as in the days of old."

38:20Fair enough.

38:22- Okay.

38:22- "The order that they may possess the remnant of Edom

38:27and all the nations who are called by my name,"

38:29says the Lord who does this.

38:31That sounds different.

38:34- It is different.

38:34Yeah, yeah.

38:35We got some big differences here.

38:38One of the biggest is that in the Greek of Acts,

38:42it says, "So that all people might seek the Lord."

38:46In the Hebrew, what we have is,

38:50so that they might possess the remnant of Edom.

38:55And the reason for the difference is that

38:59in the ancient Greek translation,

39:02the Septuagint of this passage,

39:04there were two words that were changed.

39:07The word for possess, they might possess,

39:10which means dispossess, it means take over control of,

39:13conquer, the remnant of Edom.

39:16This is a reference to the nation of Israel

39:20reconquering the territory of Edom

39:24that at one point belonged to them, but they lost.

39:28So what Amos 9.12 is saying

39:31that the house of David will be rebuilt

39:33so that David will regain the lands

39:37that it once possessed that it lost,

39:39specifically the land of Edom.

39:41And then it says, "And all the nations

39:44who are called by my name."

39:45In other words, any place that we conquered at some point

39:48where my name was called in that land,

39:52we're gonna get those lands back.

39:54Israel is going to be at its peak once again.

39:58That word for possess, conquer, conquest.

40:02That is, I think that's Yarash in Hebrew.

40:05Yeah, Yarash.

40:07That is read as darash in Greek,

40:13or in the Greek translation,

40:14they misunderstood it as darash.

40:16Darash is the verb for to seek.

40:19And so the Greek translator said,

40:21"And whether this was intentional or unintentional,

40:25I'm not making a case in either direction.

40:27I don't think we can know conservative Christians

40:30will be like, "Oh, this was all on purpose.

40:32It was guided by inspiration."

40:34But whatever the cause,

40:36Yarash is read as darash.

40:40And so it's not so that they might possess,

40:42it is so that they might seek, and who is going to seek?

40:47Well, in Amos 912, it's supposed to be,

40:51the members of the house of David

40:53are going to repossess the remnant of Edom.

40:55But here, the remnant of Edom is read

40:59as the remnant of Adam, or humanity.

41:04- Yeah.

41:06- So--

41:07- Adam meaning Adam.

41:08- Right, right.

41:09- So Edom and Adam are spelled almost exactly the same.

41:13- Right, because the ancient Hebrew wouldn't have had,

41:17doesn't have the vowels, right?

41:20Is that why they would be spelled the same?

41:23- Right, now in the Masoretic text,

41:26there is a Vav that represents an ancient

41:29consonant that is used as a vowel,

41:33which is something that we do in English,

41:34like the Y can be a vowel or a consonant.

41:37So they use a consonant to represent the O vowel there

41:40in the Masoretic text, but in a thousand years earlier,

41:45it probably did not have the O, the Vav there.

41:49So it would have been spelled exactly the same as Adam.

41:53- Okay.

41:53- And so the remnant of Edom has now become

41:58the remnant of Adam, and they become the subject of the verb.

42:03So it's no longer, they will seek, or they will dispossess

42:07or conquer the remnant of Edom.

42:09It's now, the remnant of humanity will seek.

42:13And what will they seek?

42:16Doesn't say, why?

42:17Because the Hebrew doesn't have anything there.

42:19You've rearranged the sentence, the clause,

42:22and now you have a transitive verb without an object.

42:26And so in the book of Acts,

42:31the writer who is quoting from the Greek translation

42:36of Amos just says, oh, the Lord.

42:39So what will these seek?

42:41And so that all other peoples may seek the Lord

42:45is what we have in the book of Acts.

42:48And what this indicates, I hesitate to say demonstrate

42:53because I know a lot of people will disagree with me,

42:58but what this indicates is that this story was composed

43:03with reference to the Greek translation of Amos.

43:07Now, if this were an actual verbatim account

43:11of what took place at the Jerusalem Council

43:14in the 30s CE in Jerusalem,

43:19James would have been speaking in probably Aramaic,

43:23but possibly Hebrew.

43:27James would not have been speaking in Greek to this crowd.

43:30It would have been referencing the Hebrew scripture.

43:34Right.

43:35And so if James had actually said this,

43:40James would have referred to the Hebrew.

43:43And if James had referred to the Hebrew,

43:47the passage would have had absolutely no relevance.

43:49Right, it wouldn't have made any sense

43:51to bring up that particular scripture

43:53for this argument, for this concept.

43:55'Cause the argument is we're extending the gospel

43:57to the Gentiles.

43:58Why?

43:59Because, well, the Greek translation says the gospels,

44:01the Gentiles are gonna seek after the Lord.

44:04The Hebrew says absolutely no such thing.

44:07And so what this suggests is that this is a literary creation.

44:12This appeal to this passage on the part of James

44:16to close down the Jerusalem Council

44:20and to validate the extending of the gospel

44:24to the Gentiles without first having them

44:26to convert to Judaism was a literary invention.

44:31It was something the author of the book of Acts created,

44:34and they had to go back to their Greek translation of Amos

44:37to get the passage that would work the way

44:40they wanted it to work.

44:41There you go.

44:44I mean, one of the things that we've talked about

44:49is the fact that these books were written

44:53long after the fact,

44:55or many of these books were written long after the fact.

44:57Do we know who and when Acts was written?

45:02Like who wrote it when it was written?

45:04So traditionally it's the same author

45:06as the gospel of Luke.

45:07And I think probably at least around half of scholars,

45:12if not more, would say that even if Luke wasn't the author,

45:16whoever wrote the gospel of Luke

45:17is probably also the same person

45:19who wrote the gospel of Acts.

45:20I'm not so convinced of that, but they were,

45:23and we've talked with, we talked with Dr. Bond

45:26about Helen Bond, about the dating of Luke Acts

45:30and how it might be second century.

45:33It might be something that is like the 110s CE

45:37that was written.

45:38So that would have been a good 75,

45:42maybe 80 years after this council of Jerusalem

45:47would have taken place.

45:49Yeah, I think there's, I mean,

45:51I think you've made a really interesting argument here

45:54that they, that the way that this fell out,

45:59it was pro, like even if the story is largely true,

46:04even if the story that's being relayed about,

46:06you know, Simeon and, and-

46:11Paul and Barnumas.

46:12Paul and everyone hearing that James speak,

46:15even if all of that actually happened,

46:18it's, it stands to reason that like you would want

46:22to include details, and if you don't have details at hand,

46:26you might want to inject some interesting stuff in

46:29just as a flourish, if nothing else.

46:31Yeah, yeah, and, and if you can have them appeal to scripture,

46:35I mean, that would just, that would be the cherry on top

46:38because it's, you know, people use scripture

46:41and awful lot of arguments these days

46:44in the early first century CE, who's to say,

46:47maybe they weren't, maybe they didn't quote scripture at all.

46:50And, and the author of, of Acts is like,

46:52we need some scripture in here, it gets, yeah.

46:55Do you think that what this isn't,

46:56one of the things that this indicates is that the person

46:59who wrote act was a native Greek speaker?

47:04I think it suggests that they definitely have preference

47:10for the Greek Septuagint, because although I don't think

47:14we have a ton of discussions about differences

47:19between the, the Greek and the Hebrew yet within Christianity.

47:23Later within Christianity, the idea is that the,

47:27the Greek translation is the original,

47:29and that the Jewish folks in order to try to undermine

47:32Christianity altered their texts.

47:35And that's why they're less, less messianic.

47:39And so I think it's probably likely that,

47:42that Greek was the first language.

47:44I, I think if they were able to engage fully

47:49with the Hebrew, that's, this might have given them

47:52some pause, unless they were just like,

47:55at my audience won't know the difference,

47:57which is certainly a plausibility.

48:00- Right.

48:01- That certainly happens today, where people write stuff,

48:03just counting on their audience, not knowing or caring.

48:07So yeah, I don't, I don't know, but I would say,

48:10I'm probably 60/40, that if not their native language,

48:15there was even, it was a better language for them

48:18than was Hebrew or Aramaic.

48:20- Or possibly could be the only language

48:22that they knew how to read.

48:23- Yeah.

48:24- And they, you know, they, they, they may have spoken

48:26other languages, but this was the one that they learned

48:28to read and write in.

48:30It's a, it's just an interesting thing.

48:31I love moments like this because, because yeah,

48:35it does tell us without meaning to, without any intention,

48:39it tells us so much, a so much bigger story,

48:43just about the creation of these works and about,

48:46about sort of some behind the scenes stuff

48:50that we just don't have access to otherwise.

48:52- Yeah, yeah, and, and I think it is an interesting,

48:56when I, when I first would read through the Bible

48:59and, and I would see something quoted from the Old Testament

49:02and I'd go check it out and be like,

49:03Oh, that's, that's different.

49:05I, I did not have the skills or the resources

49:09or the abilities or even the, the now I can't even think

49:14of the word attention span to, to go track down

49:20what's going on, but this is one that I always found

49:23fascinating that when I learned this, I was like,

49:25huh, huh, that, that it seems like it's a literary creation

49:30rather than, than something historical.

49:36- Yeah, and again, you know, like you say, I, you know,

49:39one of the things that, and I've talked about this

49:41on the show before, but one of the things that has always

49:43frustrated me about reading the Bible is that I don't feel

49:46that I have anywhere near enough background

49:49to understand what I'm reading, there's so many moments

49:53where I'm just like, what, I don't know what that is.

49:57So it's, so like, and without having your level of education

50:01about the whole thing, you're kind of just not gonna,

50:05you know what I mean, there's just the, the, I mean,

50:07this is why I like doing this podcast

50:10because things can start to actually like make a little bit

50:15of sense and stuff, so.

50:17- It is, I think it is, it is fascinating when,

50:20'cause there are a lot of questions people,

50:21and people ask me weird questions all the time,

50:24they're like, hey, I noticed this, and I'm like, it's nothing.

50:27It's really boring, and, and those are not the answers

50:31people want, people want something like this,

50:34where it's like, look at all this stuff that we can unpack,

50:37and we can realize about this text based on,

50:40on just comparing it to the Hebrew,

50:42and, and there are certainly lots of places

50:44throughout the Bible where we see this, but, but yeah,

50:48not everyone is a home run, some of them are hit by pitch,

50:53some of them are ground and out, so.

50:57- Yep, yeah.

50:58All right, well, I love it, fascinating stuff.

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